Pegida – Strategic Culture Foundation https://www.strategic-culture.org Strategic Culture Foundation provides a platform for exclusive analysis, research and policy comment on Eurasian and global affairs. We are covering political, economic, social and security issues worldwide. Mon, 11 Apr 2022 21:41:14 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.16 The COVID-19 Conspiracies of German Neo-Nazis https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/05/26/the-covid-19-conspiracies-of-german-neo-nazis/ Tue, 26 May 2020 18:00:17 +0000 https://www.strategic-culture.org/?post_type=article&p=404234 Thomas KLIKAUER, Nadine CAMPBELL

Where there are conspiracy theories, German Neo-Nazis are never far away. Indeed, the Corona pandemic is a welcoming vehicle for German Neo-Nazi to broadcast their ideology and to recruit new members. The belief in conspiratorial forces behind the 2020 Corona crisis isn’t just nonsense; it is a dangerous symptom of democratic societies’ plight to be exploited by its enemies.

It almost seems as if it expresses virtuous inclinations to make fun of conspiracy theorists. No wonder because an ever-growing community of ideological cranks is continuously giving new cause. German Neo-Nazis also talk of the Great Gates Conspiracy, threats of forced vaccination with microchip implants, and the planned destruction of the world’s white population. In Germany, thousands follow the antisemitic Ken Jebsen and the boisterous Xavier Naidoo rebelling against a supposed Corona dictatorship.

Conspiracies become even more serious when well-known cookbook authors like Attila Hildmann claim, there is a small elite that only wants evil. A few weeks ago, Hildmann claimed, while speaking in front of Germany’s parliament – the Reichstag, that many of you will be killed! Historically, this is nothing new. Inside Berlin’s Reichstag, only a few decades ago, Germany’s chancellor and soon to be murderous dictator Adolf Hitler was screaming about a Jewish World Conspiracy that was set to exterminate the German Volk. What followed was the opposite. Enticed by Nazi conspiracies, Germans and their henchmen exterminated millions while giving the world the Einsatzgruppen and Auschwitz. To elaborate on their conspiratorial nonsense, the Nazi party published 23 editions of the antisemitic Protocols between 1919 and 1939 – a Russian forgery.

Today’s German Neo-Nazis borrow Hitler’s Nazi vocabulary in their hate speeches. Their speeches are ideologically underscored through the spiteful Protocols of the Wise Men of Zion.” Although many German Neo-Nazis do not (yet!) blame Jews for Corona, their rhetoric and reasoning are frighteningly reminiscent of the pamphlet.

The infamous Protocols are considered a prototype of modern conspiracy theories. Their history and impact are examples of how difficult it is to act against conspiratorial ideologies. The alleged documents of a Jewish world conspiracy have been exposed as a forgery in an internationally acclaimed Swiss criminal trial in the 1930s and many other examinations. As expected, Adolf Hitler hammered the same conspiratorial nonsense of a Jewish world-dictatorship in his demagogic pamphlet Mein Kampf. Nevertheless, the murderous anti-Semitism of the Nazis during the 1940s wasn’t stopped through rational deliberation. If such an obvious forgery as the Protocols is believed by so many and have such dire consequences, current conspiracy myths can reach very far.

Conspiracy Spinners

Modern conspiracy theorists are a quasi-scientifically self-invented species with powerful tools to distribute myths. In recent weeks, many experts explained why people in crisis are trying to gain control over insecurities generated by the Corona crisis. Some individuals and groups are quickly held responsible for abstract problems such as the Corona crisis. Many conspiracy theorists are often seen as irrational outsiders, mentally ill, or simply nutcases. This view is easy but rather unhelpful in the case of Neo-Nazis.

Right-wing ideologies are by no means at odds with the ideal of an enlightened society. It was not for naught that the 18th century, the great epoch of the Enlightenment, was a heyday of conspiracy theories. Where God or mythical forces no longer direct human destiny, it seemed apparent that secret forces guide people. Conspiracies can be seen as the dark side of a rationalised society. It is a feeble attempt to find answers in times of existential uncertainties.

Such absurd explanatory patterns also have a function in the affairs of a liberal democracy. Studies have repeatedly found that dangerous conspiracy thinking occurs, especially when parts of society feel permanently threatened. People who feel their life situation is unfair and feel abandoned by politics are significantly more likely to believe in conspiracies. Demagogues like Donald Trump, right-wing extremists, and German Neo-Nazis have tapped into this.

The Puppets of Evil Forces

Recently, Germany’s highly regarded Mitte-Study found, less than half of the people in Germany are satisfied with how democracy works. Among workers, as many as 70% were dissatisfied. Some have argued that is the re-establishment of 4th Merkel’s grand coalition, in power since 2018, that might have contributed to a growing, breeding ground for conspiracy theories. On that basis, German Neo-Nazis argue that it doesn’t matter who you vote for, your voice doesn’t make a difference anyway. The system is to blame.

In modern societies, people are no longer under the control of capricious rulers or foreign powers. Instead, Adam Smith’s invisible hand of the market is supposed to guide societies. In times of crisis, however, this is easily confused with puppets hanging on strings directed by unseen forces. Instead of grasping the world economic system as a crisis-prone, complicated relationship, the human need for personalised thinking is engineered by conspiracy theorists.

For Germany’s right-wing extremists focusing on the coronavirus, the mastermind is Bill Gates. He is presented as the enemy serving as a placeholder for a general unease about economic power relations. For Germany’s right-wing, Gates controls the World Health Organization. Right-wing conspirators seek a scapegoat for their diffuse frustration. Still, such right-wing conspiracy theories should serve as a warning and as an indication of the intellectual alienation of individuals from society.

It is important to remain vigilant against the extreme right-wing. In the course of Germany’s Mitte-Study, half of the respondents also answered yes, there are secret organisations that influence political decisions. Just as many agreed with the statement that they trust their own feelings more than experts, it was by no means the beginning of the Corona crisis that created the breeding ground for conspiracy theories. Rather, it reveals a deeper problem. Still, Corona conspiracies provide a perfect stage for right-wing strategists to mobilise an army of frightened people.

Neo-Nazi and the Corona Crisis

Thanks to the fear of the ongoing Corona crisis, the propaganda machine of German Neo-Nazis is running hot. Because of the scale of the pandemic, Corona is the defining theme of all public debates, so they spread conspiracies while staging themselves as helpers in need. For neo-Nazis and their conspiracy theorists, the current crisis is more than a starting point for the dissemination of their propaganda.

Since the beginning of the spread of the coronavirus, Germany’s extreme right published abundantly on the subject on social media and via messenger services. Dubious news, conspiracies, myths, and doomsday scenarios spread like wildfire. The digital world is the central battleground in which the right-wing’s information war takes place. The battle is being fought against measures such as bans on gatherings, music concerts, and the like. Overall, there are three strands of conspiracy theories. Depending on which theory one follows, the virus is either:

1) part of a Jewish world conspiracy according to its antisemitic reading;

2) deliberately produced in China; or

3) serves primarily to eradicate the German Volk or to paralyse the German Volksgemeinschaft.

Most of these myths are related to well-known Nazi propagandaNazi leader and conspiracy believer Hermann Goering once said, Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country. What is new is that German Neo-Nazis have woven their ideology into the fear of the coronavirus. Before the Corona pandemic, right-wing conspiracies secret forces formed the basis from which Neo-Nazis want to re-establish a new dictatorship – the IV. Reich. This goal was to be achieved through delegitimising parliamentary democracy and thus destabilising it. Just as Hitler’s Reich Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, once said it,

will always remain one of the best jokes of democracy, that it gave its deadly enemies the means by which it was destroyed

In current Neo-Nazi mythology, the eventful Day X – the complete collapse of our current system – is just around the corner, fast-tracked by the coronavirus. The far-right thinks that we are in the final fight for the survival of the Aryan race. One of Germany’s key right-wing conspiracy theorist, hate speech producer, and esotericist is Heiko Schrang, runs one of the biggest YouTube channels on the scene with around 160,000 followers. His videos of the Corona spread reached 50,000, and he has over 200,000 clicks on his video portal.

In his videos, Schrang talks about a corona hysteria and that devilish elites pursue evil plans. His conspiracy theories are consistently anti-Semitic. He claims there is a much bigger plan that is behind all of this. For Schrang, the plan is to create chaos…and then install their order – the new order of the elite.

German right-wingers like Schrang are spreading conspiracy theories and doomsday scenarios on social media, which builds a sort of new digital fascism challenging the open society. At its core, they use the logic of social media broadcasting where negative and spectacular messages spread very rapidly – gone viral, as they say. Attention-grabbing right-wing conspiratorial ideologies are amplified by clicks and shares. The more clicks, the more is their fascist ideology spreads. The Corona crisis, which is causing people to find out more, online, further encourages this. This is the wave German Neo-Nazis ride.

Meanwhile, in the real world of the East-Germany state of Thuringia, Neo-Nazis are also spreading their anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. There, David Köckert, founder of the AfD (party) sideshow Pegida (rallies), and recently addressed his supporters in a Facebook video where he openly disperses anti-Semitic conspiracies. Köckert claims, we have known this virus for decades, we, the evil Nazis, are being scolded. We have known the virus for decades and we have been addressing it for centuries. And this virus is the one that has always poisoned the world. According to Köckert, it is about making man a will-less slave. For them, Untermensch, who spreads the virus, needs to exterminated.

Neo-Nazis Attack on the Media

Neo-Nazi Köckert is well aware of what he is saying. He points out that he will now again be accused of a popular incitement. In reality, he does this in order to explain, as he says. Again and again, he accuses a specific ethnic minority. Such statements are likely to be well-received by his supporters, knowing who those ethnic minorities are – anyone non-Aryan.

Meanwhile, openly Neo-Nazi Angela Schaller is organising a rather idiotically named Thing Circle in southern Thuringia. Even its German version “Thing-Kreis” does not make sense. She also features high on right-wing coronavirus videos. We also know that Schaller works as a doctor’s assistant in a general practitioner’s office in central Germany. For Neo-Nazis, the rather innocently looking term Central Germany always implies the East-Germany state of Thuringia is in the centre of Germany. Hence, there is a need to conquer Lebensraum in Eastern Europe. For them, it is all clear since there has not yet been a single Corona death as it is always pretended in the newspaperPeople all died of pre-existing conditions and no one knows whether the coronavirus is really to blame.

In addition to the spreading of disinformation, neo-Nazis simultaneously discredit the media. Joseph Goebbels’ lying press rises from its Nazi past. The media is attacked to present their convoluted conspiracy fantasies as independent information. What they spread, not what experts say is the key. What is really frightening is that Neo-Nazi, Schaller, also advises patients as a medical practitioner.

Neo-Nazis as Neighbourhood Aid

On March 14th, Schaller’s neo-Nazi activist announced her next Thing Circle. It is set to be a Neo-Nazi gathering with right-wing song recitals serving as a networking opportunity. Unfortunately for Schaller, the event has been cancelled because of Corona regulations. At that same time, Schaller offered herself on eBay as a shopping aid for older people who just don’t venture out of the house. Nazi aid for the neighbourhood. It is precisely this sort of aid that many Neo-Nazi organisations are currently offering. The Neo-Nazi Young Nationalists, the youth organisation of Germany’s second-biggest Neo-Nazi party, NPD (after the AfD), distributes posters in several East-German regions, thereby promoting their support for older people. The Neo-Nazi claim is that they want to give something back to the generation that built our country because we live the community that we have always called for. East-Germany’s openly Nazi town of Jamel is the prime example of a Volksgemeinschaft.

In East-Germany’s Thuringia – home of the AfD’s most outspoken Neo-Nazi, Björn Höcke – another Neo-Nazi party is very active. It is the Neo-Nazi micro-party The Third Way that seeks to keep the Aryan blood of the German Volk pure. The Third Way runs militia-style training camps, and it advertises so-called neighbourhood aids. In numerous flyers, which are distributed and shown on their homepage, their deeply racist world view requests the solidarity of Germans – protecting the Aryan Volksgemeinschaft.

Neo-Nazi neighbourhood aid is also offered on the platforms of the alliance Future County Gotha organised by the neo-Nazi Marco Zint. Similar calls are circulating in the East-Germany city of Gera’s Neo-Nazi network. An online flyer with the logo of The Third Way is circulating as Gersche Krisenhilfe – meaning Gera County Aid. Here, too, Neo-Nazis are addressing the values of compatriots from Gera – another code word for Aryan.

The Neo-Nazi announcements say, in difficult times it is important that we as a Volk, a large natural unit, come together. Hitler’s Nazis never grew tired of repeating that the German Volk is of pure blood and race based on the exclusion of anyone non-Aryan. As with the other calls, it is an explicitly, racially organised solidarity – which only includes the white race. As such, offers of help during the Corona crisis come with a hefty dose of Neo-Nazi ideology.

Neo-Nazi messages are spreading as they interpret the current Corona crisis in a particular ideology. It guides readers towards their repeated warnings of an imminent collapse. Right-wing videos are distributed online in preparation for the supposedly looming emergency. Antisemit and Holocaust denier Axel Schlimper gives the latest tips on crisis preparedness in video lectures. Meanwhile, the Neo-Nazi and NPD apparatchik, Sebastian Schmidtke, shows videos on the production of disinfectants.

Simultaneously, the far-right group Deutscher Zivilschutz: Homeland, Tradition, Volksgemeinschaft advertises events in East-Germany’s Altenburg to prepare for power outages after a blackout. At the same time, Neo-Nazi, Tommy Frenck – who prefers to wear an I Love Hitler t-shirt – is hoarding weapons in order to prepare for possible problems in public safety. Germany’s Neo-Nazi are awaiting the collapse of civilisation because of the coronavirus so that a new Aryan Reich can awaken – ridiculous but very dangerous. The Nazis killed millions of people partly based on conspiracies while their ideological successors, today’s Neo-Nazis, killed two hundred people in Germany since 1990. Right-wing conspiracy theories are theories that kill.

counterpunch.org

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Storm Warning for Merkel https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2016/01/16/storm-warning-for-merkel/ Sat, 16 Jan 2016 04:00:01 +0000 https://strategic-culture.lo/news/2016/01/16/storm-warning-for-merkel/ It is difficult to avoid the impression that the «sexual terror» that took place on New Year in Cologne and a number of other German cities was organised by somebody very clever. Regardless of how much the «terror» was actually «sexual», the whole of Germany reacted to the incident extremely excitedly and the focus of the protests seemed to be directed against Merkel.

In 2015, the barometer of public sentiment for her had already started to indicate «cloudy». This was due to the sanctions against Russia and the turbulent influx of refugees flooding Germany. Merkel decided not to change her policy, however, and by the end of the year the storm clouds were thickening.

On 29 October 2015, the website t-online conducted a large-scale survey of its users’ voting preferences. More than 175,000 of its users took part in the survey, of which 106,000, or 60.5 per cent, expressed support for the new Alternative for Germany (Alternative fur Deutschland – AfD) party, far outstripping the main political heavyweights including Angela Merkel’s CDU party.

Just two months later and the scandal surrounding the «sexual terror» has become the next powerful blow to the Chancellor’s prestige. In the wake of the scandal, on 8 January, the N24 television channel carried out a survey on Teletext with the age-old question: «Who would you vote for if federal elections were held on Sunday?» The survey was answered by 35,000 TV viewers, the vast majority of which – 74.4 per cent – once again voted for the AfD. Just 7.1 per cent voted for the Social Democrats, 6.2 per cent for the CDU and 6.8 per cent for the Left Party.

The news was bound to be shocking: a party not yet three years old was firmly in the lead and the opposition Left Party had overtaken the ruling CDU party.

The popularity of the AfD is no accident. It is positioning itself as the brainchild of Germany’s intellectual elite and is focussing on the issues most relevant to ordinary Germans. It is run by a combination of leading German economists, lawyers, businessmen and journalists and the party’s maxim is: «To restore democratic values, reinstate the state of law and return to economic common sense». The party is calling for an end to European centralisation and the repatriation of legislative powers and budget control to national governments.

The main objective of the Alternative for Germany party is to abandon the policy for saving the euro, review Germany’s debt guarantee policy and return to the Deutschmark. The party is critical of the country’s tax legislation, the energy pricing system, which places a heavy burden on the population, and the lack of incentives to stimulate the country’s birth rate. With regard to the country’s immigration policy, ordinary and undereducated people from other countries should not be accepted into Germany according to the leaders of the AfD and this is in their own interests, since they will be unable to adapt to modern society and will have no chance of finding work. The size of the party is growing rapidly. Since it was founded two years ago, it has increased fivefold and now has 25,000 registered members. In recent months, the AfD and the Pegida movement («Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the Occident») have joined efforts, which could lead to the emergence of a broad anti-government front.

The danger for Merkel is not just growing from the outside, however. An uprising against her policy is flaring up within the CDU itself. In mid-October 2015, 126 CDU functionaries, including 38 Landtag deputies, wrote a so-called Brandbrief (incendiary letter) that criticised her open borders policy, putting an end to the internal unity of this previously united party. The party members’ main demand was for their leader to close Germany’s borders to refugees arriving from «stable» countries. Merkel dismissed the demand, but the letter continues to make its way around the party’s Land organisations, gathering more and more signatures. The signatories include well-known functionaries from the top echelons of the CDU in Berlin and Lower Saxony, European Parliament deputies and others.

The situation with the CDU’s main ally – the Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU) – is not faring any better.

CSU chairman Horst Seehofer is threatening Angela Merkel with serious political and legal consequences if her open borders policy fails. He is prepared to go far, to the point of breaking up the coalition, and is threatening to withdraw three of his ministers from the cabinet (the ministers for transport, agriculture and development) if the CSU’s demands regarding limiting the influx of refugees to 200,000 per year are not met. And to make sure Merkel knows full well that he is not joking, Seehofer is promising to begin proceedings to check that her policy complies with constitutional requirements. He intends to achieve a significant reduction in the number of refugees as early as the next few weeks.

Everything points to the fact that the political barometer in Germany is showing a «storm warning» for Angela Merkel. Elections are due to take place in five federal states in the coming year and the predictions for these are looking rather bleak for the CDU.

In three of the five federal states – Saxony-Anhalt, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Berlin – the influence of the AfD and Pegida is extremely strong and this could ruin the political landscape for the CDU once and for all on the eve of the 2017 federal elections. Especially since preliminary surveys indicate that everything is heading that way. Referring to a survey conducted by Emnid, the German Institute of Pubic Opinion, at its request, the Bild am Sonntag newspaper reported in November 2015 that the majority of German citizens did not want to see Angela Merkel in the post of German Chancellor following the 2017 Bundestag elections: 48 per cent of those questioned voted unequivocally against her re-election. In the current situation, this sounds like a final judgement.

The ongoing and rapidly increasing influence of the Alternative for Germany party and its entry into the foreground of German politics will put an abrupt turnabout of the country within the European Union on the agenda. Without Germany, the EU will become a colossus with feet of clay and a very short shelf life, so someone very clever indeed organised the «sex terror» carried out by migrants against the good people of Germany. 

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Xenophiles Are More Dangerous than Xenophobes https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2016/01/15/xenophiles-are-more-dangerous-than-xenophobes/ Thu, 14 Jan 2016 20:00:01 +0000 https://strategic-culture.lo/news/2016/01/15/xenophiles-are-more-dangerous-than-xenophobes/ German chancellor Angela Merkel, Cologne mayor Henriette Reker, and other Christian Democrats, Social Democrats, Free Democrats, Greens, and Left Party members in Germany find themselves about ready to be lynched by a majority of the German people. German political leaders threw open the borders of Germany to swarms of mostly Muslim migrants from the Middle East and North Africa. Over a million migrants, some possessing unauthorized Syrian passports stolen from Syrian government offices and Turkish work permits issued by the Islamist government of jihadist-enabler Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, entered Germany in the last year.

Stung by the threats posed to German citizens by the young male migrants, German political leaders are now reaping the whirlwind of public opposition to the welcome sign erected by the Berlin government. German «generosity» was repaid on New Year’s Eve when young Muslim men sexually assaulted hundreds of German women on the streets of Cologne, Munich, Hamburg, Dusseldorf, Stuttgart, and other German cities. In Cologne, over 350 German women were attacked near the city’s iconic Gothic cathedral.

The German government and public and private media did their best to hide the fact that most of the male attackers were «of Arab or North African origin», as it was put by the subsequently sacked police chief of Cologne, Wolfgang Albers. Even with such a wake-up call, some German politicians, for example, North Rhine-Westphalia interior minister Ralf Jaeger, equated the understandable German negative reaction to the sexual assaults by the Muslim migrants to the actual sexual assaults themselves. Jaeger said, «What happens on the right-wing platforms and in chat rooms is at least as awful as the acts of those assaulting the women… This is poisoning the climate of our society»

UK Independence Party (UKIP) Member of the European Parliament Jane Collins rightly criticized Jaeger for his unthinking xenophilia when she stated: «How dare this dreadful man make such a comparison? He is wrong and he should apologize». Jaeger did not apologize and there were no other apologies forthcoming from such German xenophiles as Merkel, Reker, or German Social Democratic vice chancellor Sigmar Gabriel. In fact, Reker issued instructions for German women to show some tolerance for the ways of the Muslim men by traveling in groups and steering clear of areas where they congregate. 

Jaeger’s and Reker’s opinions are not unique among European and other Western political leaders. Jaeger actually tried to psychoanalyze those who sexually assaulted the German women by claiming the men were intoxicated with alcohol and drugs and then tried to act out their fantasies of sexual omnipotence. In other words, their Islamic jihadist underpinnings had nothing to do with their animalistic behavior, according to Jaeger. 

People like Jaeger, Merkel, and Reker are classic xenophiles, people who have an odd attraction to foreign peoples, manners, or cultures even when those people, manners, and cultures are detrimental to their own cultures and peoples. Jaeger, Merkel, and Reker were quick to condemn those who argued for tighter border controls and better vetting of migrants as «xenophobes.» However, given the harm done by the mainly young Muslim men who now prey on defenseless, mostly Christian woman, on the streets of Germany, Austria, Sweden, France, Finland, and Norway, it is clear that xenophiles pose a greater danger to the future of the civilized West than do the xenophobes who are trying to sound the warning klaxons about the dangers posed by young migrants, many of whom are natural rapists owing to their jihadist religious indoctrination in their countries of origin. In fact, a German government report cites the Muslim tradition of «taharrush gamea», the sexual harassment of women by large crowds of men, as one of the reasons behind the attacks in Cologne.

Warnings from European political leaders that unchecked immigration from the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asian countries like Afghanistan and Pakistan will place Christians and others who are considered «infidels» by Wahhabist and Salafist Sunni clerics in danger are dismissed by xenophiles as fear mongering. International hedge fund tycoon George Soros and his media operations in Europe and North America have demonized anti-immigration groups and political parties as xenophobic and racist. Soros and his minions have little to say about «taharrush gamea», which was also highly prevalent on Tahrir Square in Cairo during the Soros-supported «Arab Spring» uprising.

European reaction to the rapes by Muslim migrant men continues to place more emphasis on tracking down and punishing so-called «vigilantes» who are doing the jobs of the police in protecting European women from street attacks. German Justice Minister Heiko Maas, echoing Jaeger, continued to equate the street assaults of women by the migrants in Cologne to «agitation against foreigners». Maas saved much of his warnings of government action for those who are opposed to mass migration than to the criminals among the newly-arrived immigrants. Maas fails to understand that Germans interested in protecting German women and the German way of life are not agitating against Brazilians, Taiwanese, Thais, Cubans, or Fijians visiting and living in Germany but against the young shiftless males from Syria, Iraq, and North Africa who entered Germany with cash, smart phones, debit cards, and phony passports via Erdogan’s emerging neo-Ottoman caliphate of Turkey.

The leader of the anti-immigrant PEGIDA movement in Germany, Lutz Bachmann, accused Merkel, Gabriel, and other German leaders of being responsible for the rapes in Cologne. On cue, the German and international media condemned such statements by people like Bachmann and others as xenophobic. Even the term «neo-Nazi» was hauled out to berate those who object to the selling out of Europe to swarms of mostly economic refugees from abroad.

Meanwhile, rather than help stem the negative reaction to the outrages committed against the citizens of Europe, whether they are «taharrush gamea» rapes or terrorist attacks on people sitting in restaurants or commuting on trains, Muslim leaders have noticed that there are a number of unused and underutilized churches in some European cities. These Muslims want to buy the churches and turn them into mosques. Meanwhile, Erdogan, whose dirty fingerprints are all over the mass migration of Muslims into Europe, is planning to turn the former Holy See of the Eastern Christian Church of Constantinople, the famed Hagia Sophia, which has been a museum since 1935, back into a functioning mosque.

Merkel’s co-option by the Soros globalists and xenophile political leaders of the West earned her Time magazine’s «person of the year» for 2015. Although Merkel is basking in adulation from the usual globalist circles that continue to praise Barack Obama being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 in his first year in office, eventual praise by Europeans will be bestowed to those who had the awareness and fortitude to stand up to the existential threat to European and Western civilization by people whose social habits are straight out of the 13th century. 

French National Front leader, Marine Le Pen, UKIP leader Nigel Farage, Sweden Democrats leader Kent Ekeroth, Italian Northern League leader Matteo Salvini, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and others are disparaged by the corporate media and the Soros NGO community as «Little Trumps,» a reference to Republican Party presidential candidate Donald Trump. However, as xenophile political leaders continue to be caught covering up for jihadist crimes, whether they are at the Cologne or Helsinki train stations, a street in West Philadelphia, or a night club in Calgary, the era of the «Little Trumps» and the «Big Trump» is coming, like it or not.

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Russia’s Actions in Syria Change West’s Mindset (I) https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2015/10/28/russia-actions-in-syria-change-west-mindset-i/ Tue, 27 Oct 2015 20:00:02 +0000 https://strategic-culture.lo/news/2015/10/28/russia-actions-in-syria-change-west-mindset-i/ On September 30, the Russian Aerospace Defense Forces launched an operation in Syria to drastically change the situation there. The action is shifting the tide of Western public opinion. The change of mindset is visible even among the nations tied to the United States by vassal-ally relationship. For instance, the Baltic States.

It is an open secret that the United States and NATO see the Baltic countries as their «unsinkable aircraft carrier». Estonia looks more like a large US air force base. Lithuania and Latvia can hardly hide their envy. But opinions calling for new approaches to the issue have been made public recently. For instance, an article published by Neatkarigas Rita Avize, a leading Latvian newspaper, offers a remarkable insight into the underlying causes of the Middle East crisis against the backdrop of events in Syria. The piece says Turkey and Saudi Arabia actively supported power change in Syria, including military assistance. It made them get embroiled in a conflict with no settlement in sight. Anarchy in Iraq and Syria paved the way for emergence of the Islamic State. A complicated scheme was used to make US-made arms get into the militants’ hands, the outlet reports. 

There are some signs to indicate that the vision of situation is being reviewed in Great Britain. Philippe Sands, a Professor of International Law at University College London, in his article titled We Need a Syria Strategy, not Half-Baked Reasons to Drop Bombs offers a definite conclusion that the government of David Cameron simply has no strategy on Syria. «The UN Security Council has in effect ceased to function on the Syrian question, so there will be no authorization of British bombing from that quarter», the author writes. «Unlike the Russians, who claim that the lawful government of Syria has invited them in – and unlike Iraq, which asked for UK support – in Syria, there is no entity from which Mr Cameron can request a permission slip… Rather than spend more time concocting insubstantial legal justifications for dropping bombs, Mr Cameron should develop a proper policy for addressing the region’s spreading conflicts. Like it or not, he is going to have to engage with all the most important actors in the complex Syria conflict, including Russia and Iran, Turkey and the Kurds, Saudi Arabia and its allies», the author adds. Sands believes that, «Cameron will also have to come to terms with the fact that Mr Assad is likely to play a role in finding that longer-term settlement».

The multi-pronged Syrian crisis threatens Europe. Changing attitude towards the asylum seekers that flood the continent is the best example of it.

Thousands of PEGIDA (Patriotic Europeans against Western Islamization) members have marched through Dresden (the German federal state of Saxony) demanding resignation of Chancellor Angela Merkel and deportation of all immigrants from the country. One of the posters they held called for Putin to save them – «Mr. Putin, Save Us!» Some of the protesters chanted, «Merkel to Siberia, Putin to Berlin». One protester carried a mock gallows with two hangman’s nooses, marked «Reserved for Angela Merkel» and «Reserved for Sigmar Gabriel», the Chancellor’s deputy.

The Dresden’s Sachsische Zeitung reports that 9 thousand of PEGIDA activists and their supporters called for holding a referendum on the independence of Saxony and withdrawal of this German federal state from Germany and the European Union. These protests are the direct outcome of the events in Syria taking place in recent weeks!

New winds are blowing. They are obvious not only in media. The ruling elites of the Old Continent are also influenced by the ongoing events. The German and French politicians will never admit they are confused by the strikes delivered by Russian front-line bombers, attack planes and cruise missiles launched from the Caspian Sea to strike the terrorist targets in Syria. But the fact that Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande actually supported Russia at the Normandy Four talks devoted to the compliance with the Minsk Agreement tells a lot (they were anathematized for this by radical nationalists in the Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada, the Ukraine’s parliament). Evidently, Russian self-assertive, transparent and effective policy in Syria has greatly impressed Berlin and Paris.

It’s worth to note that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan suddenly took a decision to double the amount of Russian gas Turkey plans to buy. Initially, in December 2014, the bilateral agreement envisaged to build a four lines pipeline with the annual capacity of 63 billion cubic metres. Due to some difficulties arisen after the agreement was concluded, Russian energy giant Gasprom decided to build only one line with the capacity of 15,75 billion cubic metres. Today Turkey is in talks with Russia on the construction of two lines with the capacity of 32 billion cubic metres stretching to Asia Minor. Alexey Miller, the head of Gasprom, said he hoped the talks on constructing an offshore gas pipeline across the Black Sea towards Turkey would come to the phase of practical implementation soon.

According to the famous aphorism by Carl von Clausewitz: "War is the continuation of politics by other means». Limited use of force to strike at geopolitical soft underbelly at the impeccably chosen moment can also change the tide of world politics. That’s exactly what is happening.

Slovakian Prime Minister Roberto Fico made a statement saying that his country supported the Russian Aerospace Defense Forces against the terrorists in Syria. His words produced a great effect. Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten even noted that there is a breach in the NATO frontline as Slovakia became the first member of the North Atlantic Alliance to support Moscow on the issue. Actually, Robert Fico did not say anything extraordinary. He just cautiously noted that it does not make any difference who would play the decisive role in the fight against the Islamic State – Russia or the United States. The main thing is to rout the group. The Slovakian Prime Minister put forward a proposal to include Syrian President into the process of crisis management. This initiative signals the shift in the mindset of Western politicians.

There is another reason to explain why the Robert Fico’s statement raised such a ballyhoo. The Prime Minister publicly put into doubt the expediency of using terrorists in order to reach the US geopolitical goals and the need to topple the legal Syrian government. The overthrow of Bashar Assad has been an obsessive, irrational objective set in defiance of international law.

(To be continued)

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