Nazis and Anti-Nazis

So last weekend, there was another round of protests in Frankfurt.

Three groups carried out demonstrations on Saturday:

The Nationaldemokratische Partei Deustschlands, with 2,000 people demonstrating, marched through the neighborhood where my office is located. This is the right-wing, neo-Fascist party here in Germany (aka neo-Nazis). They marched against Islamism in Germany and the construction of a new mosque that the Hazrat-Fatima community wants to build in Hausen (another nearby neighborhood).

At the same time, an alliance of religious communities and citizen groups, the Römerbergbündnis, carried out a counter-demonstration in the same area. And a radical activist group called ANTIFA (anti-Fascists who can probably be described as anarchists) also marched against the right-wing protesters.

As far as I know there was no violence, then again it's hard for me to tell since I can't really read the newspapers yet. Everything was pretty quiet in my neighborhood and in the city center. There's always some concern that the protests will end up around the European Central Bank seeing as it is such a strong symbol for capitalism within Europe.

It's so interesting to see how Germany struggles with protests of this sort. On the one hand, it is illegal to give a Nazi style salute. On the other they stand by freedom of speech and even though many of the Germans I've come to know in the last nine months abhor the idea of neo-Nazis they still allow them to protest. That's freedom of speech if I've ever seen it. In some ways they have more freedom than we do in American now. There have been so many rules enacted, so much surveillance permitted that nowadays if you have anything to say against the government you truly have to be careful. I guess so much of it seemed ok when the legislation was going through because we were all a bit shell-shocked after 9/11, but it has to stop at some point. Freedom of Speech is one of the critical tenants that America is built on after all. . .