Pegida had weak point from the beginning “- Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet

Pegida had weak point from the beginning "- Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet

The weeks after Christmas aggregate Pegida once again tens of thousands of demonstrators who marched against the alleged Islamisation of the West, in the light of headlights and television cameras from around the world.

Probably it was the culmination on a motion in October 2014 struck like a bolt from the blue, first with only 350 protesters and so on January 25 with a record figure of 25,000 who flocked to Dresden.

Operating weak point was from the outset that the formulated a deeply rooted dissatisfaction with the established policies but lacked a goal. It was like a valve for pent discomfort, fear of immigration and globalization, and dissatisfaction with the political establishment, including the media.

But eventually set themselves the question: How do we proceed?

The ruling came earlier than expected. In mid-January showed up pictures that showed Pegidas gallionsfigur with Hitler mustache and side parting. Days later threw Lutz Bachmann in the towel. At the same time resigned the less radical frontman Kathrin Oertel to found a new conservative movement dubbed “Direct Democracy in Europe”.

What is now left of Pegida is largely the xenophobic wing which increasingly appears as controlled by right-wing extremists and Islam hostile forces. Just as in western Germany, where offshoots that Dugiga (Düsseldorf), Bogida (Bonn) or Bragida (Braunschweig) is dominated by right-wing groups like Pro NRW.

Researchers agree to Pegida is on its way to insignificance. “It was a quick flare-up phenomenon that probably disappears as quickly as it came,” believe Dieter Rucht at Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin researching the protest movements.

Still unclear is how the discontent that has made Pegida strong will be channeled into future. The uncertainty contributes to the lack of a clear picture of the movement’s composition. Several surveys indicate that participants mainly from the bourgeois middle class. They have higher education and earns more than the average in Germany.

But studies have major flaws. Just a few of those surveyed wanted to set up. Among them are probably not the ones who feel threatened by immigrants or by job losses in the wake of the eastern expansion that has been detected strongly in eastern Germany. Neither neo-Nazis who have strongholds in several of eastern Germany’s smaller cities and rural areas.

Supporters unclear profile makes it difficult to predict if the movement is on the way to extinction. Or if it changes direction and turning from diffuse protest to what could eventually become a new party, the far right of Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic CDU but not alien enemy.

A first hint gives Kathrin Oertels new movement “Direct Democracy in Europe “on Sunday holds its first demonstration – of course in Dresden.