The magazine Compact represents Elsässer’s longstanding attempt to coalesce an “anti-imperialist” bloc around a phantasmal Paris-Berlin-Moscow axis to counter American hegemony. Nonetheless, since anti-Muslim racism serves at the moment as the point of convergence for these different forces, it makes sense to sketch the function of racist discourse directed at Muslims in Germany over the last few years.
Writing in 2007, the sociologist Georg Klauda noted that a specifically anti-Muslim racism in Germany remained confined primarily to the intelligentsia:
Islamophobia has, at least in this country, its relevance not as a mass phenomenon, but as an elite discourse, which, shared by considerable numbers of leftist, liberal, and conservative intelligentsia, makes possible the articulation of resentments against immigrants and anti-racists in a form which allows one to appear as a shining champion of the European enlightenment.
While this statement was undoubtedly true in the context it was written seven years ago, what Pegida represents is the transformation of anti-Muslim racism from an elite discourse into a mass phenomenon, something capable of mobilizing large demonstrations of more than 20,000 people.
Elsässer began publishing books and articles arguing for the constitution of a “Berlin-Paris-Moscow axis” in opposition to Washington. After a series of explicitly nationalist interventions got him booted, successively, from pretty much every major left-wing publication of note, Elsässer started Compact, thus creating a coherent ideological center for a new type of far-right politics: resolutely German nationalist, explicitly adopting traditional far-right tropes against “finance capital,” positing the formation of a “Eurasian” power axis as a counterpole to the United States, and resolutely anti-immigrant in terms of domestic policy while supporting “anti-imperialist” countries such as Iran or Syria abroad.
In this respect you may be interested to see this: 22 Feb / London / Protest: Stop Nato’s War in Ukraine – Peace for the Donbass
SARU 22 February 2015. Posted in Other anti-war events
Solidarity with Antifascist Resistance in Ukraine
9
Stop Nato’s War in Ukraine – Peace for the Donbass
Sunday 22 February • 12-1.30pm
Outside the US embassy
24 Grosvenor Square London W1A 2LQ
Organised by: Solidarity with Antifascist Resistance in Ukraine »
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SARU is calling for a static protest at the US embassy in London on February 22 against plans by the US to arm Ukraine.
Supported by Stop the War Coalition.
Comment by Andrew Coates — February 20, 2015 @ 4:55 pm
“In Germany, a “modernized” far right is marrying neoliberalism and racism.”
In short, the Euro Far Right – including Russian Eurasianists – are seeking to become like the United States.
Comment by matthewrusso9 — February 22, 2015 @ 2:19 am