Demo gegen Rechtsextremismus

Our call

Thousands of people are currently taking to the streets against the AfD in many cities - including Düsseldorf! We are calling on the whole of NRW to take part in a central, diverse and broad-based protest in Düsseldorf on 27.01.2024. Correctiv's research into the secret meeting of high-ranking AfD officials, neo-Nazis, entrepreneurs and two CDU members has rightly alarmed many: The purge fantasies, expulsion plans and a simultaneous all-time high in the polls for the AfD are causing outrage and spontaneous protest.

The current widespread protest is new and pleasing - unfortunately, the AfD's ideas are not

"Remigration", used by the right-wing as a fighting term, means in their eyes the complete disenfranchisement and expulsion of refugees, migrants and Germans with a history of migration. They see these expulsion fantasies, simplified as "foreigners out", as the solution to their imagined "alienation" of Europe. This could already be read in Höcke's 2018 publication and was also used as a term in the AfD's election manifesto for the 2019 European elections. Alexander Gauland, who described National Socialism as a "bird's-eye view" of German history, wanted to "dispose of" an SPD politician in Anatolia in 2018.¹ And AfD party leader Alice Weidel questioned the journalist Deniz Yücel's German citizenship after he was released from prison in ^Turkey2.

The AfD - parliamentary arm for neo-Nazis and enabler of right-wing terror.

It creates the mood for right-wing terror. The murderer of CDU politician Walter Lübcke in 2019 had previously put up AfD posters and attended party events^.3 The current proceedings against a terrorist organization associated with armed Reichsbürger*innen are causing a stir. The defendants include the former AfD member of the Bundestag, Judge Birgit ^{Malsack-Winkemann4}. The AfD politician Udo Stein stored weapons in his state parliament office in Baden-Württemberg^.5 Zacharias Schalley, who sits in the NRW state parliament for the AfD, had hisgun ownership card revoked in March last year- due to his demonstrable activities in the extreme right-wing scene^.6
The AfD has achieved what no extreme right-wing party in Germany since 1945 has been able to do: it brings together various currents of the right and extreme right. It mobilizes the part of the population that already holds extreme right-wing views onto the streets and to the polls. And it is gaining new supporters who are enthusiastic about authoritarian crisis solutions and see their dissatisfaction and fears represented by extreme right-wing forces. This is because the AfD's platform clearly and openly stands for ethnic nationalism, racism, anti-Semitism, queerophobia and social Darwinism.

Life-threatening for those affected, activists and democracy projects

The more popular the AfD becomes, the more dangerous it becomes. It obtains money through various dubious sources, but also through state party funding, it fills positions with activists from the extreme right, it uses parliamentary rights to information to attack unwelcome projects and to intimidate people in a targeted manner. At state level, it can influence many areas of society, from broadcasting councils and courts to the state centers for political education. Those affected, activists and democracy projects have been warning against it for a long time, especially in regions where they are already being massively threatened and attacked by the AfD.

A problem in the middle of society

And so the call for an AfD ban is currently being widely discussed and is receiving a lot of support. There is no question that a ban would temporarily weaken the structures of the extreme right. In the short term, however, it would neither deprive the AfD of its party structures nor make the actors and, above all, the attitudes disappear.

Inhuman attitudes are not a unique selling point of the AfD! Surveys have shown for years that extreme right-wing positions are widespread in the center of society. They manifest themselves in racist and exclusionary structures.

A clear rejection is needed when parties in the so-called center try to win back AfD voters by adopting right-wing demands and right-wing populist rhetoric instead of finding solidary answers to social and economic issues. In the end, this will only benefit the far right - by normalizing their positions and polarizing society from the right through a successful shift in discourse. Merz's racist outbursts and lies about refugees exploiting the healthcare system, among other things, are just as unlikely to lead to an increase in votes or even a fairer society as SPD Chancellor Scholz's call for "large-scale" deportations or the social Darwinist attacks by Federal Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Heil (SPD) or the FDP on recipients of the citizen's income and the statements by FDP Finance Minister Lindner with his agitation against the unemployed and refugees. The criticism of right-wing populist ingratiation attempts could go on and on. The price that the CDU and Ampel are paying for this is that they are exacerbating the racist discourse and playing into the hands of the right. The rise in racist, anti-Semitic and social-Darwinist attacks is a consequence of this discourse.

...Just becausepeople have become so used to it doesn't make it normal. Just because you don't know any better doesn't mean it doesn't matter. (Kettcar)

It may sometimes feel as if all the warnings, appeals and explanations about the AfD fall flat. It must be acknowledged that for a section of society, racist exclusion, stepping down, is an apparent solution in times of multiple crises. The AfD has recently made massive gains in Hesse and Bavaria. In the eastern German states, it could become the strongest force in the fall. It is now conceivable that it could form state governments, including the associated powers. However, social issues, the climate crisis and the upheavals in the world cannot be solved by excluding, disenfranchising and/or further marginalizing sections of society.

The protests of the last few days show that the silence on the AfD has come to an end. They show that there are many of us. We will not watch helplessly and powerlessly as neo-Nazis and the extreme right question and attack us and our beliefs - but we will unite and oppose them, in everyday life and on the streets. Let's make 2024 a year of defeat for the AfD and its supporters!

We call on you to stand together in solidarity. Against the shift to the right. Against the AfD!

For all those who are wondering where the demonstration will take place and where people can line up, here is a brief overview:
Friedrich-Ebert-Str. - Oststraße - Graf-Adolf-Str. Haroldstraße - Rheinkniebrücke - Kaiser-Wilhelm-Ring - Rheinwiesen-