GERMAN CDU SEES "WORLD ETHIC AS IN ROMAN EMPIRE"

Dateline 25th July 2004

Report by the German Journalists of www.german-foreign-policy.com
Translated by Edward Spalton 26 July 2004

INTRODUCTION (Rodney Atkinson): It should be possible to attack the wilder excesses of Islam and indeed the dangers in the modern world of the socio-economic influence of an "unreformed religion" (although many might see certain Christian denominations as equally primitive!) without seeking a Euro-American hegemony over the religious values of the Middle East and Asia. But that is what the (mainly Catholic) German Christian Democrat Party seems to be saying according to this report from Germany. By taking the Roman Empire as the model the CDU are taking up the Charlemagne theme of "The Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation" which is the founding mythology of the European Union (for the Nazi connections with the Charlemagne Prize see News on this website).

It is also disturbing to see an apparently "centrist" German political party talking of a "superior culture" which "globalisation" will spread around the world! Indeed the true definition of globalisation (the international extension of corporatist State control through "organising" trade and State manipulated investment and pricing) is precisely the aim of that "social market" model which the CDU here falsely ascribes to the Anglo Saxon tradition. In fact "social market corporatism" has always been a source of friction between the continental European and Anglo-Saxon traditions!

If the Western nations have a Christian based ethic which has provided wealth and democratic institutions then this should be a model for others freely to imitate - or more plausibly adapt to their own religions and cultures - but their reluctance to do so must not deprive them of genuine free trade and prosperity. But such emancipating relationships with the "free world" have become less and less possible as the "free" world has become more corporatist, controlling and hence collectivist and imperialist in its socio-economic structures.

BERLIN/FRANKFURT AM MAIN: The largest German opposition party
has called for the birth of a new "World Ethic". In a paper published by the Values Commission of the Christian Democrat Party (CDU), it is stated that the moral New Order is due to the "positive forces" of globalisation. In it the "International Social Market Economy" was described as the foundation of a world-embracing moral canon, such as existed in the "Roman Empire". By this means, Rome secured the "unity of its empire" through the "spreading of its superior culture (Leitkultur)".

Today Europe and North America were the bearers of this superior culture. The prominent authors wrote that cultural resources must be deployed in a decisive struggle in which the opponent was the third oldest Religion of the Book in world history with which there is "unbridgable opposition". It was "either the Europeanisation of Islam or the Islamisation of Europe". The launch of the publication coincided with further measures of repression against Muslim religious communities.

The theme paper(*1) contains a foreword by the CDU General Secretary. It was launched to the press by Party Chairman Angela Merkel on 13th July. Frau Merkel is the daughter of a Christian clergyman. As she said herself, the new "World Ethic"(*2) is based on "the Christian view of Mankind" and must be raised to a binding norm in all countries ("universally").

ALLIANCE

Up to now the word in Berlin was that "Islamic fundamentalism" was the obstacle. Now, for the first time "Islam"(*3) in its entirety is attacked with a demand for its final surrender. "Western culture" could succeed "in opening Islam to the universality of the ideal of (Christian) human rights" and the acceptance of the "Western model of civilisation" - thus wrote the largest German opposition party. The values of "The West" are "drafted on a
globally valid basis" and correspond to the "European-American understanding of policy". The CDU promises that whoever, in non Christian cultures, bows down to this understanding can attain to the status of " participant" in the "International Social Market Economy". In this way "a world-wide alliance for freedom, human rights and an International Social Market Economy" would arise.

EQUALITY

The religiously excessive attack on the Islamic oil-producing states is matched by corresponding repression in German internal policy. Following wilful restrictions of religious freedom at a Muslim school in Bonn(*4), two hundred German officials searched a Muslim place of worship in Frankfurt am Main this week. The police, who forced an entry into the Taqwa mosque, "combed through"(*5) the rooms, as the Berlin government expressed it in
military jargon. The cause of this large operation was information by a woman, who said she had heard from a schoolgirl that she had seen a so far unidentified video in the cultural centre which might have contained scenes of violence.

In German school yards and public video stores, hundreds of thousands of videos, DVDs and photographs with violent scenes of all sorts are sold or exchanged daily without being seen as grounds for entry by the responsible legal authorities. At present extremist organisations in Germany are publicly preparing to distribute a propaganda CD in five to six editions. The CD contains neo-Nazi music and aims to recruit new members for Neo-Nazi organisations which are ready to commit acts of violence.

(*1) Globalisierung - Herausforderung an die politische Handlungsfaehigkeit.
Wertekommission der CDU Deutschlands 13.07.2004

(*2) Gegen die Islamierung Europas. CDU Papier ueber die Folgerungen der
Globalisierung - Merkel spricht von "Weltethos". Die Tagespost 15.07.2004

(*3) Globalisierung - Herausforderung an die politische Handlungsfaehigkeit.
Wertekommission der CDU Deutchlands 13.07.2004

(*4) s.dazu Muslime "austrocknen"

(*5), Grossrazzia in marokkanischer Moschee; Die Tageszeitung 13.07.2004