[LINK] "Right-Wing Provocation: Russian and German Populists Meet"

[rfmcdonald]

Spiegel Online writes about a recent conference in Germany that seems to have been a platform for the Russian government's particular new brand of homophobic cultural conservatism.

In the run-up to it, the event attracted significant controversy, in no small part due to the second half of the title to Saturday's program: "Are Europe's peoples being abolished?" German Middle East expert Peter Scholl-Latour and former news anchor Eva Herman -- who gained notoriety in Germany and was fired from her job at a public broadcaster several years ago for making favorable remarks about family values during the Third Reich -- had both been scheduled to attend. But both withdrew at short notice, Scholl-Latour citing scheduling issues while Herman said she was doing so out of fear for her family's safety and "because I don't want to expose myself to media mud-slinging."

Herman instead addressed conference participants with a pre-recorded audio message. "Family policy in Germany nowadays is scarcely distinguishable from the East German model," she said. While Herman's views are well-known, they pale in comparison with the conference's other speakers. Another last-minute cancellation came from Frauke Petry, spokesperson for the new euroskeptic Alternative for Germany party. Presumably party strategists had decided that the Alternative's mantra-like promise to not enter into coalition with right-wing populists in the European Parliament would sound hollow if Petry participated in a conference that played host to crude theorizing about issues as diverse as demography, heredity, the evils of day care centers or youth they claim can become gay as a result of homosexual proganda.

Several speakers from Russia took part in the Leipzig conference, sparing no effort to promote President Vladimir Putin's family policies. Among them was lawmaker Yelena Mizulina, chair of the Duma Committee on Family, Women and Childrens' Affairs and co-author of the country's infamous law banning "homosexual propaganda.

[. . .]

Mizulina's family policy wish list is a long one: Among the legislative initiatives she'd like to pursue are a tax on divorce, recommendations for married couples to have at least three children and a ban on emergency contraceptive pills. Mizulina denied claims that her country's gay community is subjected to violence while standing in front of a wall with the inscription "Courage to speak truth."

[. . .]

The conference was organized by Jürgen Elsässer, editor-in-chief of the right-wing populist magazine Compact and himself a former West German communist back in the 1970s. He later became a teacher while continuing to write for German left-wing publications like Konkret and Freitag. His politics have since shifted to right-wing populism and conspiracy theories, and he has a penchant for preaching about family values and Europe's supposed imminent decline. Elsässer's partner in France is Paris' Institute for Democracy and Cooperation, a think tank sponsored by private individuals from Russia that is considered to be closely aligned with the Kremlin.