In Human Events today I recap the serious threats to freedom I witnessed in Germany over the last few days:
In Stuttgart, Germany, last week, violent Leftist and Islamic supremacist demonstrators violently menaced anti-jihad activists — giving a sobering picture of where Germany, Europe, and the U.S. as well are headed if we don’t stand up and resolutely defend our freedom now.
Thursday afternoon I spoke in Stuttgart at the invitation of the human rights group Pax Europa. The event was well advertised, and so the thuggish Leftist/Islamic supremacist alliance mobilized and was out in full force.
About a thousand protesters from the frequently violent hard-Left Antifa group showed up, along with around 500 German riot police. “Antifa” stands for “Anti-fascism,” but if any fascism was on display, it was from the “anti-fascists,” who did their best to destroy the Pax Europa event. They were menacing people, starting fights, banging drums, blowing whistles, and chanting Leftist and Communist agitprop slogans. One young man from Antifa came up to me as I was standing right in front of a line of German police and said, “You’re lucky there are so many police here today.” He was not expressing solidarity.
Pax Europa had planned a full program featuring Middle Eastern Christian musicians, a Coptic Christian activist, and others, so as to highlight the hollowness of the Islamic supremacist narrative of Muslim victimhood and anti-jihadist racism. But the police ordered the Pax Europa organizers to drastically reduce the scope of their event. Everyone was restricted to ten minutes only. Several participants opted not to appear, in light of the manifest danger. Antifa people were attacking supporters of Pax Europa. I saw several individuals being chased by rabid Leftist gangs. At least one man went to the hospital.
The police used loudspeakers to call on Antifa twice to disperse, as Pax Europa had lawfully reserved the space for their event. The Antifa people responded only by moving forward, chanting slogans, banging their drums, and holding aloft the usual Leftist kitsch — Che Guevara, the hammer and sickle, the Palestinian flag, signs denouncing Islamophobia, etc. The police moved them back a bit but did not ask them again to disperse, and allowed the Pax Europa event to begin.
It was an incredible din. We had loudspeakers that appeared to be able to reach the considerable crowd behind the protesters, but the Antifa thugs did all they could to drown us out: the drums got louder, the vuvuzelas came out, they were blowing whistles, and of course they were screaming and yelling. They also started throwing things: bottles, ice, eggs, excrement and more. One bottle narrowly missed the Coptic activist’s head and crashed onto the stage — other bottles crashed at our feet. Several speakers were hit with eggs. The manure they threw was all over the stage floor….