Gauck: 'We are all Germany'

As the Eastern German city of Leipzig braced itself for another installment of anti-Islam demonstrations and counter-rallies expected to draw thousands to the streets on Wednesday (21.01.2015), German President Joachim Gauck stepped in front of a microphone below the glittering chandeliers in the ballroom of his presidential palace in Berlin. "Small, fanaticized groups reject Germany's open society and its values and norms," he said, referring indirectly to PEGIDA, which loosely translates as "Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West," a movement that has gained momentum in Germany since it first took to the streets in October in Dresden.

The movement, which has spread to other German cities, has laid out a 19-point plan, including more restrictive immigration policies, an end to "gender mainstreaming" and steps to bar Islamists from entering Germany while demanding a "zero-tolerance policy against criminal asylum-seekers and migrants."

Gauck, positioned in front of a carefully draped German flag, told Muslim activists, political scientists and journalists gathered for a roundtable titled "Solidarity – against violence, for dialogue" that in Germany today, dialogue was being replaced by segregation and "sometimes violence" and debate by resentment.

Call to demonstrate solidarity

"Such a polarization undermines the domestic peace, and accordingly, the foundation of our democracy."

People, he added as several cameramen edged nearer to the president for a close-up, had to meet each other in order to break down these differences. "Then people can learn to trust each other."

Gauck called on the audience to demonstrate solidarity and counter extremist tendencies. "We are all Germany," he said, implicitly countering PEGIDA's rallying call of "we are the people."

Attempting an explanation for the growing rift, Gauck, a former Protestant minister, stressed that many people were irritated by the complexities of the globalized world, others felt socially and economically marginalized. Many, he said, were searching for "easy solutions," which resulted in the revival of old enemy stereotypes.

Links between radical hooligans and PEGIDA?

PEGIDA is often described as a catch-all movement, which attracts a wide-range of protesters with different resentments and concerns. But Olaf Sundermeyer, a journalist who has spent years studying soccer hooligans in Germany, told Gauck and his guests that a small core of right-wing extremist hooligans have been part of PEGIDA's "masterplan right from the start."

Preliminary contacts between the hooligans and PEGIDA's organizers, "who share ideological views," dated back to 2012, when, he said, the former had set up relief centers during the floods in eastern Germany. "Several PEGIDA people helped out in the centers."

The hooligans, he added, "were particularly radical and prone to violence" and held extremist right-wing views, but had, at least for the moment, overcome former enmities and formed an anti-Islam alliance.

And, he said, "tonight the hooligans will undoubtedly take to the streets in Leipzig."

At the table, with Germany's federal commissioner for migration and refugees, Aydan Özoguz, to his right, Gauck was busily taking notes.