Below is a statement from London based Turkish socialist community centre about the events in Hanau, Germany.
Wednesday night a lone gunman in Hanau opened fire against two predominantly Kurdish establishments, murdering 9 people and injuring many others. The attacker, who subsequently returned home to execute his mother and finally himself, was a far-right extremist whose message was “all foreigners who are not deported must be destroyed”.
This is the second violent attack against the migrant community in Germany in less than a week, after one man was shot dead and several seriously injured outside a Turkish comedy show in Berlin on Friday. In October, the fascist Stephan Balliet conducted another attack on the Turkish and Kurdish community, deliberately targeting a kebab shop and murdering a young migrant worker as he begged for mercy.
In the 2000s, a group of self-styled Neo-Nazis called the “National Socialist Underground” carried out a series of shootings against migrant workplaces – dubbed “the kebab shop murders”. They were responsible for 10 deaths. Despite the attackers’ identities being known to the authorities, the establishment smeared the victims – accusing them of ties to organised crime – and targeted the migrant community rather than the far-right. Inconsistent statements have led to suspicions about a state attempt to cover up the murders.
Time and again migrants are victimised, soft targets picked off by cowardly opportunists to fuel their goal of divided and warring communities.
Racism is a pernicious disease, which is not being sufficiently addressed in Germany or across the world. It is not enough to talk of integration – the root of this problem is the failure to provide people with a decent standard of life; and the elite’s deliberate scapegoating of migrants and minorities for any and all problems – shrugging off their own responsibility for joblessness, low wages and insufficient services. In this atmosphere, the dark tribalism of racist ideology is allowed to thrive and crazed terrorists begin to see themselves as part of a wider ethnic struggle.
We must condemn without reservation those who seek to divide our communities and bring harm to innocent people. We will not stand silent in the face of such massacres. The violent extremism of the far-right must be eradicated, root and stem – by the unity and solidarity of migrant and indigenous workers acting together.
We at express our deepest sorrow and condolences for the victims of this tragedy and their loved ones, wishing those injured a speedy recovery, and salute those workers and migrants who will take to the streets tonight in righteous anger. Your struggle is ours.