69 million page views

I was not in town - nato - constitution - zentralrat - telephone

Reader comment on item: Germany's Freiheit Party Joins the Fray

Submitted by myth (Germany), Nov 3, 2010 at 17:16

I was not in town, it takes Dr Pipes to travel all the way to Berlin to inform me about what is happening in my own country. Thanks for that. Reading through parts of the party programme I find two remarkable statements and I have three thoughts:

  1. the party advocates to allow Israel into NATO. I conclude that Die Freiheit sees further use for NATO. I find this proposal a novelty in german, if not international, politics. It also underlines that Die Freiheit sees the islamist threat as a threat to the western world as manifested in the NATO alliance.
  2. Die Freiheit adresses the fundamental, let me call it the reunification clause, of the german Grundgesetz/Basic law. This clause obliges all of the german people, in the sense of a re-unified people, to democratically decide on a proper constitution. The process of reunification 20 years ago ignored this. Die Freiheit demands that constitution (http://www.diefreiheit.org/grundsatzprogramm/volk-und-nation section Verfassung) in order to establish more democracy.
  3. Germany's major established representation of a religious group is the Zentralrat der Juden / Jewish Central Committee. Given the clear pro-Israel statements and the expected usual right-wing-categorization of the party by media I am curious how the Zentralrat der Juden will react.
  4. On the party's webpage section "impressum" they say they do not have a telephone number yet for there is no office. I am surprised. Is it truly possible, after suffering centuries of nonsense in this country, that people get an idea off the ground without the need for a bureaucratic environment ?
  5. On the webpage above(2.) 2nd paragraph Die Freiheit lays out their idea of german national identity using the well-known phrase "Land der Dichter und Denker" / land of poets and thinkers which has hardly been used in politics. They also refer to hosting the football worldcup 2006 as a unifying national experience. I think both subjects deserve recognition in this context.
Submitting....

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".

Follow Daniel Pipes

Facebook   Twitter   RSS   Join Mailing List

All materials by Daniel Pipes on this site: © 1968-2023 Daniel Pipes. daniel.pipes@gmail.com and @DanielPipes

Support Daniel Pipes' work with a tax-deductible donation to the Middle East Forum.Daniel J. Pipes

(The MEF is a publicly supported, nonprofit organization under section 501(c)3 of the Internal Revenue Code.

Contributions are tax deductible to the full extent allowed by law. Tax-ID 23-774-9796, approved Apr. 27, 1998.

For more information, view our IRS letter of determination.)