The Left Berlin News & Comment

This is the archive template

Voices4Berlin

Inclusive non-violent direct action group of LGBTQIA+ individuals for queer liberation 🌈🌍


27/03/2024

Voices4 Berlin is an inclusive, Berlin-based group of LGBTQIA+ people who use their privilege to actively promote global queer liberation through non-violent direct action. It was founded in response to the targeted, organized persecution of gay men in Chechnya, Russia. Our common goal is the global protection of queer people from persecution, discrimination and bigotry, and the recognition and enforcement of the rights and obligations that come with it.

On March 31st Voices4 Berlin is celebrating Trans* Day of Visibility at 90mil! We will have programming from 1pm onward including workshops, an open mic and a party with a line up of some of Germany’s best TIN* DJs. All programming will be donation-based and no one will be turned away for lack of funds. Follow Voices4 Berlin on Instagram @voices4berlin and Telegram for more information as well as to stay updated on future events, demos, actions, and ways to get informed and involved

For more information, you can follow Voices4Berlin on Instagram and facebook.

Stop political expulsion at Berlin universities

Urgent Call to Action: Students, Academic Freedom and Democracy under Attack


20/03/2024

Copy the linked template, edit it to your liking and send it to the representatives of your district. You can find their contact sorted by district here. If you disagree with something in the letter, feel free to change it, or simply write an email in your own words.

At the end of this text, we added  a template in English and German, that students can send to their professors, lecturers, academics, and research assistants asking them to also speak out.

Background  

On March 26, Berlin is debating a change to the Higher Education Act where “politically motivated expulsion” can be used as a disciplinary measure in universities. This not only threatens people’s right to stay in Germany, as visas can be tied to student status, but sets a frightening precedent of shutting down student political organizing and restricting academic freedom. They are quickly pushing this in during semester break, and leaving little possibility of organized opposition. We need a wide alliance of students and non-students to oppose the right-wing turn in Germany: WE CANNOT LET THIS PASS!

Why It’s Important for You to Send Out

By using this template to express your concerns, you contribute to the collective effort to protect the rights and freedoms of students and faculty members at Berlin universities. Together, we can make our voices heard and work towards a more just and equitable higher education system in Berlin.

Sign our petition

Petition · Hände weg vom Hochschulgesetz: Politisch motivierte Exmatrikulationen in Berlin stoppen! · Change.org

The actual law proposal

Siebzehntes Gesetz zur Änderung des Berliner Hochschulgesetzes (17. BerlHG-ÄnderungsG)

You can find the suggested mail to politicians and to professors, lecturers, academics, and research assistants here. Please take the time to send a message to protect academic freedom in Berlin.

Palestine Conference 2024

We Accuse!


13/03/2024

From 12-14 April we are organising the Palestine Conference 2024 in Berlin. As Palestinian, Jewish, German and international activists, we will publicly accuse the German government of aiding and abetting the genocide in Gaza.

You want to hold German politicians accountable for their support of war crimes? You want to resist the silencing in Germany about the genocide in Palestine?

Then make the Palestine Conference possible with your donation!

Together we can create the momentum and bring our movement into the offensive.

The Palestinians are suffering genocide. Israel is destroying Gaza and its population. While the International Court of Justice sees signs of genocide in Palestine, the German government increased its arms deliveries to Israel tenfold in 2023. In January 2024, with starvation looming in Gaza, the German government declared that it would stop its financial support for humanitarian aid to the Palestinians. We cannot and will not accept this!

Together with voices of the Palestinian movement and the international community of high repute, we will denounce israeli apartheid, genocide and German complicity in this injustice. A broad germanwide alliance of Palestinian, Jewish and left-wing organisations invites you to show your solidarity with Palestine.

Here you will have the opportunity to enter into dialogue with confirmed guest speakers. Among them are Greece’s former finance minister Yanis Varoufakis and Irish MP Richard Boyd Barret. Renowned journalists such as Ali Abunimah and Nerdeen Kiswani will provide critical insights. Doctors such as Ghassan Abu Sitteh, who treated patients in Al-Shifa Hospital during the bombardment of Gaza, will share their experiences. The UN Special Representative for Palestine, Francesca Albanese, will give her assessment of the situation in Gaza. Lawyer Nadija Samour will explain why she filed a lawsuit against members of the German government for aiding and abetting genocide with the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office in February 2024.

In addition to many other speakers, you can expect workshops and seminars in which you can join in the discussion. The Palestine Conference creates a space for organising and networking. Based on a joint resolution, we will discuss future actions in the workplace, university, school, art and culture. A joint cultural programme and Palestinian catering will ensure community and well-being.

We need your help to make this possible at affordable ticket prices and to finance the journey for our international guests. Make a contribution so that we can say together in April 2024: We Accuse!

Schule fürs Erinnern / School for Remembrance

Open letter to the Bezirksamt Neukölln and heads of Schools


06/03/2024

As parents and educators in Berlin, we are deeply worried about the Neukölln Bezirksamt’s decision to introduce a brochure titled “Mythos#Israel1948” to the schools’ program. The document, produced and published by the external association “Masiyot,” claims to dispel common myths about Israel-Palestine. In effect, this association promotes a vicious kind of historical revisionism. The brochure at hand claims a false and one-sided narrative that trivializes the violent events of 1948 – the Nakba – and exempts Israel from its responsibility for the ongoing displacement and dispossession of the Palestinians since 1948.

The 1948 war and the Nakba are important and sensitive issues that directly concern the familial history and identity of many pupils in Neukölln specifically, and in Berlin generally. While we welcome the intention to educate about these important subjects, their treatment requires pedagogical care, academic scruple, and a critical reflection upon prejudice and the dynamics of racism in the German education system. It is unthinkable that the Bezirksamt should accept a ready-made content package from a clearly revisionistic organization such as “Masyiot” without consulting and gathering resources from a wide range of independent educators, including Palestinian actors.

As their name indicates, “Masyiot” (Hebrew for “tall tales”) has a political agenda of denying the Palestinian narrative, giving a stage to historical revisionism that attempts to revise the scientifically, politically, and socially acknowledged view of history, on both the Zionist and the Palestinian sides of the political map. “Masyiot” effectively erases the Palestinian experience by presenting and interpreting certain historical events in a significantly different way than accepted in current historical scholarship. Therefore, they cannot be considered a reliable or unbiased source for the discussion of such topics in general and more so in schools where our impressionable young children are supposed to be sensitized to critical thinking in a safe environment. With the partial exception of one member,  the document’s authors have no specific academic or pedagogical expertise on the subject of the 1948 war or the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As parents and teachers, we are outraged that such a political organization is allowed to hijack the education of our children.

A full and deep discussion on the academic merits of this brochure would overstretch the limitation of an open letter, but we would like to discuss a sample of the many problematic issues arising in this document. The brochure presents partial, questionable, and distorted versions of historical events and describes the displacement of 750,000 Palestinians from their homeland as an inevitable result of the “fighting activity” and “voluntary” evictions prompted by “Arabic Propaganda” and merely “individual incidents” of military expulsion. This claim has been refuted many a time and ignores a vast record of research documenting the planned and systematic expulsion of the Palestinian population, along with multiple incidents of massacre, mass executions, and other war crimes committed by the Israeli forces (see Rashid Khalidi, Benny Morris). While discussing the situation of the Palestinian refugees of 1948, the document fails to mention the UN resolution 194(III) affirming the Palestinian right of return and right for compensation, and Israel’s ongoing violation of that decision. It goes to great lengths to relativize and excuse the Israeli occupation and the illegal settlement in the occupied territories (in violation of international law); and finally claims that the occupation of the Gaza Strip ended in 2005 – against a long list of international institutions (including the UN General Assembly and the European Union), organizations, and legal experts disproving this claim (for further references).

Schools must be places of empowerment and open dialogue, where all students are encouraged to express and discuss their identity, background, and heritage without fear of discrimination, criminalization, or dehumanization. All pupils, regardless of their background, deserve truthful and accurate historical knowledge; this is especially true for areas of history that directly affect the families and life situations of many pupils. Indoctrinating pupils in this false version of historical events that denies familial experiences, memories, and testimonies amounts to silencing and gaslighting our children. It can only turn schools into places of suspicion, alienation, and violence. Furthermore, this approach will not protect our children from any kind of racism, including antisemitism, and will exacerbate tensions between Arab and Jewish pupils, who are constantly constructed to be on opposite sides of the struggle against racism. Any educational effort against antisemitism, Islamophobia, and other forms of racism must start with mutual acknowledgment and openness toward the other’s perspective. Any reconciliatory dialogue must begin with recognizing injustices, wrongdoings, and suffering in the past and present. By contrast, using materials that turn classrooms into battlefields in the so-called “war of narratives” endangers and harms all pupils, the schools, and the larger community of Neukölln.

Share this petition in person or use the QR code for your own material.Download QR Code

You can sign the Open Letter here.

Fundraiser – The Reason of State – Documentary Film

A documentary investigating Germany’s war on Palestinian voices


28/02/2024


Like other Western nations, Germany has funded the war in Gaza, increasing its military budget and abetting Israel with material and political support as they continue to kill tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians.

However, what is unique about Germany is the sheer level of repression towards Palestinians and their supporters. Protests have been banned, even chants and slogans have been banned, all in the name of protecting Israel’s national security.

This is such a high priority for the German government that they call it their “reason of state.”

The German media closely reflects this agenda, reporting only the Israeli version of events in Gaza, and grossly misrepresenting or completely ignoring the Palestinian perspective.

It is about time this changed. The purpose of this documentary film project is to highlight the Palestinian voice that has been erased from the media for decades. We have already completed 70% of the filming for the first episode and drafted an editing script.

By funding this independent project, we will be able to investigate, explain, and reveal Germany’s support for Israel, its impact on Europe’s largest Palestinian community, and how those affected are fighting back.

After producing the first episode, we hope to extend the project into a series or a feature-length film focusing on how Germany’s pervasive pro-Israel bias has infiltrated society. This will include Germany’s classification of Israel as their “Reason of State,” Germany’s anti-BDS resolution, the silencing of students, artists, and academics within Germany’s higher education institutions, and Germany’s anti-Palestinian response to the Israel-Hamas war.

Fundraising goals

  • € 15,000 will enable us to complete the first 25-minute episode, which we will release for free on YouTube. We may choose to partner with an established channel in order to increase our reach.
  • € 30,000 will enable us to produce the first episode to a higher standard, making it even more engaging and allowing us to reach a bigger audience.

Further funds will allow us to produce more episodes or a feature-length version of the film for wider distribution.

About the team

Hebh Jamal is a Palestinian journalist living in Germany. Her reporting on the repression of Palestinians in Germany has appeared on Al Jazeera, Middle East Eye, Mondoweiss, and 972 Magazine.

Tom Wills is a British journalist living in Germany. He has researched and produced documentaries for international broadcasters including Al Jazeera and the BBC. His reporting on the repression of Palestine solidarity in Germany has appeared in Middle East Eye, Neues Deutschland, and Junge Welt.

Allocation of funds

  • 30% to Hebh Jamal (Presenter & Co-Producer)
  • 30% to Tom Wills (Director & Co-Producer)
  • 40% for production expenses (equipment rental, travel costs, additional crew, etc.) to be agreed by Hebh & Tom

You can make your donation here.