Times are gone, in which the German state presented itself as a refuge of humanity and of culture of welcome and in which it was comparatively easy to enter the country for refugees (partly also without registration). Nowadays agreements are made with governors like the Turkish president Erdogan, to prevent refugees from coming close to the German borders; to speed up the asylum procedure, more and more states are designated as secure countries of origin, so that people can be deported there without a so called individual case inspection; an annual maximum limit for asylum requests is discussed and incidents like IS attacks or sexual assaults on women are instrumentalised to stir up fear within society and to legitimate a harsh approach against any form of foreigner’s criminality.

Originally published by Avalanche (Issue Nr 10)

Nevertheless the economical possibilities that are opening up through controlled immigration that is to say through the specifically exploitation of those amongst the arriving, who are willing to adapt themselves and to work are welcome and it’s intended to maintain Germany’s image as the European flagship-state concerning integration.

Therefore refugees are more and more quickly and efficiently divided into people with a perspective to stay and people without. The former shall be integrated in accordance with the principle of demand and patronise, trying to force them to completely give up their individuality and force them to assimilate almost entirely to predetermined modes of behaviour. Whereas for the latter ones deportation camps are built and they are increasingly forced to return voluntarily or get deported.

To be able to ensure all this and to back it up legally there have been launched whole series of laws in the last time, on federal level, as well as on national level. One of the most repressive amongst them, that is aiming not only at people with any kind of migrant background, but at all non integrated rebels, is the Bavarian integration law.

In relation to the law that was passed on national level it represents once more a tightening.

The following text was written already before the expected approval of the law in the Bavarian parliament and was now edited and actualised. It is dealing in a quite specific way with some contents of the Bavarian law, which seemed quite important to us. But the text tries also to embed these contents into the broader context of an overall development and concludes with an attack against the democratic forms of protest, with which some tried to allegedly prevent this law, working together with parties.

Guiding culture and submission

To maintain domination and to arrange life within a hierarchical system, as it is every state, valid rules for everybody have to be laid down especially in times of a quick change in the social fabric. Based on this rules, ways of behaviour and of acting can be divided into right and wrong. These rules have to be accepted by a main part of the population and depending on the model of dominion (dictatorship, democracy…), be understood as being in their interest by a more or less big part. But they can also always be enforced with violent means. The state monopoly on the use of force is based on being the only instance, that is authorised to determine the rules (through the legislative), to evaluate offences (through the judiciary) and to impose a sentence and finally to punish the delinquent (through the executive).

To accept the democratic constitution, and the state’s monopoly on the use of force as a part of it, is a basic keystone of what is defined as successful integration in the Bavarian integration law. From now on everyone is committed not only to show respect and obedience towards the nation and constitution, state and laws, but rather to show loyalty towards them. As it was made clear from the beginning, this is valid on a political level, on which every radical questioning of the existent conditions (of power) is forbidden, as well as on an economical level, on which a contribution is demanded of everybody to maintain the economical performance of the liberal (market)-minded Bavaria and preferably to even increase it. Commitment and the total assimilation to local morals, traditions and customs are basically demanded from everyone, but in a more harsh way from those, who came from another country to this place or who have at least one parent or grandparent being a foreigner (because also in this case, they talk about a possible increased need for integration; which reminds us of a certain certificate, that has been out of fashion, but might have a comeback soon).

Along with an arrogance, that emerged from the Bavarian and European history, those morals, traditions and customs are forming the guiding culture [Leitkultur], to which the legal text is referring again and again and to which refugees are allegedly committed in a particular way, because of being guest. Everyone, who does not absolutely submit herself and through this proves the demanded own efforts to integrate oneself, is going to be confronted with a series of specific repressive measures and an exclusion form the so-called charitable salaries by the Bavarian social state, for which this law provides the ground.

Law and repression

If somebody seems not integrated to the security authorities because […] he expresses through the demonstrative break of rules, defamation or in any other way shown behaviour, that he is refusing the democratic constitution […], this person can in order to create a concrete pressure for acceptance be obliged henceforth to do a basic course on the democratic constitution. To stay away from this course or to disturb it is punished with a money fine. There’s not even the need for a judicial decision, but the cops just have to give the order, what constitutes another increase of power for them. If you don’t show the expected respect to them (what is explicitly named as one of the most significant ways in which such a lack of integration can express itself), you get the basic course on democracy and than let’s see, if the judge has to offer something else to you. At this point they make an effort to emphasize equality: Not least to avoid discrimination also German citizens can be obliged to the democracy course, in case that they show an insufficient level of being indoctrinated by the democratic values until now. Once more, the hypocrisy of not discriminating anyone is used exactly in the moment, in which the lawmaker sees a good opportunity to create an instrument of control against everybody.

Part of these instruments is also a fine of €50 000, that can be imposed by the cops on a person, who is disobeying to the current constitutional order and who follows an order, that is contradicting to this. This is certainly even more true for those who don’t accept to follow any order. Only by showing indifference towards the order or omitting to actively stand up for it, one can be sentenced to pay this fine. Besides it is forbidden, to call publicly, on a gathering or through spreading of writings, to disobey the constitutional order […]. Here it becomes clear what is meant by the obligation to be loyal: Everyone, who doesn’t accept predetermined morals without critique as the own ones and rather questions them and the ruling order radically and maybe even expresses that, has to experience first-hand the defensive capability of democracy.

Every attempt to influence the reality which is imposed on us, that is not content with changing the current constitution in this or that sense for the future, in the frame of the dedicated democratic procedure has to be eradicated. They are not getting tired to emphasize in the explanation of the corresponding paragraph that these penalties are not against the constitution, but rather in its sense. The constitution, which is even punishing the abuse of central political basic rights (as freedom of opinion, of press, of education, of gathering, of post, the telecommunications secrecy, property, asylum right) with forfeiting these basic rights. But all this can only reinforce us in our mistrust towards all rights, that have been guaranteed by an authority. Those rights can be taken away from us again and again no matter how basic and inalienable they are sold to us if we break the restrictions.

Racism and created separation

The integration law makes the restrictions even more strict and is one of the repressive tools, that the state is prepositioning at the moment, to handle a situation, which is unstable in some way and which is threatening to expand itself and to become a danger for the state. In this sense the law will be applied against all of us, but especially against people with another country of origin, who are considered as cause of this instability. People, to whom barbarism is ascribed due to their socialisation in non-democratic states and who are generally constituted as danger for democracy and the often quoted common values, or as a danger to life and limb.

It will be applied on people, because of whom everyone now seems to care about the respect towards women, while nobody is interested in what happens behind German curtains or is wondering about the women on advertisement panels, who are reduced to their standardised bodies. On people who are allegedly all infected with the religious plague, what is considered as a threat in their case, while the spreading of the same plague in the Christian Occident is part of the aforementioned guiding culture. And especially it will be applied on people, who came here with the taste of the revolts of the past years on their tongues; or who are traumatised by the experiences from wars, with which Europe and Bavaria earn a lot of money and in which they are participating severely. People, who are put in overcrowded camps and inflatable halls often after a months lasting escape, that endangered their lives without the possibility, to find rest, to spend time or to earn money in a legal way. The boredom, the frustration, the rage, that are emerging in such places and under these circumstances can easily erupt into rebellions and revolts. The state is confronted with a mass of people, for whose management the necessary means are lacking, also because of the fact that these people are definitely not as homogeneous, as the government wants to make it look like.

Actually there are thousands of individuals with different experiences and potentials (to fight back), who shall be made easier to control. By this it is tried to find a way of dealing with a class of poor, at the moment of its emergence. For one thing through concrete expansion of the police competences concerning refugees, who can for example be treated with fingerprint and photograph measurements (plus body-measures and characteristics) without a judicial order and without the excuse of imminent danger and whose accommodations and flats can be searched by day and night (while normally only starting from 6 o’clock). For another thing, one of the most important means for handling those new poor is to create separations amongst the excluded. In order to be effective, this separations have to be created as well inside of the new developing class of poor, as between those and the ‘German’ excluded.

The former is happening in a subtle way when people are jammed altogether in poky spaces and in a condition of never ending stress, which makes it difficult to develop a rebellious relationship of solidarity, but makes interior conflicts (often religious or ethnic ones) grow. In a next step the Bavarian integration law is laying the base to prevent the developing of centres of social conflict outside of these camps. For the purpose of avoiding too unbalanced demographic structures the interior ministry gets the right to deny or appropriate publicly founded housing spaces to every single requester (this values for immigrants as well as for every other requester), depending on whether this person would contribute to the emerging or reinforcement of such a one-sided structure. If a requester denies the appropriated flat, her application of urgency forfeits for five years (which in fact means not to get a flat for this time). Furthermore from now on the state can dictate in which district refugees have to live, even after the acceptation of their call for asylum(!) The state’s interest to avoid the establishment of one-sided demographic structures (concerning the region of origin, the level of income or education…) in certain cities or quarters is often covered with the ‘social’ fig-leaf of preventing ghettoization and isolation from other parts of the population. But in fact the aim is to prevent centres of social conflict, which could get dangerous for the state. If a social connection amongst the habitants based on shared experiences or at least a common language is missing, a rebellious organisation gets quite difficult. Curiously, no one is wondering about one-sided structures concerning the rich quarters (where the risk of such an organisation is traditionally not that big, just because the habitants are not interested in it). To the contrary the moneybags would probably not be that happy, if the interior ministry would settle some angry poor people in their neighbourhoods. But they don’t have to worry that much, because as we know there is not that much publicly funded housing space in their quarters.

The struggle on these flats is one of the domains in which especially in Munich the separation of foreign and German poor is working out most efficiently, due to the fear of the Germans to loose their privileges because of the foreigners.

By referring to the own origin and the accompanied right to profit from the pathetic rests of the social state, a racism, that was covered for a long time is coming up and getting socially acceptable again. The medial and political stirring up of those fears of loss and those postulations is contributing to this development as well as the demands for assimilation and effort which are getting explicit in the new law. The civic racists are often trying to justify their blather about the positive aspects of immigration for the German economy (nice words for cheap workers, which can be exploited under even worse conditions than others, because they have even less possibilities to demand better ones) with the argument that they would hope to steal the thunder of AfD (1) and others by debilitating their propagation of fear. Whereas orientating at the well-being of the German (economy) is on of the cornerstones of racism.

Forced integration and commitment

Based on this, commitment is now expected increasingly from the ones who are coming here and is justified with the moralist demand to give something back and to be grateful of having been welcomed here that friendly (or grateful for the deliveries of the weapons, with which their old homes has been bombed?). Of course, this gratitude can be proved even more distinctly if the contribution to the welfare of Bavaria is done without any payment and for that migrants get encouraged to offer a contribution to the common wealth through civic engagement and to confess themselves to our country and our values in that way. In the overall context of this law it’s not hard to identify the subtle extortion to work voluntarily, because the whole content is aiming at the enforcement of such confessions. And in the light of bans to work, which are holding the ones who arrive in a condition of total dependence on the state and its generous benefits, not much more is left than unpaid slavery.

Harsh steps are taken towards all the possibilities of slogging through in an other than the legal way. This was already prepared through the media, for example as after the Islamist attack in Brussels it was publicised, that the terrorists got the money for the weapons and the explosives by selling faked branded goods on the black market. In this way the equation: black marketeer=terrorist has been set up in the peoples minds. Through that, after having claimed the necessity of the war on terror, a likewise hard war on every kind of petty criminality as a hypothetical breeding ground for it now shall be legitimated. Conveniently, this has also the effect to strengthen the state’s control on the work of his subjects.

Beside the integration through work first unpaid and after years of arse kissing and (self-)degradation with a lousy small payment, the learning of the language is the second field in which commitment is expected in a well understood self-interest of the migrants. To help them to understand this ‘self-interest’ a period of three years is set in which they should learn the language. Everyone, who doesn’t make the grade in this time will have to pay back the money sponsored by the state for the lessons. Principally everyone who needs an interpreter for appointments with authorities from now on has to pay him by herself and ‘liability claims because of a wrong translation are impossible’ so that authorities and interpreters can jerk one around however they want to. And as preschoolers will have to absolve tests of their language level, adult prisoners and juvenile prisoners awaiting trial will have to do language and integration courses if the prison director believes to recognize a deficit in this sphere. According to the laws about these forms of detention, it’s not allowed to force adult prisoners awaiting trial and prisoners under preventive detention to do such courses. But the integration law proposes to the prison directions to summon the detained to participate ‘voluntarily’ and we all know that voluntarily in a jail is nothing than a bad joke. According to the integration law it should not influence the decision about their request if detained who asked for asylum don’t join the courses (what can also mean that they do the course while they’re in prison and afterwards get directly deported). But still the direction is always able to award a ‘voluntary’ participation with better conditions and punish the non-participation with worse ones.

Let’s break the mould (of the democratic forms of protest)

We could continue to illustrate and criticize the disgusting details of this law. Even from a democratic point of view it’s obviously total racist, neglects what they want to tout us as freedom of opinion and many other fundamental rights, and contributes to the exclusion and isolation instead of the integration of those to which it’s applied. For these reasons, in advance of the parliamentary decision a democratic protest rose against that law, which was mentioning exactly these points and an ‘alliance against the Bavarian exclusion law’ was formed, in which also the green party and the SPD (2) took part. Finally on the 22 of October 2016 there was a demonstration, organized by the alliance and announced by the SPD.

What a wonderful occasion for the democratic parties to spruce up their social image and to make forget about their compliance with the national integration law, that recently has been approved in the German Bundestag and which is inspired by the Bavarian proposal. Even if the draft for the Bavarian law, which has been made by the CSU (3), would not have been accepted by the parliament (which in the light of an absolute majority of the CSU could have been only the absurd mind games of deluded and hypocrites), it was obvious from the beginning which role the other parties would have played, which were airing themselves as the great opponents in the alliance and on the demonstration: through their canted opposition and fabricated debates they would have contributed to bring up a version sounding more harmless without completely exposing the democratic facade to its own ridicule and without changing too much of the original content.

This has been probably realized also by those who left some colour spots on the facades of the SPD’s and the Greens’ offices. Also during the demonstration there were at least some persons, who did not totally rest on their right to demonstrate and the concomitant regulations; some wrangling with the cops took place, some Christmas balls filled with colour were thrown against them and some flares were sparked. Unfortunately, according to the media, the ten slightly injured cops could proceed their service to the state, and they did this as customary with truncheons and pepper spray. Afterwards, everyone returned to the usual rules: the civic majority of the demonstrators criticised the outrages but also the inadequate police violence (as if there was any adequate); the cops provided a nice news account for making once more the classification into violent and peaceful demonstrators and for presenting themselves as uniformed heroes; the media rumbled about a riot demonstration because of some bruises and colour spots and some of the ‘rioters’ incomprehensibly presented themselves as nice and harmless and everything they did just as a reaction to the harsh police action.

But to take the victim role be it so as to convince the ‘masses’ or to avoid penalty instead of openly bearing out the necessity of attacks against everyone who is defending or enforcing this law and the logic it’s based on, won’t lead to a combative confrontation of the tendency, which is expressing itself through this law once more. If we want such a confrontation, we mustn’t let ourselves in for the discourses, which are aiming at the retention of a crumbling democratic model, or neither build alliances with the defenders of that model. Instead of this we should try to identify the driving and realizing forces, the profiteers and the false critics, to counter against them, to relate developments and to search for possibilities of intervention in this context. Because who tries to regulate the living together of individuals no matter where they come from through laws, may they be excluding or integrating (what does not mean anything else than to assimilate the individual to the majority), is violating our desire to create our lives and our relations by ourselves and through that becomes our enemy.

Down with exclusion and integration!

Down with the law and the constitution!

Down with the state and the guiding culture!

Notes

1. AfD: Alternative for Germany, populist party that actually has rapidly increasing numbers of members and voters

2. SPD: Social Democratic Party

3. CSU: Christian Social Party, Bavarian part of the Christ Democrats

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