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Werner Tübke in Retrospect: Neo-Renaissance Nostalgist or Connoisseur of Social Realism?

The East German artist provided more than simple social realism


08/08/2024

Next year Bad Frankenhausen, an otherwise sleepy little town in Thuringia, will be crowded. For May 15th 2025 marks the 500th year anniversary of the great 1525 Peasant War. The town’s ‘Panorama Museum’ sits atop the battle-field of Mount Battle or ‘Schlachtberg’.  There were many peasant wars, as Frederick Engels described in 1870. This one provoked the most savage butchery of the peasants in their greatest uprising. 

I will review that war and the museum, and then consider whether the GDR painter Werner Tübke (1929-2004) was a bourgeois or a socialist artist. Or neither.  

What happened at Bad Frankenhausen? 

Grinding poverty and exploitation sparked many peasant wars or Jaqueries. In Europe these were directed against feudal lords including the clergy. The “peasants” of the 1525 Peasant War, were actually a united front of peasants and early city plebians. Müntzer had welded their disgruntlements together. The plebians of Bad Frankenhausen were formed from the salt-worker knechts (labourers or sometimes slaves) whose labour enriched the princes and the clergy. 

The insurgent leader Thomas Müntzer (or Muenzer) was born in 1498. He differed from Luther in espousing a ‘communism’. Luther began the Reformation against the Catholic Church, but flinched at thorough-going reforms, and compromised with the feudal exploiting classes. Müntzer in contrast continued his early struggles from early on against reaction to a bitter end. Inspired by “the chiliastic works of Joachim of Calabria, he became a popular preacher.  Engels Chapter Two

“Chiliasim” or “Millenialism” was the popular belief that a Messiah would arrive to establish a new world of freedom – and before the “Last Judgement”.  Chiliasim included the doctrines of Anabaptism, and the Hussites. Müntzer sought those who had survived the persecutions by the feudal princes and clergy from earlier rebellions. Defending them, Müntzer had to flee both Thuringia and later Prague. Müntzer argued to extend Luther’s Reformation against the corrupt clergy, by including “the sword”. He became  “a direct political agitator.” While primarily attacking the church, he also targeted Christianity itself. Calling for “heaven in this life”, he praised “reason” as true “faith”. According to him:

“the task of the believers to establish Heaven, the kingdom of God, here on earth. As there is no Heaven in the beyond, so there is no Hell in the beyond, and no damnation, and there are no devils but the evil desires and cravings of man. Christ, he said, was a man.”

He had entered atheism and communism, and Engels summarised that:

“By the kingdom of God, Muenzer understood nothing else than a state of society without class differences, without private property, and without superimposed state powers opposed to the members of society.”

The confrontation was inevitable, as was the disparity between the opposing forces:

“Muenzer (had)… 8,000 men and several cannons… The men were poorly armed and badly disciplined. .. The princes promised amnesty should they deliver Muenzer alive. Muenzer assembled his people in a circle… A knight and a priest expressed themselves in favour of capitulation. Muenzer had them both brought inside the circle, and decapitated… (but) the princes’ soldiers had encircled the entire mountain… cannon balls and guns were pounding the half-defenseless peasants, unused to battle…  over 5,000 were slaughtered… Muenzer, was captured… put on the rack… and decapitated. He went to his death with the same courage with which he had lived. He was barely twenty-eight when he was executed.” Engels Chapter six 

Entering the ‘Panorama Museum’. 

The museum website presents the monumental painting “Early Bourgeois Revolution in Germany”. Visitors enter a dark, very large circular room from below. As people lift their eyes to the walls, most are stunned on being greeted and surrounded by a unique circular painting. The canvas is fourteen metre high spanning a giant 123 meters to depict 3,000 figures. At the bottom level a simple parallel perspective is used, but the upper part of the painting has a central perspective leading onto a seemingly endless horizon. Werner Tübke with one assistant took eleven years (1976-1987) to complete it.

The Museum opened in 1989, shortly before the GDR collapsed.

Initially a long awe-struck period is experienced as one’s wits slowly recover from the sensory assault. Slowly comparisons come to mind. The content matter of Pieter Brueghel the elder (1525–1569) and Hieronymous Bosch (1450-1516) is wedded to the giant scale of Michaelangelo Buonarroti’s (1475-1565) Sistine Chapel ‘Last Judgement’. Here are Breughel’s peasants and plebeians preyed on by princes and clergy. They play out the real every-day earthly life of -accounting of Heaven and Hell, in contrast to Michaelangelo’s promised eventual end. Accelerating the imagination are Boschian symbolisations. 

The result is an extreme realism mixed with such Boschian imagery as to create an intense vivid and highly ‘expressionist’ image. It is not ‘naturalist’ art, but most figures are evidently real people. A partisan painting it is the opposite of neutral.  If you enter from the left passage, you are confronted by Müntzer in the center between swirling, warring parties. Tübke used his face from a medieval wood-cut, but paints Müntzer lowering the rebel-flag with its peasant boot insignia. Müntzer realises that the surrounding princes, and mercenaries have wiped out his forces. He stands under a rainbow enclosing the Schlactberg and the green battlefield, signifying hope and a binding with ‘God’.  

Undoubtedly the content of this painting is progressive. But Tübke is not about to explain details. In the film “Werner Tübke” (Director Reiner E. Moritz, ArtHaus Musik, RM Arts 1991) he bluntly says: 

“It is not my goal to lecture people through the visual arts, or even to enrich them… I don’t employ methods that are popular or the easiest to understand. But I work strictly according to what gives me pleasure. I have no sense of mission and I don’t ask whether I’m understood or not.“ 

Does this forthrightness not remind one of Käthe Kollowtiz’s response to being castigated by the KPD? Unsurprisingly, one of his teachers Tübke most fond of, Katharina Heise, was a sympathiser and follower of Kollowitz. 

Returning to the picture, how does one read this spectacle? For me one central message of the whole drama is that one must act for justice, even if action leads to failure.  As if this is not powerful enough, hundreds of acts are performed by meticulous writhing figures. An excellent audio guide helps interpret them, in several languages. But the museum site states:

“Instead of a painting that illustrates the history of the “early bourgeois revolution in Germany” and educates the visitors in the sense of the state, he wants to focus on painting. In this way, the original concept recedes into the background; Tübke creates a picture that evades being fixed on a single statement.”

I dispute that. As mentioned an abiding theme is justice and the exploitation of the people. Another is the sway of reason as opposed to the play of chance. Let us briefly scroll through fragments.

Witness an elderly peasant woman and her husband bringing eggs, a goose and other victuals – as a tax to their feudal lords dining on a long table. A finely dressed young lady aristocrat glances over her shoulder dismissively, but the peasant woman witheringly holds her gaze. Over there a ship is stranded on dry land as a boatman vainly paddles to ferry the dignitaries of state. Here a clergyman is strung up on a dead tree surrounded by angry and mocking peasants. Wait! there are three gaming tables – at one kings and emperors (Kaiser Kari V and Francis I of France) play poker for Northern Italy – the English king has arrived too late! There soldiers pillage houses of peasants. Here the finely dressed Pope is roped in struggle against Luther while named academics debate in the guise of pigs, foxes and rats. But Luther is also shown as a two-faced Janus – one talking to poorly dressed people, the other face ignoring them. 

Scattered throughout are several ‘Narr’, or fools or jesters. They comment on the cruelties that unfold. But as they prance about, an opposing path not taken is shown. Just above Tübke’s signature, and below Müntzer’s flag-lowering, is shown a huge Well of Reason. Around it are figures of the German Renaissance – including Hans Hut and  Melchior Rinck both Anabaptist leaders; Hans Sachs a shoemaker-poet; Tilman Riemenschneider the wood-sculptor; Martin Luther and the painter Lucas Cranach; Albrecht Dürer the artist; Nicholas Copernicus the physicist-astronomer; Paracelsus physician and chemist; and the merchants Jakob Welser and Jakob Fugg. Yes an eclectic and sometimes contradictory mixture – Luther and Anabaptists? Tübke presumably sees no straight line in history.

Onlookers are enthralled, moved and fascinated, and wish to learn about the acts depicted. It is in short, a masterpiece that engages with its audience.   

Where is Tübke to be placed in art?

How did this masterpiece come about, how does Tübke’s worldview fit into the art history of the GDR? 

In 1976 Tübke was Rector of the Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig, when he was invited to do this by the GDR government. Before he accepted he demanded and obtained complete freedom in execution. Three years of painstaking research into the 15th-16th century (clothing, materials, painting etc) allowed him to build a working model scaled down to a tenth, which was endorsed as ‘historically authentic’:

“The first think I did was to refuse to use the set pieces, or to use central perspective… Then came the three year phase of invention in which I made the 14.2 m version… Following extensive theoretical studies I noted down, as if in a very large diary, the mood of the week, the month, painted in ancient robes. “

Mortiz, Around 30 minutes 55 sec

“I was able to assert my concept without much trouble. I’d half finished the small version when the employer came from the Ministry of Culture, and 14 days later I received a letter of acceptance. Strangely enough it all went very smoothly.”

Mortiz Ibid; at about 34 minutes

Well before the Panorama, Tübke was already deeply immersed in the styles of the 15th-16th century – in particular Italian mannerism. 

“My interest lies exclusively in art produced before Modernism. Up to Delacroix, roughly… It just turned out that way. There’s no concept behind it. I base my work on art from earlier centuries, but in my own way. I think it is legitimate… In particular it is the transition periods, Italian Mannerism, for example, or old German masters, who have always inspired me. I don’t think you can choose what you relate to and how you do it. 

“Moritz, about 0.45 sec

“This world is not unfamiliar to me. Particularly the Old Testament. I feel very at home in that entire world. I can’t be more precise, nor would I want to be.“

Film Dir. Moritz 5min 0s

He joined the Workers Party in 1950. But he was attacked for his passion for 15th-15th art in 1956 (“backward-looking’, ‘eclectic’) and lost his lectureship at the Leipzig Art Academy. He was reappointed in 1962, where later his students defended against another dismissal:

“I was dismissed in 1957 for allegedly doing Western Art as it was then called, Madness! Or Surrealism. I returned to the Academy two years later, and in 1967 I was almost dismissed again, for the same reasons, but the students protested so I ended up staying.”

Film Dir Moritz. 11 min 45s

“Critics spoke of a misunderstanding of heritage reception and warned that eclecticism was contrary to Socialist Realism. … I don’t think that discussion affected my work. I admit that in the 50s and for quite some time, this tiresome, silly discussion did take place. And it was very destructive to artists, I have to say. It was never a big problem for me, it was terroristic and extremely tiring on a personal level. one can’t imagine it today.“

Film Dir Moritz. 19 min 30s

He resisted moving away despite offers:

“Working as a painter in this country was not easy. In the 50s and 60s there was a lot of interference, a lot was changed for ideological reasons. Nonetheless it was possible to do what you felt was right even if it meant less money. But you can make do. There was also many opportunities though I won’t be specific, to leave the country. There were good offers, food financial offers with villas in Hamburg and so forth, but I remained in Leipzig where the children are. It’s not that I cling to Leipzig, but I never considered leaving the GDR. For whatever reasons I simply did my work and it worked out. But it wasn’t easy. It started getting easier after 1970, .. my first exhibition in Milan and northern Italy. And then as is common in Germany and other countries it was officially recognized that I had something to offer.” 

26 minutes 50 seconds

He became a professor in 1972, then became Rector of the Academy. He produced a series of works on Hiroshima, and in 1965 his works on fascism received plaudits. Awarded a commission on  “Workers and the Intellectuals” in 1970 for Leipzig university, he placed the leaders of Karl-Marx University and Party officials in the background. The brings students and workers together, placing the carpenters in front. 

After the Pinochet coup in Chile he painted 1974 “Chilienisches Requiem”. Above it Tübke placed the words of Pablo Neruda “Nothing will be forgotten, ladies and gentlemen, and through my wounded mouth the others shall continue to sing”.

By now I hope the reader is convinced that his paintings confirm that whatever criticism he faced, he was clearly a committed progressive. In fact I think he was a committed ‘socialist’. However, what category was his art is to be classified in? I propose it was a unique form of a marriage between socialist content, realist but also ‘magical’ realist forms.  

His positions were not taken alone, but were those of the so-called Leipzig school. This included Trübke, Willi Sitte and Bernard Heisig. The latter said: “in 1972, “We [artists in East Germany] have the chance to take part in a worldview! “( “Why Heisig Matters” p. 5)

David Elliot curated an exhibition of East German art in the UK in 1984, and put it like this: “Heisig, Willi Sitte, and Werner Tübke had been able to “revalidate [socialist realism] not as a style with recognizable physical attributes and finite duration but as an attitude which gave conviction to art.”   (April A. Eisman; “Bernhard Heisig and the fight for modern art in East Germany; Boydell & Brewer; 2018. p.5). 

Tübke’s art poses a challenge to those who argue that the GDR promulgated an ‘establishment’ socialist realism. Tübke was attacked both in the Ulbricht and the Honecker era. If you believe as I do that neither the Ulbricht or the Honecker governments were ‘socialist’ – how could Tübke’s major works have been state sponsored? The GDR was by the late 1950s part of the Comecon network of states. The original purpose of the ‘People’s Democracies’ moving towards socialism, had been warped into becoming colonial outposts of the USSR revisionist, neo-imperialist state. The camouflage of a ‘socialist art’ tradition was useful to their pretence of being a workers state. That led the GDR to tolerate the Leipzig school. 

If you go, and you are not interested in the alleged healing properties of the spas (‘Bad’) – there is little else to do in the town. So an alternative is to stay in Erfurt and do a day trip via regional trains. 

Manufacturing Consent in the German Media

In continuing to misreport Israel’s attacks on the Palestinians, German media are complicit in genocide


06/08/2024

In recent days, Israel has massively escalated against the Axis of Resistance with attacks on Lebanon and Iran that threaten to drag the world into war.

German media is doing its part to manufacture consent for an all-out regional war through disinformation, lies, strategic omissions, double standards and distractions.

Disinformation: Schrödinger’s “Israelis”

On Saturday 27 July, a rocket struck the village of Majdal Shams in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights, killing 12 members of the Syrian Druze community. German media calls this “The worst attack on Israeli citizens since October 7”, but none of the 12 children killed had Israeli citizenship.

The Golan Heights were occupied by Israel in 1967.  Almost 90% of its inhabitants, mainly hailing from the Syrian Druze community, were expelled. In 1981, Israel annexed the area in violation of international law. That same year, it blockaded the town of Majdal Shams and attempted to physically force residents to accept Israeli identity documents. The town’s residents, certain that they did not want Israeli citizenship and protesting their forcible separation from their Syrian community, proceeded with a 19-week general strike and ultimately successfully negotiated with the Israeli government to be considered non-citizens, which they remain today.

Around 80% of Golan Druze have refused to take on Israeli citizenship and remain Syrian citizens only. The Israeli government also does not consider them Israeli citizens, treating them with blatant racist disregard. They are no more Israeli citizens than the people of Gaza.

The annexation in violation of international law, the presence of Israeli settlers in the occupied Golan Heights, the oppression the Syrian Druze community face from the Israeli occupiers – all of this is mentioned as a side-line in German coverage, if at all.

It is factually incorrect to call the people killed in Majdal Shams “Israeli citizens.” If it were just an error made by an ignorant reporter it would have been corrected after receiving criticism. We’ve already seen that interns and others without background knowledge are allowed to write headlines in major journals, as was the case with a recent article in Tagesspiegel portraying a banner comparing police to pigs as “antisemitic”. But not so for this article: ZDF eventually annotated their Instagram post (over 24 hours later), but without acknowledging the annexation.

Worse yet, Der Spiegel even issued a wrong and disingenuous correction, stating that the Israeli army spokesperson had spoken of “citizens”, not “Israeli citizens.” This ‘correction’ is blatantly false: in Hebrew the spokesperson had said “azarchei mdinat israel” meaning “citizens of the state of Israel.” A reporter can be heard in a video of the press conference correcting him, saying “hem lo azarchei mdinat israel!” – “they are not citizens of the state of Israel!”  Der Spiegel’s sad ‘correction’ betrays either an ignorance of history and unwillingness to engage with criticism, or a malicious rewriting of facts about the deceased, against the will of the families who fought so hard against this.

Other mainstream sites pay some lip service to the annexation, while upholding the Israeli narrative. German media are helplessly tangled up in contradictions: they say the people killed are Israeli, but they don’t have Israeli citizenship. They say the area belongs to Israel, but it is occupied in violation of international law.

Are you confused? That would be because German state narrative has completely lost touch with reality, and because German media props up this cognitive dissonance.

The headline “the worst attack on Israeli civilians since October 7” is not only factually incorrect, but also a direct quote from the Israeli military spokesperson. Any journalist who adopts this quote by a war party without categorizing it, or even labeling it as such, is not practicing journalism, but shorthand war propaganda.

Double standards: whose children matter?

On the same day of the tragic death of 12 children in Majdel Shams, at least 50 people were killed by an Israeli attack on a school in Deir el-Balah in Gaza, and two Palestinians were killed in the occupied West Bank. Hundreds of thousands of children in Gaza have been facing continuous bombardment, starvation, and destruction of all means of life. Just last week, doctors returning from Gaza reported that children in Gaza are “definitively” being shot in the head and heart by israeli snipers. But none of this caused a ripple in German media.

The German media’s stance is clear: only one set of children matter, and only when they can be instrumentalized to fit a narrative.

Journalistic Integrity

Of significant note, and reminiscent of a certain Colin Powell or Reichstag Fire in earlier US and German history, is the German media’s immediate attribution of the explosion in Majdal Shams to Hezbollah as an organization.

The Israeli government immediately blamed the rocket on Hezbollah, while Hezbollah – known for taking responsibility for its rockets – categorically denied involvement. Residents of Majdel Shams say they recognized the rocket as Israeli, and Iron Dome rockets regularly fall over their village. Residents of Majdal Shams have collectively protested Netanyahu and Israeli government officials when they visit the town, calling them war criminals and pushing them out of the village when they tried to attend the funeral, as well as publicly calling for no retaliation or bloodshed to occur in their name.

Sound journalistic practice would wait to learn more about the origin or details of the explosion at Majdal Shams, and consider the motivations or consequences of an Israeli counterattack. Evidence and proper investigatory journalism could potentially clarify the origin of the attack. Instead, German media outlets uncritically parrot the Israeli narrative.

Killing journalists

On July 31st, Al Jazeera journalist Ismail Al-Ghoul and cameraman Rami al-Refee were killed in Gaza by what seems to be a targeted Israeli air strike on their car. Images show Al-Ghoul in the destroyed vehicle, still wearing his press vest, decapitated.

Fake stories of beheaded babies are still being spread by German politicians months after they have been debunked. Real, actual pictures of decapitated journalists don’t elicit any response from German media.

This is not the first time Al-Ghoul has been targeted: in March, he was arrested in a hospital and severely beaten by Israeli forces for 12 hours.

Israel has targeted Palestinian and Lebanese journalists since long before October 7th, including Al Jazeera reporter Shirin Abu Akleh, who was killed by sniper fire while reporting from Jenin refugee camp. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 113 journalists have been killed in Gaza since October 7th. At the recent opening of the Olympic Games, the Lebanese journalist Christiane Assi carried the Olympic torch to honor the journalists wounded and killed. Assi had part of her leg amputated after being injured in an Israeli strike on a group of journalists reporting from Lebanon, which killed her colleague Issam Abdallah.

More than 70 media associations from across the world signed an open letter urging Israel to allow international journalists to access the Gaza Strip. In no other war has one party been able to completely bar access to the fighting zone. This, in addition to the targeted killing of journalists in Gaza, shows that Israel does not want information to leave Gaza. But this does not bother Staatsräson (German reason of state): Not a single German association has signed the letter or decried the targeted killing of its colleagues in Gaza.

German complicity

German media has overall ignored necessary context and repeated the Israeli government’s narrative. This serves the purpose of manufacturing consent for further Israeli attacks on Lebanon, Iran, Syria, and of course Palestine, including the alleged targeted assassination by Israel of Haniyeh, the head negotiator in Gaza ceasefire talks.

Are we really supposed to believe a regime is interested in negotiations if it kills the other side’s negotiator, on the soil of a powerful enemy?

All of this is beating the same war drum.

The Zionist state has learned that its supporters, mainly the USA and Germany, will protect it from any accountability: not the ICJ, not the UN, and not the highly praised international community matter as long as the arms dealers cover up every genocidal massacre, every imperial attack and every war crime. That is why it is so important to keep the German population in line and keep telling them lies: so that they don’t notice that Germany is once again supporting genocide.

Israel is provoking an ever greater war. German media is happy to provide the excuses.

Cologne Pride sides with Genocide

CSD allows space for Israel and the army, but not for people opposing genocide


Christopher Street Day has certainly never had the reputation of being an anti-capitalist, revolutionary event rooted in the radical tradition of the Stonewall Riots. This year’s CSD, however, has proven it is nothing more than a political charade. Cologne welcomed the Zionist block with appropriated Stars of David in rainbow colors, a Bundeswehr advertising van, the police and all political parties from green to black (CDU) with open arms while exercising brutal police oppression and censorship against Palästina Solidarität Köln. PSK had planned to march in a radical block registered by Offenes Antifaschistisches Treffen and Offenenes Feministiches Treffen that included ZORA and Young Struggle Köln, Pride Rebellion Duisburg and Föderation Klassenkämpferischer Organisation. They had joined forces for the visibility of multiple marginalized people in the queer community and PSK was participating under the motto of  “No Pride in Genocide.” 

PSK was banned from carrying all political symbols, including a banner stating “QUEERS* FOR A FREE PALESTINE FIGHT AGAINST RACISM, ISLAMOPHOBIA, HOMO/TRANS*PHOBIA, ANTISEMITISM, APARTHEID!” They were told that CSD is not a political demonstration and Palestine has nothing to do with the event. The pro-Israel block, meanwhile, was allowed to proceed unimpeded. Watermelons displayed with Israeli flags were seen as neutral while the colonized and those marching in solidarity with them were excluded. T-online slandered the radical block just three days before, accusing them of taking advantage of the demonstration for their own purposes, stating that regardless if one is for or against Israel, these politics have no place at CSD. The flagrantly hypocritical slogan of the parade, “FOR HUMAN RIGHTS – Many. Together. Strong” was unveiled just one day after a historic ICJ ruling declared Israel to be an apartheid state.

When offered the “compromise” of participating at the very back of the parade with keffiyehs as the only visible symbol of Palestinian solidarity, the block collectively rejected. As comrades found themselves in chaotic discussion with the police, rain began to pour over their handcrafted, sparkly watermelon signs and a PSK heart decorated with banners in the colors of the Palestinian flag. A large police presence was called in to harass the group after they organized their own spontaneous demonstration, deeming chants of “Yallah yallah intifada” unconstitutional and threatening protesters with criminal charges. Additional police officers were subsequently mobilized as the block began to disperse. Members were beaten, kicked and restrained by chokehold inside of a pharmacy in Cologne Central Station. The person who registered the protest was later informed that a counterdemonstration wasn’t legal after their group had already been excluded from CSD.

Though intersectionality has its limitations and can easily tread the danger of losing its class perspective, PSK’s attempt to bring anti-colonial struggles and queer liberation to the streets is an important act of solidarity and resistance as queer Palestinians are being dehumanized and defaced. In addition to facing extermination, Palestinian queerness is also weaponized by the Israeli army through harrassment and outings. 

Attacks against peaceful, pro-Palestine demonstrators at Pride events this year have been widespread. Over thirty people from Queers for Palestine were brutally assaulted and arrested on 26 July by the Berlin police, followed by an estimated two dozen arrests at Internationalist Queer Pride on 27 July. BIPOC Kollektiv from Bonn also reported being attacked by Zionists at CSD in Cologne. After starting a spontaneous protest in solidarity with Palestine within the #niewiderquiet block, they were shown middle fingers and one participant had a beer poured over them. BIPOC Kollektiv wasn’t expelled from the event, but the organizers and the police did nothing to hinder the harrassment mainly affecting FLINTA* protestors, some of whom had Palestinian roots.

It is crystal clear that CSD events are in no way a commemoration of the Stonewall Riots. Instead, CSD is squarely positioned on the side of pinkwashing and wholesale mass slaughter. Complicit, it facilitated a continuation of the violence committed against queer, trans and BIPOC people in New York City fifty-five years ago.

It is indeed alarming in an time of ever-increasing police violence and rapid armament that the Bundeswehr was allowed to hand out flyers at CSD stating “Freedom Fighters: Your Body, Your Identity, Your Sexuality, For Human Rights, All Genders Welcome” to the crowd. After Netanyahu likened protesters holding up signs saying “Gays for Gaza” to “Chickens for KFC,” one also has to wonder what part of Germany’s already marginalized queer community might be sent to the battlefield in the name of democracy. Our world order is anything but stable after Israel’s assassination of Imsail Haniyeh in Iran and its bombing of Beirut, the latter presumably after manufacturing just cause through a red flag operation in Golan Heights. If Pistorius’s current draft legislation comes to pass, all eighteen-year-old men in Germany who are liable for military service will have to fill out an online questionnaire. It is difficult to determine if a binary, cis definition of men is meant in the context of the Bundeswehr handing out flyers at Pride, but it is clear that the  Ampel-coalition is ready to speed up the domestic production of weapons. As the left-wing, anti-capitalist block was denied a voice at CSD, Amazon, Tyssenkrupp and the green to black alliance were allowed unimpeded presence, all of them directly supporting Israel’s genocidal regime. Just as its horrificly racist, anti-Palestinian float signalled last year at Karneval, for which mayor Henritte Reker served as a festival committee member, Cologne has decided to side squarely on the side of genocide. 

Pezeshkian offers breathing room in Iran but his options are limited

“Iran’s Starmer” wins election by ditching political discussion


04/08/2024

In 2005, Reformist firebrand Mostafa Tajzadeh, gave a speech at the HQ of the Participation Front – the biggest party of Iran’s Reformist faction. He aimed to rally supporters for the upcoming presidential election. Tajzadeh related how the pro-Khomeini Islamic left, was kicked out of the government after Khamenei’s ascent, did an autopsy on their record and policies by looking at Clinton’s “triangulation,” Blair’s New Labour, and Anthony Giddens. It decided to renovate itself. That ‘Left’ was after all, just like every other social democratic party in the neoliberal era. Just like most of those parties in the West, the Reformists continued to triangulate with the right.

Since the mid-90s, Iran has held eight presidential elections. Of these seven were competitive, albeit neither free nor fair. The exception led to the 2021 presidency of Ebrahim Raisi, who was recently killed in the helicopter crash in the Northwest of Iran. Raisi’s path over a decade led from the margins to leading the religious and financial juggernaut Astan-e-Qods, to the head of Judiciary and then the presidency.

Raisi’s status as an arch Principalist (the hardliners in Western media), together with Reformists’ underwhelming performance in 2021 elections, led observers to pronounce the death of the Reformist faction. They also saw Raisi as a possible, or likely, successor to the 85-year old Supreme Leader. But in 2024 elections Reformists won the presidency for the first time since 2001 with Pezeshkian, a self-identifying Reformist. Former president Rouhani’s administration (2013-21) had been backed by Reformists but he himself came from the moderate wing of the Principalists and never identified himself as a Reformist.

Iran’s presidential elections are always interesting because of the complex factional politics which produces surprises. Recently the Spanish online newspaper El Diario compared it to how the Holy Spirit, supposedly, enlightens cardinals to choose the Pope.

The recent election saw for the first time, a competitive election without even a 60% turnout. There had been the 2021 brutal crackdown on the Women, Life, Freedom protests; the 2019 fuel hike protests, mismanagement of the COVID pandemic, and a miserably declining economic situation. The first round of the election saw a measly turnout of 39.9%, the lowest ever in the history of The Islamic Republic—a system priding itself on massive turnouts, and using those to gain legitimacy at a world stage.

Even with such a low turnout the candidates of the Principalist ruling coalition lost. After 1997 the Reformists appealed to the deep grievances of large sections in Iran, campaigning on cultural and social freedoms, minority issues, and a more liberal foreign policy. Assumptions were that the Reformists would hugely benefit from higher turnout, as their votes came from the educated urban middle class in bigger cities, or those sidelined by the post-1979 government. Supposedly the government enjoys the strong support of close to 20 million voters, and they will always show up to vote for the Principalists. But with a turnout lower than 40% they ended up losing. The 8% turnout in the second round of the parliamentary election in Tehran in early May suggests that the government is hemorrhaging supporters, including from its most ardent, always-turn-out-to-vote demos.

Another new aspect was that the Reformist Pezeshkian won, without appealing to the supposed Reformist base of women, the youth, and the educated urban middle class. His messaging, especially in the first round, was as apolitical as possible. He kept repeating “Let’s not fight” and “let the experts work”. That changed in the second round when facing off against the more “radical” Principalist candidate.

Iran’s political debates don’t really deal with the question of economy. It often comes down to “we should make the economy better” or “we should have growth.” The main dividing lines over 20 years has been on social and cultural freedoms, and foreign policy.

Pezeshkian is a devout Muslim, but he stood closer to the side of freedom of lifestyle. He criticized lack of ‘proper’ Hijab not unlike the Principalists. But he censured authorities for the youth retreat from religious norms; and for harsh measures against those without ‘proper’ Hijab. He famously criticized authorities in the parliament following Mahsa Amini’s death in the custody of Iran’s infamous Morality Police. He also talked about the need to build ties with the West and making concessions to enable agreements. Zarif, the previous foreign minister who is the face of the Nuclear Deal between Iran and the West,  was appointed as Vice President in Strategic Affairs on Thursday

Then there was Speaker of Parliament Qalibaf who stopped short of talking about freedoms. He based his fourth losing campaign as a “strong manager,” or strongman, and repeated calls for dealing with the ‘problem’ of Afghan migrants in Iran, including promises to build a massive wall on Iran’s Eastern border. He started the election riding high in the polls but once more, everything soon turned sour for him. He seemed to be mostly on good terms with Pezeshkian who was recently elected to a fifth-term as member of the parliament, and was one of few prominent Reformist MPs during Qalibaf’s mandate.

Former nuclear negotiator Jalili was clearly on the other side, having his main support base among the ranks of hardliner Endurance Front, presenting himself as a crusader against the West and against corrupt, entrenched business elites in the country; an Ahmadinejad redux.

The Iranian left mostly stayed away from the elections. The left opposition abroad almost entirely boycotted the elections, as usual. That included the Tudeh party or various offshoots of the People’s Fedai Guerrillas, massive organizations in a bygone era now turned to miniscule groups bickering over their legacy. Many of the well known union organizers inside the country, who risk jail or have been jailed for their organizing work, also boycotted the whole affair. Iran bans independent labor unions and has ramped up its crackdown in the last few years amid a visible increase in their number and activities.

The purported leftists who decided to take part were divided between Jalili and Pezeshkian. Trade-offs abound. One circle, organizing through a YouTube channel called Jedaal (struggle) voted for Jalili. They portrayed him as an anti-imperialist, pro-worker, loyalist to the ideals of the 1979 revolution, and voted for him. They ignored his affinity with the most conservative faction in the government, or visible reactionary figures around him.

A second group of mostly Reformist-adjacent or former Reformist activists voted for Pezeshkian. They cited his support for social and cultural freedoms and his declared opposition to privatization of health and education sectors. But they overlooked the horde of economists and business leaders close to him, or his appearance at the Chamber of Commerce supporting free trade and market economy. Members of the Chamber of Commerce played notable roles in his transitional team.

Turnout was just below 50% in the second round. There were ridiculous attempts to link the turnout to foreign policy, both calling for and against voting. These forget that Iran was labeled a part of the Axis of Evil after massive turnouts for Khatami and Iran’s collaboration with US’s invasion of Afghanistan; or that the West and Raisi’s administration were reportedly very close to reviving the nuclear deal until some voices from the Iranian side killed it. Now that is not to say that Iran would not put up a more friendly face towards the West, especially the EU, at least until this year’s US presidential election.

With a failing economy Iran needs to strengthen its ties to every country it can. It needs big investments and lots of trade, just to keep the collapsing economy afloat. Former administration tried that with neighbors and with Russia and China. Biden kept the Maximum Pressure campaign that Trump’s administration started to cut Iran from the world. Some tiny tweaks followed with market volatility in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It wasn’t nearly enough.

Pezeshkian’s closest advisors were part of the team that brought about the Nuclear Deal in 2015. A second Trump administration might end all the possibilities for its revival or managing the friction between Iran and the West.Even given the most benign intentions and initiatives, the world that allowed for a nuclear deal might be over. As NATO feeds every last Ukrainian soul to the brutal Russian war machine to keep EU on its leash, the US shields its closest ally to enforce its apartheid rule and commit a genocide, to put the Middle East in its place. Taiwan might be next. The nuclear deal needed not only Iran and the US to sign onto the framework, but also France, Germany, and Russia and China.

In the region, the new government would follow the rapprochement with the Saudis and Emiratis to lower the heat so as to attract an inflow of investments from the other side of the Persian Gulf. But with tensions being at an all time high in the Middle East, it’s only a fool’s errand to predict what will happen. In the wake of Haniyeh’s assassination in Tehran, a full invasion of Lebanon by Israel, every day closer to reality, could upend not just Iran, but also the whole region.

Low turnout carries domestic consequences. Khamenei summed the numbers of voters in both rounds and called it 55 million, trying to hide how dismal the numbers were. Some on the left had predicted that the system would heal social wounds and recreate its ‘hegemony’ inside the country by shoring up votes with a serious reformist contender. If there were such a plan, it failed. To retake the lost hegemony the Islamic republic needs to do a lot more: curtailing its most rabid supporters, making serious concessions in terms of lifestyle, and pull off miracles in solving the economic downturn and re-establishing social safety nets.

Over the last two administrations there has been a visible erosion of state institutions. These were hollowed out first by US sanctions and then by domestic mismanagement and simple greed. It led to a shattering of state services and safety nets. It’s a big task to revive and rebuild what’s lost, especially with privatizers and business interests around the government. Pezeshkian, a medical practitioner himself, kept talking against privatization in the health and education sectors. That alone would be a major step. One could wish that the Islamic Republic in general and the Reformists in particular have learned their lesson. One may remember all the withered wishes.

The Reformists have traditionally been interested in relying on the Reformist-aligned Worker’s House and state-sanctioned Islamic Work Councils to deal with labor issues. However with the rise of independent-but-illegal unions and labor protest, that might not work anymore. Tactics are evolving and independent unions around the country are communicating much better than before. The Iranian Teacher Trade Association, in Tehran, can now consult with the workers organizing in Haft Tappeh Sugar Cane Mill in Shush. Oil sector contractors in Assaluyeh could learn from Heavy Equipment Production workers in Arak. Obviously, the state and its intelligence apparatus have also improved their tactics and harshened punishment for independent organizing. In a declining economy, workers have nothing to lose but chains. If Pezeshkian keeps promises to back freedoms, and provides some space for the activists and reduces the state’s repression, it could ease the labor movement efforts to organize and create opportunities for solidarity movements to form and move ahead. Pezeshkian and all other candidates promised to raise the minimum wage according to the official inflation rate. Though part of the law, over the years this has been neglected a lot. With inflation numbers around 40% or more, it would have a huge impact on the lives of the most marginalized.

Pezeshkian’s lack of ambitious, or even concrete, programs during the campaign was so apparent that he was criticized for it by both Jalili and those who boycotted the elections, and his own supporters too. He kept insisting on unity and reconciliation and referring to various limitations here and there. He envisages a technocratic government on good terms with all power centers, with vague promises of improvements.

Tajzadeh has just started his 10th year in jail in his second stint as a political prisoner. He boycotted the election and referred to Pezeshkian’s victory with low turnout as hollow. Had he outside prison, he might have described Pezeshkian as our own Starmer. It is, of course, a vastly different setting so a Starmer might be the best one could hope for in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Paris est une Fête, but who really gets to Celebrate?

The contradictory Olympics mix spectacle, gentrification and discrimination


03/08/2024

The Paris Olympic Games opening ceremony was far beyond my expectations and such a breath of fresh air in contrast with the intensified presence of the extreme right in the French media lately. Some of us commented that it felt like we lived in a country led by the left for a few hours before coming back to the harsh reality of a people resisting the rise of fascism via extreme right parties who threatened to win the last legislative elections. The extravagant opening ceremony encapsulated the diversity of France, its multiculturalism and rich history. 

Highlights of the show included the French-Malian singer Aya Nakamura performing alongside the orchestra of the Republican Guard. Nakamura has often received racist attacks from reactionary right-wing critics accusing her of humiliating the French language as she creatively mixes French with West-African dialects, as well as Arabic and English, in her songs. Her performance was all the more iconic that it took place in front of the highly symbolic French Academy, the conservative temple of the French language. One in the eye for her detractors. Other major moments included a re-creation of the Feast of Dionysus with drag queens paired with ballet and ballroom performances displaying an inclusive choice of models and dancers with body diversity. Feminism was also at the forefront of the ceremony with (cardboard) statues of ten French historic feminist figures including decolonial activists Louise Michel and Gisèle Halimi. 

And the show created by artistic director Thomas Jolly and his team did not stop on TV, since the second best part was the reaction of the right wing on social media. Outraged by the opening ceremony, they deemed the show to be embarrassing for the image of France abroad, not appropriate to be watched by children because of drag queens and a sequence showing a love triangle as an homage to Truffaut’s Jules et Jim. Some even considered the scene of a beheaded Marie-Antoinette bleeding figure while death-metal band Gojira inflamed the Conciergerie to be clearly satanic and obscene. Marie-Antoinette is thence still the #1 decapitated figure horrifying spectators on social media, but not an ounce of concern is expressed for the videos of actual decapitated children from Gaza that keep being shared online.

Although it’s hard to distinguish between what was imposed on Jolly by the French government and the IOC and what falls under his actual artistic choices, some moments in the ceremony clouded the picture. Some might say that the ceremony was altogether hypocritical for showing an idyllic France when minorities are constantly endangered, it can also be understood as an artistic decision to foreground resistance against our politicians and an opportunity to show an alternative French society, one possibly based on human values. 

As singer Juliette Armanet sang one of the Olympic ceremony’s classics, John Lennon’s Imagine,  “We stand united for peace” appeared while French commentators highlighted the anti-capitalist nature of the song. Quite a jarring description to highlight anti-capitalism when LVMH, the official sponsor of the games, made sure to showcase its products throughout the whole ceremony and most importantly, a very discordant message on our screens when the Israeli delegation was allowed to take part in the Olympics despite the ongoing genocide in Gaza—an asymmetrical principle when Russian athletes are banned from international competition. The Palestinian delegation, rather small as about 400 Palestinian athletes were murdered by the Israeli state, has been enthusiastically acclaimed by the public during the ceremony. 

That said, it didn’t refrain the French government from heightening the repression against Palestinian support during the games as the display of Palestinian flags has been banned with a fine of 135€ for whoever defies the ban, when supporters of other countries are free to wave their flags. This ban happens in a context where France was already under fire for its racist and Islamophobic ban on the hijab for competing athletes, a liberty supposed to be secured by the French secular law. Some women are therefore prevented from competing for arbitrary reasons, but the IOC allowed Steven van de Velde, a convicted rapist, to play on the Dutch volleyball team. 

It should also be pointed out that the ceremony almost did not happen, as a strike threat initiated by the union for performing artists (part of CGT) loomed over the Olympic Games. Strikers’ demands included the transfer of image rights and reimbursement of transport and accommodation considering their total salary would have gone to those expenses given Paris’ housing prices. Added to this, a difference in treatment for performers who would dance side by side was denounced between intermittent artists directly hired by the production company and other artists hired for the ceremony through their own company. The strike call was eventually lifted shortly before the opening ceremony day after artists obtained more satisfying working conditions. 

Critics of the Paris Olympic Games don’t only concern themselves with the opening ceremony. The organization of the event and the social cost of the Olympics highlighted by the collective Le Revers de la Médaille, as on each occurrence of the games, is no minor consideration. Students were one of the first groups impacted, with 3200 student accommodation units being requisitioned for the event, and out of 1400 rehousing applications only 100 students received a new accommodation. The police officers from other regions in France, for whom the studios were requisitioned, were able to get the units cleaned and disinfected after the intervention of the police union since a lot of accommodations were unsanitary and infested with cockroaches —a demand student unions voiced in vain for years, but which happened instantly for the police staff. 

Numerous abusive evictions also took place in a city with skyrocketing rent prices, as greedy landlords hoped to make a profit by renting their apartments on Airbnb during the event, leaving hundreds of tenants in very precarious situations. To give a perfect postcard rendering of Paris for tourists, about 12,500 homeless people were also swept from the streets, squats, and shanty towns and sent to other French regions by bus. And when the government sees evictions of homeless people as a necessity and a minor issue since they are already in the streets, the reality is strikingly different. A lot of those people lost their jobs as a result, and were uprooted from their social ties in neighborhoods where people knew them and cared for them, or from their solidarity networks for those living in squats. 

When locals are not evicted, their already shrinking commons and highly necessary natural spaces, vectors of biodiversity in dense urban concrete areas are being appropriated to build more amenities for the event. It has been the case of the Aubervilliers Workers’ Gardens where 4.000 square metres of gardens were destroyed to make way for a solarium adjoining an Olympic pool, a project that was eventually aborted. Similarly, the sex worker community already facing difficult work situations, physically and mentally endangered by French laws penalizing both sex workers and clients, is also targeted with greater anti-prostitution campaigns putting them in even more danger. 

Under the pretext of security, the Olympic Games have also been the perfect excuse to implement mass surveillance measures with algorithm-driven smart cameras until 2025, way after the end of the competition. These measures pose considerable threat to personal liberties since our biometric data could be collected and machines are being trained to detect absolutely normal behavior— such as walking in a different direction than others or standing in a place for too long — and deeming them suspicious. 

The Olympic Games also mark the return of the infamous QR code zone system, a bitter memory of Covid times no one was pleased to see return. The system announced in advance made Parisians flee the city before the games, but not everyone can afford to leave their homes, creating Kafkaesque commute situations all over the city for local workers. Some patients are unable to reach their doctor’s office when located in restricted areas even with a proof of appointment. Nor can ambulances and taxis access the red zones, and some patients have been asked to walk and use public transportation after receiving surgery. 

The price of transportation tickets also doubled and no free transportation tickets have been offered to spectators as was first advertised. For disabled people living in Paris, a city already hostile to them, with only 3% of public transportation accessible in normal times, the daily headache of getting from point A to point B intensifies with the QR zones. No exceptions have been made for them, even when they have to make long detours because pedestrian crossings are closed. And as pointed out by feminist disability awareness collective Les Dévalideuses, the newly accessible housing infrastructures built to host athletes will probably end up being owned by private investors looking for return on investment with unaffordably high rents for a disabled population in severe lack of accessible housing and often in financially precarious situations, as disability often leads to financial difficulty and vice-versa. 

Beyond city accessibility, the actual format of the Olympic Games deserves to be scrutinized. Pierre de Coubertin, the ‘inventor’ of the modern Olympic Games was a major racist, sexist and colonialist, preventing people of color and women from participating in the games and the heritage of the discriminatory ‘past’ of the games lives on. Paris 2024 marks the first Olympic Games supposedly achieving a 50/50 male to female parity, but is that really the case? 

The Olympics are definitely a capitalist tool crystallizing into a worldwide event the glorification of idealized able bodies fitting a certain norm, perpetuating a cult of performance and meritocracy. Paralympic athletes still don’t perform on the side of the ‘real’ athletes, they don’t take part in the main opening ceremony with them, often don’t get paid, tickets for the events are cheaper, no one knows their name and this year cuts have been made in the size of the French Paralympic delegations to save money, which probably wouldn’t have happened in the regular olympics. 

The Paralympics, the main, if not only, televised competition showing disabled bodies turned out to be quite detrimental to the representation and inclusion of disabled people. How so? It entertains a discourse centered on the idea that disabled people can only be valued if they overcome their handicaps, teaching us a normative life lesson. But disabled people are not meant to be a life inspiration for an abled public, and disabled athletes are athletes like others who deserve the same coverage as given to the regular Olympics. 

Relegating disabled bodies to subaltern ranks outside of the main competition is surely a way to reinforce the concept of the ideal body for each gender. Yet the presence of trans and intersex athletes weakens the notion of the gender binary, illuminating these categories as fictions perpetuated by the competition. In French podcast Les Couilles sur la Table focusing on masculinities, socio-historian Anaïs Bohuon underlines the interesting fact that only women’s (natural) testosterone levels are tested to assess their right to compete in the women category — as has been the case with South-African runner Caster Semenya or more recently with Algerian boxer Imane Khelif — but this is not the case for men. The obsessive need to carefully examine women and define what their bodies should or shouldn’t be, in addition to objectifying them, reinforces the alleged weak nature of women.

Khelif who faces intense waves of transphobia from the likes of bigots like J.K. Rowling and Elon Musk has a variation of her sex traits called DSD (differences of sexual development). The National Institutes of Health maintains that it does not under any case question the fact that she is a cis woman and Khelif does not consider herself as trans or intersex. But even athletes without this variation face transphobic discrimination. French tennis player Amélie Mauresmo’s opponents and the media often questioned her gender, this coupled with lesbophobic attacks since she was open about her sexual orientation. The most famous female tennis player to have constantly faced transphobia remains Serena Williams, highlighting the fact that black women are overly discriminated against. 

The deviance from a gender division highly based on a ‘performance’ of femininity absolutely negates the diversity of bodies in nature. US swimmer Michael Phelps was not discarded from competing on account of his double-jointed ankles and hyper-jointed chest for instance, because this deviation from a norm is valued in men but seen as suspicious in women. Bohuon also brings to light the fact that no one is equal in competition and that when biological characteristics are always the major factors questioned in sports, socio-economic inequalities or the confidence gap between men/women are also highly influential factors. Even within categories of disabled athletes, some disabilities are so different that creating homogeneous groups turns out to be impossible. 

Bohuon also reminds us that under the false pretense of ensuring a fair game, women have often been discarded from competing with men, and not always out of ‘fairness’ but because sports represented (and still do) a tool of oppression justifying men’s physical superiority over women. It was long inconceivable that women could compete with men and sometimes beat them. The case of the infamous double-amputee sprinter Oscar Pistorius competing in the regular Olympics is also interesting considering this double treatment. Subaltern categories need to exist to sustain the myth of a natural superiority of able-bodied men, yet when the subalterns prove themselves to be as successful as the latter category, they are cast aside and accused of unfair advantage. 

But should the Olympic Games be canceled altogether? The values that these sports bring — such as respect, team spirit, solidarity or tolerance — are honorable, but how could we further improve the Olympic Games to make them inclusive for all of us? Should we rethink gender categories as gender is a social construct? Ableism? How could this be implemented? Or is the very idea of competition actually doomed if we only focus on performance and not on the beauty of the game, on good treatment of horses for equestrian sports, on team cohesion, on outstanding performance in adversity for athletes of the refugee team, for instance, or on so many other aspects that could be assigned more value? The 33rd Olympic Games have achieved a façade of parity for the first time, but purple washing has good days ahead if the IOC doesn’t engage in a deeper reflection on its myriad disparities.