The Left Berlin News & Comment

This is the archive template

The Good, the Bad, and the Absurd.

Cannabis Legalization plan in Germany

Evan Bernel
24/04/2023

The German Ministry of health under the Minister Karl Lauterbach (Social Democrat) has published its plan for a legalization of Cannabis in Germany. The bullet points seem okay at first glance: The legal transport of 25 grams of dried flower starting at age 18, home growing of 3 female plants in the flowering stage, and the ability to found non-profit cannabis social clubs with up to 500 members. Though when one looks at the details, a few problems can be noticed: in some cases the proposal is even more restrictive than other models of cannabis legalisation. Let’s look at the problems of the new proposal.

No solution for scoring weed out-of-town.

Imagine you visit family or friends in another city in Germany for the holidays. Under the proposal of the health ministry, you would be forbidden from going to a cannabis social club there, becoming a member, and purchasing cannabis. This is because you would only legally be able to be a member of a single cannabis club in all of Germany.

No receiving weed from other countries.

Have a friend or family member where weed is legal? Well under this proposal, none of them could legally send you the cannabis from their garden or local dispensary. Even though the possession of that weed would be legal under the law, the receiving of it coming from another country would be illegal. That’s a contradiction and keeps an element of criminalization alive. It’s not a crime to receive a bottle of wine from California, so why should it be a crime to receive a bag of weed from the same place?

No Tourists!

It is already common knowledge that some tourists come to Berlin for the liberal drug laws, the club scene, and drugs. While the law proposal would allow Berlin Residents to legally purchase their cannabis in Berlin, the tourists would still have to go get their product at the infamous Görlitzer Park, where an activist found most of the weed sold there to be cut with dangerous substances. This brings with it health risks, which could mean unnecessary and life-threatening health emergencies for these consumers, from anything from lung failure to an overdose from dangerous synthetic cannabinoids.

THC Potency Limit for those under 21 years old

The members under 21 years of age will be limited to purchasing cannabis under a certain THC limit. This is an absurd double standard, because 18-year-olds in Germany can already legally drink themselves into a coma with 151 proof rum. For those who don’t know what that is, that is rum with 75,5% alcohol. That’s more potent than most hashish concentrates! Not only that, but alcohol is deadly, while nobody ever died from a THC overdose. This policy will lead to the black market filling the gap for more potent cannabis products, where often the so-called “haze” or “cali” cannabis is just cannabis which is laced with synthetic cannabinoids. Often, consumers don’t even know they are consuming these substances until it’s too late and they are physically addicted, and we know that synthetic cannabinoids are more dangerous than natural THC.

Consuming cannabis within cannabis clubs will be forbidden.

Yes, you read that correctly. You won’t be able to sit with your friends on a couch and play videogames or have a little party at the cannabis club with your friends, as is the case in cannabis social clubs in Spain. No, the government wants to force you into your apartment. And if you aren’t lucky enough to have an apartment where you can legally smoke, then too bad for you. Because the government also doesn’t want you to be smoking on the sidewalk in public. Where are you supposed to consume your grass then? Well, if you’re lucky enough to have a smoking bar near you that is 420-friendly, you could go there. Same thing with night clubs as well. But one thing sticks out here like a sore thumb, there is no way to guarantee harm reduction and notice problematic consumption patterns in members of the cannabis community. That means there will be no community structure of people who can notice the early warning signs of cannabis use disorder in its members and intervene accordingly so that affected people can get the help they need early on.

No consumption on the sidewalk until 8pm

In Germany, it’s a social taboo to drink alcohol in public before 4pm. The saying goes “kein Bier vor Vier” which means “no beer before 4pm”. While that is a social taboo, and in most cities and states still not illegal, the German government wants to hold stoners to a higher standard and forbid them from smoking cannabis on the sidewalk. This, as well as the potency limit for 18-21 year olds mentioned earlier, clearly goes against the general equality clause of the constitution of Germany (Art. 3 Abs. 3 GG). Which states that no two essentially similar acts are allowed to be treated unequally under German law. Also, the fact that smokers can smoke tobacco on the sidewalk in Germany adds to this legal argument.

No solution for drivers

If you were hoping to smoke some weed and not have to worry about losing your license due to a positive urine test the day after, then I’m sorry to disappoint you but that won’t happen. The old rules for those operating a motor vehicle will stay in place. That means if you are required to take a blood or urine test, you better hope it’s been 30 days since your last consumption. Because that’s how long it takes for the residue product leftover from Delta-9-THC, THC-COOH, which is not psychoactive, to completely leave urine and the blood stream. Basically, your body breaks down the psychoactive Delta-9-THC, and what is left is THC-COOH, which will still trigger most drug tests in Germany to turn up positive. That means even though you never drove high behind the wheel, you could still lose your driver’s license indefinitely due to a drug test.

No permanent change for 4 years.

The health ministry’s plan would mean all these policies would be in place for 4 years and will get a final evaluation (and possibly a second round of reforms) after those 4 years. That is ridiculous when you know the background that, the health policy experts in the German parliament visited foreign policy makers in places that cannabis is legal just recently. Here they are, posing for the cameras. In fact, the health policy experts of parliament must know quite well by now what to expect from cannabis legalization, they could still choose to improve the policy, but they are unlikely to do so against the wishes of the ministry of health.

Final words

The perfect cannabis regulation law will never fall out of the sky. Even the small victories we can see in the health ministry proposal are the result of years of lobbying and activist work on the ground, in the streets. I have been a part of this movement for years, so I know nothing comes without a fight and the fight for cannabis legalization is far from over. What can you do, to make your voice heard? Well for one, you can join the German Hemp Association (Deutscher Hanfverband) for as low as 5 euros a month. It is the largest union and lobby organization of cannabis legalization activists in Germany and is a proud part of the greater European Organization for the reform of drug laws, called ENCOD. You can get active in your city with the help of the hemp association to win over voters for pro-cannabis political parties such as DIE LINKE and push politicians to make the right decisions on drug policy. In Berlin this is more important than ever, since the ongoing vote within the SPD party of Berlin could mean another state government would block further steps towards cannabis legalization within the Bundesrat. We must be vigilant if we are to win the justice that we deserve. Schluss mit Krimi, Cannabis normal!

National Poetry Month: Pablo Neruda (1904–1973)

As new reports suggest that the Chilean poet was poisoned, Hari Kumar looks at his legacy

Hari Kumar
23/04/2023

“I have always wanted the hands of people to be seen in poetry.”

Introduction and short precis of Neruda’s life

Recent reports about Neruda’s death have re-sparked interest in this great Chilean poet. Here, a short precis of his life is followed with details of his death and legacy. The latter contrasts his apparent present standing among Chilean youth with that of Gabriela Mistral.

Pablo Neruda was born in a village in southern Chile in 1904. He sold his possessions to finance his first volume, “Crepusculario” (“Twilight”) in 1923. In 1924, “Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada” (“Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair”) made him famous. During this time he disdained any political connections in his poetry.

By 1927 his poetry was rewarded by Chile in diplomatic posts, first as consul in Burma. Most famously he was posted to Madrid in 1933. During the Spanish Civil War he became friends with Federico García Lorca, who was later murdered by the fascists. He steadily grew closer to the communists. Chile’s government recalled him because of his open partisanship with the Republican side. He had written “España en el corazón” (“Spain in the Heart,” 1937) on the war front. His passage leftwards continued. During the Second World War he wrote “Canto a Stalingrado” (“Song to Stalingrad,” 1943):

“At night the peasant sleeps, awakes and sinks

His hand into the darkness asking the dawn…

Tell me if the purest hands of men still

Defend the castle of honor, tell me dawn,

If the steel on your brow breaks its might,

If man is in his place…

Tell me if gunpowder still sounds in Stalingrad…

And the Spaniard remembers Madrid and says:

Sister, resist, capital of glory, resist.”

Neruda joined the Communist Party of Chile in 1945, but did so only after he was elected to the Senate. To be elected, he had campaigned for the party by reading his poetry. Later he joined the party at a public ceremony in Santiago, where he read from an early version of the “Canto General” – the fragment “A mi Partido” (“To my Party”). He recited publicly:

“You have given me brotherhood towards the man I do not know…

You have taught me to kindle kindness like a fire…

You gave me the straightness which a tree requires..

You taught me to see the unity and yet diversity of man.”

But under the right-wing González Videla government, a military rule of brutality against progressives began. The Communists in parliament were dismissed. A miners’ strike at Lota broke out leading to fierce repression. It was now that the name Augusto Pinochet first entered into Chile’s history, as he began arresting militants and ran a concentration camp. Meanwhile, President Videla made a secret alliance with US President Harry Truman and emissary Admiral William Leahy to declare communism illegal.

Nonetheless Neruda published an open denunciation of Videla. Shortly after, in 1947, he delivered an impassioned speech in the Senate condemning Videla. Now he was in serious danger and a price was on his head. Neruda went into hiding, and completed “Canto General” including the anthem to Stalin. Neruda, hunted as he was, escaped by crossing the mountains into Argentina in 1949. Still in danger of arrest there, he went on to Paris to the World Peace Congress, where he was introduced by Pablo Picasso.

But by 1952 the Chilean government’s order to arrest leftists was rescinded, upon which Neruda returned to Chile. He received the International Peace Prize in 1950, the Lenin Peace Prize and the Stalin Peace Prize in 1953, and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971. It is remarkable that he was awarded the Nobel after penning his various “Odes to Stalin,” as members of the judging committee voiced major reservations on them.

Under the social-democratic President Salvador Allende, Neruda resumed his diplomatic career as ambassador to France in 1971, but resigned after developing prostate cancer. Now the army led by General Augusto Pinochet was fueled by US imperialism to revolt. The fascist dictatorship coup of Pinochet in 1973, sponsored by the USA, violently displaced the elected democratic President Salvador Allende. Allende had led the Socialist Party and the Popular Unity Front. The latter included the Communist Party of Chile which was foremost in spreading the revisionism of a “peaceful road to socialism.” Naturally this led to illusions that facilitated the path for the Pinochet Junta. These events are well known (MLOB). Fascists killed both Allende and any residual hopes of ‘the parliamentary road to socialism.’ In short order, after first massacring progressive and communist resisters, Pinochet installed a neo-liberal experiment inspired by the Chicagoite Milton Friedman.

How did Neruda die?

On September 23, 1973, just twelve days after the defeat of Allende, Neruda died in Santiago, Chile. Of course Neruda’s death was rather convenient for Pinochet, since Neruda was so beloved by the Chilean people. Victor Jarra – also a popular singer and poet – was simply tortured and executed. But Neruda’s death had to be more quietly staged. The Mexican ambassador visited Neruda in hospital one day before his death assuring him a plane to take him to a hospital in Mexico. Tragically, Neruda wanted to wait. He died the next day. The plausible pretense was that he died of his cancer.

Rumblings of sinister causes were long voiced, but they became loud after the eventual side-lining of Pinochet. In 2013, Neruda’s chauffeur, Manuel Araya, “told the Mexican magazine Proceso that the poet had called him in desperation from the hospital to say that he had been injected in the stomach while he was asleep.”

Chilean judge Mario Carroza ordered Neruda’s body to be exhumed for forensic testing. After testing, a panel of sixteen international experts concluded that the death certificate declaring Neruda’s death was from cancer cachexia (wasting) was false. But, “That cannot be correct,” said Dr. Niels Morling of the University of Copenhagen’s department of forensic medicine. “There was no indication of cachexia. He was an obese man at the time of death.” Mysteriously, various bacteria were also found in Neruda’s body. In 2015 the Chilean government said that it was “highly probable that a third party” was responsible for his death. Researchers were commissioned to investigate further.

In March 2023 Canadian researchers of ancient DNA genomes, Debi Poinar and Hendrik Poinar, gave their analysis to a Chilean tribunal. After five years of detailed genetic analysis of bone and tooth samples, they found the bacterium Clostridium botulinum (C. botulinum) in Neruda’s body. This produces botulinum, a deadly toxin used in warfare. Moreover it is known to have been used to kill political prisoners in Chile in 1981. However only fragmentary pieces of DNA were available to identify with certainty the bacteria in Neruda’s body at death. Nonetheless they had been producing toxin. Importantly the scientists also determined that it was not an environmental contaminant from the soil following his burial.

The muted popularity of Pablo Neruda in Chile today

Poetry, as many art forms, becomes wrapped in very personal tastes. How do we interpret that currently a strong move in Chile appears to favor the resurgence of the Nobel Prize winner Gabriela Mistral (1889–1957)? The popularity of Neruda today in Chile has been apparently eclipsed by that of Mistral.

Yet the two poets were life-long friends. Initially Mistral was his “school director” in Temuco, and encouraged his poetry. Then they were both consuls for Chile in Madrid and Barcelona. While Mistral also sang of the common people, she is far less well known for this than was Neruda. In 1945 Mistral became the first Latin American to win the Nobel Prize for literature. Mistral was long known as a pioneer for women’s education and rights. While during her lifetime she was ignored by Chilean intelligentsia, she accepted the Mexican Government’s offer to lead educational reforms in Mexico.

However she had an equivocal relationship to Chile. Part of this seems to have been a reaction to attempts to label her as a lesbian. “About Chile, the less said the better,” she wrote. “I’ve even been hung up on this silly lesbianism, which hurts me in a way I can’t even put into words. Is it possible to see a bigger fake?” It is uncertain what her real feelings of sexuality were, and they are in any case quite irrelevant to the strength of her poetry.

It is interesting that when the fascist Pinochet government came to power, they used her as an icon: “Since her death, Mistral’s image has been reinvented and manipulated, particularly during the military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet. In the 1970s and 1980s, she was manipulated as the symbol of social order and submission to authority.”

Also in today’s Chile, she seems to be favored in the movement of the new President Gabriel Boric. That the Pinochet dictatorship promoted Mistral has not affected her current popularity amongst today’s youth.

Perhaps some explanation stems from some unsavory aspects of Neruda’s life. At times a personal selfishness and womanizing was apparent. As Lankes remarks:

“Feminists point to a passage in his memoirs, published in 1974, in which he described raping a maid when he was a diplomat in what is now Sri Lanka… The passage has recently caused outrage, and in 2018 Congress dropped a proposal to rename Santiago’s airport after Neruda.” Neruda’s rape of a Tamil cleaning woman is completely indefensible. His own note that “she was right to despise me” is no adequate response.

However Neruda’s poetry stands for itself. Such endorsement does not equate to condoning the reprehensible personal behavior he himself describes in his memoir. For another rather more positive example of his attitude to women, see “To the Women of the World,” illustrated by Maureen Scott of the League of Socialist Artists.

No doubt Mistral’s humanity is coupled to less overt communist partisanship – in contrast to those of Neruda. This surely influences how capitalist governments promote her. This applies whether we are discussing Pinochet or Boric, even though these two radically differ.

To conclude

Neruda’s poetry needs no apology, and his espousal of the workers’ cause and its political allegiances to the USSR are to his credit. The people of Chile had a great daughter-poet in Mistral. But they also had a great son-poet in Neruda.

See also:

Adam Feinstein; “Pablo Neruda – A Passion for Life”; New York; 2004.
Ilan Stavans; “Introduction” to “The Poetry of Pablo Neruda”; New York; 2003.
“Pablo Neruda” at poets.org

First published by American Party Labor

Macron humiliated, but no victory for workers yet

Macron is now so weak that the police are confiscating saucepans, but the lack of a general strike means that his pensions law has not yet been defeated

John Mullen
22/04/2023

After a 12th day of action on 13th April, the national trade union leaders have called for the first of May – traditionally a day of demonstration for workers’ rights to be the time for “a tidal wave of protest”. In the meantime, every day, in different towns, there are demonstrations, and blockades of motorways or shopping centres, railways, universities or high schools. On 20th April, protesters invaded the headquarters of Euronext, who own the Paris Stock Exchange. “We chose the Stock Exchange,” explained one protestor, “because we want the richest companies to pay for our pensions with their endless millions”.

Macron has now signed his pensions bill into law, On the evening on Monday 17th, he gave a live speech “to the nation”. At the time of his speech, demonstrators gathered in front of town halls around the country to bang on saucepans and drown out his nonsense. All he had to offer was a vaporous collection of shallow slogans. He declared he needed “a hundred days” to “calm the situation down”. He promised “a new pact on life in the workplace”. No one believed him. Not only are 90% of employed people opposed to his idea of making us spend two years longer in the damned workplace, but those who have been following know that it was Macron who drastically reduced the power of Health and Safety Committees in workplaces and who continually attacks the rights of statutory staff representatives. Just before his speech we learned that only a quarter of those people who regularly vote for Macron thought his speech would help!

Determined to show he is in charge and can “turn the page”, Macron has organized a series of symbolic visits on other issues around the country, and has demanded that his ministers also get out and about and talk to people. On Thursday 20th, he chose a school in a small town of only 4 000 inhabitants, where he planned to make some announcements about teachers’ pay. Energy workers cut the electricity off at Montpellier airport as he arrived. Hundreds of demonstrators were waiting for him, and electricity workers cut off the power at the school he was going to, obliging him to speak in the playground and without a microphone. A massive police presence stopped demonstrators from approaching Macron, and people were searched, with saucepans being confiscated if found! Macron announced a pay rise for all teachers, but with plenty of strings attached, one example of a series of minor concessions this week.

On Friday there were five ministers in towns around the country, all met with saucepan banging crowds and protected by tear gas. Several Macronist ministers have found it easier to simply cancel their public appearances.

Although the movement has slowed, it is still very active and extremely popular (polls show that 64% of the entire population want the protests to continue, and 45% want more radical actions). The refusal of national union leadership to campaign for going beyond the weekly day of action made a quick victory against the pensions attack impossible, but Macron is not out of the woods yet.

Some of the Macron camp have cynically decided that now is the time to use racism to divide us. An immigration law aiming at making it easier to deport people, shelved a few weeks ago, is likely to be presented to parliament after all. And Bruno Le Maire, Minister of Finance, declared this week that the real worry of French people was benefit fraud, with the money from it “being sent to North Africa” he alleged. In fact, immigrants cost far less to social budgets than other members of the population, since they often arrive as adults (so their education is not paid for by France), and not infrequently leave France on retirement (so health costs in old age are not borne by France). In any case, all experts agree that tax fraud by richer citizens costs around a hundred billion euros, at least ten times more than benefit fraud. Le Maire’s comments show he is happy to encourage the far right in order to save his government’s skin.

Macron’s “hundred days to calm things down” have been declared by electricity unions “a hundred days of anger”. Major prestige events such as the Cannes film festival in May and Roland Garros tennis championship in June may well find that electricity is hard to come by. The first of May should be inspiringly huge. Nevertheless, more mass strike action will be necessary to win.

Demo-Bans do not protect us – Justice and Solidarity do!

An open letter by Jewish and Israeli Berliners

The Left Berlin
21/04/2023

(German text below)

We, Jews and Israelis living in Berlin, wish to express our opposition to the ban on all Palestinian demonstrations in the city last weekend and similar calls to ban future demonstrations. While we are concerned by the recently documented antisemitic incidents, we regard this blanket ban based on speculation over potential unlawful acts as discriminatory against the Palestinian minority in Germany and as a worrying precedent that will inevitably affect other marginalised communities. Moreover, such anti-democratic measures are tantamount to collective punishment and do not offer us real protection as Jews.

As the most right-wing government in the history of Israel is exacerbating its brutal occupation policies, Palestinians and their supporters must have the right to demonstrate against these breaches of international law, also in Berlin. Yet, even justified anger and despair should not lead to calls for anti-Jewish violence, and we rely on our Palestinian partners to condemn such expressions, and directly intervene should they occur.

A general ban on all Palestinian demonstrations, on the contrary, only serves to deepen the divide between our communities, make any dialogue impossible, and does nothing to address the root causes of violence. This is why we view the support of the ban by the Central Council of Jews in Germany as misguided and not representative of the diversity of Jewish opinions in Berlin.

In addition, we are alarmed by the language used by the Berlin court in confirming the ban – constructing a reference by protestors to the crime of Apartheid against Palestinians as another reason to forbid demonstrations. This kind of argumentation does not only cynically defame leading human rights organisations but could also be used to shut out many Israeli peace activists, journalists and academics.

As the 75th anniversary of the Nakba, which commemorates the displacement of Palestinians during the 1948 war, is approaching, we demand that the Berlin authorities stop their discriminatory policies and allow future demonstrations while protecting the rights of expression within the law for all Berliners – Palestinian, Jewish, or others.

Solidarity, protecting basic democratic rights, here and abroad, and joint action against all forms of racism, including antisemitism, are the only way forward!

Our safety and our civil liberties depend on it!

First signatories:

Dr. Michael Abraham
Dr. Karen Adler
Or Akta
Dr. Hila Amit
Tamar Amar-Dahl
Lorena Atrakzy
Yael Attia
Yossi Bartal
Gur Barzilai
Noam Ben Chorin
Eliana Ben-David
Abraham Berg
Prof. Y. Michal Bodemann
Micah Brashear
Candice Breitz
Adam Broomberg
Noam Brusilovsky
Dalia Castel
Emily Dische-Becker
Guli Dolev-Hashiloni
Tomer Dotan-Dreyfus
Debby Farber
Sylvia Finzi
Erica Fischer
Nimrod Flaschenberg
Ruth Fruchtman
Yaron Gal
Tomer Gardi
Rowan Gaudet
Prof. Dr. Ido Geiger
Dr. Anat Geller
Tom Givol
Dan Goldenblatt
Assaf Gruber
Maya Guttmann
Gali Har-Gil
Iris Hefets
Shai Hoffmann
Liad Hussein Kantorowicz
Dr. Darja Klingenberg
Michaela Kobsa-Mark
Alma Itzhaky
Sarah Milena Jochwed
Michal Kaiser-Livne
Uri Keller
Aya Kenat Glick
Maya Klar
C. K.
Barrie Kosky
Olaf Kuhnemann
Danielle Lahav
Na‘ama Landau
Dr. Jacob K. Langford
Tamir Lederberg
Boaz Levin
Dikla Levinger
Shai Levy
Adi Liraz
Dr. Susan Loewenthal Lourenço
Talya Lubinsky
Ruth Luschnat
Prof. Dr. Roni Mann
Moriya Matityahu
Danna Marshall
Eva Menasse
Ben Miller
Yonatan Miller
Ido Nahari
Nicolette Naumann
Prof. Dr. Susan Neiman
Tamar Novick
Hagar Ofir
Anisia Onopriychuk Affek
Rachel Pafe
Deborah S. Phillips
Jakob Pomeranzev
Seth Pyenson
Tamar Raphael
Udi Raz
Dr. Aviv Reiter
Shay Rojansky
Kari Rosenfeld
Alon Sahar
Sagi Schaefer
Eran Schaerf
Oded Schechter
Miriam Schickler
Jake Schneider
Gaya von Schwarze
Clement Segal
Dr. Yael Sela-Teichler
Shemi Shabat
Ella Shechter
Mati Shemoeloff
Shir Shoval-Simhoni
Prof. Dr. Marc Siegel
Lili Sommerfeld
Nirit Sommerfeld
Shaked Spier
Charlie Squire
Maya Steinberg
Virgil B/G Taylor
Dr. Amir Theilhaber
Ori Tor
Dr. Amit Varshizky
Eyal Vexler
Shira Wachsmann
Dr. Ofer Waldman
Daphna Westerman
Rotem Yaniv
Yehudit Yinhar
Ben Zacharia
May Zeidani Yufanyi
Sharon Zelnick

Demo-Verbote schützen uns nicht – Gerechtigkeit und Solidarität schon!

Ein offener Brief von jüdischen und israelischen Berliner*innen

Wir, in Berlin lebende Jüdinnen*Juden und Israelis, wollen unseren Einspruch gegen das Verbot aller palästinensischen Demonstrationen in der Stadt am vergangenen Wochenende und ähnliche Verbotsforderungen künftiger Demonstrationen zum Ausdruck bringen. Auch wir sind besorgt über die vor kurzem dokumentierten antisemitischen Vorfälle. Dieses pauschale Verbot jedoch, das auf Spekulationen über mögliche rechtswidrige Handlungen beruht, sehen wir als diskriminierend gegenüber der palästinensischen Minderheit in Deutschland und als besorgniserregenden Präzedenzfall, der unweigerlich auch andere marginalisierte Communities betreffen wird. Solche antidemokratischen Maßnahmen kommen einer kollektiven Bestrafung gleich und bieten uns als jüdische Berliner*innen keinen wirksamen Schutz.

Während die rechteste Regierung in der Geschichte Israels ihre brutale Besatzungspolitik verschärft, müssen Palästinenser*innen und ihre Unterstützer*innen das Recht haben, gegen diese Verletzungen des Völkerrechts zu demonstrieren, auch in Berlin. Natürlich dürfen selbst berechtigte Wut und Verzweiflung nicht zu Aufrufen zu Gewalt gegen Jüdinnen*Juden führen, und wir zählen darauf, dass unsere palästinensischen Partner*innen solche Äußerungen verurteilen und direkt einschreiten, falls sie auftreten.

Ein generelles Verbot aller palästinensischen Demonstrationen vertieft die Kluft zwischen unseren Communities nur noch mehr. Es macht jeden Dialog unmöglich und bekämpft nicht die eigentlichen Ursachen der Gewalt. Deshalb halten wir die Unterstützung des Verbots durch den Zentralrat der Juden in Deutschland für verfehlt und nicht repräsentativ für die Vielfalt der jüdischen Meinungen in Berlin.

Es beunruhigt uns, dass das Berliner Gericht in seiner Entscheidung auch ein Verweis von Demonstrierenden auf das Verbrechen der Apartheid gegen Palästinenser*innen als weiteren Grund für das Verbot von Demonstrationen anführt. Diese Argumentation diffamiert auf zynische Weise führende Menschenrechtsorganisationen und könnte sogar instrumentalisiert werden, um zahlreiche israelische Friedensaktivist*innen, Journalist*innen und Wissenschaftler*innen auszugrenzen.

Da der 75. Jahrestag der Nakba, an dem der Vertreibung der Palästinenser*innen während des Krieges von 1948 gedacht wird, immer näher rückt, fordern wir die Berliner Behörden auf, ihre diskriminierende Politik zu beenden und künftige Demonstrationen zuzulassen, damit das Recht auf freie und rechtmäßige Meinungsäußerung für alle Berliner*innen – ob Palästinenser*innen, Jüdinnen*Juden oder andere – gewahrt bleibt.

Solidarität, der Schutz demokratischer Grundrechte hier und im Ausland, und gemeinsame Arbeit gegen alle Formen von Rassismus, einschließlich Antisemitismus, sind der einzige Weg vorwärts!

Unsere Sicherheit und unsere Freiheitsrechte hängen davon ab!

The Path to Dual Citizenship in Germany

Tips for gaining citizenship from someone who has watched her friends go through the difficult procedure

Lana Birley
18/04/2023

Dual citizenship has become a popular topic in recent years as more and more people seek to acquire citizenship in multiple countries. In Germany, the laws surrounding dual citizenship have undergone significant changes, providing more opportunities for individuals to acquire and maintain dual citizenship. However, in most cases they still preclude non-EU citizens from gaining dual citizenship in Germany.

According to VisaGide, Germany is the ideal country where one would love to work and spend their life, as it has low rates of unemployment, perfectly organized healthcare system, and many other factors.

In this article, we will explore the rights for getting dual citizenships, recent changes to (the application of) German law, and the implications of these changes for individuals.

Recent Changes to Germany’s Dual Citizenship Rules

Until recently, Germany had strict rules regarding dual citizenship, requiring individuals to renounce their previous citizenship before acquiring German citizenship. However, in 2014, the German government introduced a new law that allowed individuals with EU passports who were born in Germany or who have lived in Germany for at least eight years to have dual citizenship. This change was a significant departure from previous policies, and it opened up new possibilities for those seeking to maintain dual citizenship.

In 2019, the German government further relaxed the rules on dual citizenship for children of German citizens born abroad. Children born abroad to at least one German parent can now hold dual citizenship up until they turn 23, giving them more time to decide which citizenship they want to keep.

Nevertheless the rules still prevent many. Germany currently allows dual citizenship only in the following situations:

For children who have at least one German parent (and a foreign parent) at the time of their birth.
For children who are born in Germany to foreign parents.
For naturalized citizens who cannot forfeit their previous nationality.
For German expats who have applied for retention to keep their citizenship and get another nationality.
For foreign citizens who are descendants of German nationals, the Federal Ministry of the Interior and Community reports.

The changes to German dual citizenship law have significant implications for certain individuals seeking to maintain dual citizenship. The biggest hurdle remains for many that only people with EU passports, or those who have one parent from Germany, are eligible to hold German citizenship. Acquiring dual citizenship is also almost always a complex and lengthy process that requires individuals to meet certain criteria and provide documentation to support their application.

Despite these changes then, Germany is still in need of foreign workers and that’s why the current German government approved changes to the skilled immigration act.

Proposed Law Change on Dual Nationality

This draft law would allow people to apply for citizenship after five years, instead of the current eight, and most significantly it would lift a ban on dual citizenship for people from non-EU countries, meaning immigrants would no longer have to surrender their home country nationality — a red line for many.

Changes will also be made for the so called EU Blue Card, as it will become more accessible to more specialists with a university degree. Two years of professional experience will be enough for foreigners with a state-recognized professional qualification in their home country for them to be allowed to come for work in Germany.

The new changes seem to have significant implications for families and immigrants and this decision is a positive step towards creating a more inclusive and welcoming society for all, as it provides more opportunities for this category of people. However, whether the government will be able to pass the legislation required remains to be seen.