Perhaps the clearest political example of that resurgence is the electoral rise of the far-right extremist Alternative for Germany, or AfD, party. In October’s regional elections in the eastern state of Thuringia, AfD gained 23% of the vote, including a majority of voters under age 30, and finished ahead of Angela Merkel’s ruling Christian Democratic Union.
location of Thuringia
AfD is stridently anti-foreigner, anti-immigrant, anti-Islam, and Euro-skeptic, riding a tide of nationalist isolationism and xenophobia that embraces the "Great Replacement" mythology, the paranoid notion also seen in the US right that the government is trying to replace native-born citizens with refugees and foreigners.
It's likely significant that AfD has seen its greatest success in the eastern part of Germany, exploiting the lingering divisions between East Germans and West Germans. Thirty years after the wall fell, 29 years after reunification, there are still significant gaps in wages, pensions, and levels of accumulated wealth between East and West Germany - and voting patterns are considerably different.
That's why a poll by the Dimap institute found 52% of East Germans believe they have been unfairly treated, 64% believe the two Germanys have not fully grown back together, and another 15% say they haven’t grown back together at all. A significant number of people in East Germany feel they have been left behind, with economic stress leading to a sense of social disruption which, unhappily, is too-easily turned into consuming fear of "the other."
Some cities in Germany and some federal agencies are facing up to this resurgence, insisting it must be opposed. The question is, with they as part of that realization also face up to their own failures which helped create it.
Panama
https://pridesource.com/article/panama-signals-it-will-comply-with-landmark-lgbt-rights-ruling/ https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/11/06/panamanians-protest-proposed-ban-marriage-equality https://menafn.com/1099253094/Lawmaker-challenges-cop-to-fight-after-rowdy-party?src=Rss
Israel
https://www.axios.com/netanyahu-naftali-bennett-defense-minister-benny-gantz-1d9ec73d-14cb-43d1-b7ed-26182bbfd9fa.html https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/elections/.premium-netanyahu-s-likud-merges-with-hayamin-hehadash-bennett-to-be-defense-minister-1.8096675
Kenya - Somalia
https://theconversation.com/western-countries-take-sides-in-kenyas-maritime-row-with-somalia-124745 https://www.dw.com/en/kenya-or-somalia-who-owns-the-sea-and-what-lies-beneath/a-19557277
Brazil
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/10/19/bolsonaro-helping-fuel-explosion-violence-against-indigenous-peoples-brazil https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/09/24/brazilians-blast-bolsonaros-un-speech-denying-amazon-devastation-total-scam https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/11/brazil-top-court-ruling-free-jailed-president-lula-191108051743354.html https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/06/brazil-lula-convicted-2018-election-report-190610055731589.html https://theintercept.com/2019/06/09/brazil-car-wash-prosecutors-workers-party-lula/ https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/11/08/extraordinary-day-brazilian-leftist-leader-lula-freed-prison https://www.huffpost.com/entry/lula-bolsonaro-brazil_n_5dc792b1e4b00927b2346352
New Zealand
https://www.npr.org/2019/11/07/777259573/new-zealand-commits-to-being-carbon-neutral-by-2050-with-a-big-loophole https://nypost.com/2019/11/07/new-zealand-passes-law-to-help-combat-climate-change/
India
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/11/08/775487863/as-delhi-chokes-on-smog-indias-health-minister-advises-eat-more-carrots https://www.polygraph.info/a/india-pollution-pakistan-poison-fact-check/30260054.html https://www.reuters.com/article/us-india-pollution-map-graphic/worlds-worst-air-indias-pollution-crisis-in-perspective-idUSKBN1XI19Y https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/pakistan-may-have-released-poisonous-gas-to-pollute-air-in-india-bjp-leader-vineet-agarwal-sharda-1616080-2019-11-06
I'm going to go through a list of items very quickly. They are arranged in alphabetical order by location. At the end, I am going to ask you a question, so pay attention.
First: In Chile, a protest that began over a 3% hike in subway fares soon broadened to encompass the economic inequality in the country. After days of violent protests, tanks in the streets of Santiago, and a million people protesting in the capital, on October 27 President Sebastian Piñera announced a major reshuffle of his cabinet in an attempt to calm things down.
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Second: On October 3, protests by indigenous groups broke out in Ecuador over President Lenin Moreno's plan to impose IMF-pushed austerity measures, including a significant cut in fuel subsidies. After a week of protests which saw seven killed by security forces, hundreds injured, and over 1,000 arrested, Moreno withdrew the plan and opened talks with indigenous leaders - who have now suspended them, accusing Moreno of using the end of violent protests as an opening to go after the movement's leaders.
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Third: On October 9, a shooter in Halle, Germany, attempted to attack a synagogue with the idea of, quoting him, "Kill as many anti-Whites as possible, Jews preferred." He couldn't get into the synagogue, so he killed two bystanders instead. It was the second lethal far-right attack of the year.
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Fourth: Hong Kong has seen 21 weeks of protests as a struggle against a now-withdrawn bill to allow extradition to mainland China has expanded into a broader pro-democracy movement that is facing increasing and increasingly violent repression from authorities.
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Fifth: Since early October, Iraq has seen protests driven by economic desperation and the failure of the central government to act. Over 190 protesters have been killed by police and the military.
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Sixth: Israel, in a technical sense, is lacking a government. On October 21, Benjamin Netanyahu gave up trying to form a coalition big enough to make up a majority of the Iraeli parliament, the Knesset. The task now falls to his principal rival, Benny Gantz, but it remains to be seen if he'll have any better luck than Netanyoyo did.
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Seventh: In Lebanon, in what has been described a a joyous revolution, an anti-corruption
movement has seen over a million people take to the streets in demonstrations against the government.
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Eighth: On October 25, legislation went into effect in Northern Ireland decriminalizing abortion and legalizing same-sex marriages. The government has until April to establish the same sort of abortion services available in the rest of the UK and same-sex marriages can begin in February. Activists are preparing for the next round, which is getting the new laws enforced.
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Okay, the question: How many of those things did you know about? I'm sure you heard of a couple, at least Hong Kong, But even of those, how much did you know?
Americans, even those of us on the left, tend to act as if we were alone in the world, as if nothing beyond our borders has any importance except - maybe - in how it affects us. We need to get over that sort of chauvinism.
So - unless some truly important domestic news breaks between now and then, the next show in two weeks is going to be all international news. We need to remember: We are not alone.
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About Lotus
Lotus has been at various times the newsletter of a local peace group, a column in a different group's newsletter, a stand-alone monthly, and now a blog. Posts appear bi-weekly; posts are drawn from my weekly cable-TV show "The Erickson Report," which can be found here.
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Our lives are not our own, we are bound to others, past and present, and by each crime and every kindness, we birth our future. - author David Mitchell
Germany is celebrating the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall - a celebration tempered by a bout of self-reflection driven by a resurgence of right-wing extremism in the country over the past few years, including a 71% rise in violent anti-Semitic crimes in 2018 as compared to 2017.
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