Draconian German government panics over anti-globalization sentiment
Unable to shake an historical reputation for draconian behavior, Germany’s government is calling for the “preventative detention” of anti-globalism campaigners as the Group of Eight summit approaches. The G8 conclave is planned for June 6-8 in Heiligendamm, a resort town on the Baltic Sea near Rostock, a former East German city that is a hotbed of nationalist activism. The G8 meetings generally deal with plans to globalize the world economy and set an agenda to make uniform economic and social changes across the developed world.
German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said that his officials may make use of a law that allows the government to jail anyone deemed politically incorrect for up to two weeks without charges. “Regional police authorities are considering taking recourse to so-called preventive detention,” Schaeuble said.
The G8 meeting is expected to draw 100,000 anti-globalization protestors, and the Germans have built a security fence 12 kilometers long guarded by thousands of riot police.The image of a cowering group of powerful politicians hiding behind phalanxes of armed police as chanting citizens roar outside is indicative of the increasing gap between the ruling elites, their policies and the people they rule. The arrogance of these elites, which decide issues ranging from outsourcing to free trade to immigration and war has led to a grassroots upsurge among many in the West. As a result, some issues like Third World immigration have become “legitimate” areas of concern for people who once believed the lie that such questions were “extreme.”
The German government likes to pretend that it has “learned its lesson” from the experiences of the 1900s. However, numerous dissidents are today in German prison cells because of non-violent thought crimes, books are still today banned and burned, and opponents face investigation and jail. Internationally, Germany is again flexing its muscles, recently securing a Europe-wide speech law that criminalizes those who dare question European Union immigration policy. And in 1999, the German government attacked former rival Serbia as part of the NATO air war, the first deployment of German soldiers outside Germany since 1945.
Interior Minister Schaeuble’s remarks come on the heels of raids carried out across Germany on May 9. Around forty buildings were raided and, ominously, a website targeted — Germany fears the power of the internet and had made a number of efforts to suppress it.