Thursday
Nov132014
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill The murky past of the German greens
Nov 13, 2014 Greens Pierre Gosselin points us to an appalling story about the German Green party:
The Green Party on Wednesday apologized to victims of sexual abuse for its support of paedophilic groups in the 1980s.
"We deeply regret these events that are included in our early party history," Green co-president Simone Peter said at the presentation of a report on the party's past.
An election platform from the Alternative Green Initiative List (AGIL), the Green party's predecessor, took on the interests of paedophiles by suggesting that sex with minors should be decriminalised, providing the sex was free from violence or the threat of violence.
I'll leave the comments open, but please watch your step if you do contribute. I will be moderating tightly.
Reader Comments (29)
Harriet Harperson should do the same
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10666473/Harriet-Harman-increasingly-isolated-as-Patricia-Hewitt-says-sorry-for-her-own-role-in-paedophile-controversy.html
But then hypocrisy is her middle name, campaigns as a Feminist but secures her husband a safe Labour seat with a women only shortlist.
Pressure groups are often desperate for support in their early days, and equally as often are not too careful about where that support comes from. The ends justify the means and my enemies enemy is my friend taken to their logical conclusions. The apology is a bit late in my opinion.
I don't think we should be too hard on the modern Greens. More reputable organisations than them have been "tainted" by association with paedophile groups in the past.
The 70s were in some ways more liberal than now (in a lot of ways when you think about it) and, as some Labour politicians are saying still, giving paedophiles the right to hold the view they do/did does not necessarily imply that you approve(d) of them.
One thing that has stifled all sorts of social intercourse in the last 20 years or so is the increased tendency of the PC-brigade (forgive the shorthand cliché) to go out of its way to ban any activity — thought, speech, action — of which it does not approve.
When that happens it becomes very difficult to know where to draw a line. Add to that child abuse fact and fiction (think Rochdale and Orkney) over the same period and you end up, as now, with groups apologising for something that really has nothing to do with them and for which they cannot be blamed.
There are plenty of things we can berate the Greens for without laying paedophilia at their door.
Mike Jackson said:
I don't think we should be too hard on the modern Greens. More reputable organisations than them have been "tainted" by association with paedophile groups in the past.
On the contrary, we should be hard on the German Greens, just as we should be hard on Harperson et. al. in this country. The article stated clearly that "the Green party's predecessor, took on the interests of paedophiles by suggesting that sex with minors should be decriminalised ." The Greens were not defending the right of people to argue that the age of consent should be abolished. They were themselves saying that it should be abolished.
In other words the German Greens were defending something that is evil. Of course many present day Greens were too young to have been associated with that policy so they cannot be blamed for it but nobody should make any excuses for those who did advocate such policies.
I'm with Mike Jackson on this.
"Green party's predecessor, took on the interests of paedophiles by suggesting that sex with minors should be decriminalised, providing the sex was free from violence or the threat of violence."
It was their predecessor's policy.
Let those who criticise the Greens on this, also publicly condemn followers of Islam & the descendants of medieval English royalty.
Why would you condemn Islam and the monarchy? The problems for the greens are current while Islam and monarchy is irrelevant...unless of course you have something to hide Joe?
Mailman
Like NCCL's dalliance with P.I.E. this is all about the "overthrowing of bourgeois-capitalist oppression" etc etc etc ie it is impossible to overlook how much the Left is riddled and made rotten by its half-baked enthusiasm for (bits of) Marx. H Wilson, when averring that Labour owed more to Methodism than Marxism was, of course, lying. The Left lies as a matter of course, always, about everything. Truth is a bourgeois construct, and they are not going to be imprisoned by that thank you very much.
I am glad someone else remembers the Rochdale and Orkney child abuse that never was hysteria - I think there was one in Cleveland too. The big point about those events was that nothing ever happened to the scare-mongers, the hysterics, the witch-finders, despite the tragedies inflicted on the families involved. I suspect much the same will happen when the global warming scare finally blows over. "Sorry, we were completely and utterly wrong. Accept our heart-felt apologies for our errors, our deceptions, the money wasted, the damage to the public weal. We will now retire into private life". Well, perhaps....
@ mailman at 10:14 AM
I condemn the hypocrites who publicly condemn one group, but maintain silence regarding other groups who engage in similar practices.
I didn't mention (the) monarchy, but 'medieval English royalty' who also took child brides.
devils advocate:
We shouldn't be too hard on modern the modernCatholic Church. (or any any other implicated church)
They're just tainted by a bunch of ageing kiddy-fiddlers.
Bullshit.
Apologies for the grammer in the previous post.
I'm sure you get my drift.
As a I have personal experience of being a "fidlee" I strongly object to any form of apologism in this area.
Stick to climate science Mike.
@bill
The German Greens strike me as a crew of salaried bureaucrats doing whatever it takes and saying whatever they think will be appropriate (at any particular moment) to maintain their sinecures sucking down public funding. Just look how they pumped + dumped Petra Kelly.
For a country whose wealth is largely based on engineering it is truly an irony that a crew of largely innumerate fantasists get to dictate public policy....
At this rate Russell Brand has a chance of getting elected. Student politics and the barrel scraping antics of student politicians (Who never grow up like Harperson and Straw) being what they are.... These tapeworms are a real menace.
My take from this is that it has taken 40 years or more for the (German) Greens to apologise for an extremely flawed policy; how long will it take for them to see the light over AGW and the damage their anti-AGW policies being followed now will inflict on our future children (AGW - whatever that is - will not curse our children: the policies of 'mitigation' will). .
@Joe Public
I condemn those that place hypocrisy above sexual abuse.
An article in Der Spiegel from last year: Pedophile Links Haunt Green Party
It's a peculiar alliance whatever way you care to look at it. Political Greens are not liberal minded people, at least not today anyway. I can't especially remember a time when environmentalists were for letting people live how they wanted to. A degree of authoritarianism has always been present in Green ideology.
I'd rather focus on their present. The Greens bit off more than they could chew when they campaigned last year on a policy of saving the climate/changing the weather by having a weekly veggie day, when no meat would be available in canteens.
As P.Gosselin reported recently, they dropped it after the electorate started spanking them. Even The Guardian mocked them.
When they finally do, they will 'apologise' again; they're good at that. The tombstones of all of those killed by climate policies will be engraved with the words "They meant well."
Thank you for your advice, Geoff, but I shall continue to comment where I feel the need.
I am really getting rather tired of the modern (or post-modern) tendency to apologise for things that previous generations did in a different climate just as I dislike a mean-spirited tendency to demand such apologies or insist on laying blame for behaviour that was acceptable then (if not now) and is usually misunderstood anyway.*
In that context "child brides" is actually a classic example. In the first place such alliances were political and it was highly unlikely there would be any sexual activity until either party was well into the teens and well past puberty. In any case the "age of consent "(if you can call it that) was in mediaeval times 12 for a girl and 14 for a boy. And even now there a numerous countries where the age of consent is 14.
It would also help if the tabloids had not got us all believing that paedophilia = having sex with a minor. It means very specifically having a sexual attraction for a child who has not yet reached puberty. Big difference.
On the subject of kiddy-fiddlers in the Catholic Church, Geoff, I never attracted the attention of any at my boarding school though they were there and, yes, the procedure at that time was to move them to where they could do no harm which was misguided. On the subject of parish priests of that 'persuasion' I cannot comment because I never met any and it would be interesting to establish how many there were (are) in reality as a percentage of all those who give themselves to the service of the Church (and other churches as well). No more, I am prepared to bet, than in the world at large.
*And that paragraph should not be read as implying that I have any sympathy or support for paedophiles. I don't and my view is probably best summed up in Matthew 18:6 , "It were better that a millstone be hanged around his neck and he be drowned in the depths of the sea". Just to be clear!
harperson is in jail?
do not tell me harperson is not in jail??
that would be like a BBC not admitting they were a sort of club med for pedophile predators for half
a century
disturbing lies like this could shatter my high esteem for our kwollitti judges.
of course had person is in jail
Perhaps a look back at the German- and other- greens to the 1920s and 1930s, and to see who was sponsoring and encouraging and promoting whom would be in order.
Hunter,
Were there green parties in the 20s and 30s (considering the enviromentalist movement is primarly a late-twentieth century phenomenon) - if so, the German one would almost certainly be victims of Nazis in the same way as communists were. They would be an impediment to the percieved national interest of building heavy industry, better farming and the like, and also presumably opposed to the cult of Hitler (actual Greens I've met actually tend to be refreshingly clear of the strange socialist tendency to seek a messiah figure - I doubt Russell Brand has many supporters in the Green Party for example).
Just because they are wrong in modern times (and have been more wrong) does not mean they would not have been sensible allies previously. All the Green Party is is a bunch of people who hold certain views, which are mainly unpopular round here (the UK, but not the German, Green Party actually supports withdrawal from the EU though...) in the current political context, but these people might well have been allies against another cause in the past and might in the future. If some of their predecessors chose to ally with a dubious cause in the seventies (I can't help thinking there were not many non-dubious causes in the seventies, albeit not many as obviously worrying...) then that is just another case of shifting political allignments. Anyone who was involved then does need to explain their involvement (and 'we got it wrong' is fine) but you can't hold the whole party now responsible for historical actions of others.
that would be like a BBC not admitting they were a sort of club med for pedophile predators for half
a century
Nov 13, 2014 at 11:38 AM ptw
Longer than that. Uncle Mac was a nonce.
When will the Greens apologize for their early enthusiasm for biofuels and the resulting food supply mayhem?
www.energycommunity.org/documents/greenpeacereport.pdf (1993)
Watchman
The Nazis were the Green Party.
For a reasonable summary of the situation in 1930s Germany try this link to Martin Durkin's blog and pick up on the 'Warning from History' threads.
I find it interesting that the person who signed the document (Jurgen Trittin) is the same person who was later put in charge of the nuclear safety organization, and pushed for the nuclear phase-out in Germany.
There is a difference between apologizing for positions which your organization (or its predecessors) supported in the past and covering up for people who committed crimes (and may still be doing so). In this case, the German Greens and the groups who supported PIE are in a different league to the churches and political organizations who have swept evidence of criminal activity under the carpet and are still trying hard to keep that carpet nailed down.
The tendency to judge statements and positions of the past through today's moral lens is a problem as it is clear that pretty much every group can be accused of hypocrisy. At the same time, child abuse is not a question of a different moral lens - it was illegal 30 years ago and remains illegal now and perpetrators should not be protected for political reasons.
The composer, Antonio Vivaldi, was 'very fond' of young boys, so the church put him to teaching girls instead, as they were quite safe. At least we got the music.
German Greens and the BBC.
"Birds of a feather flock together."
Pedophile rings and also active political lobbying against anti-pedophile laws form core elements of the German Green Party. Then there is the explicit "watermelon" aspect, that the Greens grew out of collapsing left-wing movements in Germany in the mid '80s/early '90s. The German Green Party re-gained its tenuous "5%" electoral status to have representatives in Parliament due to its success in the 5 states emerging from communist East Germany after re-unification. It would be interesting to study the extent to which German Greens were sustained by political support from the remnants of communist East Germany, which clearly provided some crucial electoral support in the early '90s. See for example,
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_green_party
A couple of new BBC articles:
This one on Savile:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-30051756
And this one:
"The Paedophile Information Exchange was affiliated to the National Council for Civil Liberties - now Liberty - in the late 1970s and early 1980s."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-26352378