CINA

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"Enjoy" the weekend reading, although the subject is almost unbearable!!!
The following nasty feature has been published last Monday in Germany's notable (bourgeois) magazine Der Spiegel:

The Village Where the Neo-Nazis Rule

Hitler salutes in the street and firing practice in the forest: Neo-Nazis have taken over an entire village in Germany, and authorities appear to have given up efforts to combat the problem. The place has come to symbolize the far right's growing influence in parts of the former communist (i.e. "real socialist" and NOT communist!!) east.

Horst and Birgit Lohmeyer have been working on their life's dream for six years, renovating a house in the woods near Jamel, a tiny village near Wismar in the far northeastern German state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Birgit Lohmeyer writes crime novels, her husband is a musician, and both try to pretend everything is normal here in Jamel.

It wasn't easy to find their new home. The Lohmeyers spent months driving out to the countryside every weekend, heading east from where they lived in Hamburg, but most of the houses they saw were too expensive. Then they came across the inexpensive red brick farmhouse in Jamel. Slightly run-down, but not far from the Baltic Sea, the house sits surrounded by lime and maple trees, near a lake.

The Lohmeyers knew that a notorious neo-Nazi lived nearby -- Sven Krüger, a demolition contractor and high-level member of the far-right National Democratic Party (NPD). What the Lohmeyers didn't know was that other neighbors felt terrorized by Krüger. He and his associates were in the process of buying up the entire village.

Jamel is an example of the far-right problem that has plagued Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania for years. The rural region, once part of communist East Germany, has a poor reputation in this regard -- the NPD, which glorifies the Third Reich, has been in the state parliament since 2006 and neo-Nazi crimes are part of daily life. In recent months, a series of attacks against politicians from all the democratic parties has shaken the state. Sometimes hardly a week goes by without an attack on another electoral district office, with paint bombs, right-wing graffiti and broken windows.

Norbert Nieszery, leader of the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) in the state parliament, calls it an "early form of terror." Nieszery's own office windows have been smashed twice. State Interior Minister Lorenz Caffier of the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) says he has registered a "new level" of right-wing extremist violence. He believes the NPD is trying to raise its profile through aggressive behavior ahead of the state parliament election in September. One local mayor requested police protection after receiving repeated right-wing threats. The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Germany's domestic intelligence agency, has warned that the NPD is becoming increasingly influential in local municipalities and that the neo-Nazis are trying to entrench themselves in daily life.

Mounting Concern About Far-Right Influence

Nowhere have they succeeded as well as in Jamel. If the right-wing extremists left, the village would be empty. Jamel is no longer just a problem at the regional or federal state level -- even Berlin is growing concerned about the situation.

SPD member Wolfgang Thierse, vice president of Germany's federal parliament, the Bundestag, visited the village a few months ago. He spent half an hour in the Lohmeyers' living room and promised to support them in their fight against the neo-Nazis. So far, nothing has changed. Jamel has come to symbolize the fact that there are places in Germany where right-wing extremists can do virtually whatever they want.

When the Lohmeyers moved here in 2004, they started to fix up their country house and to make contact with the neighbors -- although not with the neo-Nazi Krüger. They were sure right-wing extremists wouldn't be the only people in Jamel.

Only gradually did they realize just where they had ended up. Plaster crumbled from many of the houses in the village and one roof had collapsed completely. Beer bottles, car tires and gas canisters were littered behind the bus stop. There were metal fences surrounding some properties and attack dogs strained against their chains in the front yards. No one bothered to remove the swastika scribbled on the sign at the entrance to the village.

Children Giving Hitler Salute

There were young men with shaved heads and army trousers in the village and Nazi rock music could be heard from across the fields on the weekends. Shots sounded from the woods, where the neo-Nazis practiced their shooting -- police later found bullet casings in trenches there. When the Lohmeyers walked through the village, children raised their hands in the Nazi salute.

Krüger has shaped the village. He grew up here, with a father who was known as a right-wing radical and who used to make his son salute each morning in the snow. Young Krüger was an outsider at school, an acquaintance remembers, and didn't find friends until he joined the skinhead scene. As a young man, he incited right-wing thugs to attack a campsite and spent time in pre-trial detention on suspicion of burglary. Still, for a long time, the Krügers were the only neo-Nazis in the village.

"Now," says Horst Lohmeyer, "they see Jamel as a 'nationally liberated zone'" -- a neo-Nazi term for places foreigners and those of foreign descent must fear to tread. The extremists took over the village in just a few years. They now own seven of the 10 houses and have driven out anyone who couldn't come to terms with them. They battered down doors and broke windows, slashed tires, flew the German imperial war flag and celebrated Hitler's birthday. In the 1990s, they stuck dead chickens on one family's garden fence with the warning, "We'll smoke you out."

The village emptied and Krüger encouraged his right-wing friends to buy the available houses. Few others dared to venture into Jamel anymore. Neo-Nazis greeted one couple that wanted to move there with "Piss off" -- and the couple's house burned down shortly before they planned to move in. One new property owner dared to set foot in the village only accompanied by police.

The Lohmeyers have made it their life's work not to let themselves be driven out of Jamel. Each year, they host a rock festival on a field behind their house. Governor Erwin Sellering of the SPD has been patron of the festival since 2009. Police fence in the area and guard the entrance, and in past years, things remained largely calm.

Help is Far Away

This summer, though, neo-Nazis jumped over the fence, yelling slurs and attacking concertgoers. Police stepped in and stopped the troublemakers. But police can't always protect the Lohmeyers -- the nearest station is 12 kilometers away.

Horst Lohmeyer sits in his kitchen, bent over a map, and runs his finger along the roads and through the towns -- Gressow, Neu Degtow, Grevesmühlen. It takes a quarter of an hour to reach the nearest police station. When Krüger got married this summer, the village was inundated with several hundred right-wing extremists from Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland, including a number of high-ranking NPD politicians such as Stefan Köster, NPD party head for Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.

Jamel has become a right-wing pilgrimage site -- they come from all over Europe to see the village where neo-Nazis call the shots. They celebrated Krüger's wedding until late in the night, with nationalist rock music and fireworks. The Lohmeyers lay awake in bed, frozen with fear.

Mayor Uwe Wandel is helpless in the face of the right-wing movement in his community. He sounds bitter when he talks about Jamel. "The police, the authorities, no one dares to intervene," he says. "The Nazis are laughing in our faces." Wandel says he has repeatedly asked the state government for help. The interior minister and a parliamentary delegation came by one time, he adds. "They stayed for 20 minutes, expressed concern -- then they left again."

No One Responsible

Jamel has become a lawless place, Wandel complains, and the authorities don't take decisive enough action against the right-wing extremists. He says Krüger is allowed to dump demolition waste and burn trash in the village with impunity. The head of the department of public order in nearby Grevesmühlen says higher-level officials at the district level need to tackle the problem. They in turn say the local authority is responsible for Jamel.

Krüger, meanwhile, has much bigger plans. He has been a member of the district council for the NPD since 2009 and has bought parts of a concrete factory in Grevesmühlen, which he uses for his NPD office and his demolition company. The company logo shows the outline of a Star of David being smashed; the slogan is, "We do the dirty work." Barbed wire encloses the factory premises and dogs bark. A sign above the entrance reads, "Better dead than a slave." Krüger prefers not to comment on the accusations against him. All he says is, "Nothing that's written about me is true. I don't stand a chance against the system."

Krüger has hired new employees in the last few months. He gets contracts from fellow members of the far-right scene, but also from local businesses. Mayor Wandel says he's appalled by how far these right-wing structures now extend. "I'm afraid of a second, third, fourth Jamel," he says.

Neo-Nazis placed a boulder at the entrance to the village. A plaque attached to the rock reads, "Village of Jamel - free, social, national." Signs next to it point the way to Hitler's birthplace ("Braunau am Inn 855 km") and to the formerly German cities of Breslau (now Wroclaw in Poland) and Königsberg (now Kaliningrad, Russia). No one has removed the rock. "We've given up on Jamel," Wandel says.

Only the Lohmeyers are left.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,737471,00.html

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The following article was published in today's (bourgeois) Korea Times:
 

Temporary workers struggle to regain jobs

Jan.05: Workers eat lunch during a sit-in protest in a building of Hongik University in Seoul

More than 30 janitors and cleaning ladies in their 50s and 60s have been holding a sit-in protest in the main building of Hongik University in Seoul for four days since Monday morning, demanding the school withdraw the collective termination of their employment contracts.

Despite freezing weather, they have been eating and sleeping on the cold floor of the Munheon Building on the campus. The first floor of the building was full of workers Wednesday; some chatting with one another and others preparing for another long, cold night. Many were busy preparing meals for everyone, while others were worried about their family back home.

“I worked at Hongik University for five years, and some have been here even longer, and the school told us to leave without any advance notice,” said Seo Bok-deok, 57, who was making coffee for fellow workers sitting on mats covering the cold concrete floors.
 

“I do wish we could have negotiations with the school, but they have not said anything,” she added.
 

Structural problems

The seeds of dispute were sown when 170 janitors, cleaners and guards of the school formed a labor union on Dec. 1 and demanded higher wages and better working conditions.

They were not directly hired by the school but were working for the school through contracts signed with two labor-supply companies. At the call for higher wages, the service companies asked the school to reflect their demand on contracts between the companies and school.

However, the school refused to sign the contracts, and the labor-supplying companies in turn informed the workers of the termination of contracts on Dec. 31.

The workers said they have been working, receiving hourly wages of 4,120 won, which is lower than the minimum legal wage of 4,320 won, and the school wanted them to extend the contract under the same conditions.

School officials refused to talk to reporters. They have maintained the position that the workers are not the party with which the school should talk with, as they were not directly hired by it.

Non-permanent workers

The conflict at the university is the latest in a series of labor disputes involving temporary workers. From top conglomerates and small mom-and-pop businesses, a growing number of employers are relying on these temporary workers as they can hire them at far lower wages.

The dispute at Hongik University reflects that the problem of non-regular workers is developing into a social issue that encompasses all generations from the youth to the elderly, analysts said.

According to the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), many schools have gone through such disputes with workers’ unions over the past couple of years.

Some 90 workers at Dongguk University were sacked after the school switched to a different service company, but it agreed to rehire them after they held days of demonstrations and sit-ins in December.

“The problem is that the universities usually avoid negotiations, claiming they are not the direct employers. The only way to solve this is to have them realize that the school is actually in charge of hiring and employing workers,” said Ryu Nam-mi, a policy director from the Preparation Committee for KCTU.

The student council at the school expressed their stance Thursday, saying that it in principle supports the workers who were fighting for their rights. It claimed that it was a matter to be solved between the school, workers and the contractors, indicating that the labor umbrella group should not meddle in the case.

Earlier the student council issued a statement that criticized the workers for their alliance with the militant KCTU in their struggle against the school, claiming that such protests could negatively affect the school’s reputation.

Most of the workers at Hongik worked 50 hours per week, receiving a monthly wage of 750,000 won plus 300 won for lunch a day.
When asked what she hoped for her and her fellow workers, Seo’s voice shook a bit, both from the cold and disappointment.

“There’s nothing complicated about it. We have received nothing prior to the layoffs. What more can we want? We just want our jobs back,” she said.

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2011/01/117_79288.html

Today's struggle rally in front of Hongik University's main building
 

Today's related reports:
☞ 홍익대 총학생회, 청소노동자 집회 난입 외부세력 운운
☞ 홍익대 집단해고에 맞선 점거농성 3일차 투쟁보고

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Yesterday's Hankyoreh had the following report (oddly enough filed under "entertainment"):

Harsh retribution

Female subcontractors that maintain and clean school facilities in Hongik University, Seoul, engage in a sit-in demonstration in front of the president’s office, demanding a meeting with the president and withdrawal of dismissals, Jan. 3.

Around 170 subcontractors in their 50s and 60s were fired last month as the university management terminated a contract with the service company that hired them. It was just several days after they organized a labor union in early December. The contracts of the subcontractors who were charge of cleaning, maintenance and security were in place since 1998 when South Korea was hit by foreign currency crisis, even though the service company hiring them changed. The only defense at this time was the fact that they made a labor union for improving treatment.

The workers usually worked from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. but earned a net income of about 750,000 Won ($668) and just 9,000 Won for lunch a month. They have shown strong determination to continue sits-in until they can work again...

http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_entertainment/457145.html

Related articles:
☞ 홍익대 청소·경비·시설노동자 170명 학교 점거 (KCTU, 1.04)
☞ 홍익대 청소노동자, 88만원 ‘노년’세대를 보다 (NewsCham, 1.05)


Student's solidarity with the worker's struggle (agitprop):

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N. Korea celebrates the New Year("Juche 100") with a new stamp, issued last Sunday...
 

...and the "Joint New Year's Editorial"(*) with 'brandnew'(^^) propaganda posters:
 

"Let Us Thoroughly Implement the Joint New Year Editorial!"


"Exert Every Effort Once Again for Improving the People′s Standard of Living!"

* The same bullshit has been celebrated y'day with a mass rally at Pyongyang's Kim Il-sung Square "held to vow to implement Militant Tasks for 2011", according to KCNA:
 

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GAZA YOUTH’S MANIFESTO FOR CHANGE

An anonymous group of young people, men and women, in Gaza have issued a manifesto what they called "Gaza Youth's Manifesto for Change" to vent their anger about the current situation in Palestine, especially the Gaza Strip. On Facebook, the group calls itself "Gaza Youth Breaks Out" (*).

One activist explained "We are supposed to be the engine of change in this society, but our voices are muted. In the press, at university, there is no room in our society to talk freely, out of the frame, without putting yourself and your family at risk," He adds: "In Gaza, you feel watched at school, in the streets, everywhere. You can be thrown into jail at any time. [Hamas] will threaten you with ruining your family reputation and that would be it."

These youngsters do not represent anybody except themselves, but their call for change has resonated strongly, not only abroad but also inside Gaza. Their Facebook page already has thousands of supporters.

Here you can read the full text of the "Manifesto":

Fuck Hamas. Fuck Israel. Fuck Fatah. Fuck the UN. Fuck the USA!

 
We, the youth in Gaza, are so fed up with Israel, Hamas, the occupation, the violations of human rights and the indifference of the international community!

 
We want to scream and break this wall of silence, injustice and indifference like the Israeli F16’s breaking the wall of sound; scream with all the power in our souls in order to release this immense frustration that consumes us because of this fucking situation we live in; we are like lice between two nails living a nightmare inside a nightmare, no room for hope, no space for freedom.

 
We are sick of being caught in this political struggle; sick of coal dark nights with airplanes circling above our homes; sick of innocent farmers getting shot in the buffer zone because they are taking care of their lands; sick of bearded guys walking around with their guns abusing their power, beating up or incarcerating young people demonstrating for what they believe in; sick of the wall of shame that separates us from the rest of our country and keeps us imprisoned in a stamp-sized piece of land; sick of being portrayed as terrorists, homemade fanatics with explosives in our pockets and evil in our eyes; sick of the indifference we meet from the international community, the so-called experts in expressing concerns and drafting resolutions but cowards in enforcing anything they agree on; we are sick and tired of living a shitty life, being kept in jail by Israel, beaten up by Hamas and completely ignored by the rest of the world.

 
There is a revolution growing inside of us, an immense dissatisfaction and frustration that will destroy us unless we find a way of canalizing this energy into something that can challenge the status quo and give us some kind of hope. The final drop that made our hearts tremble with frustration and hopelessness happened 30rd November, when Hamas’ officers came to Sharek Youth Forum, a leading youth organization with their guns, lies and aggressiveness, throwing everybody outside, incarcerating some and prohibiting Sharek from working. A few days later, demonstrators in front of Sharek were beaten and some incarcerated. We are really living a nightmare inside a nightmare. It is difficult to find words for the pressure we are under. We barely survived the Operation Cast Lead, where Israel very effectively bombed the shit out of us, destroying thousands of homes and even more lives and dreams. They did not get rid of Hamas, as they intended, but they sure scared us forever and distributed post traumatic stress syndrome to everybody, as there was nowhere to run.

 
We are youth with heavy hearts. We carry in ourselves a heaviness so immense that it makes it difficult to us to enjoy the sunset. How to enjoy it when dark clouds paint the horizon and bleak memories run past our eyes every time we close them? We smile in order to hide the pain. We laugh in order to forget the war. We hope in order not to commit suicide here and now. During the war we got the unmistakable feeling that Israel wanted to erase us from the face of the earth. During the last years Hamas has been doing all they can to control our thoughts, behaviour and aspirations. We are a generation of young people used to face missiles, carrying what seems to be a impossible mission of living a normal and healthy life, and only barely tolerated by a massive organization that has spread in our society as a malicious cancer disease, causing mayhem and effectively killing all living cells, thoughts and dreams on its way as well as paralyzing people with its terror regime. Not to mention the prison we live in, a prison sustained by a so-called democratic country.

 
History is repeating itself in its most cruel way and nobody seems to care. We are scared. Here in Gaza we are scared of being incarcerated, interrogated, hit, tortured, bombed, killed. We are afraid of living, because every single step we take has to be considered and well-thought, there are limitations everywhere, we cannot move as we want, say what we want, do what we want, sometimes we even cant think what we want because the occupation has occupied our brains and hearts so terrible that it hurts and it makes us want to shed endless tears of frustration and rage!

 
We do not want to hate, we do not want to feel all of this feelings, we do not want to be victims anymore. ENOUGH! Enough pain, enough tears, enough suffering, enough control, limitations, unjust justifications, terror, torture, excuses, bombings, sleepless nights, dead civilians, black memories, bleak future, heart aching present, disturbed politics, fanatic politicians, religious bullshit, enough incarceration! WE SAY STOP! This is not the future we want!

 
We want three things:

 
We want to be free!
We want to be able to live a normal life!
We want peace!

Is that too much to ask? We are a peace movement consistent of young people in Gaza and supporters elsewhere that will not rest until the truth about Gaza is known by everybody in this whole world and in such a degree that no more silent consent or loud indifference will be accepted.

This is the Gazan youth’s manifesto for change!

 
We will start by destroying the occupation that surrounds ourselves, we will break free from this mental incarceration and regain our dignity and self respect. We will carry our heads high even though we will face resistance. We will work day and night in order to change these miserable conditions we are living under. We will build dreams where we meet walls.

We want to be free, we want to live, we want peace.

 
FREE GAZA YOUTH!

* For more info please check out:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Gaza-Youth-Breaks-Out-GYBO/118914244840679

Related article:
☞ Gazan youth issue manifesto... (Guardian, 1.02)


 

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Last Friday (New Year's Eve) S. Korean newspapers (JoongAng and Chosun Ilbo, but also Hankyoreh etc.) favoured us with a very special feat of journalism:

"The Dear Leader Opens a Wardrobe"

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il is pictured comfortably opening a closet with his left hand, despite reports that he had difficulty using his left hand after a stroke, in video footage released by the Korean Central Television, Dec. 29. On this day during a formal visit to a construction site along the Daedong River of apartments for artists in Pyongyang, Oct. 8, Kim examined their closets. (Yonhap News Agency via Hankyoreh)

Related trash"documentary":
☞ Kim Jong-il and Kim Jong-un are visiting families (KCTV, Nov. 2010)
Related article (actually also TRASH!!):
☞ N.Korea Releases Footage of Kim Jong-il Using Left Hand (Chosun Ilbo, 12.31)