This summer we saw the ugly face of racism in the US with the rise of the “tea-baggers”.  Now racism is being mainstreamed in Germany after a member of the Bundesbank – Thilo Sarrazin – let loose against “Arabs” and Turks living in Germany in an interview with the culture magazine Lettre International:

“A large number of Arabs and Turks in this city, whose number has grown through bad policies, have no productive function other than as fruit and vegetable vendors,” he said.

“Forty per cent of all births occur in the underclasses. Our educated population is becoming stupider from generation to generation. What’s more, they cultivate an aggressive and atavistic mentality. It’s a scandal that Turkish boys won’t listen to female teachers because that is what their culture tells them”, he said. “I’d rather have East European Jews with an IQ that is 15pc higher than the German population,” he said.

Sarrazin was disciplined by the executive board of the Bundesbank for his comments, but he instantly has become a hero among both conservatives and right-wing extremists in Germany. A comment at the website of the neo-fascist Junge Freiheit sums up the sentiments of many on the right:

Einen wie ihn braucht Deutschland, damit es ein von christl. Kultur und Werten geprägtes Land bleibt u. keinem Steinzeitislam in die Hände fällt! (Germany needs someone like him, so that it can remain a country based on Christian culture and values and doesn’t fall into stone-age Islam!)

Sarrazin is also a hero and the number one topic on the popular hate blog Politically Incorrect. The repulsive right-wing blogger Gudrun Eussener has taken time out from espousing her “birther” theories concerning Barack Obama to take up the cause of Thilo Sarrazin. She is joined in this just cause by the neo-Nazi NPD, who express their respect for the banker on the party’s website:

so muß man ihm doch Respekt zollen für seine ehrlichen und der Wahrheit sehr nahe kommenden Worte hinsichtlich der Überfremdungsproblematik deutscher Großstädte. (One has to respect (Sarazzin) for his honest words that are close to the truth concerning the takeover of German cities by foreigners.)

You would think that “respectable” media outlets would distance themselves from Sarrazin and his racist remarks, especially if they are celebrated by neo-Nazis and right-wing hate groups such asPolitically Incorrect. But surprisingly Sarazzin is being heralded as a brave “truth teller” even by respectable newspapers such as theFrankfurter Allgemeine. FAZ columnist Jasper von Altenbockum pours lavish praise on Sarrazin for his “civil courage” – the man is nothing less than a “true hero” for categorizing an entire race of people living in Germany as sub-human baby-factories.

Dialog International, 15 October 2009

See also “The racist outburst of German Federal Bank executive member Thilo Sarrazin”, WSWS, 13 October 2010