Should we be worried about Pegida?

Over the last few months, a lot of attention has been focused on what seems to be a rise in right-wing extremism in Germany. How worried should we be?

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[rewboss]

Okay, so it seems that if you want lots of comments really quickly, make a video on a controversial subject, and make it as factual and balanced as you can.

Joking aside, making a video on a hot topic has always been recommended as a way to gain exposure, and this is a case in point: at least Pegida has done me some good.

I mis-spoke when I said Pegida was founded in 2012: my script did say the correct year, 2014, but I didn't notice my mistake until after I uploaded the video.

A more serious problem is the while balance. Seriously, I don't know what happened there: it should have been fine, as I had set it before I started filming, but for whatever reason it came out a little too blue. I tried to correct this in post-production, but not very successfully.

White balance is important: it corrects for different types of lighting, and makes sure that what is supposed to be white actually appears white. Our eyes correct for white balance automatically, but cameras don't: natural light is slightly blue, light from halogen or tungsten sources is slightly yellow, fluorescent light is green. Manually setting white balance should be easy: point the camera at something white (my wife rolled her eyes when I painted my room white, but there was a good reason for it), activate the white balance function and hey presto! Except that this time it didn't quite work, and I looked as if I had been dead for a couple of hours.

[Seegalgalguntijak]

The problem with Pegida is that they see a problem in the Islamic religion, instead of in the violence itself. People who want to be violent find an excuse for it, and if it's their religion (or their nationality, or their favorite soccer or football club, or whether the sport is called soccer or football), then the religion (or nationality, or whatever) is not the cause for those people being violent. Or else we would have to prohibit any kind of religion (nationality, sport, whatever), because any of these old religious texts (or anything a person can identify themselves by against the others) can be interpreted (or acted upon) in a way that advocates violence.
rewboss And I hope I got that  last sentence grammatically correct, or at least understandable ;)

[freesoftwareextremist]

As long as these protests stay peaceful and don't evolve into street fights I don't think we should worry. Everyone has the right to protest.

[worldz]

Nice video, it was definitely about time Someone from the german life channels  did a video on this. Kinda glad it was here. I do think it is a bit incongruent to have an anti-right wing extremist rally with actual right wing extremists in the same rally XD

[spruill]

I'm interested to know about how the NPD or AfD feels about the issue?

[uncinarynin]

Thank you for staying objective and neutral in your description of the phenomenon.
You might consider closing the comment section of this video if a battle should happen to break out here, as it did in the comments to so many reports about the demonstrations, counter-demonstrations and so on. The topic is dividing the population in two and there are very few who don't have a strong opinion one way or another. (I do have one but I don't think it would be wise to mention it here, especially after such a nicely unbiased report.)

[MichaelEllisOfTenDeg]

If they are the people, who am I then?

[TheAnonymmynona]

because of your translation of "Wir sind das Volk" to "We are the people" i stumbled upon that there sems to be no good direct translation for "Volk"
and i asked myself is there in english speaking countries a similar concept or not?

[mrrogers]

stand strong pegida stand strong don't back down, or  you will lose Germany for political correctness and Political correctness means to advance lies when truth can hurt someone’s sensitivity and he may turn violent. don't be scared you have to take Germany back 

[KtBdOKW]

Rather fair and balanced roundup of PEGIDA.
One could easily replace PEGIDA with the EDL and their connections to UKIP or the BNP. Should one be worried to visit England then ?
Just my two Cents.

[gnawershreth]

It's a bit odd but maybe historically understandable that Germany seems so black and white on certain topics. When it comes to topics like the immigration crisis it always seems like everyone *must* take a stance. Either you're good or you're essentially a Nazi. To me as a non-German that's obviously ludicrous.

I'm a Danish left winger but I have no issue with Pegida going for a walk. It's a democracy.. Why shouldn't they be free to feel a certain way or going for a walk? I mean, I can do the exact same thing and I'm no more infallible than other people.

I've been invited to several counter-marches or whatever you call them by other left wingers but I've never accepted the offer. I don't like Nazi marches and stuff, but as long as they obey the law, I have no interest in silencing them. I value free speech. I don't have to agree with everyone else to "allow" them to have the same rights and freedoms as I have. Silencing others don't belong in a democracy in my opinion. If they want to wander around town and say "Europe for Europeans" or whatever so be it. It doesn't hurt anyone. As long as they're not advocating killing people or anything like that, what they're doing is perfectly legal.

I think it gets scary and dangerous when parts of a society silences other parts and criminalizes their views. Authoritarianism is never a good thing in my opinion, regardless of which political wing does it. It's also why the right (on immigration issues) is growing so fast. When normal people start seeing immigration issues and only the far right actually talks about the glaringly obvious issues, people start supporting them. It doesn't mean they're all suddenly Nazis or anything. It just means the rest of the political parties need to wake up and face reality or risk a really strong far-right. Pretending a problem doesn't exist won't make it go away.

[MonicaTheMad]

Hadn't heard anything about  this movement. Thanks, Andrew.

[jakub]

Die beste und sachlichste Beschreibung von Pegida seit langem. Super video 👍

[Globscho]

For my part I'm ashamed of PEGIDA and I really hope that people in other coundtrys don't see the PEGIDA guys as the majority. Pls don't think we are all like that. We like our visitorsfrom all over the world and it's always a joy to learn about new cultures

[Kartoffelkamm]

i have a serious question: (wait, that only needs to be written under a applewar video, but hey, i wrote it, wo why delete it?) my question is: is there something wrong with your under lip? i think its moving weird when u zoom the camera to your face. other question: do u do all the work yourself or do u have help? if u have help, who helps u? why dont u make a Q&A video? or a video with 50, or at least 10 facts about yourself? do u like my little pony? do u look forward to bionicles return? (and yes, i am just asking questions as they come to my mind, but i would like to have them answered) can u make more videos where u say german words? for example: "10 short english words with long german translations" or "10 short german words with long english translations" is there a youtuber already making analyzing videos about songs? (maybe i could do that, i know a lot of songs i want to talk about with others, but noone i know personaly knows them) what is your favourite fantasy creature? fantasy or sci-fi? why? would u like to have a light saber or a pet dragon? do u like cats or dogs more? is there any other animal u like? if u could chosse from one creature known to mankind, if it exists or not, u can have as pet, which one would it be? u know what? i just thought about getting started with questions :) is your cannel´s name just a combination of andREW BOSSom or is there any deeper sense behind tat? would u like to meet batman or obama? do u like pokemon? what pokemon do u think of when u read the word pokemon? what is your first thought when u see the commercial of a new show? would u jugde it from what was shown in the commercial or watch at least one full episode? what is your favourite movie? are these questions annoying u? would u like to be king in a magical kingdom or ruler of the world? do u wonder why i write "u" isntead of "you"? do u have any difficulties talking to germans? did u have difficulties when u first came to germany? how did u learn german? why did u come here? do u like parties? because i hate them, they r loud, annoying and keep me from fun stuff. i mean, a cake now and then is fine, but do u have to throw a party to buy a cake? i guess not. i mean, u can eat burgers outside of mcdonalds, so why throw a party when u want cake`? with my birthday being in a few days, and all the guests that come, im not very happy around that time of the year. so close to the beginning of the year, which is just a day after the end of the last year, where everyone spends as much money as they normaly do in 2 months, just to have a loud and blinding bright explosion for not even 3 seconds. seriously, where is the reason of this? better save those things for the zombies. and yes, there will be a zomby apocalypse, every gamer knows that. and who thinks the explosives r to kill the zombies: nope, they just distract them so we can run and hide and search for quiet meele weapons like swords, axes and shovels. ok, u need to sharpen the edges of the shovel to get a, at least thats the german word, lobotomizer. (who the hell thought of that word? like: "quick, grab the lobotomizer!" "What?" and u get eaten by zombies.)

[mythinktube]

Don't yet know how I feel about Pegida. I am against Islamic extremism so why should I be against Pegida? However, these kinds of groups are nearly always poisoned by an overly right wing agenda and soon lose all credibility by the nation. At the same time it sickens me how under the spell of polical correctness the whole of EU is. I feel all religions are dangerous but if I were to publically include Islam in this I would instantly be labelled a racist and almost certainly face possible muslim violence. The radicals must love this! It doesn't matter whether a large majority of Muslims are peaceful people, still the danger of fundamentalist Christians or the IRA pales in comparisn. That's just an exampled fact. 

As for Islam, I honestly feel it needs to go through some serious global reform, just as Christian has done in the last 100 or so years, if it is even going to tackle radicalisation. But by its own strict nature this is almost never going to happen. I fear the violence is only going to get worse until the sand that people bury their heads in literally gets blown away. 

I fear for the future I really do.

[dan]

Very well put.  I hadn't heard of Pegida, but then my relatives there aren't very political and live in an area that apparently hasn't been effective.  

[princekrazie]

I wish the media would stop demonizing these people and actually report what they say/believe.

I wonder what's the situation now, eight years later...

[moatl]

Auf alle Fälle haben wir dieser Entwicklung das Unwort des Jahres 2014 zu »verdanken«: »Lügenpresse«…
Pegida war offensichtlich nicht bewusst, dass dieser Begriff bereits eine ungute Historie hatte.

Alles im allem aber eine gute und faire Zusammenfassung; Danke.