The poll numbers go up. The upcoming elections in the party strongholds of East Germany have the potential of winning enough seats to gain veto options and therefore negotiation power. And, yet, the AfD is already past its prime.
When Bundestag’s member of parliament Joana Cotar left the AfD, she reported a strange new trend: Her colleagues began to fawn over the most inhumane foreign regimes. The party cosied up to China, Russia, Turkey and Iran. Yes, Iran! Maximilian Krah wrote in his book ‘Politics From The Right’: A mentally conservative thinker will always seek to continue his own tradition and not somebody else’s. This should have been clear at least since the Islamic Revolution of Iran in 1987/79. In the world outside, the West wins over exactly those individuals who are discontent with their local traditions; maybe because they are left-wing or because they belong to a sexual minority or are otherwise on the margins of their traditional societies.
It is hard to pick that apart. The first sentence is debatable because the word ‘conservative’ allows for a vast range of definitions excluding or including various social circles across history and nations. Notably, though, the shah was ousted by many people who would not identify themselves as conservatives. Back in the day the political left across all countries poured vitriol over Iran or ‘Persia’ as it was still called.
Notably the German student protest movement of 1968 was sparked by the death of Benno Ohnesorg who was shot by a police officer. The young man participated in a demonstration organised by left-wing activists. That march was a protest against a state visit by the Shah Reza Pahlavi. It was only in the very moment when Persia changed from an ally of America to a sworn enemy that the attitude of the left changed.
Inside Persia, too, it was mostly the left – including people who openly identified as socialists – who drove the uprising. In the ensuing chaos they in turn were ousted by the Islamists. Yet, even the Islamists do not quite fit Krah’s description as a force that merely tries to preserve local traditions. And the shah was definitely not a threat to people’s way of life.
It is unclear how Iran’s Islamist Revolution is an example of Krah’s point. The revolutionaries were not enticed by the West, but by the political left whose center of power at the time was Moscow, not Washington.
In my humble opinion the passage looks a lot like it was inspired by Russian propaganda. In the Kremlin’s reading of history and world affairs the political left is the only manifestation of Western civilisation. Western cultures don’t have any values of their own. There are only spheres of influence and interests and we silly human mortals have no way to decide who’s right or wrong in any given situation because all cultures must be equal all the time, particularly Russia must be an equal to Western nations.
It would be truly arrogant to acknowledge the reality of differences, of cultures that rise and fall, and of social ills that can worsen or be cured. It is no coincidence that this rhymes with long-standing left-wing notions. Countless public figures anxious of gossip girls in editorial rooms don’t want to be wronged. They created a special kind of Stockholm syndrome that makes a political party with absolutely no chance in hell to be liked by the gossip girls bow over backwards to please them.
Once you run with the proposition that all cultures must be equal at all times, there is no way of criticising Islamism anymore. Consequently Maximilian Krah praises Turkey’s president Erdogan who supposedly ‘serves the interests of his people’ (Krah) and he sides with the Iranian revolution which he paints as some preservation of the locals’ way of life.
While all of this is going on, BBC, CNN, ARD and the entire left-wing media continue to pretend that Krah and his party were driven by a rabid hatred for Islam. The AfD is barely driven by anything anymore. They are apathetic after they have hemorrhaged a great deal of their most ambitious members.
A few years back they had a suspicious internal strife. One side accused the other of cosying up too much to the established left-wing party conglomerate. The other side complained that the former had tried to make the party into a pure protest party without actual ambition to win public offices.
This can only be understood knowing that Germany has a collectivist electoral system that instilled in the public the notion that we have to live with perpetual coalition governments. An additional feature, the five-percent-entrance bar, creates a substantial hurdle for new parties to be seen. After many decades Germans have almost forgotten – or learnt to habitually dismiss the idea – that any election has the potential to give more than fifty percent of the parliamentary seats to one party and also to flush previously irrelevant parties onto the stage. In the early years of post-war Germany any party with self-esteem used to advertise its position as if it had the chance of winning the golden pot or as if it were able to find a coalition partner – maybe falling right from the sky – to get its proposals through. That attitude is notably absent in the battle between the suck-ups and the private-income-content protest-ballot collectors.
Touching on the debate the left-wing media began to only acknowledge the AfD as a pure protest party. This rankled many voters because they want the border controlled, the nuclear power plants rebuild and see other ideas materialise. They do not want to vote only to voice some discontent. They want something. The sad truth, however, is that they don’t matter. In Germany voters don’t matter much. The party leaderships matter and when they decide that sitting in some parliaments fills their pockets well enough, then that is the end of that story. Your voting ambition does not matter.
The Iran re-assessment is quite surprising for a party which used to be bashed for being too zealous against Islamism. For a variety of reasons we are still Islam illiterates in the West. Some blame Saudi Arabia and Wahhabism for the dark streaks, some the entire Islamic tradition and some blame the Iranian revolution. Depending on what social ills you have got on the top of your head there is some truth to all of it. But what concerns the outside world is not how homosexuals are killed or women are mistreated in some backyard of a desert. What concerns us is the global, violent and political ambition of jihad and that is fostered by Iran and suppressed by Western allies.
For the AfD to get that wrong means that they never worked towards understanding the problem. Immigration control is important to mitigate the spread of jihad and stabilise the situation, but it does not stop the mujahidin from fighting your country. They gun for world domination if you’re now too content with your personal income to read up on the problem or not. In this context ‘gun for’ doesn’t have to be read literally. Sometimes it’s also a knife.
Krah and his comments about Turkey and Iran aren’t the exception. Tino Chrupalla who leads the party with his colleague Alice Weidel waited until the 11th of October last year only to tweet out the following.
The assault by #Hamas against #Israel is to be condemned. Yes, the German original is as stiff as my translation here. . I mourn all the deaths of war. The countries of the region should count on de-escalation to prevent a wildfire. Diplomacy is asked. A solid solution for all sides must be the goal!
https://x.com/Tino_Chrupalla/status/1712056218640945390
Jihadists are shaking in their boots and the Washington Post must do everything in their power to stop this man from slaughtering all Muslims indiscriminately.
Goldstein 