Germany’s spy agency BfV has labeled the entirety of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party as an extremist entity.
The BfV domestic intelligence agency, which is in charge of safeguarding Germany’s constitutional order, said the announcement comes after an “intense and comprehensive” examination.
“The ethnicity-and ancestry-based conception of the people that predominates within the party is not compatible with the free democratic order,” the BfV said on Friday.
Hopefully this inspires the other parties to to start the process to see the AfD banned. I know the report might not look like much, because of how obvious the findings are. But previous attempts at banning them have failed because such an official report was missing. So maybe our political system starts getting its shit together.
As we say in Germany: Hope dies last
What does it mean if a democracy bans a party that the voters want to elect? Better to ask what failure of the system made that party popular in the first place. We have a similar situation in the US fwiw.
To be fair, 80% of voters did not vote for AfD - and if 80% of voters want to ban a party? Well, that is democracy. Although it’s a dangerous tool to use.
The US is way more fucked, as more people actually voted for Trump than not.
Yeah but that’s an example of tyranny by the majority. Just because a majority of people want something doesn’t make it right. In theory I like the idea od banning the AFD, but I’m scared of the potential backlash it could cause and what the consequences could be. In the modern day when people are so segregated in their own bubbles, I feel like this could make them more extremist (“Look, I was right, they’re just trying to silence the truth")
True, but then again we have lived through that already and know that dangerous parties can be elected democratically. That is exactly the reason why we have this mechanism in place.
An anti democratic party has no right to be elected democratically.
Exactly. Democracy is famously the only system which allows to be dismantled through its own tools. That is why the German system is called “Wehrhafte Demokratie” (defensive democracy) to not end up like the Weimar Republic.
The biggest criticism of democracy is that it might become something else.
Usually when it tolerates the intolerant. That’s why we’re fucked in the US. I hope Germany came stop it before it’s too late, I speak some, and was gonna try and emigrate if the need arises.
I understood the post you are replying to as saying “what will AfD voters do when their party is banned?”.
In the case of the Nazis, we don’t know because their party was never banned. We don’t know what would have happened if the Nazi party had been banned.
I would be interested to know if we have historical cases of far-right parties that could have won the elections but were banned before they had the chance.
True. But who decides what is an anti-democratic party? And by what guidelines?
“Why is the AfD classified as extremist?”
First section in the linked article.
That’s a way of defining it - but is that a legal standard?
The applicable law is Article 21 GG:
Key point here is “seek to undermine or abolish the free and democratic basic order”, quoth the BVerfG:
It’s their own definition so push come to shove they’re going to add to it. Overall though the lines aren’t new and haven’t shifted, that’s a quote from a judgement from 1952.
Paragraph 3 is new, that has been introduced after banning the NPD (now “Die Heimat”) failed not because they would not be opposed to the free and democratic order, but because they were judged to be too impotent to do anything about it. Previously banned parties include the NSDAP, not under this law but by the allies, then the SRP as it was a successor of the NSDAP, and then the KPD not for being communist but for being run by the KGB and laying siege to parliament. Bans of the FAP and NL failed because the BVerfG said they’re not parties so they were banned as associations, instead. Last case is the NPD, the first attempt failed because the state had so many moles inside that the court saw itself unable to distinguish between state and party actions, the second as already said because they’re yes, hateful assclowns, but also pathetic. They’ve been excluded from state funds for six years, the case will have to be judged anew in 2030.
Ah, that’s very interesting. Thanks!
I fear, that many if not most people do not understand why AFD is an undemocratic party or why this would even matter for them.
I think that problem is closely related to the issue that people think it can not get much worse for them when in reality there is a long, long way down from even the poorest and least represented people in our German society to the poorest people in the worst societies that actually existed in history or even the worst society imaginable with modern technology combined with the rulers from those worst socities in history.
It doesn’t matter what people think when they’re wrong or pig-ignorant.
The paradox of tolerance. Parties that violate the social contract of mutual tolerance deserve to be banned.
The paradox of tolerance isn’t a helpful answer here. Banning the party won’t make the bigots within it become unbigotted, which is the real goal.
In a similar way a straitjacket won’t make the patient less suicidal but it will prevent them from cutting their own wrists. It is not meant as a long-term solution.
We had that situation in 1930s Germany and it was decided to address issues instead of banning Hitler’s Party even when they could.
No need to play one off against the other. Yes, there are many things that need to change systemically. Yes, the AfD is a real danger and needs to be banned. Simple as that.
They are not banned by the way… Just classified as far right…
This is an important step in the long and arduous process to disallow a party, though.
Ruling out foreign interference like astroturfing, genuine Opposition doesn’t come from no where, it comes from suffering in most cases. Failure of elected governments to reflect on their own failure breeds it.
It does not have to ban it. Simply inspecting its foreign funding is enough.