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‘Free speech is a facade’: how Gaza war has deepened divisions in German arts world (www.theguardian.com)
submitted 8 months ago by 0x815@feddit.de to c/europe@feddit.de
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Less than 10 years ago, Germany, and especially Berlin, was held up as a beacon of openness and inclusivity in a western world rocked by Brexit and Donald Trump. Angela Merkel’s decision to take in thousands of refugees displaced by the war in Syria boosted her country’s reputation in progressive circles, with many international artists and academics choosing to make the German capital their new home.

Yet the conflict in the Middle East is showing Germany in a new light, highlighting fissures in society and the arts world that until now had been easier to ignore.

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[–] febra@lemmy.world 35 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (4 children)

As someone living in Germany, the level of state repression I've seen towards artists and activists who speak against Israel's war on Gaza is terrifying. I never thought I'd see such a level of repression in Germany. Artists' funds are getting slashed left and right. The government is pushing venues to cancel appointments with artists that criticize Israel (including jewish artists/activists). Cultural venues have been closed down by the government for hosting some of these activists (Oyoun Berlin was closed down after renting a space for an evening to the local charter of Jewish Voice for Peace). Activists have been arrested/fined for chants like "From the river to the sea we demand equality" or "Jews against genocide". There have been countless non-violent activists raided by armed police in the early hours of the morning for their pro Palestine activism. Berlin police has enacted checkpoints in immigrant neighbourhoods. Journalists getting fired for asking the wrong questions. The state of Berlin is now trying to pass a law to allow universities to exmatriculate students on "behavioural" grounds (aka political stances). Politicians actively singling out activists on social media and redirecting insane amounts of hate their way. This place is getting very, very scary.

[–] geissi@feddit.de 25 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Activists have been arrested/fined for chants like “From the river to the sea we demand equality” or “Jews against genocide”.

I don't doubt that they don't know any nuance in anything that contains “From the river to the sea" but who was arrested for “Jews against genocide” and on what grounds?
Do you have a source for that?

[–] tryptaminev@feddit.de 18 points 8 months ago (2 children)
[–] geissi@feddit.de 9 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Sorry, but I couldn't find a single reference to "Jews against genocide" in any of these.
Also, open letters and opinion peaces by activists are by definition not neutral sources.

I'm not saying that police are necessarily acting correctly, but do you have any evidence that someone was arrested for “Jews against genocide”?

[–] tryptaminev@feddit.de 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

https://twitter.com/derJamesJackson/status/1741488229201658142

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/11/10/germany-gaza-protests-crackdown

The problem is that German mainstream media is not covering these topics and had a ridicilous pro Israel bias until the last few weeks since it becomes impossible to ignore the deliberate starvation of people in Gaza and the continued genocidal rethoric of the Israeli government in regards to invading Rafah.

[–] geissi@feddit.de 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

The problem is that German mainstream media is not covering these topics

Well English media don't seem to provide any proof for the original claim either.

Your first link shows a picture of a lady with a “Jews against genocide” sign flanked by two police officers.
I see no arrest and at least at that moment in time she is still allowed to show her sign.

Link two contains these passages:

Her banner, which said she was ashamed to be German and that there was a “genocide” taking place in the densely populated Palestinian enclave being bombarded by Israel.
Police let her and her sign go, and she joined the march.

At about 4pm, police pushed into the crowd and, to calls of “shame, shame”, pulled Monika Kalinowska out.
Her sign, written in red, read, “Israel is a terrorist state.”
After she was frisked and her identification checked, she was told there was nothing wrong with her sign – even though it was confiscated – and she was allowed to leave. She could pick up the sign the next day, police said.

Again, I'm not defending police here but the claim was that people were arrested, so I want to know who got arrested and for what?

[–] tryptaminev@feddit.de 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrest

An arrest is the act of apprehending and taking a person into custody (legal protection or control), usually because the person has been suspected of or observed committing a crime. After being taken into custody, the person can be questioned further and/or charged. An arrest is a procedure in a criminal justice system, sometimes it is also done after a court warrant for the arrest.

I think you might confuse it with detention, where the police would keep you in jail for a limited time.

As for who and what, from the article:

The officer who briefly removed Kalinowska from the protest told Al Jazeera that there was no formal list or any particular guidelines to follow.

“Really, I just use my intuition,” he said. “If I see something I think is bad, we go and get it.”

And this is indivative of the wider problem here. Police can harass and attack protests without having to uphold a legal standard. So even if there is no legal basis to what they do, just storming into the protest and dragging someone out is used as an intimidation and punishment without crime tactic. It is always a violent act where not only the person apprehended, but also the protestors around them are physically attacked.

[–] geissi@feddit.de 2 points 8 months ago

I admit, it might be a language problem.

taking a person into custody (legal protection or control)

What does taking into custody mean then?
Is police taking someone aside for 2 minutes to ask some questions an arrest?
Because then I don't understand the outcry over it, particularly compared to far more heavy-handed police action that definitely does happen every now and again.

[–] crispy_kilt@feddit.de 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Blogs, letters, and articles about letters are very weak sources. They're on the level of opinions. Do you have anything better?

[–] tryptaminev@feddit.de 3 points 8 months ago (5 children)

So you think the pictures and videos that show the speaking activist being detained by the Police have been staged with the police? You think that recognised organizations who rely on their tax exemption would make false allegations against the government that could deny their tax exempt status and practically kill their work through that?

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[–] muelltonne@feddit.de 14 points 8 months ago (12 children)

You really should recheck your sources. F.e. this case here

The state of Berlin is now trying to pass a law to allow universities to exmatriculate students on “behavioural” grounds (aka political stances).

is not "behavioural grounds", but because some students beat up a jewish student for political reasons and the university wasn't allowed to expell them due to legal reasons.

[–] theacharnian@lemmy.ca 30 points 8 months ago (4 children)

If they beat up someone, they should be charged with the crime they did. Why do new crimes need to be invented?

[–] geissi@feddit.de 4 points 8 months ago

Criminal prosecution is not done by universities so if universities want to act on this they need a different legal basis for that.

[–] Turun@feddit.de 3 points 8 months ago

Why do new crimes need to be invented?

This is not at all what they are saying. Such a new law would not introduce a new crime, but be an amendment to the university's rules so that they are allowed to expel students who committed certain crimes before.

[–] gian@lemmy.grys.it 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Maybe more than a new crime it should be an aggravating circumstance. Beating someone for some petty reason and beating someone for political/religoius reasons are different in gravity.

[–] theacharnian@lemmy.ca 6 points 8 months ago

It already is apparently: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_crime#Germany

The German Criminal Code does not have hate crime legislation, instead, it criminalizes hate speech under a number of different laws, including Volksverhetzung. In the German legal framework motivation is not taken into account while identifying the element of the offence. However, within the sentencing procedure the judge can define certain principles for determining punishment. In section 46 of the German Criminal Code it is stated that "the motives and aims of the perpetrator; the state of mind reflected in the act and the willfulness involved in its commission"[44] can be taken into consideration when determining the punishment; under this statute, hate and bias have been taken into consideration in sentencing in past cases.[45]

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[–] febra@lemmy.world 14 points 8 months ago

Yeah, it will definitely not get used against activists. Beating people up is illegal. The persons involved in such things should be handled by the authorities. With that being said, trading your rights for """security""" has always proven to be a stupid idea. Giving universities this power, especially given their track record of shooting down any kind of political dissent, will only end up in power hungry individuals abusing it.

[–] tryptaminev@feddit.de 9 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

The victim in that assault case has been shoving and grabbing students at the university before. That is of course much less severe than how he was beaten up, but in that discussion about throwing out students for violent behaviour that was conveniently ignored.

The whole discussion only started when he was attacked and it was about denying education to pro Palestinian and in particular Arab and other migrant sudents. It was headed among others by the racist major of Berlin (major in this case is also the head of the state government) who just a year ago won an election on the grounds of demanding police to release the names of suspect teenagers. This demand was made so the public could decide based on the names, if those suspects were "real Germans" instead of maybe "foreigners with a German passport". This is far-right nationalist ideology and primitive racism.

So it is clear what goals are aimed at with the demand to throw students out of universities if they are suspect of a crime. If it would be put in place it would be used to remove "foreigners" from universities, not to remove "good kids who have made a mistake".

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[–] rottingleaf@lemmy.zip 5 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

I would say that's because that society has found some degree of ideological security, an indulgence paper even, in supporting some dogmatic formalized single face of the Jewish people. Since that imagined document sort of shields them from necessity to look honestly at crimes much worse, I'd say quite a lot of things may happen to people who try to dismantle it, especially if they are Jewish. It's much more inconvenient to be accused of supporting fascism from that direction, after all.

[–] Harbinger01173430@lemmy.world 3 points 8 months ago

Why would they support the Jewish? Aren't they supposed to be a bunch of people who murdered and hated others in the name of their god during the ancient times and beyond? /S

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[–] crispy_kilt@feddit.de 27 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (15 children)

Crime against jewish people is on the rise in Germany, as are neonazis. Hate crimes against jews were also rising before the Gaza war, by the way.

If Germany didn't try to protect jewish people it would mean they learnt nothing from the past.

The chancellor has said the safety and security of Israel is Germany's raison d'êtat.

Before I get downvoted to hell by Gaza sympathisers, let me add that Israel is currently committing massive war crimes against the Palestinian people and those responsible must be tried and punished in an international court of law.

All of these things can be true at the same time:

a) Israel is committing war crimes and crimes against humanity

b) Hamas has committed crimes against humanity

c) Israel has a right to existence and to security

d) Palestine has a right to existence and to security

I don't get how some people feel they have to pick only two out of these four.

[–] Landsharkgun@midwest.social 25 points 8 months ago (12 children)

They're not protecting 'Jewish people'. They're protecting Israel. There's a massive difference.

[–] crispy_kilt@feddit.de 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

They're protecting Israel by persecuting hate crimes committed inside of Germany?

[–] Landsharkgun@midwest.social 6 points 8 months ago (1 children)

They're not persecuting hate crines. That's the entire point of the article. They're withdrawing funding and bringing legal charges against people who accurately describe the situation in Gaza as a genocide committed by a racist settler colonial state.

[–] crispy_kilt@feddit.de 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

By calling every war crime genocide you are removing the meaning from the word. What Israel is doing with mass civilian bombardment is terrible, but not genocide. Read about what happened to the Armenians, the Hutu, and the Jews for comparison. Another point to consider: the USA killed 20% of the Korean population through bombardment in the Korean war, and even that isn't considered a genocide.

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[–] S_204@lemm.ee 7 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Free speech should not include inciting violence or hatred. Germany is well aware of the negative impacts that unchecked incitement leads too. It's interesting to see how they're walking this line in the face of the competing political forces in the country but it's good to see people standing up against hate in general.

[–] Harbinger01173430@lemmy.world 3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Alright. Time to make AI art without boundaries then. /S

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