German Green Party not really Green any more
The Green Party started in Germany, and Greens hold major political posts at the national level. However German Greens recently supported putting German troops on foreign soil (for the first time since WW II), are actively engaged in dismantling the social support system, are immigration-unfriendly, and on and on it goes.
Petra Kelly, co-founder of the German Green Party, which she described as “a non-violent ecological and basic-democratic anti-war coalition” would be appalled at what German Green party has turned into. Wait. She’d not be simply appalled, she’d be organizing against them.
Nothing has remained of the promises that go back to the social protest movement of the 1960s and 1970s, when the Green movement originally formed. The demand for more social justice has given way to the Greens actively participating in the brutal dismantling of social services.
The demand for peace and non-violence has been realised in the form of the first out-of-area combat operations of the German army since the end of World War II. The protection of the environment has been reduced to symbolic acts.
The Greens are now preparing to repeat the same fraud on a European level. The European Federation of Green Parties fully supports the European Union and its enlargement, while claiming that they will be able to give this process a human, social and democratic face.
In practice, the German Greens—who appear to be the main authors of this document—have been acting in diametrical opposition to these proclaimed aims. This glaring contradiction between words and deeds points to the fundamental class issues on the rejection of which the Green Party was founded more than 20 years ago.
Social justice and equality can only be achieved in a struggle against the European Union.
The Greens are hostile to any such social mobilisation. They represent the interests of a privileged elite and have every reason to fear resistance from below. When, in early November, 100,000 people protested against the social cuts of the Schröder government in Berlin, the chairwoman of the German Greens, Angela Beer, denounced the protesters as “politically incompetent” and “lacking any ideas.”
This from a party founded on antiwar principles! It’s no wonder Germans are abandoning the Green Party. Like our Democratic Party, it no longer appears to have identifiable core values. And one wonders if they know or even care.
April, 2 2003: German Greens back airspace for US warplanes