Schedium

“Millions of migrants from other cultures challenge the foundations of our community, the unwritten rules of coexistence, and thus national identity itself,” wrote the German politician Alice Weidel in her 2019 book “Counter-arguments. Thoughts about Germany” (German: “Widerworte. Gedanken über Deutschland”). Weidel is the co-chairwoman of the far right party Alternative for Germany (Alternative für Deutschland, AfD) and the leader of the AfD parliamentary group in the Bundestag, the lower house of Germany's federal legislature. In recent years, the AfD has gained significant support and influence in German politics. The party was founded in 2013 as an anti-euro movement, but later shifted increasingly towards right-wing extremism.   Alice Weidel in 2019.  Sandro Halank , CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons The AfD surged to 24% in a January 2024 YouGov poll, trailing only the Christian Democrats (29%), and ahead of the Social Democrats (15%) and the Greens (12%). On January ...

Frankfurt Police HQ (by Magadan  via Wikimedia Commons) Policemen in the German city of Frankfurt have been accused of threatening a lawyer and exchanging far-right and Nazi content in a chat group.  On 2 August 2018 lawyer Seda Başay-Yildiz received an anonymous fax signed by "NSU 2.0." The message described her as a "lousy Turkish pig" ( miese Türkensau ) and threatened to "slaughter" ( schlachten ) her two-year-old daughter. The authors of the fax knew not only her private address but also  her daughter's name. She reported the incident to the police.  Başay-Yildiz was representing a victim of the NSU - National Socialist Underground - a far-right terrorist group responsible for 10 murders and various terror attacks. The trial of NSU members lasted from May 2013 to July 2018 and resulted in 5 convictions.  According to the Tagesspiegel , in October investigators searched the 1. police department in Frankfurt and found out t...

European Parliament (photo by David Iliff. CC-BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons) Austrian EU lawmaker Claudia Schmidt has apologized for publishing a racist Facebook post  claiming that "African and Muslim culture" are incompatible with European culture, and calling for a complete ban on African immigrants. Schmidt is a member of the ruling Austrian People's Party (Österreichische Volkspartei; ÖVP) and a lawmaker in the European Union parliament.  In the controversial post, which has now been deleted, Schmidt wrote : "One can read it daily in the press, and I have experienced it myself in refugee camps and while monitoring elections. Neither African nor Muslim culture are compatible with our culture." Schmidt argued that "Africans" and "Muslims" cannot be integrated into European societies and their immigration must be stopped altogether. "I view arbitrary mass migration from places that have alien cultures (kulturfremden ...

Poland is considering taking in more immigrant labour. The ruling right-wing Law and Justice party , however, wants to open up the country only to Christian workers.  Poland is one of Europe's most anti-immigrant countries. A survey released last December by the Polish Centre for Public Opinion Research (CBOS) showed that 63% of respondents did not want to receive refugees, while only 33% were in favour. The Polish government has refused to accept any refugees under the quota system set by the European Commission. The anti-immigration sentiment of the majority of the Polish population is directed mostly against Muslims.  Embed from Getty Images Although it refuses to take in refugees, Poland suffers from a severe labour shortage  and is in desperate need of foreign workers to sustain economic development. According to a survey conducted in January by Work Service SA, half of Polish companies cannot fill vacancies, and almost two-thirds of public-se...

  Pro-EU march in London on March 25, 2017 (by Ilovetheeu via Wikimedia Commons) "Open-door migration," wrote  Nigel Farage  on June 21st, 2016, "has suppressed wages in the unskilled labour market, meant that living standards have fallen and that life has become a lot tougher for so many in our country. We must leave the European Union so that not only can wages increase for British workers but so that living standards rather than declining can start going up. The wellbeing of those living and working in our country matters to me more than GDP figures. The EU’s open borders make us less safe. As a bureaucratic club it makes us poorer."  The  Vote Leave  campaign, too, warned that  immigration  posed a threat to the UK's safety and prosperity. "Nearly 2 million people came to the UK from the EU over the last ten years. Imagine what it will be like in future decades when new, poorer countries join," Vote Leave argued. In September 2017 UKIP le...