by Barbara Hans and Julia Jüttner
The experiment was a success and an escalation of violence was the result. And that is exactly how the right-wing mini-party Pro-NRW wants it. The Saturday march was one of a series of 25 such events, at which the group displayed anti-Islam caricatures in front of Muslim facilities.
Provocation has been part of Pro-NRW's campaign as elections this weekend in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia approach. "Of course it was part of the campaign," Pro-NRW spokesman Markus Wiener told SPIEGEL ONLINE earlier this week. On the other side of the divide, Salafists, too, are eager to attract attention.
Indeed, Salafists and right-wing extremists are more similar than one might immediately assume based on the weekend clash in Bonn. Both groups hope to profit from such displays of power.
"The Salafists' violent attacks corroborate the image Pro-NRW has of Islam as a violent religion," says Uwe Backes, deputy director of the Hannah Arendt Institute for the Research on Totalitarianism at Dresden University of Technology. The extremist group sees the Salafists' assaults on the police as irrefutable proof of the veracity of their beliefs.
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2:36 AM
Moderate Islamist here
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