Jojo Rabbit’s hard truth for deadly racists
As the anniversary of the Christchurch mosque shootings nears, the world has had a reminder of the ominous threat of extremist violence. At Hanau in Germany, nine people of immigrant heritage were murdered in the third major far-right attack in the country in recent months. A promigrant politician was shot dead last June, and a synagogue in Halle was attacked in October.
After the latest attack, thousands of people attended vigils across Germany. A gunman with apparent far-right beliefs had targeted a shisha (hookah) bar and cafe. Among the dead were Turkish citizens.
Chief federal prosecutor Peter Frank said a manifesto showed the suspect, Tobias Rathjen, 43, had a “deeply racist worldview”. A federal terrorism investigation has been opened. Rathjen, who was legally able to have firearms, was found dead at his home after the rampage.
Counter-terrorism expert Peter Neumann, of King’s College, London, said the manifesto contained “mostly extreme-right views, with a doit-yourself ideology cobbled together out of parts found on the internet”.
Germany’s Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said the danger from far-right extremism, anti-Semitism and racism was “very high” and the “biggest security threat facing Germany”. Police are being deployed to mosques, transport hubs and other sites.
Seehofer spoke of an attack against migrants in 2016 in Munich and seven years of killings by an anti-foreigner group called the National Socialist Underground. “Since the NSU and the rampage in Munich through today, an extreme-right trail of blood has run through our country.”
German intelligence agencies estimate thousands of far-right extremists are in the country. Islamic terrorists have killed 17 people in Germany since 2011. Far-right ideas have a mainstream outlet through the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party which has 10 to 15 per cent support in polls, 89 seats in the Lower House and regional MPs.
Politicians accuse the AfD of pushing antiimmigrant views. This month, police arrested 12 extremists allegedly plotting mosque attacks similar to the Christchurch outrage.
At a ceremony to remember the victims of the Nazis, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said hatred and abuse were spreading. Problems of the past were “raising their ugly heads again . . .”
Kiwi director Taika Waititi’s Academy Awardwinning film Jojo Rabbit, about Nazism at the end of World War II, has interesting points to make about extremism and living through difficult times.
Jojo Rabbit features Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke’s words: “Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.”
Amidst horror, hatred and chaos, moments of joy and hope can escape and bloom. And time will turn something once grimly powerful into history.
Extremist violence, whether in Germany or Christchurch, is ultimately futile, despite the suffering caused.
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