German left needs to refocus

In Berlin last weekend over 100,000 people swamped the centre of the city to protest at her government's deal with RWE, E.on and two other atomic energy giants to maintain Germany's nuclear power sector.

In a meeting with industry leaders she had smiled sweetly while agreeing to keep the 17 atomic power plants operating for an additional 12 to 15 years - meaning until 2040 at the earliest - while the extra taxes that had earlier been demanded of them would now be reduced to a minimum.

Merkel did not just cave in completely. She totally ignored and embarrassed young Ecology Minister Norbert Ruettgen, from her own party, who had promised there would be no such far-reaching deals. He lost out to Economics Minister Rainer Bruederle, from coalition partner the Free Democrats, who cared less about public opinion.

The Free Democrats have lost so much support through their utter disregard for all but the wealthy that current polls suggest they would find it hard to reach even 5 per cent needed to enter the next Bundestag. But that election is not due until 2013.

Media coverage of the nuclear debate has ignored a string of failures in Germany's ageing nuclear sector and the dangers posed by the mine where radioactive waste is stored.

Instead they've focused on the potential job losses if the nuclear plants are shut down sooner.

Mentions of Chernobyl have also been carefully avoided in the press, but not at the huge demonstration on September 18.

And Germany's nuclear programme is not the only source of dissent.

Many Germans, like their counterparts elsewhere, are enraged that banks which were bailed out with taxpayers' money are shamelessly reverting to their pre-crisis ways, including doling out huge bonuses.

This has not helped the government's popularity. Nor has its plans for a big rise in the amount people have to pay for medical coverage.

The slick minister of health, with a smile worthy of his boss Merkel, has tried to camouflage his plans beneath fancy words. But they all add up to higher payments for working people and less for the wealthy.

It is the Social Democrats (SPD) and the Greens who have been the main beneficiaries. The SPD is slowly regaining the ground it lost so disastrously in last year's elections, while the Greens have climbed into a position where they might be the top party in the city-state of Berlin and head a coalition government there after elections next year.

With the help of the media, now occasionally more critical of the government, the past record of the SPD and Greens seems to have been forgotten. It was they, when in government, who made cuts in living standards, who raised the pension age to 67, who cut help for the jobless, who increased VAT but cut taxes for the wealthy and the corporations.

Even the time limits the former government placed on atomic power plants, now to be dropped, were a weak compromise. It was while Social Democrats and Greens were in charge that construction of many of the plants began.

It should be The Left party that is growing rapidly. It is the only Bundestag party with a clean record on economic issues, on military spending, foreign adventures in Afghanistan, and atomic power.

However it it has been preoccupied with internal probnlems. Its presence in the demonstrations on atomic power and the Stuttgart railroad station was hardly visible, while the media does what it can to downplay its representatives.

It has been debating questions like the need to change the social system, the pros and cons of joining government coalitions and participation in future UN military actions. These are important, no doubt, but they are hardly issues that will bring lots of people out onto the streets, as in France or Greece. Those who support The Left can only hope that it will get its act together and start fighting on the issues urgent to people here and now.

The need for such struggles is underlined by the menace posed by a possible new party of the right appealing to nationalism, anti-immigrant sentiments and Islamophobia.

This danger is growing in many countries, from rabid Tea Party followers in the US to some boroughs of Berlin and to cities in the Netherlands, Britain and now Sweden, where the far-right Sweden Democrats, a new party, had marked success this week.

In Germany the right-wing media has fuelled a debate around the anti-Turkish, anti-Arab racism of banker Thilo Sarrazin, and statements by the head of an organisation claiming to represent Germans thrown out of Poland and other eastern countries after World War II.

Their opinions have found a frightening resonance, even among some top men in the SPD - the party Sarrazin still belongs to despite plans to throw him out.

It has been estimated that 10 to 20 per cent of Germans would respond positively to such demagogues.

The dangers are great. Democratic-minded Germans have shown a willingness to fight back.

However focusing on the right issues and the right way forward is now more urgent than ever.