Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.wpost From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: Germany's Clashing Symbols= Date: Tue, 10 Nov 92 04:53:22 EST Message-ID: <7.1992Nov10.045323@AmeriCast.com> Germany's Clashing Symbols= THE GERMAN government had declared beforehand that Sunday's big anti-racism rally in Berlin would serve to symbolize the country's commitment to tolerance and counteract a growing image problem abroad. It's a humiliating symbol of another kind that Chancellor Helmut Kohl, pelted with rocks and eggs, was unable to stay at the head of the procession or to deliver his prepared speech and that President Richard von Weizsaecker was silenced and driven from the podium by anarchist demonstrators. But if the chaotic and embarrassing denouement of the march Sunday showed anything, it was that Germany's growing problems with anti- foreigner and antisemitic violence are not simply an image prob- lem. Nor can the government hope to deal with them simply through the politics of symbolism at this point, though a few months or a year ago that might have been effective. On the positive side, more than 300,000 people - thrice the ex- pected turnout - showed up to march, some carrying signs with the names of foreigners murdered by neo-Nazis in the past two years. Other countries - notably, Italy - echoed them with similar marches. Inside Germany, favorable responses reached outside gen- erally liberal Berlin and spilled over onto Nov. 9, itself the double-edged anniversary of 1938's violence and 1989's euphoria: anti-racism demonstrators marched in numbers in Dresden, Leipzig, Munich and other cities. But Munich also underlined how such symbolism can seem hollow and half-hearted. Bavaria's conservative government, Mr. Kohl's coalition partners, boycotted the Berlin march with ugly com- ments, calling it a "funeral march for a helpless democracy" and a "front for leftists." Ironically, the 300 or so left-wingers who disrupted the march and silenced the speeches also denounced the government's public show of support - as "propaganda," as an empty gesture papering over a policy failure. Had Mr. Kohl managed, like President von Weizsaecker, to muster genuine outrage long ago at the year's 1,800 attacks on both asylum seekers and legal residents of Germany who happen to look foreign, had the political parties not deadlocked last month on negotiations for a modest package of law enforcement changes, had most national leaders not seemed obsessed with sending foreigners home rather than protecting their lives, the big Berlin march might have sent the outside world a clearer message despite the attacks that marred it. Instead, the images that undermine that message were what came through most clearly. Television footage of the president, trying to deliver a speech that contained stern warnings about parallels with the creeping disorder of the Weimar Republic, but failing to make it heard because anarchists had cut off his microphone - that's too vivid a symbol for anybody's comfort. Many Germans responded to that scene yesterday with a spontaneous, and hear- tening, wave of outrage. But it's clearer than ever that the Kohl government's further reaction must be not only symbolic but, fi- nally, substantive. 02:07 11-10C9999----- Copyright 1992, The Washington Post. This story is from the Washington Post's Capitol Edition On-Line and is not to be ar- chived or redistributed. For more information, send-email to American Cybercasting Cor- poration (usa@AmeriCast.COM)