home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- Path: sparky!uunet!mcsun!Germany.EU.net!rrz.uni-koeln.de!unidui!math.fu-berlin.de!mailgzrz.TU-Berlin.DE!mailszrz.zrz.tu-berlin.de!rowowzb1
- From: rowowzb1@mailszrz.zrz.tu-berlin.de (Beschaeftigte_am_WZB)
- Newsgroups: alt.test
- Subject: SOS Racisme in Germany
- Date: 23 Nov 1992 15:03:48 GMT
- Organization: Wissenschaftszentrum_Berlin
- Lines: 134
- Distribution: world
- Message-ID: <1eqrskINNlqa@mailgzrz.TU-Berlin.DE>
- Reply-To: roehrig@artemis.wz-berlin.de
- NNTP-Posting-Host: mailszrz.zrz.tu-berlin.de
-
-
-
- Stop
-
- the Raging Fire!
-
-
-
- A wave of hopelessness and hatred is flooding Germany.
-
-
- On Wednesday, September 9 numerous employees of the Science Center
-
- for Social Research Berlin ("Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin fuer
-
- Sozialforschung") met to consider ways of expressing our protest
-
- against the escalating hatred toward foreigners and mobilizing
-
- public opposition. Among other things, we decided to send a
-
- protest letter via a privately sponsored fax-campaign to political
-
- representatives and the media and to call upon the personnel of
-
- other science and research institutions to join our protest and
-
- assist us in funding a public declaration.
-
-
- We have decided to translate our declaration into French and
-
- English to let our colleagues abroad know that life in Germany is
-
- not dominated by the streets; on the contrary, a large protest
-
- movement has organized itself to counteract the attacks against
-
- the dignity of human beings and our democracy.
-
-
- (The following text was published in German in the Saturday/Sunday
-
- 7./8. November 1992 issue of the "Suddeutsche Zeitung" (a national
-
- daily):
-
-
- We, employees of the Science Center for Social Research Berlin and
-
- the following institutions come from many different nations. We
-
- have observed with consternation the exclusion of and assaults on
-
- all "non-Germans". The applause for the flames at Rostock-
-
- Lichtenhagen and the growing violence in East and West Germany
-
- against foreigners, refugees and other minorities impel us to
-
- stand up against the erosion of basic democratic values.
-
-
- Leading federal and municipal politicians and administrators are
-
- channelling the people's fear in the direction of foreigners,
-
- refugees and minorities in order to camouflage their helplessness
-
- and failure to solve problems emerging in the unification process,
-
- thereby causing:
-
- - behavior determined by black-and-white thought patterns,
-
- - erosion of hitherto existing taboos,
-
- - disintegration of the state's monopoly on power.
-
-
- We are aware that during the Weimar Republic too few scientists
-
- took an active stand against rising totalitarian thinking and
-
- action. We may not allow this to happen again.
-
-
- We protest against the protentous erosion of Article 1 of our
-
- constitution: "The dignity of the human being is inviolable"!
-
-
- We demand that everything be done to protect the life and physical
-
- well-being of the foreigners and minorities living here. We demand
-
- a clear political signal against the growing public acceptance of
-
- violence directed at foreigners and other minorities.
-
-
- We protest against the widespread disregard for the pain and fears
-
- of many people as Germany attempts to "grow together" into a
-
- single democracy.
-
-
- We demand that the present economic policy, which has forced
-
- almost every second person out of employment in East Germany, be
-
- replaced by a policy that creates working places and training
-
- opportunities.
-
- We demand a housing policy that assures adequate living space and
-
- socially amenable rents in the old and new Lnder.
-
-
- We demand that politicians cease in suggesting that a modification
-
- of the laws governing the right to asylum could solve the problems
-
- of migration induced by poverty.
-
-
- Totalitarianism may not overpower the democracy that has evolved
-
- over the last 40 years.
-
-
-
-