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Konrad Werner: Nazis v. Salafists v. Google

This week, Konrad makes a desperate bid to boost his Google News quotient.

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Photo by Duncan Hull (dullhunk; Flickr CC)

Regular readers might wonder why I keep going on about Nazis and institutionalized racism in German society, and animals. Well, it’s simple – I’m actively boosting my Google News rating.

I could, of course, write a blog about Salafists – that group of Muslim nutters that have replaced al-Qaeda as the main Muslim-nutter search term in Germany’s Google News engine. But Salafists are a dime a dozen. For example, there was one in a Bonn court this week for attacking some cops with a knife during an anti-Muslim demo. This morning, there are 240 articles on Google News about him. He said bad things like “Islam has forced me to do these things,” and Bild mentioned that he lived on Hartz IV, in case any young people out there thought being a Muslim nutter was a lucrative career option. It’s not, kids. No, the 240 German news articles about Murat K. made clear that he is a dangerous loony with a silly ginger beard who would almost certainly spoil the vibe at a party. Like, majorly.

All this is obviously funny and relevant material for my German news blog, but if I write about it I will be at the bottom of a list of 240 other things.

So I’ve been scouring, and found that Google News only lists eight articles about a hearing in the Saxony state parliament on the influence of the English neo-Nazi network “Blood and Honour” in Germany. The group was banned here in 2000, but Thursday’s hearing found that not only is Blood and Honour’s organization still active, and not only did its militant wing Combat 18 inspire German terrorists the NSU, but it also very effective in using neo-Nazi music to recruit young people. You can read about a documentary (which no German TV station has shown any interest in showing) all about that here.

The hearing also found that the Saxony Interior Ministry were basically clueless on the subject of Blood and Honour, despite warnings from state prosecutors about its power and the danger it posed. When the local left party made an official request for information, the ministry sent half a page explaining they could not provide all the details asked for.

So there you are – you’ve now read the ninth ever article about the Blood and Honour hearing at the Saxony parliament. The fact is there are a lot more neo-Nazis in Germany (far-right extremists in Germany, according to this: 25,000) than there are Muslim nutters (number of Salafists, according to this: 3,800), and a lot more recruitment potential. Maybe if the German newspapers started doing a few more articles about that, I’d unpack some of my hilarious Mohammed jokes. They are pretty funny actually.

And look, an albino kangaroo was just born Duisburg. Imagine!