Dresden's anti-Islam protests: Rooted in Germany's East-West divide?

(The Christian Science Monitor) The thousands of anti-Islamist protesters who’ve been gathering in Dresden each Monday—as they did yesterday (December 22) with a record 17,500 participants—to contest what they say is a radical brand of Islam, aren’t just shining a spotlight on a rare glimpse of public xenophobia in Germany.

The group, called “Patriotic Europeans Against Islamization of the West,” or PEGIDA, is evidence of a stubborn dividing line across Germany, even as the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall was celebrated in a mega bash in Berlin this November.

The PEGIDA protests, which have been building for weeks in Dresden, are not an anomaly. A similar march shocked the prosperous city of Cologne, in western Germany, at the end of October, and flashes of intolerance have played out in Germany’s capital Berlin and beyond. Dresden has long been home to an annual neo-Nazi march.