Anti-migrant hate is flourishing in Germany’s ‘time of the cowards’ | Musa Okwonga

This weekend's vote will show how far xenophobia has been driving even some traditionally progressive parties

When I think of German democracy, I think of the Larsen B ice shelf: a vast Antarctic structure that remained stable for 10,000 years until - in just over a month, to the horror of shocked onlookers - it collapsed catastrophically.

This weekend, Germany is going to the polls. The coalition led by the centre-left Social Democratic party (SPD), born in hope, has fallen apart, thanks in no small measure to the continual attempts at sabotage by the Free Democratic party (FDP), its most junior member. That last successful effort resulted in the dissolution of the government.