In 2008, Charles Hawley had written in Der Spiegel magazine predicted that the
next major elections in Hessen state would be different. He had written: "The
center-right in Germany
has often used xenophobic campaigns to propel them to power. Roland Koch's
anti-foreigner campaign in Hesse [in recent
months] , however, [has] backfired, showing that he has lost touch with his
electorate."
Whereas, that may have been true in 2008, at the same Roland Koch, after a
short political hiatus, was reelected to lead the Hessen Landtag again in
January 2009. In short, "Koch's years of experience as a prominent Christian
Democrat (CDU) politician [have continually] told him that a bit of foreigner
bashing is a sure way to win votes. It had, after all, worked before -- Koch
became governor in 1999 after a populist signature gathering campaign against
double citizenship -- one that many observers saw as profoundly xenophobic."
Last year, the African People's Convention concurred, "We have seen this in the
past through his [Koch's] propaganda campaign against Dual Citizenship proposal
in 1999 that brought him to power. Roland Koch is actually seeking rightist
support. Election watchers outside Germany
have pointed out that the reason the far right vote collapsed in Germany is the
policies of Roland Koch and some of his fellow politicians in the Christian
Democrats. They have not become far right Party, but they have started speaking
in tongues to the anti-immigrant vote, which may not be a good political
strategy. The natural strategy for the right is in fact to start taking the
immigration issues, crime, law and other related issues as an important topic
to look into. It is however, a topic which plays on certain fears, rational or
irrational on the minds of the less educated, the less enlightened and the less
secured populace who think immigrants are the cause of all social problems in Germany."
Koch consistently has declared that far too many crimes in Germany are
committed by foreigners while ignoring the actual enforcement rules of police
in handling, charging, and prosecuting criminals in the country. In short,
foreigner violence is more visible in regions where unemployment is high--and
due to the poor integration policies and job policies in Germany many
more foreigners are out of work while failing to get government assistance in a
fair and timely manner.
Moreover, as the APC noted, "This hostility towards foreigners [under Koch
in Hessen] has manifested in discrimination against foreigners, and in extreme
cases, violent attack on an entire community. The reason for the rise of the
far right attacks in Germany
is the failure to integrate immigrants socially and economically into the
German society unlike the United
Kingdom and U.S.A, where the melting pot
seems to work and has worked for many decades. In Germany, the melting pot has failed
tremendously."
Not only Africans and Americans need to be wary of Koch and his anti-foreigner bias. Koch has also been charged as behaving and speaking anti-Semitic phrases in many speeches, whether in making allusions to Jewish and German history or to Muslims or Arabs.
http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/0,1518,226775,00.html
"The Central Council of Jews in Germany
is right," said Kenan Kolat, who heads the umbrella group of Germany's
Turkish community. "The level of Mr. Koch's campaign is hardly
distinguishable from those run by the (neo-Nazi National Democratic Party --
NPD). ... I hope voters give Mr. Koch what he deserves for his xenophobic
rhetoric."
"'Ali Kizilkaya of the (German) Islam Council called Koch's campaign "wind in
the sails of right-wing radical parties.' He echoed the sentiment of Thursday's
letter by saying that he is concerned that Koch might be sacrificing social
cohesion in Germany
for short-term political gain."
ANTI-AMERICAN VISA AND WORK ISSUES ARE MANY.
All of Germany has become a more unfriendly place for Americans to work over
the past two to three decades. This has occurred parallel to the growth and
power of the European Union as a whole, which has decided to position itself as
an alternative to America on the global political economic stage. This has
occurred even as more and more Germans have come to confess that historically
both Germany and Central Europe have been a multicultural melting pot for
the continent for millennia.
Even today, "Berlin the German capital and
international metropolis in the heart of Europe" is not only a "city of
culture, sports, politics, and science [but a] population of almost 3.4
million fills an area of 890 km, including people from more than 200 different
countries who have chosen the melting pot of Berlin for their new 'heimat'."
http://www.linguee.de/uebersetzung/deutsch/melting+pot.html
Many other regions of Germany,
such as the Industrial Ruhr River
region (in North Rhine Westphalia) have--with the exception of 12 years of the
Nazi era--consistently seen itself as a multicultural region in Germany.
http://www.geschichte.nrw.de/artikel.php?artikel[id]=337&lkz=de
http://www.zum.de/whkmla/sp/0708/yongho/yongho2.html



