tv To the point Deutsche Welle October 18, 2019 9:30am-10:01am CEST
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do you do your own tony do when your mother was born in 1969 the world was already 8 years old my grandchildren were born after the war torn in a. 3 generation. on a journey through recent german history. what happened to never again that's a question many here in germany have been posing following last week's attack on a synagogue in anti-semitism is on the rise in a country that swore it would never return the attack occurred as 15 members of the synagogue were celebrating yom kippur war the heavily armed gunmen attempted to storm the doors but the locks held he then turned his weapons on to passers by all
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the while streaming his actions on the internet where he had also announced his intentions he has since admitted a far right anti-semitic motive the central council of jews says serves a new type of extremism on the march hala terror attack how deadly is germany's far right. that's our topic on to the point and here are our guests to answer that question christopher works for the new york times in berlin he reported from hala and says as tragic as last week's synagogue attack was without germany's strict gun laws the day would have been much worse allan posner is a commentator for the daily lives. he says the far right in germany is
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a long way from interesting terror and as long as terror from whatever direction does not have not supported it is an inconvenience rather than a danger for democracies like germany. and shania was on this is a producer and a middle east commentator here at the she's an israeli citizen living in berlin and she says it's time for german authorities to up their game speeches and declarations are you know. so christopher let me start out by asking you what you encountered when you went to hell right after this attack what was the response of people who'd been in the senate god and what was the response of others in the house. i spoke with the people who were inside the synagogue the next day on thursday morning and they told me that actually been quite calm and that this counter you take good care of them and that they were of course worried but that the mood was not one of panic. just from what i understood they were
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following the attack that attempt to break down the doors on closed circuit t.v. is that right that's right i think the counter took them to a back room to the congregation and then he himself in the security person they actually followed the attack so there was could hear things outside the congregants were away from these screens the video screens what was striking was the people and i met on the night of the attack there was sort of an impromptu memorial up by the big church the market square and there were people that were so upset i was trying to run as one does on deadline trying to get some quotes and some of these people i thought i would have to sort of get them medical help i mean there were there was this one young man who was 20 years old and he had been praying and he was crying i mean it was like people in that city were just so shaken by it much more so than the people apparently inside the synagogue she. and i no doubt you were shaken were
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you also surprised or was this in a sense a disaster waiting to happen here in germany well that's an interesting question because yes i was shaken by it far more than i expected i have to say and in a way yes immediately it's a shock because also it's you know kapoor it's a day that it's quite it's the holiest of the year that you can you know you can have as a jew even if you're not an observant jew it's just a very special day and then the 1st response is of course shock but then immediately soon after follow the idea that actually i'm not too surprised and that's where the anger comes and that's where the rage comes or even followed by someone because it is to be expect that unfortunately it is to be expected. and as i said in my opening words the central council of jews in germany has said that it sees a new type of right wing extremism on the rise the opening statement i read off by you would appear to suggest that you don't agree. well i don't
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quite know what the self accounts of jews means by new type of ideas images of. seems to me that it's same old same old i mean. it's it's right we had this image ism in this case this muslim and a semitism which has been we've known for decades which is you know there's been attacks in brussels of intersex in toulouse have been attacks in france on jews so we know that the case and there is left wing december you know i die the fact that . someone actually takes a gun to a synagogue is new but i also think. in germany and you not in europe unfortunately but i also think this was something was waiting to have happened in the and chinese said about the authorities need to up their game why was there not a policeman at least one and i'm in front of the synagogue i can understand it in germany in berlin you know every jewish can be gone to school synagogue anyway is
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has come back to that in just a 2nd or but coming back to your opening statement you you said in essence this is an inconvenience but not a catastrophe for a democracy like germany but if we look at it in the larger context a knife an attempted knife attack 2 weeks before here in berlin the murder of the has been politician but to look earlier this year all of them right wing violence with a target of either minorities or of politicians who've spoken up for migrants and and other minorities do you not see a pattern that is more than an inconvenience i see a pattern several patterns i know it sounds heartless i mean if the point is that food jews in germany is extensional no one in germany and in front of jews are leaving by their thousands to go to israel because they don't feel safe imagine
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feeling safer in israel than in france that just shows how crazy the situation is but the french democracy itself is not under attack from terrorism and the danger for french democracy is the foreigners you know the danger for german democracy is right wing populist well 1st of all you've got to see the connection between all these processes in the sense that when you see the rise of the right and the way it affects people on the ground i mean these are connected in that in that aspect that does you know pose a threat to the markets around the long term i think you just have a very narrow point of view without you know sort of looking at the outside knowing historical you know process isn't and understanding how what's the deal. and now mix of such of such developments are you know in the sense that this guy you know we're talking of the lone wolf is there is that a phenomena that we can still say is relevant or not but he he wasn't he didn't come out of nowhere you know even if it was him with his computer game you know the many harmless computer games users and players this is this is something
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a bit deeper there's got to be more than that and there's a feeling that there's not real attempt to understand the way this course has changed the way to college is changing and the way this all facts radicalized young not necessarily young but easily influenced resentful usually unfortunately men this is what it is before we pick up on that let's look at how the feelings of jews in germany are changing many say that this attack has in fact sparked a new sense of insecurity and fear. we don't have much protection so when my kids are growing up behind fences with police and israeli security. it's not easy to live in germany. it's my hope you keep hearing we can't let anything happen but nothing is done we feel abandoned the food and. that's because mission one not just jews in germany are affected it's an
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attack on democratic on uses a home which unfortunately we've got in germany is an element of hockey team you know not with the vulnerability of jewish life it's almost all jewish institutions of god it often has clans when i was a child it seemed normal that my father never wore a kipper on the streets for a good recent anyone who surprised at this doesn't know about the long history of right wing terrorism in germany to hold those most in doj land. christopher you said that the people had been in the synagogue were pretty calm did their nonetheless expressed feelings like the ones we just heard their feelings of perhaps heightened anxiety i mean there is the question about they actual police protection and of the protection of the synagogues when you have young kapoor people one of the congregation told me this is sort of the traditional day where jews have been under attack so it was in his mind there's this idea of.
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not feeling safe and i assume that anyone after something like this i didn't specifically ask would feel less safe i mean it's you know tragic thing to to go through so the city got had asked for more police protection and apparently had the authorities turned that request down did you find out why apparently there had been some kind of an assessment by the interior ministry or the police direction in. the term and that there was no cause for protection they had what they called something like a level 6 protection which meant that there was a it was on the police sort of a circuit of the police cruiser would drive making sure that they were k. . but there was not can be somebody stationary in front of the synagogue years exactly at the need to up their game they need to understand that threats are even if they cannot immediately detect all of them they need to understand there's a you know there's that and. known knowns is the you know there and this is exactly
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why i'm talking about the need to make that switch and i feel like it's like and there is now in berlin since the attack definitely a more visible police presence i just popped by the holocaust holocaust memorial there are big trucks outside with very heavily armed policeman does that and women does the hot reassure you that they've gotten the message well you know that they have to attack i had this urge to go to a synagogue which is something that rarely ever happens to me just to for the sake of solidarity i'm not a religious person but and then i was supposed talking to my partner about it and he said are you crazy i told him actually that's the safest place to be right now so after the act yes of course you know it's better it's better than never but i can't say it's reassuring because i think it's not just about protecting each and every institution or religious you know or jewish somehow connected institution it's just about. making more of an effort to reach out. hitting the
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core of the roots of this problem and this is where it needs to start allan according to the interior ministry there are some 24000 right wing extremists in germany at the moment of whom they say 50 percent are potentially violent how do you think the authorities do need to respond. would you agree that they're not doing enough or would you say actually. they've got this under control well they obviously don't have it under control and you can really probably never do enough. they do a lot i mean we never hear or rarely hear about the many many plots foiled that don't come to fruition don't even you know and they are these things happen all the time in the muslim side on the on the rightwing extremist side the police do a lot of good good stuff but the point and the point is that there's never going to be complete safety ok so you say after these attacks the synagogue is the safest
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place in germany probably but you know this christmas market is coming up you know the berlin christmas market is going to be well protected but what about i don't know where somewhere in southern germany where they haven't you know cotton don we are going to experience more attacks from muslim extremists from white wing extremists terrorists they're going to happen there's no way in the world you can protect against this. because of us that's a there's an ongoing discussion here in germany that was prompted by the decade long series of murders by a right wing cell from eastern germany about whether the security services and the police are as the german say blind in the right meaning not cognizant enough or interested enough in violence from the right wing and too preoccupied with violence from islamists and or the left wing would you say that is the case and is it
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something that you think the authorities are now becoming more vigilant about i'd be very cautious in saying that is the case right now it seems that in the past especially i think another thing you didn't mention is the former president of the the intelligence agency responsible for monitoring right wing as well as you know slam a sort of left wing groups that he now turns out to be quite far in the right and you wonder you know how good was he about making sure the right wing was really being monitored i will say that there's been a change even in the last year or so if you see somebody like haas the was always talking about interior ministry interior minister sorry was always going on about islamist terrorists and that he now is the 1st one to say this is you know the the biggest the scrapes germany and that there is really a need to sort of move resources over to be sure that you know that keeping track of the right wing terrorists shani this attack occurred in an eastern german city
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how the. there is a right wing party on the rise across the east the f d a they've been quite successful in 2 recent state elections what connection do you see there if any well. if we're looking at the roots of looking at the profiles of who are the ones more prone to that we see that if you see if you try to find a can and can link with this guy with what we're looking at questioners or we're looking at other attempts there where elsewhere we see a lot of that sort of fed by the conditions you can see in the east of poverty or lack of knowledge or sort of the feeling of resentment towards the government or and so on and you can see unfortunately east but i don't think it's just that i mean we've had enough done also all over germany i think putting it making it as a an east problem is to a problem will be will just make things work it just makes things worse when you
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said in your opening statement the far right in germany is a long way from endorsing tara but what we are seeing is for example a leader of the party referring to the nazi era as quote unquote a speck of bird poop in the overall context of german history isn't that in some sense an incitement to a kind of radical thinking that can turn violent no. i've been you know i have no sympathy whatsoever for the d. and for ms to go on to you just quoted i think that it's disgraceful pods have been totally i mean they're in the pay of poutine you name it they're just horrible people and everything and what he said about the speck of bird poop the holocaust brings back a german history it's just i mean it's just plain wrong stupid and so on but that doesn't lead anyone to take up arms and kill jews there is a difference and as long as it's just like saying you know this there's all these
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terrible things in the koran about killing unbelievers and so on so therefore if you're a muslim you must somehow endorse a terrorism no that's not the case or way back in the seventy's when the left wing are you have terror group was killing people. left wing nuts like myself were accused of being sympathizers of tara not so we really have to be careful about using terrorism for our own political aims just to bang the political enemy or or all of the political opponent and i say the eighty's a horrible piece of work but they are not responsible for this in no way but you do have to think of can see that there has been severe shift in tone in that there's certain things that 1020 years ago you would not have southern germany and now all the sudden it's sort of ok to say it a see your point i'm not saying that this makes somebody go out and pick up
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a gun and commit violence but something has shifted in germany. some some people blame the internet in part for the change in discourse in germany and not only in germany and the internet is one area where the authorities seem to want to do more as i noted earlier the how the gunman had announced his intentions on the web and he had live streamed his attack let's take a role a look at the role played by social media. does breivik was among the 1st right wing extremists to post a manifesto on the internet justifying his actions many others followed suit including the attackers in christ church and hannah they streams the massacres live on the net and they made use of anonymous websites that spread extremist thought and shia terrorist attacks. overseas and fishy going on with us these various right wing extremist forums treat all this as the games of. terrorism becomes
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a video game. users rate the manifestos in the live streams but how many people someone killed and they all work points for that. expense have labeled this the gamification of terrorism the attack in one out will say use the internet right when his language what's new is that the perpetrators see themselves as part of an international movement as defenders of white supremacy. how can the terrorism be stopped. let me put that question to you the german government is now proposing to adopt a raft of measures designed to limit the potential for radicalization online and also to to somehow get incitement to violence under control do you think they will succeed or will potential criminal simply migrate to perhaps the dark well yes i agree with you it's it's there's always a way when there's a will there's
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a way and i think. definitely we need to also mention here if we need to look at it in an international cross-reference these networks don't you know internet has no barriers and so do the does not you know hate speech and hate violence of incitement and forms all of that has no barriers this is not limited to germany that's not immune to trends nor to europe itself in the u.s. we've seen that a lot and this is becoming you know sort of a global network and you need to be tackled in such a way as well. oh in the game if occasion of terror or violence sounds extremely troubling do you see that connection between video games and perpetrators like the one in holland or understood vicar others and if so what can governments do. well actually i don't see a connection i think. that again there's no proof that someone who engages in a very brutal video game killing space aliens whatever is then going to go out and
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shoot jews that simply is that there's a difference between sitting in on the movement and going out and doing what that guy does did. we have to be careful here not just to sort of make a huge hodgepodge of things and then we have to differentiate for instance now want to be told the fact that this is something. you know it's these are young males they're generally loses fairly intelligent but you know they have some guests outcasts outcasts in some way who then sit alone or radicalized themselves and give their lives meaning you know by shooting a school shooting shooting up a mosque in christ church shooting up a synagogue in pittsburgh shooting up a synagogue and in holland you know this we need to look at kind of profiling of these kind of people rather than sort of generally saying ok game video games are a problem or you know if we look at the profile we see that this young man and how
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they are sighted anders breivik as a role model he spoke english the perpetrator in holland while he was live streaming that does suggest at least that social media and the internet are playing a role in linking those who have perhaps a tendency or an inclination to violence christopher or how do we get that under control i think this is the really difficult difficult question and this is the thing that we're going to be dealing with for a while there's also the suggestion that not only was he radicalized on the internet he also printed some parts of his weapons on the internet so all the sudden you don't have these groups that you can monitor you you don't go to be zip . right rock festivals or whatever all this and you have these guys sitting alone at their computers and you have no idea what goes on by the way you said the chairman gun laws prevented a worse disaster from happening but this guy as you said did pretty some of his
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weapons is that not an alarm sign i mean i think that's probably an alarm sign and to look you know this is sort of something that can happen in 10 or 20 years from what i understand the technology now isn't there we saw that these weapons that he made they weren't completely printed they were these hybrid weapons and they were parts they were made from metal and piping and so forth and they failed and this is why we are so lucky that there are only 2 people only 2 people died. shaunie would you say that what we actually need to see the authorities take steps to bad for a for example like this a chat where apparently many of the. so inclined young men do make links to each other or would we be risking free speech is there a danger that the pendulum could swing too far well it's not about the risking to free speech is just on a smart way when you close one thing then another thing will show up it's going to pop up it's this is not the way to fight it you want to actually infiltrate these connections in these you know networks and you want to be part of it so you know
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what's happening in your part of discourse part of the conversations and maybe that's how you get some of it until i'm sure i'm not telling anything to the police i don't know how involved they are in that i know how much they're cyber paratus you know in advance there's but definitely ways to do it and we need to also be careful when we talk about limiting the speech or any expressions of that because killing killing the way killing the discourse won't kill the sentiment and this is a pity to talk about the sentiment that is there the the aggravation the hatred there was that meant that needs to be that needs to be tackled and not the expression of it and is that it will go find another way to channel itself in fact ellen that's causing some people to say where we need to start is the schools we need to start with adequate instruction to young people on how to. skeptical about what they find online would you say the schools are up to that challenge or is there a woeful inadequacy their. inadequacy as we've seen when in
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jewish kids have been targeted on the playground been bullied been. actually forced out of the school then obviously and the teaches when this is being brought to attention of the press for instance the teachers of complain that their school is being bad mouth so obviously we are woefully inadequate prepared to deal with to deal with this yeah let's start christopher we're almost at the end of the show with a request for a very brief answer our title poses the question how deadly is germany's far right is what we're seeing in germany simply part of something the larger. i think in this case i think that's a different subject termes far right but in this case this is some part of a close. thank you very much to all of you for being with us to the point and thanks to out there for tuning in see you soon.
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this is the w. news live from berlin boris johnson begins a charm offensive that will determine the future of brecht's at the u.k.'s prime minister may have hammered out a deal with process but now. he has to persuade the british parliament to back his plan in a vote tomorrow he says will succeed but others are not quite so sure also coming up. turkey agrees to
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