An Emerging Collision Between Right-Wing Extremism with the Norms of Europe

Right-wing protesters took to the streets of Germany yesterday to protest against humanitarian immigration and what they have deemed as a growing influence of Islam in the West. 

But while the racist sentiments of right-wingers were more numerous in Dresden, tolerance and acceptance prevailed over the divisive in Cologne and Berlin, where counter-demonstrators out numbered the anti-immigration voices to reaffirm Germany's policy of inclusiveness and openness to refugees.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has denounced the racist nature of the right-wingers and her Justice Minister, Heiko Maas, marching with counter-demonstrators in Berlin, reaffirmed as reported by Reuters: "Germany is a country where refugees are welcome and the silent majority must not remain silent but rather go out onto the streets and show itself."

Anti-immigration and anti-Muslim rhetoric in Germany has been spun by the right-wing group Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West(PEGIDA). The group has been mounting anti-immigration and anti-Muslim campaigns in the city of Dresden, in east Germany on a weekly basis. Since starting with a few hundred people, yesterday's march brought out 18,000 sympathizers. Yet, in the more progressive, wealthier and more multi-cultural cities of Berlin and Cologne, counter-demonstrators out numbered the right-wingers by ten-fold.

These anti-immigration and anti-Muslim actions are not limited to Germany where there has been more than 70 attacks against Mosques between 2012 and 2014, but right-wing agitation against the norms of Europe are also emerging in Sweden, Hungary, France, Denmark and the United Kingdom(UK).

A recent arson at a Mosque in Sweden gutted the Dawa center in Eskilstuna. It was the worse of three suspected arson attacks against Mosques in Sweden in the last 14 days, the New York Times reported. Also in the UK, there has been an increase in reports of hate crimes against Muslims.

While Cologne Cathedral turned off its lights to protest against the anti-Muslim rallies and in solidarity Berlin's Brandenburg Gate shut off its flood lights, Europe is forced to confront a secondary effect bought on mainly by the Syrian war Bashar al Assad has waged upon his people - dispersing millions to others lands, thus creating destabilizing events from Lebanon, to Jordan, to Sweden, to Germany, to Italy, to Greece and elsewhere.

The Assad acidic effect of the Syrian war and the extremist rise of the Islamic State(IS) have exported fear and confusion to the norms of many communities. And as right-wing groups seek to gain footholds in their respective places, the Assad and IS effect serves up ripe fodder to destabilization.