In North Rhine-Westphalia, the security apparatuses of the bourgeois state are currently experiencing heightened fears about the public security situation. This fear of an escalation of the threat situation in NRW began first with the attack in neighboring Belgium on October 17, and then with the arrest of a so-called "Islamist danger person" in the Dellviertel district of Duisburg on October 24.

Before the arrest, NRW Interior Minister Herbert Reul spoke of an "abstractly high" danger of an "Islamist" attack in the context of the current struggle of the Palestinian people against the genocide perpetrated against them by the Israeli state, but which was not yet "concrete". Exactly one week later, he then declared that there were concrete indications of an attack due to a tip from a foreign intelligence service. The target of the alleged attack was supposed to have been pro-Israeli demonstrations.

According to information from bourgeois media, the arrested Tarik S. is a former member of the so-called "Islamic State". In 2013, Tarik S. allegedly joined the "IS" and left for Syria. Upon his return to Germany, he was then allegedly arrested in 2016 and sentenced to five years in prison a year later. According to intercepted chat transcripts, Tarik S. allegedly declared to a contact in Syria his willingness to carry out an attack against a Zionist demonstration in the FRG. Furthermore, said foreign intelligence service is said to have informed German authorities that Tarik S. would have easy access to a truck, which he could possibly use as a weapon for the act.

In the aftermath of this arrest, the discussion about the security situation in North Rhine-Westphalia intensified further. According to statements by Interior Minister Reul, it is assumed that there are 186 "Islamist suspects" in North Rhine-Westphalia, of whom a higher double-digit number are "capable of action. This means that the repression authorities believe that these "capable of action" could carry out an attack at the present time. In this context, Reul said that both the police and the Office for the Protection of the Constitution (the secret service of the interior) are constantly working on and updating the so-called "danger files. "Dangerous persons" in the jargon of police and intelligence services are people who are capable of carrying out significant political crimes.

As always after actual or supposedly foiled attacks, the bourgeois media ritualistically call for more police, more equipment, more technology and more repression. This time is no different. On this occasion, Westdeutscher Rundfunk quotes its in-house "terrorism expert" Michael Götschenberg as saying that the FRG has "blind spots" in questions of Internet monitoring and will "never have the capability of an NSA" in terms of both personnel and law, and that there will therefore continue to be a dependence on foreign intelligence services in information matters. Götschenberg describes here quite correctly the different possibilities between US imperialism as the only hegemonic superpower and German imperialism which strives to become an imperialist superpower but is not one. Such a comprehensive and the whole world monitoring secret service apparatus like the NSA costs huge amounts of financial resources and well-trained personnel and is not to be stamped so easily from the ground.The president of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Haldenwang, then confirms these limitations with abundant bourgeois-democratic rhetoric in his own way, when he, as the head of the secret service that builds up fascist terrorist groups in the FRG and is involved in having foreign revolutionaries condemned as terrorists, suddenly talks about the need to maintain a balance between freedom rights and the intervention rights of the police and the Office for the Protection of the Constitution.

Herbert Reul nevertheless dares, in a whining way, to make a push toward reactionarization on the problems of insufficient digital surveillance, saying: "My biggest problem is: I know too little. I am very often dependent on information from external services that tell me that someone has tried to buy a weapon."(...) " Also important are the regulations on the "fishing" of data. Data protection rightly has a high priority in Germany, (...) but sometimes you get restless and say: Damn it, why do I have to let Americans or Canadians or whoever else supply me with the information." Reul continues, "We need a chance to get an early read on what's going on in the network. On the one hand, that's a question of personnel. We have to take care of that, it can be done. Secondly, it's a question of technology. The police need to be made more digital and better equipped technically."

What can be read out there is the battle of opinions within the German bourgeoisie. German imperialism wants to become more independent and self-determined from U.S. imperialism - especially in security issues - and this is also in line with its recently published "National Security Strategy". But at the same time it has limitations with which it has to work. Besides this discussion, it is interesting to see how much the various articles in the bourgeois media emphasize, from different state actors and anonymous sources, the importance of foreign intelligence services as tipsters for possible threats to the security situation in the FRG. Something that should once again make one aware of the activity of foreign intelligence services and especially the Yankee intelligence services in the FRG. The fact that when it comes to intercepted chat protocols, it is mostly about social networks and messenger services, which are in the hands of US monopolies, is not an unimportant detail. This activity of foreign intelligence services is certainly not limited to the activities of Muslim fundamentalists, but monitors all people who are in opposition to imperialism or parts of its policies.

Herbert Reul: Regrets that he does not have a German NSA up his sleeve. Source: https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/hambacher-forst-raeumung-herbert-reul-nrw-1.4587790

It is precisely in light of these limitations that German imperialism often urges calm and pacification when it comes to handling its internal contradictions. Not without reason do anonymous sources from "security circles" emphasize the importance of the work of imams and mosque leaders when it comes to their influence on the base of their communities. Whereby the same "security circles" must then still state: "nevertheless, it is "bubbling" at the base in some places."

This " bubbling " is perhaps also one of the reasons why North Rhine-Westphalia has not yet seen comprehensive bans on pro-Palestinian demonstrations as in Berlin or other German states. The Ministry of the Interior will possibly remember from the pictures of the intense fights in Berlin-Neukölln that this New Year's Eve it was not only in Berlin-Neukölln that things got rough, but that there were also attacks against representatives of the state in various places in NRW. Remember the burning barricades in Hagen and the media reports about attacks on police officers and firefighters from panel housing estates in Essen. A similar antagonistic and repressive approach as in Berlin could look quite different in a large and populous federal state like North Rhine-Westphalia, if one looks at the current " bubbling up" in working-class neighborhoods like Dortmund-Nordstadt, Duisburg-Hochfeld and Marxloh or Cologne-Kalk. One goes nevertheless often no few meters by such worker quarters without seeing numerous people with Palestine chains, Kufiyas and other indications of the solidarity with the Palestinian people.

After all, according to Reul, 204 "anti-Semitic crimes" have now already been committed in NRW since the start of the counter-offensive by the Palestinian people. Whereby one must keep very much in mind that currently any protest against Israel is propagated as "anti-Semitism" and many of these cases include, for example, attacks on Israeli flags at city halls.

Fights in Neukölln: Something like this can happen in NRW too.. Source: Screenshot of a video of Samidoun on Instagram.

Another way of expanding repression that German imperialism can pursue quite undisturbed with 10-meter steps is unsurprisingly that of imperialist chauvinism. The opposition in the state parliament calls for deportations and Herbert Reul says that he would like to do that, but German imperialism has problems that other countries do not want to take in people. The West German broadcasting station joins without further thought in this disgusting agitation against everything that is Arab, for Palestine or a bit rebellious and sends a correspondent after the arrest of Tarik S. in the Dellviertel in Duisburg to "listen" to the neighbors what their opinion is about the case. Not surprisingly, one can then read statements like "Another neighbor can't remember him at all, although she has lived here for ten years. The house is peaceful. A few years ago, there were several break-ins in apartments. Then the last German resident moved out. Now you only read foreign-sounding names on the doorbells." But in the perfidious agitation, the WDR even goes so far as to support both the Spiegel cover of the gangster chancellor Scholz and the demand of the CDU in a subtle but insistent way: "If you ask several people on the street whether they are concerned that the second suspected IS terrorist has already been arrested in their city this year, many Duisburgers reply: "You have to deport more consistently. They don't care that Tarik S. is a German citizen, they say." The mood is being created that support for national liberation movements can lead to mass deportations and even the revocation of German citizenship.

In summary, the following picture emerges. German imperialism trembles before the strength and the still possible potential of the national liberation movement of the Palestinian people and its supporters as well as in general before the rebellion of the deepest and broadest masses. In his concern for the security situation, because of his limitations, he depends on the intelligence help of other imperialist states, first and foremost U.S. imperialism. What it is left with in the current situation in the struggle against the national liberation movement and the masses is above all disgusting imperialist chauvinism. This will, however, above all turn the millions of migrant masses who have to suffer under this chauvinist and racist agitation even more against German imperialism.

Cover Image: Pictures of the Special Forces Deployement in Duisburg, Quelle: https://www.waz.de/staedte/duisburg/islamistische-gefahr-in-duisburg-hohes-bedrohungsszenario-id239882353.html