The reactions of the German authorities was the same as their British counterparts. Despite – or perhaps because of – opinion polls showing that as many as one in eight Germans would join a Pegida march if it occurred in their town, the entire German state came down on the movement. At its height, around 17,000 protesters came out on the Monday before Christmas to join Pegida in Dresden. Extraordinarily for a movement that had attracted such a comparatively small proportion of the German public to its protests, the Chancellor used her New Year’s message to respond to Pegida. The year 2014 had been an extraordinary one for Germany, though not as extraordinary as the year Merkel was about to usher in. Yet the official figures for asylum seekers in 2014 were already (at 200,000) around four times the number they had been just two years earlier, and already represented a two-decade high.

The Chancellor used her New Year’s message not to waylay these fears but to criticise those who felt them. ‘It goes without saying,’ she said, ‘that we help them and take in people who seek refuge with us.’ And she warned the German public about Pegida. According to Merkel, movements such as Pegida discriminated against people because of the colour of their skin or their religion. ‘Do not follow people who organize these,’ she warned the German people, ‘for their hearts are cold and often full of prejudice, and even hate.’ The following Monday, Pegida held a protest in Cologne. The cathedral announced in advance that it would turn off its lights in protest at the gathering in the city. Few people in Cologne would miss the symbolism of the fact that almost exactly a year later the cathedral’s lights were blazing as hundreds of local women were molested, raped and robbed by migrants in the same streets in which the cathedral authorities had objected to Pegida protesters walking, standing or congregating.

This habit of attacking the secondary symptoms of a problem rather than the primary problem has many causes. Not the least of them is that it is infinitely easier to criticise generally white-skinned people, especially if they are working class, than it is to criticise generally darker-skinned people whatever their background. And not only is it easier, but it elevates the critic. Any criticism of Islamism or mass immigration – even criticism of terrorism and rape attacks – can be seized upon by anyone else as a demonstration of racism, xenophobia or bigotry. The accusation, however untrue, can come from anywhere and can always carry some moral taint. By contrast, anybody who criticises someone as a racist or a Nazi is somehow elevated to the position of judge and jury as an anti-racist and anti-Nazi. Different standards of evidence also apply.