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Month: December 2024

A Science Fiction Book Revisited

Book Review: Cycle of Fire by Hal Clement


31/12/2024

Reading Cycle of Fire by Hal Clement (1957), which I only knew of because I found in a “Zu Verschenken” box on a Neukölln street, has made me more aware of the political power that hard science fiction harbors. Cycle of Fire is not an abstract futuristic fantasy novel, but a concrete speculative anthropological, geological and biological exercise put into words through a field research journey. 

Clement uses the shipwrecked narrative formula to introduce the two main characters, Nil Krüger and Dar Lang Ahn. Nil is a young human and part of an exploratory mission from Earth who ends up crashing in Dar’s planet Abyormen. Dar is a non-human native from this world, who also encounters himself lost as he undergoes a rite of passage, in which young individuals like Dar are expected to travel alone across the planet to gain experience and survive the extreme environmental conditions caused by Abyormen’s dual sun. This extreme climate sets the stage for the main political conflict, while the reader is gradually introduced to the intricate scientific details of Abyormen’s environment and unique ecosystem. 

One of the central questions that Clement explores is the interspecies relationship between Earth humans and Abyormen locals. One could argue that the way he initially portrays both kinds of creatures mirrors the classic identity dichotomy between European and native, as Nil tries to technologise Abyormen society with Earth knowledge. However, as the story develops, Nil and Dar’s relationship solidifies, making Nil aware of his intrusive mindset. This is a relevant point as in general, the novel doesn’t have a strong action plot, as most of it is just descriptive scientific documentation, but one of the elements that kept me engaged in terms of character development is the caring and fraternal relationship between both protagonists. 

Dar is generally described as a kind of bipedal reptilian with humanoid features, while Nils is a representation of the American white, young, male archetype which characterises every Hollywood superhero story. However, Dar is an incredibly knowledgeable character with a great intellectual capacity and philosophical depth, which gradually affects Nils in his way of perceiving the Abyormen’s natives, making him realise that this “otherness” he was projecting on Dar, was in fact, not so clear (that’s why the following sentence “each was a stranger to each other, but which was the alien?” appears on the front cover of the book). From the beginning, both characters rely on each other for survival and the bigger political question behind it is exactly that one, the symbiotic relationship between species is imperative for the development of life in all forms. This is also treated in a biological sense, as Clement goes through a very detailed explanation of how bacteria helps the natives adapt to their extreme climate environment (as Abyormen has two kinds of Abyromenites, the “hot season” ones and the “cold season” ones, which Dar is part of and constitutes also, a big part of the plot). 

I would like to mention Donna Haraway’s work here, in her publication When Species Meet she talks about ethical responsibilities regarding human to-non-human interactions. She is concerned with how we understand and treat other species, particularly when they are framed as “other” or as objects of study or exploitation. In the novel, the humans’ arrival on Abyormen presents an encounter between species with vastly different ways of life and forms of biological understanding. Regarding Haraway, the ethical considerations surrounding interspecies contact become central. Humans, with their technologically advanced but ecologically naive mindset, must navigate the delicate balance of interacting with the native species and ecosystems without exploiting or disrupting them, which is something Nil finally gets to grasp. 

From an anti-colonial point of view, this knowledge dichotomy between Nils and Dar can also be interpreted as differences between the Western ideal of self-importance through technological superiority and indigenous symbiosis and ecological knowledge (like in the plot of Avatar). But this also leads us to the conclusion that technological development is a natural process of evolution itself, as seen in the book, and it can’t be avoided. So the interconnectedness between organisms, technology, and the environment is what creates life, (in this case Earthlings, cold Abyormenites and warm Abyormenites) where boundaries between species, technologies, and organisms become diluted in this network of co-constitutiveness (just how historical materialism shows us how we live in a dialectical relationship around us). 

However, the fact that Abyormen is constantly under extreme geological and environmental conditions is not unintentional, considering that Clement himself was a chemist and astronomer therefore acutely aware of the impact of human industrial development on Earth during the first half of the 20th century. Abyormen’s ecosystem can also be seen as a critique of colonial exploitation of the environment, where the balance of ecosystems is interfered to serve economic interests. The survival of the native species, like Dar, and their ability to adapt, contrasts with the destructive and (in the case of the initial Nil Krüger and his kind), shortsighted actions of colonizing forces, reinforcing the idea that knowledge comes from understanding the aforementioned symbiotic environmental relationships with the land. By Nil identifying with the Abyormen and developing his love and respect for Dar, he manages to resolve the plot conflict by rejecting any kind of species-based hierarchical differences, allowing to establish a collective and mutual dependency relationship between Earthlings and Abyormenites. 

As a final point, I want to mention the role of the Teachers who are the ruling institution in Abyormen and maintain a powerful position as they regulate labour and knowledge. This is also something Nil witnesses and tries to fight against (while we have no information about Nil’s societal organisation forms other than scientific researchers working in teams). These Teachers are described as looking the same as Dar (all Abyormen’s population looks the same) but bigger and taller, which makes Nil argue against their policies of gatekeeping critical survival knowledge and manipulating their society’s ideology by exploiting them through labour and reproduction (he believes that they grow bigger at the cost of sacrificing Abyormenites like Dar). However, the story provides another understanding of their role, which leaves it to the reader to freely interpret their meaning. This aspect of the book can offer further analytical development regarding the sociology of Abyromen which would lead to a debate about the creation of political systems in SF, and their role in learning how to overthrow current systems of oppression and exploitation. 

Although Cycle of Fire is not a revolutionary novel, it does serve as a great exploration of interspecies relationships and the consequences of technologised colonisation processes. Through the dynamic between Nil and Dar, Clement invites readers to reconsider hierarchical relationships between species, technology and culture. The gradual transformation of Nil Krüger’s relationship with Dar tells us that co-evolution and co-dependence are imperative processes to survival and collective liberation.

Looking Back Autobiographically

A 96-year old activist reminisces


It’s that time again, a time to look forward but also, for an old geezer like me to look backward. Still 96 until March, I can permit myself some retrospection (if those two digits were only reversed and embodied, it might well have been greatly preferable).

Wot-the-hell, why shouldn’t  I review the many happenings I observed or was part of – the worst of them, luckily, from a distance. They are a precis of my “Crossing the River” or “A Socialist Defector”.

I’m old enough to remember, just barely, the Great Depression: lines of shabby men waiting for free soup, better-dressed men selling apples on streetcorners, miles of evil-smelling, self-made shacks in a Hooverville near Newark.   

A few years later, with my cousin at Times Square,  I recall collecting money to “Save Madrid!” While admiring the Soviets for trying to help do just that, with only Mexico for two years against all the other countries. And, also bypassing the Depression, by building the giant Dnepropetrovsk  dam  and the model Moscow marble subway stations at New York’s World Fair.

In February 1937 I recall the movie newsreel with happy, unshaven sit-down strikers at GM in Flint, waving from the factory windows in a dramatic Communist-led victory which changed the USA.

And, in a friendly teacher’s room in September 1938, I recall hearing Hitler boast of seizing much of Czechoslovakia, with British and French compliance – and the tears of my Czech classmate Natalie.  

A year later, as the only lefty in my class at posh Dalton School, I did my 11-year-old best to convince classmates that Stalin had to sign the pact with Hitler to avoid being hit from all sides; Japan in the East, Germany in the West, with the acquiescence of Chamberlain and Daladier as in Spain and Munich, hoping they might wreck each other. “The USSR needs  time to strengthen its defenses.”

I triumphed later when Pete Seeger, in one of his first concerts, had all the kids singing leftwing, CIO songs.

June 1941, when the Wehrmacht stormed in, I felt sure the great USSR would smash them. It did, but only after years of sacrifice and slaughter, perhaps  27 million dead, untold destruction. While we in safe but darkened, rationed New York felt  deep fear – and then enthusiasm as the tide turned.

Saddened and worried by the death of the only president I had ever known, I rejoiced at the photo of the GI-Red Army handshake on a broken Elbe bridge. Not dreaming that, 25 years later, I would be commemorating that event at the bridge at Torgau.

Grateful that V-E Day against Germany and V-J Day against Japan saved me, at 17, from the draft and the war. And grateful to avoid my cousin Jerry’s fate , taken prisoner at the Battle of the Bulge who, being Jewish, slaved till his death in a Buchenwald outlier camp in Thuringia.

Spurred by Hiroshima-Nagasaki, post-war racist lynching and a big CIO strike offensive, I helped build a Communist Party branch at Harvard. Covert in name but active against Jim Crow and in “Win the Peace” actions, like our anti-atomic weapons parade through staid Harvard Yard.

In the summer of 1946, in a lone hitchhike to California and back, I got to know more of my country’s many beauties – and many problems.

I had a trip through France and wrecked Germany. I spent six wonderful weeks at the first World Youth Festival in Prague (1947), with anti-fascist partisan veterans from Europe, freedom fighters from Greece, Vietnam, Burma, Africa, and new friends from Tirana, Bucharest, Moscow, Capetown, Prague. I shared  with thousands my hopes for a new-born world.

The glorious Henry Wallace/Progressive Party campaign in 1948 foudnd me collecting ballot signatures. I got to know leftist Italian, Armenian and Greek communities. Then came  a bitterly-upsetting trip to North Carolina, meeting folks in neighboring – but divided – Black and White poverty and misery.

Then, at a last Wallace rally in Boston, joining to cheer Paul Robeson’s moving call, voicing our hopes, for socialism in America. And then the disastrous election defeat, breaking all our hearts.

During the campaign, I demonstrated against the draft despite a media-inspired barrage of eggs and tomatoes, a chipped tooth (with police acquiescence) and several hours in jail and in court.

Despite my diploma and my mother, I decided to join the labor movement as a laborer in Buffalo. I achieved little but learned a lot about fellow Americans. There was a daily class conflict at every work bench, with rising militancy for a better contract broken by a corrupt union leadership.

I found a “home away from home” with the Lumpkin family in the Black ghetto. I learned of hardship, joblessness, dope troubles and police violence.  Witnessing one of the family being beaten and almost shot while protesting Jim Crow discrimination at the Canada beach trip pier.

I was at the great outdoor concert with Paul Robeson in Peekskill in 1949, part of a crowd  of 20,000. The state police forced us to leave through a woodland sideroad, past a gauntlet lined with fascist gangs with piles of stones, who broke every window in all the busses – and blamed it on Robeson. This was a final attempt to save the labor-left-wing from the 1930s. But it was smashed by the McCarthys at home and the Dulles-monopoly forces in foreign policy – and ten tough years of fear, imprisonment and aggression.

When the Korean War began in 1950 the draft, which I had marched against, was re-started, and this time I was eligible. After arriving at the Army base in January 1951 we had to sign a pledge of our political virginity. But the new McCarran Act required every member of a leftist “front” to register as a “foreign agent” or face five years for every day of not signing. Nobody obeyed this nonsense, but I feared its threat, having been in organizations like the Young Progressives, American Labor Party, Spanish Relief, Southern Negro Conference and Communist Party!  So I lied and signed, hoping that if I kept my nose clean and my mouth shut I might outlast the two years with no checkup. At first I had huge luck, getting sent to Bavaria not Korea.

I tried to conform. A few times on weekend pass, I joined leftist youth in Stuttgart for a meeting marking Women’s Day, spent a short weekend with an old comrade from Harvard who had married and moved to Vienna, and had a long talk in a leftist bookshop in Copenhagen with a woman who had dared to bring anti-Nazi leaflets into soldiers’ bars in occupied Copenhagen. While in Tivoli Park, I met and fell in love with a perky, pretty young Danish woman.

But they caught up with me. Perhaps a denunciation to the FBI by a fellow-student at Harvard? I was ordered me to appear before a military judge the following Monday. I knew that perjury such as mine could get me up to $10,000 and five years at Leavenworth. But I had five days left!  

I destroyed all my mail and two leftwing books I bought in Copenhagen. Then I ate lunch, packed some cigarette cartons for trading, took the train from Nuremberg to Salzburg, and crossed into Austria with a forged three-day pass. I got to Linz where, after a desperate search and an exhausted nap in the woods, I swam across the Danube River from the USA-Zone  and, shoeless and disheveled, tried to find the Soviet Army HQ on the other side. I couldn’t, but the Austrian policeman  who picked me up could. The friendly but reserved officer, sent me  to Soviet HQ in Austria near Vienna. There I spent two weeks in a cellar cell, under guard, and read twice through their only English books – “The History of Scotland” and “Sister Carrie”.

After an unusual drive with Red Army guards, with a picnic breakfast I was taken for two months to luxurious, isolated quarters in ruined Potsdam. I got a new name, which I had asked for but had failed to think up for myself. Then I landed in town of Bautzen, with 30-40 other deserters from six Western countries. I fought to better my German, learned to work a lathe and had the supreme luck of meeting my life-time wife and love, Renate, and her village family, which now became my own as well. All genuine anti-Nazis!

In 1954 I was admitted to the Journalism School of re-named Karl-Marx-University in Leipzig (founded 1409). Four years of learning followed: German history and literature, some Russian, shorthand, journalism, but mainly the GDR lay of the land. Valuable sidelights: the students’ weeks helping new cooperative farms with potato harvests and weeding sugar beets or fixing tracks in immense open pit lignite mines.

A sudden shock in 1956; the Khrushchev speech about the crimes under Stalin. It caused hours, weeks and years of regrets and new thinking. But retaining gratitude for the efforts and sacrifices of millions in the USSR, above all 1917-1921 and 1941-1945 – with renewed hopes for a world without billionaires, profit-takers or the resulting poverty and war.

My major events: Marriage, honeymoon, first son Thomas and the move to Berlin – in that order.

Four jobs in East Berlin: with Seven Seas English-language book publisher Gertrude Heym – wife of the author Stefan Heym. I became assistant to John Peet, former Reuters ace and Spanish Civil War vet. His bi-weekly Democratic German Report positively reported on the GDR while exposing former Nazis on all levels of West German society and government. I learnt journalism from an expert. I was luckily unaffected personally by the new Berlin Wall and its years of grave problems. Then were three years with the North America shortwave section of Radio Berlin International. I spent 1965-1968 building up a Paul and Eslanda Robeson Archive at the GDR’s Academy of Arts.

I always got along with colleagues, but never with bosses. So it was a life-prolonging event when, at 40, I became a free-lance journalist, occasional English teacher to scientists, film sub-titler but above all speaker about USA developments. With my humor and avoiding polite-jargon, and criticism of much GDR media-coverage I made some people angry. But I somehow had a “jester’s license” and abundant gigs all over the GDR in all kinds of milieu.

But after the flourishing 1960s-1970s I watched the GDR sliding into the exit ramp. It was lamed by aged, out-of-touch leaders and pressures from the USSR. Above all, it was hit unceasingly by two of the wealthiest economies in the world and their masterful spin doctors every evening in TV. Like Fox!

I was happy that the Wall barrier separating families and friends was gone. But very bitter about the swift, total colonization of what I still see as a noble experiment. Like perhaps no other country, it almost completely abolished poverty, evictions and homelessness, payment for medicine, health care, child care, abortion, all education levels while keeping prices on rent, carfare, food staples and necessities to a bare minimum. I also saw and despaired the bad sides, but where are they absent?

In 1994 I was finally able to visit my homeland with my wife, after a short painless briefing at Fort Dix. It was not so very different from 43 years earlier. So much was so very beautiful. I met so many good people (especially the brave ones on “my side“ of still existent barricades), I loved Central Park with its Ramble full of old bird friends, and the green High Line on a dismantled elevated train section.  I wondered at endless shelves of toothpaste brands, cereals, cheeses, vegetables, fruits and so many goodies. But then the shocks: the homeless sleepers on  park benches around Central Park, the man sleeping in a cardboard box a block from UN HQ , the sad old ladies with all their earthly belongings in a shopping cart. And the price of a dental treatment or a one-night checkup in a hospital – price: $5000.

On later trips: I always had trouble with turnstiles and hideous subway stations.  I was unhappy about the super-commercialization of Times Square and its painted, living statues and stupidly costumed photo-beggars my heart was moved by what still was my old home-town. But not enough to counteract a feeling of relief after my return to my slower, quieter,  even sleepier Karl-Marx-Allee boulevard in Berlin. I have two contrasting home towns.

Unhappily, I see great problems for both of them, and also for the countries  and continents around them. I see a growing gap between rich and poor,  and if theories of cyclical crises again prove correct, an economic depression ahead, conceivably worse than ever before. Certainly they all face seeming inevitable ecological disaster. And far worse and closer, though amazingly ignored, I see the menace of annihilating war, even atomic war. With all three menaces I see the rapid growth of the bloodiest elements of repression – modern forms of fascism – already gaining strength in many countries.

Behind every one of these menaces I see a limited group of billionaires, sometimes rivals but united in hope of controlling not half the world’s fortune but all of it. They determine the direction of every government no matter what its changes and overturns.  Clusters of three, six, eight conglomerates now dominate almost every field of human endeavor in this world. And they want it all!

Some names are symbols: Musk, Bezos, Gates, Soros, Murdock, Springer, Zuckerberg, Disney. But the empires expand with changing personnel: Merck, Pfizer, Purdue, Coca Cola, McDonalds, Mobil, BP, Daimler, Toyota, VW, Cargill, Unilever, Amazon, Meta, Vanguard, Blackstone… Most dangerous are such as Lockheed Martin, Northrup Grumman, Rheinmetall, Krupp-Thyssen… New names show up, but a handful dominates each field – and seeks conquests and expansion. And all are absolutely merciless in their greed, inhumanity and pressure for expansion!

The world must rid itself of these infections! That is its chance! So I rejoice at every sign of working people’s rebelliousness. Against Amazon, Starbucks, VW, outside South Korean and Parisian parliaments, surrounding Trafalgar Square, against French barracks in Niger and Mali… I hearten to see courageous students at Harvard, UCLA, at Humbold U. and FU here in Berlin, daring to protest genocide and its suppliers. Can the majorities resist oppression? Can they join hands, regain peace, defying media demagogues, tear gas, water cannon and far worse? 

What will the future hold? I won’t see all too much of it. But I can be grateful. Aside from losing my Renate far too early, I’ve been lucky to have had a good, always interesting life, spared from want and disaster but witness to amazing slices of the world and its history.

And I still retain sparks of hope that 2025 will not see more gains for the biblical Four Horsemen – War, Pestilence, Famine and Devastation – but rather more struggle, at least a little forward and upward motion. I’ll do the very little I can in that direction as long as I can. Inshallah!

Best wishes to all of you – for good food, good drink, good books, good times and good health – and peace to all of you in 2025. Keep kicking!

Shalom! As-salaam alaikum! No pasarán! Pasaremos!

Victor – or Steve    victorgrossmansberlinbulletin.wordpress.com

Acquittal in Mouhamed Lamine Dramé Murder Case: A Reflection of Systemic Racism in Germany’s Policing

The recent acquittal of the police officers responsible and involved in the murder of a 16-year-old has once again exposed the deep-rooted racism and violence embedded within the core of Germany’s system. 


30/12/2024

A Brief Overview

On August 8, 2022, 16-year-old Mouhamed Lamine Dramé was killed by police in the garden of a youth center in Dortmund’s Nordstadt. Mouhamed, a teenager who had sought refuge from Senegal, was grappling with severe psychological struggles stemming from his traumatic journey to Germany, where he had arrived just a few months earlier, in April 2022.

That day, August 8, a social worker at the youth center called the police, reporting that Mouhamed was in severe emotional distress and displaying suicidal behavior. Shortly after, twelve police officers arrived on the scene and escalated the situation by using pepper spray and a taser against Mouhamed, despite no evidence suggesting he posed an immediate threat to them. Startled and likely reacting to the sudden violence, Mouhamed moved toward the officers. This movement supposedly prompted Fabian S., one of the officers, to fire six shots from a submachine gun—five of which struck Mouhamed, resulting in his death.

Two years later, on December 12, 2024, the Regional Court of Dortmund has now acquitted all five officers charged in connection with Mouhamed’s death. The court ruled that the officers had acted “rightfully and in self-defense” against Mouhamed. The public prosecutor’s office, which initially pressed charges of manslaughter and severe bodily harm, reversed its stance during the trial and demanded acquittals for four out of the five defendants. Days later, the  lawyer, Lisa Grüter, representing the Dramé family as a joint plaintiff, filed an appeal against all five acquittals, while the prosecutor’s office contested only the acquittal of the operation commander.

Mouhamed’s case is not an isolated incident. His death is part of a broader, deeply entrenched pattern of state violence, especially against Black people in this country. As Britta Rabe, who observed the trial for the Committee for Fundamental Rights and Democracy, pointedly remarked, “The verdict today will not help prevent deadly police operations in the future. On the contrary, it sends a message to the police: ‘You can continue as before, there will be no consequences for deadly shootings.’”

The court’s acquittal of his killers not only exposes the shortcomings of the German “justice” system but also underscores the bleak reality that true justice often eludes systems rooted in the violent legacies of colonialism.

The Defamation of Victims and Systemic Police Violence

In cases of police violence, authorities often create narratives that shift blame onto the victims. In Mouhamed’s case, as in many others, police and state officials—including North Rhine-Westphalia’s Interior Minister Herbert Reul—and the mainstream media played a significant role in shaping public perception. Mouhamed was repeatedly labeled as “dangerous” and a “threat,” despite the court contradicting these claims. Media outlets, rather than challenging these narratives, often amplified them, dehumanizing Mouhamed by focusing on his identity as a refugee rather than as a young human being. This framing reduced him to a stereotype, erasing his individuality and perpetuating the racist rhetoric ingrained in public discourse.

Such language once again reflects the internalized, often unexamined, biases of a society that continues to normalize the devaluation of Black lives. This defamation tactic, reinforced by media complicity, serves as a common method to justify police brutality and evade accountability.

This situation also reflects a broader systemic pattern in Germany, where approximately 98% of complaints filed against police officers are either dismissed or the investigations discontinued, rendering any hope of accountability effectively non-existent. Further exacerbating the issue is the fact that the German state, unlike other countries, does not maintain official statistics on deaths caused by police violence, signaling a disturbing lack of transparency and responsibility.

The absence of accountability for state-sanctioned violence fuels ongoing oppression and racism. The state’s reluctance to gather and disclose critical data on police killings is not merely a bureaucratic oversight—it is part of a larger strategy to obscure the systemic nature of violence perpetrated especially against Black and Brown bodies.

The Colonial Roots of Modern Policing

To understand these systemic failures, it is essential to recognize that the system is not failing at all—it is functioning exactly as it was designed to.

The structures and practices of modern police forces, whether in Germany, the United States, or France, are rooted in a vision of “order” and control that prioritizes the interests of certain groups over others.

Many modern police forces have their origins in colonial policing systems. These institutions were created to maintain control over the indigenous populations of the land and suppress dissent. In the United States, for instance, early police forces evolved from slave patrols tasked with monitoring and controlling enslaved Black people. Similarly, in South Africa, police enforced racial segregation during apartheid.

In Germany, the police as we know them today developed during the 19th century, influenced by the colonial ambitions of the German Empire. In colonies like modern-day Namibia, Togo, and Cameroon, colonial police maintained imperial authority through violent repression and surveillance. These practices laid the groundwork for many of the methods and structures that persist in post-colonial societies today.

At its core, the concept of policing is inseparable from maintaining a social order based on hierarchy, control, and inequality. This order is not designed to ensure the safety or well-being of the public but to prioritize and protect state power and uphold capitalist interests. The police, as the executive power of the German state, systematically perpetuate state violence, particularly against Black people and other marginalized communities, through practices like racial profiling, constant surveillance, and murder.

Where Is the National Outrage?

It is unsurprising that political figures like Chancellor Olaf Scholz have remained silent about Mouhamed’s case. Such silence reflects an unwillingness to confront the uncomfortable truth that systemic racism and police violence are pervasive in Germany. However, the silence of the political elite is not as jarring as the lack of sustained mobilization from the public. The question remains: Where is the collective national outrage?

Mouhamed Lamine Dramé is not just a name to be remembered. His story, like those of Oury Jalloh, Lamine Touray, Amin Farah, and countless others, demands not only our remembrance but our action. Simply saying their names, without taking meaningful steps to confront the systemic racism and violence they and millions of others in this country are subjected to, is not just inadequate—it is hypocritical.

True justice requires more than symbolic gestures or fleeting outrage—it demands sustained action, accountability, and systemic change. The violence inflicted on particularly Black and Brown communities is not an anomaly; it is the product of an entrenched system that must be dismantled. While demanding reforms within the system may offer a first step, it will not erase or address the deep-seated violence that permeates the structures of policing and governance in this country. As the 20th anniversary of Oury Jalloh’s death approaches, marked by a memorial demonstration on January 7, 2025, in Dessau, we must remember that honoring these victims goes beyond memory—it requires a collective commitment to ending the state-sanctioned violence that continues to steal the lives of people such as Mouhamed Lamine Dramé.

Macron Appoints Zombie Government in France

Interview with John Mullen in Paris


29/12/2024

After the fall of right-wing PM Michel Barnier to a no-confidence vote, Emmanuel Macron has appointed a new Prime Minister, François Bayrou, to attempt to apply the same policies. The Left Berlin spoke to Paris activist, John Mullen

Who is Francois Bayrou, France’s new prime minister? And is he any different to previous PM, Michel Barnier?

He is an old man, who has nothing to lose career-wise; this was an important qualification for the job. Well-known for having energetically defended public funding for private schools when he was Education Minister in a Conservative government 30 years ago, Bayrou is much closer to Macron than the previous PM was. Macron cannot seem to fathom the idea that he lost the parliamentary elections, and so has refused to name a Prime Minister from the left bloc (New Popular Front), even though it has more MPs than any other grouping.

The process by which Bayrou was chosen was both ridiculous and spectacular. Macron kept postponing his decision, and actually decided to appoint somebody else, only to be bullied by Bayrou (who threatened to join the opposition), into changing his mind.

Why did Barnier fall, and is Bayrou likely to fare any better?

Barnier’s minority government put forward a budget which included severe cuts in social services. At the same time, it involved a rise of three billion euros for the army (whose budget has already increased by over 40% since Macron came to office). He did not manage to get a parliamentary majority to approve it. The Left had always intended to propose a vote of no confidence.  When Barnier pushed this budget through without a vote in Parliament, using an authoritarian clause of the French constitution (clause 49.3) the far right, given its base among the poorer population, was obliged to support the left no-confidence vote.

Macron and Bayrou want a new government, but with the same policies. Their supporters repeat on rolling news channels that compromise is needed, but Bayrou is not offering any concessions. He will not even promise to raise the minimum wage and abandon the incredibly unpopular rise in the standard retirement age which was pushed through last year. He has suggested long talks on the question of “adapting” the pension reform, but noone really believes him.

Bayrou had announced that one third of his ministers would be from the Right, one third from the Centre and one third from the Left. His aim was to smash the left bloc by winning over a dozen Socialist Party or Green personalities. He failed miserably.

His first move was to reassure fascist voters by reappointing hard right anti-immigration racist extremist, Bruno Retailleau, as Minister of the Interior. RN Member of Parliament Sébastien Chenu immediately declared himself very pleased Retailleau was staying. But for his so-called left ministers, Bayrou has had to be satisfied with second hand products: some figures who used to be left wing in their youth, but left the Socialist Party when bought by Emmanuel Macron, some years back.

The mass media here are declaring sagely “Bayrou has opted for a government of political heavyweights”. Two ex-Prime Ministers are in the cabinet: Elizabeth Borne, who pushed through attacks on pensions last year against a huge strike movement, and Manuel Valls, who lost the 2022 elections in his constituency and is no longer an MP. He famously wrote a book “To Put the Old Socialism to Rest, and Finally be Left Wing” and is widely considered to be for sale at reduced prices. Half of Bayrou’s ministers were already in Barnier’s cabinet, including such characters as Gérard Darmanin, whose habit of exchanging sexual favours for bureaucratic help has been confirmed by the publication of his SMS records!

No budget has been passed for 2025. What difference will that make?

A “special law” has been voted through this week which allows the parliament to extend the period of the 2024 budget for a couple of months, so that there is no danger of a US style government shutdown. But in February, Bayrou will be facing the same battle Barnier faced, and with no additional forces or weapons, it seems.

Al Jazeera reports an Elaba poll saying two thirds of people in France do not want another government to be overthrown. Does this correspond with your experience?

Opinion polls have their importance, but the exact question which is asked makes a big difference. An Ipsos poll on 9th November 2024 found that only 23% of people thought that Macron was doing a good job, and only 31% of people thought that Prime Minister Barnier was. In early December, another poll, by CSA, shows that 59% of people (and 74% of 18-24 year olds) want Macron to resign. 34% of those polled this week were glad that Bayrou had been appointed (IFOP poll), the lowest figure for a new PM since the 1950s.

Certainly, political instability frightens a lot of people, including many workers, but hatred of Macron and neoliberalism here is huge.

So far the French Socialist Party, the PS, has generally stuck with the left wing alliance the New Popular Front while simultaneously holding talks with Macron. What are the chances that the PS will be drawn into the new government?

Last September the national committee of the Socialist party voted by only 38 votes to 33 to support the NFP‘s candidate for Prime Minister. Now, the Socialist Party leadership has declared they will not join the government, but neither will they necessarily follow the FI in passing a no confidence motion. They appear to be looking for a compromise. They would have accepted a different Prime Minister, from the Socialist Party, and they have said that they are no longer insisting that the law raising the retirement age be abrogated, but that a freeze on its implementation might be sufficient. General Secretary, Olivier Faure declared last week “the hope is that a change in direction, however minimal it might be, would allow the French people to move forward”.

On this basis, Socialist Party leaders, along with the Greens and the Communists, joined extended talks with Macron and Bayrou. One of Bayrou’s closest allies praised the “sincere and responsible attitude” of Socialist Party leaders. The talks turned out, unsurprisingly, to be a farce. The France Insoumise, fortunately, refused the invitation to discuss who should be in the government. This brings considerable political clarification about who constitutes the real left opposition.

How has the current instability affected the French far-right party, the Rassemblement National (RN)?

The RN leadership is delighted at the key role handed to them by Macron. They publicly vetoed the appointment of right winger Xavier Bertrand as justice minister, and Bayrou offered Bertrand a more junior post (which to his credit Bertrand refused, not wanting to accept that the RN was calling the shots). But Marine Le Pen is having great difficulty walking a tightrope between helping Macron out (allowing Barnier to hold on for months, for example) and maintaining the RN’s base among the poorer populations, who hate Macron.

What is the effect on the radical left France Insoumise?

The FI has managed to show that it is different to the austerity-compatible sections of the PS, Greens and PCF. We are hoping this will help polarize when, as seems likely, there are elections later in 2025. The FI campaigns for Macron to be thrown out, the Left programme be respected, and for a change in the constitution.

Bayrou is President Emanuel Macron’s fourth prime minister this year. Can Macron survive?

It’s impossible to say. He is not in immediate danger – only the radical and revolutionary Left are calling for him to resign. But there are some signs that parts of the establishment are abandoning him. If the Bayrou government falls quickly, as seems likely, pressure will grow.

On the one hand, French capital is demanding violent austerity and no concessions; on the other, they want lawmaking and budgetary stability. For the moment they can’t have both. It is important to keep campaigning for Macron to respect the election results and appoint a Left government, but even more important to build grassroots resistance against this violent austerity. Macron may well choose a more authoritarian option when Bayrou falls, such as a government of unelected “experts in finance”. New parliamentary elections are not constitutionally permitted until July.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of the France Insoumise, said the shenanigans around Bayrou’s appointment “had that sweet smell of History about them”. He is right – the deep crisis of the Macronite political era gives the opportunity for mass revolt and real change.

Magdeburg – Violent racists want to profit from murder

How the AfD is trying to exploit a Murderous Attack by one of their own Supporters


28/12/2024

The Magdeburg attack happened while I was visiting family in the UK. Watching the first reports on the BBC was a surreal experience. “Experts” were wheeled on to assure us that although the perpetrator, Taleb A., had a long history of making Islamophobic and pro-AfD posts on social media, we shouldn’t jump to any conclusions. One could have wished for such circumspection in the BBC’s largely uncritical coverage of Israeli war crimes.

Holger Münch, of the federal criminal police, also advised people to wait and see: “He has anti-Islamic views; of course he’s also been involved with extreme-right platforms and given interviews. But drawing a conclusion between what he says and what he’s done… it’s not yet possible to conclude it’s politically motivated.”

This was not the reaction to Halle and Hanau. In 2019, after a right wing gunman attacked a synagogue and a doner shop on Yom Kippur, the liberal Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz published an article with a subtitle: “The Jewish community in Germany is under double attack, from the far right and from radical Islam.”

One year later, after another far right German went on a shooting spree, killing 9 non-White people, police concentrated on harassing the victims’ friends and family. Keea Malin Kauhanen notes a live broadcast 2½ hours after the attack “in which a reporter shared his speculations regarding the perpetrator and motives for the attack. Terms like ‘organized crime’ and ‘protection money’ were used speculatively and related to the owners of the bars and kiosk in which the terror attacks took place.”

For the German press, politicians and media, the default reaction to public murder is to jump to one conclusion: blame the Muslims. This is not just a German phenomenon. Following the Christchurch mosque shootings of 2019, B. Moore concluded: “In over 200,000 articles on 11 different attacks, Islamist extremists were labelled terrorists 78.4% of the time, whereas far-right extremists were only identified as terrorists 23.6% of the time.” 

A Saudi Fascist?

Responding to Magdeburg on German news channel n-tv, “terrorism expert” Peter Naumann opined that “in 25 years, I have never seen such a perpetrator profile”. We should remind ourselves that profiles used by criminologists do not reflect facts but widely held prejudices. Taleb A. did not fit into the straitjacket into which the media wanted to place him.

Two things appear to have perplexed reporters. Firstly, although Taleb A. had lived and worked in Germany for nearly 20 years, he was born and raised in Saudi Arabia. Secondly, the attack was at a Christmas market, like previous attacks in Berlin in 2016 and Strasbourg in 2018. Was this not proof that he was an Islamist? 

Let’s take these objections one at a time. Firstly, it is simply wrong to believe that all fascist organisations merely comprise of white men. The Grey Wolves in Turkey and RSS in India provide examples of home grown fascism.

Closer to home, although European fascists believe in oppressing minorities, they also contain some minority members. In late 1937, 5 of the 21 Chief Rabbis in Italy were members of Mussolini’s Fascist party. Ernst Röhm, head of Hitler’s SA until 1934 was openly gay. Alice Weidel, AfD’s candidate for Chancellor in the coming elections, is a lesbian. These people have to live their own contradictions, but their existence is no less surprising than that of a Saudi Fascist.

Some online commentators have said that the fact that Taleb A. attacked a Christmas market (as opposed to what? An Eid market?) shows that he cannot be an Islamophobe. Why attack Christians? Taleb A. answered this question last August in a tweet saying: “I assure you that if Germany wants a war, we will fight it. If Germany wants to kill us, we will slaughter them, die, or go to prison with pride.” According to his warped logic, Germans who do not resist the so-called “Islamisation” of Europe are legitimate targets.

Increase in violent attacks

From historical attacks on refugee homes like Solingen and Mölln, to Hanau and Halle, the far right is far from averse to murderous violence. Just before Christmas, actual Nazis tried to march through the relatively left wing district of Friedrichshain. When they were stopped by counter-demonstrations of up to 10,000 people, they took violent revenge on an SPD stall. The Nazi threat is real and growing. 

Eastern Germany was already tense and dangerous following the AfD’s recent electoral gains. The aftermath of the Magdeburg attack has made things worse. Salam, a local counselling centre for the prevention of violence and radicalisation reports “an extremely hostile mood” in the city, where Muslims were insulted as “terrorists”, “criminals” and a “pack”. Migrant organisation Lamsa says that many migrants have been hunted through the city.

Bild Zeitung reported that 24 hours after the Magdeburg attack “around 700 masked and aggressive right wing extremists and hooligans gathered and marched through Magdeburg city centre.” They shouted slogans like “anyone who doesn’t love Germany should leave Germany”, “Migration kills” and “We must take back our cities, our villages and our homeland”.

These attacks cannot be reduced to just the work of a few skinhead hooligans. All recent polls have the AfD looking likely to come second in February’s general election. Every AfD electoral success makes the street racists feel that they are not isolated, and every violent attack strengthens the fascists in parliament.

AfD try to profit

In 2016, Taleb A. tweeted: “the AfD and I are fighting the same enemy, in order to protect Germany.” This has not stopped the Nazifying party from trying to make capital from his murderous acts. While mainstream politicians were wringing their hands about how terrible things are, the far right was demonstrating in Magdeburg.

On Saturday, the day after the attack, the neo-Nazi scene attended a demonstration registered by veteran Nazi Alexander Deptolla. At this demonstration, the leader of the Heimat party (formerly the explicitly Nazi NPD) stated that the “fundamental problem” was “people who come from an alien culture and belong to an alien species.” Old NSDAP slogans like “Germany wake up!” were revived.

Two days later, it was the AfD’s turn. Speaking at their demo, Weidel said: “we finally want something to change in this country, and that we must never again mourn with a mother who has lost her son in such a senseless and brutal way.” As Weidel demanded that “we can finally live once again in security”, the 3,500-strong crowd responded with chants of “Deport, deport, deport!”

Weidel tweeted: “The state must protect its citizens through a restrictive migration policy and consistent deportations!”. The head of the AfD in Sachsen-Anhalt, Martin Reichardt, blamed “political and religious fanaticism that has its origins in another world”. Local AfD politician Hans-Thomas Tillschneider called for a “roll-back of globalised migration flows” to fight the arrival of those who are “culturally other”.

Brandenburg councillor Dominik Kaufner wrote: “millionfold migration is the problem and millionfold remigration is the solution”. The word “remigration” is a dog whistle to the AfD’s Nazi base following last year’s conference in Potsdam where AfD politicians met Identitarians to discuss deporting millions of people “with a foreign background”. Such deportations would not be possible without extreme violence.

German politicians react

Interior minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) was quick to react. Initially, she followed the accepted discourse, remarking that Taleb A. “acted like an Islamist terrorist although ideologically he was clearly an enemy of Islam.”  But then she went slightly off-message, saying it was “clear to see” the suspect held “Islamophobic” views, and that “every attempt to instrumentalise such a terrible act and to abuse the misery of the victims is repugnant.”

This continues a strategy which the SPD has taken since the government fell — of portraying the AfD as violent extremists and a danger to democracy. After the AfD announced that their own election strategy will concentrate on trying to win disillusioned SPD voters, the SPD has slightly shifted from accommodating to the AfD’s racism to mild confrontation. 

In a so-called “fairness agreement”, all parliamentary parties except the AfD and Buendnis Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) agreed that “there will be on no account cooperation with parties which do not stand on the group of the free democratic constitution”. In their election programme, the SPD argues that Germany is a country of migration and that they consider diversity to be an asset.

This is good as far as it goes, but is undermined by the experience of the SPD and the Greens in government. One year ago, SPD Chancellor Olaf Scholz appeared on the front cover of Der Spiegel next to the headline “We have to Deport People More Often and Faster”. SPD MPs gladly voted for the “Antisemitism Resolution” which lawyer Nadija Samour believes will “cement the use of migration law as a form of persecution”. They also recently voted to freeze asylum applications by Syrians.

Not like the other parties

A recent AfD post on X (formerly Twitter) said: “the AfD stands for the interests of the broad public, not for elites and lobbyists. A real people’s party, which fights for you. Time for change. Therefore vote AfD on the 23rd of February.” The idea of a people’s fight against the establishment is one that has been recently pushed by right wing demagogues from Victor Orban to Donald Trump, who recently welcomed guests from the AfD.

Most worrying is the gradual take over of the AfD by Björn Höcke and other former members of Der Fluegel (The Wing). Höcke has been convicted and fined for deliberately using banned Nazi terminology. Another court ruling in 2019 found that calling Höcke a Nazi is legitimate as it has a verifiable, factual basis. He is still one of the most powerful members of the AfD, leading the party faction in the Thüringen parliament, where they recently topped the polls, with 32.8% of the total.

In March 2020, Thomas Haldenwang, chief of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency said that Der Fluegel violated “characteristic features of the free democratic basic order, human dignity, democracy and the rule of law”. Haldenwang explicitly referred to Höcke as a right wing extremist. The next month, Der Fluegel was officially dissolved, following a request by the AfD leadership. Yet in 2021, the Tagesschau called it “stronger than ever”.  

Weidel is scarcely more liberal. The Guardian recently noted that she “has recently been attempting to rebrand the party’s image in a Marine Le Pen-like fashion.” For some, this is reassuring. Le Pen does not say the quiet things out loud like her antisemitic firebrand father Jean Marie. But this does not mean that she has moved one millimetre from his fascist ideology.

A recent report found that at least fifteen deputies from Le Pen’s National Rally party have been part of a racist Facebook group for the last 7 years. Posts in the group include: “Go back to your coconut tree, bamboula” or “You call that a human being? Even my dog ​​behaves better. They are really harmful, these Blacks.” RN also maintains close but discrete links with the identitarian organisation Génération Identitaire.

Stop the AfD Party Conference on January 11

The AfD’s instrumentalisation of hatred and murder makes it more necessary than ever to close them down. Höcke, like Le Pen, is trying to build an organisation which is both electorally attractive and has a physical presence on the streets, as we witnessed in Magdeburg this week. Because of its fascist nature, we must physically confront the AfD, and separate people who vote out of desperation from the hardcore Nazis.

On January 11th, the AfD is holding its party conference in Riesa, where they hope to celebrate possible gains in the coming election. They will not be unopposed — Aufstehen Gegen Rassismus, Widersetzen, and other anti-fascist campaigns have called blockades against the Riesa conference. Buses will also be travelling from Berlin, and 1,500 anti-Nazi students have already promised to be on them. If we want to avoid more violence like that in Magdeburg, as many people as possible should join them.