Eight Indian on
the run,
Fifty Neonazis behind them.
'Deutschland den Deutschen,
Ausländer raus!
Hier regiert der nationale Widerstand!'
Roars from the throats of the Neos,
Beer in their blood,
Defiance in their sanguine eyes.
The puls races,
Adrenalin surges in the veins:
Fight or flight.
Naked angst.
Hyperventilation,
Tachycardy.
No one helps,
They just look on,
Like Bertold Brecht would say.
As the Jews were beaten and transported,
To Auschwitz, Gürs or elsewhere.
The Indians run as fast
As their legs can carry them.
'Jaldi bhago!
Zindagi bachau!
The bald headed, overfed, pink Neos
Overrun the scared Indians.
What follows is the bashing
Of the underdogs in the German society.
Of migrants who love Deutschland.
Their only crime,
The color of their complexion.
The police of Saxony's Mügeln come,
But are hesitant about the xenophobia
That has broken out.
The rightists agitate conspitatively,
Sais the Verfassungsschutz in 2006,
In Mügeln
Akin to Hoyerswerda and Mölln.
The ethnic Germans see and look away
At the brutality and intolerance
Unfurling before their eyes.
The teuro, the joblessness in the East
Has made them indifferent and complacent.
Give us more money to integrate the Neos,
In families, schools, communities,
Say some politicians.
Federalism and democracy is not inaction,
Where intolerance and racism rears its ugly head.
It happens from Mügeln to Mainz.
Antidiscrimination laws alone
Help neither the Wessies nor the Ossies.
A mental metamorphosis is in demand.
Have we Germans learned from history?
Haben wir, die Bürger, aus der Geschichte gelernt?
Alas, we've become complacent again.
Germany, Austria and Switzerland
Are striving for an European cultural identity,
Where foreign traditions
Are the essence of togetherness,
Of Miteinander.
The enclaves of intolerance should remain
A ghost of the past.
Liberalism, democracy, civilization and society
Should be the order of the day.
Mental changes in our thinking processes,
Not mental molotovs,
Should be the cry of the day.
Mental Molotovs
When Hoyerswerda burns
They discuss about the asylum-seekers.
Peaceful, righteous Germans go
In the streets with candles.
When a house burns in Mölln
They discuss about bringing back
Soldiers from the dangers of Somalia.
At the Turkish funeral in Solingen
The Chancellor keeps away
And avoids thus
Rotten eggs and tomatoes
That might come his way.
When the trial comes
The former skinhead neonazi
Has a lot of hair.
He wears a two-piece suit,
Ties a tie around his neck
And looks oh-so-respectable.
He peers into the cameras
With clear blue eyes and says:
"I'm innocent and a victim
Of the modern industrial society."
And withdraws his statement.
The judges are lenient,
And the neo gets off on bail,
Gestures with his middle finger
And quips: "Leck mich am Arsch!"
As he speeds away in a car
Only to reappear with a Molotov
Like the Sphinx again.
"Ausländer Raus!
Deutschland den Deutschen!"
These are the slogans
Still making the rounds in 2006.
The old black and white flag
From the Third Reich
Raises no eyebrows
At soccer stadiums, streets and pubs.
It's fashionable again
To throw mental Molotovs
At blacks, browns, yellows,
And all non-Teutonics
At cocktails, chats
Stammtisch and in the streets
Against anything alien.
‘I don't like foreigners
I'll kill you,’ says a drunk
In broad daylight at the local Bahnhof.
Bharati Mukerjee a New Yorker writer
Once asked me in Freiburg:
'How does it feel
To be a non-Teutonic
In Germany?'
