Saxony-Anhalt and the Left | “A strike like this would be good for all of us!”

Photo: nd/stephanie schoell What is the left-wing response to the political shift to the right? A debate about this these days cannot take place without the state elections in Saxony-Anhalt and the looming AfD government there. “The question is who will still be here in two or three months,” says Alex Körner from Radio Corax in Halle in Berlin. He is invited to the Left Party conference “Authoritarian Reconstruction – Developing Counterpower and Defending Democracy,” which took place in the Bundestag on September 11th. Körner criticizes the fact that the drama of the events in Saxony-Anhalt is still not being taken seriously enough nationwide. When asked who will be hit first, social scientist Cihan Sinanoğlu points to the demand of the Turkish community in Germany to stop sending refugees to Saxony-Anhalt from now on and to lift the residency requirement for refugees there. This applies during the asylum procedure; Those affected are not allowed to leave the district in which they are accommodated without official permission.

“The residency requirement should be lifted everywhere,” affirms Clara Bünger, deputy leader of the Left in the Bundestag. The federal government has been aligning its policies with the demands of the right for years and playing people off against each other in a racist manner. Under Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt, people were being turned back at the federal border, denying them the right to asylum. Attacks on social benefits, the eight-hour day or the Freedom of Information Act, more and more money for rearmament and weapons production, new powers for the federal intelligence services and police violence, for example at pro-Palestinian demonstrations - all of this is already part of the authoritarian restructuring, without an AfD government being in power anywhere, said Bünger.

At the local level, the CDU has long since torn down the firewall to the AfD and "deportation on a large scale" was already propagated under the previous traffic light government under Olaf Scholz. “The red lines have long been crossed,” states Bünger. Due to the politics of the last few years, there are legal options that the AfD can now simply take into its own hands and implement them in an even more extreme manner.

The author and activist Arne Semsrott warns against the argument that the Basic Law exists and that would put the AfD in its place. If it comes to government, the AfD will not need a parliamentary majority or new laws to implement many things. Through AfD-led ministries, it would have leverage that bypasses parliament. “We are dealing with an actor who, in cases of doubt, does not care about compliance with the law.” Civil disobedience is required here. Officials have sworn an oath to the constitution, now it is time to show what that means. "You can't rely on the state, but that doesn't mean you can't just let it off the hook," says Semsrott.

In between, things get very specific in the Paul-Löbe-Haus when moderator David Schliesing, spokesman for media policy for the Left, reports that he lives in a village of 90 people and cannot rely on being protected there if a right-wing mob is at the door. “At least three of us have to move to your village and two of them have to go to the fire department,” interjects the philosopher Eva von Redecker. When asked what solidarity with civil society in Saxony-Anhalt actually means, Alex Körner from Radio Corax calls for financial support: "Take a look at a local initiative that seems somehow likeable to you, that you perhaps also know has acute financial problems and really show solidarity."

But how does the left get out of defending what exists? According to Eva von Redecker, there is actually a great longing for a break with the existing situation. But this is mainly played from the right. "The election in Saxony-Anhalt was not an anti-capitalist protest election - that would be nice - but it was an election against the world that capitalism has created." She cites social isolation, fear of decline and political powerlessness as central motives. The crisis is not hope, but could actually open up scope for large utopian projects. Cihan Sinanoğlu sums up the question of “What now?”: “Such a strike would be good for all of us!”

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