Politics in Germany tends to run along a scripted line. I know some intellectuals and journalists will say otherwise, but you can draw up a scenario and with reasonable confidence predict how some round-table of Berlin political figures will talk to the subject in question. In fact, with the present five political parties sitting in the Bundestag, it's a fairly limited script.
One of the odd things brought into state assemblies across Germany in the past year is that AfD (the anti-immigrant party) has a standing in several cities and states now....meaning that they can ask questions in the assembly and the public services must answer the questions.
I noted this from Die Welt in today's news.
The AfD has members in the Hamburg assembly now. So they asked the question on sexual assaults in the region over the past year, and wanted to know how many were identified as German or non-German related.
From the number that cops could identify nationality....forty-five percent were non-Germans. I should note.....non-Germans could mean Russians, Syrians, French, Libyan, Japanese, or perhaps even American. It's not a Syrian-only, or Iraqi-only category as some might want to suggest.
It's a type of question that most political parties (left and right) would avoid asking....because the answer would lead to some damaging questions to follow.
I don't see the AfD as being some four-star group of politicians. But they seem to be the only group out there who are willing to ask non-scripted questions.
More state elections occur this spring, and AfD will likely get representation into three more states. In the fall, it's pretty much guaranteed now that AfD will enter the Bundestag in Berlin. One can make lots of negative criticism of the group, but they will force state and federal agencies to answer more questions in public forums and introduce a more transparent view of reality.
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