The Left Berlin News & Comment

This is the archive template

Category: Uncategorised

Australian election: Conservatives ousted as voters desert major parties

The main victors were the parties outside the two traditional parties of government. What happens next now depends on extra-parliamentary work


25/05/2022

Elections to Australia’s federal parliament took place on Saturday 21 May. After nine years in power, the country’s Coalition Government, an alliance between the conservative Liberal Party and the rural-based National Party, was ousted. It saw a drop in its primary vote of more than 5 percent and lost a slew of seats (Results for major parties in the election can be found here). This was a public judgement of its’ agenda of tax cuts for the well-off, wage cuts for workers, inaction on housing, cold-hearted neglect of the elderly, and indifference to climate change.

The defeat was also a judgement of the actions of Scott Morrison, the Prime Minister. In December 2019 he holidayed in Hawaii as bushfires destroyed thousands of homes; he failed to order enough vaccines and rapid antigen tests to deal with the pandemic; he attempted to sabotage the highly popular Western Australian border closure as COVID-19 raged in the eastern states; he did nothing to counter the culture of sexual abuse in parliament and his idea of governing amounted to little more than posing for photos.

Australia’s billionaires never had it so good as under the Coalition. Their fortunes rose to stratospheric heights. The Coalition showered money on private schools. After promising to follow the recommendations from the ‘Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry’, Morrison quietly shelved virtually all of them, protecting the Liberal Party’s rich mates. It was the same with the Royal Commission into aged care, which lifted the lid on the appalling situation in privately run facilities. Virtually nothing has changed since the Commission handed down its report.

The Morrison government threw tens of billions of dollars in subsidies to business during the pandemic. Even when those businesses in many cases were continuing to make substantial profits.

The poor were shafted under successive Liberal prime ministers. JobSeeker (unemployment) payments are at scandalously low levels. Welfare recipients were persecuted under the ‘robodebt program’, which generated fake debts and drove tens of thousands into stress and some to suicide. As inflation began to run hot, the government could only offer a future of endless wage cuts. Ministers told workers looking for wage relief that they should just get a better paid job, and those suffering rental stress that they should just buy a house. Students were slugged with big increases in university fees.

Through it all, the military was expanded, and the Morrison government began to ramp up threats of war against China. Hundreds of billions that should go to welfare, health and education are instead going to building up the means of mass destruction.

So good riddance to the Morrison government.

No great mandate for the Australian Labor Party

The Australian Labor Party (ALP) has won office, but hardly received a ringing endorsement. Its primary vote has sunk to an historic low. It won at least seven seats, but in large part only because of Greens’ preferences. Only a strong performance in Western Australia allowed it to potentially form a majority government. In several outer suburban seats in Melbourne, Labor’s primary vote fell by double digits.

Labor’s primary vote is even lower than its’ 2019 prior low. That is an indictment on the ALP’s rightward shift since losing that election. The conclusion the party leaders took from that loss was that they must retreat from offering even the mildest program of redistribution to the working class. Out the window went policies aimed at tackling tax breaks for the middle classes and wealthy—franking credits, capital gains tax concessions, negative gearing. Out went any rhetoric about attacking the top end of town. Out went any hint that Labor might seriously deal with climate change and the fossil fuel industry.

Under Labor leader Anthony Albanese and shadow Treasurer Jim Chalmers, the rhetoric was to help the “aspirational” voter. Soon after the 2019 election, Labor backed the Morrison government’s program of tax cuts for the well-off and threw its support behind the Carmichael coal mine and the opening of the Galilee Basin in central Queensland. This reaction to defeat explains why Labor had nothing to offer. As Chalmers told the Press Club just days before the current election: “We want to be a pro-business, pro-employer Labor Party”.

The low combined primary vote for the two major parties indicates significant and growing dissatisfaction with the political status quo. From 1946 until the early 1990s, the two parties racked up 90 percent or more of the vote, and in the following two decades, at least 80 percent. At this election, the two parties won the support of just 68 percent of the electorate.

Success for different minor parties

The beneficiaries of this shift away from the major parties vary enormously. The Greens benefited from declining loyalty to the ALP. They received their highest ever primary vote results in the Senate and the House in this election, beating their previous best in 2010. The party showed a positive swing in its only lower house seat of Melbourne, won two seats in Brisbane and may yet claim another. The Greens also picked up several extra Senate spots.

The party’s pitch was left of Labor: with policies to tax big business and the mining industry to fund dental and mental health care in Medicare, free childcare, increased public school funding, the wiping of student debt and the construction of one million new homes, along with halting all new coal mines and gas projects. Its strong vote was one of the few things to welcome on election night, showing that over a million voters are looking for a party more progressive than Labor.

In possibly the most significant electoral development, the so-called teal independents destroyed much of the Liberals’ parliamentary representation in wealthy areas in Sydney and Melbourne. This exposed the deep rift in the Australian ruling class’s preferred party of government. Tens of thousands of relatively affluent, professional middle-class voters – disproportionately women – turned on their traditional party to protest its misogyny and refusal to seriously address climate change. It is impossible to tell how permanent this schism is, and whether the teals can form a stable parliamentary bloc.

The far right also picked up votes from the major parties and represent an increasing problem. One Nation stood in many more seats than in 2019. Combined with Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party (UAP), the two boosted their primary vote by 2.7 percent to 9.2 percent. Adding the Liberal Democrats and other far right micro parties takes the far-right vote to 11.7 percent, up 5.0 percentage points since the last election. Worryingly, the far right did well not just in their regional strongholds and traditional Liberal suburbs, but also increased their vote in traditional Labor-voting working-class outer suburbs. In Sydney and Melbourne, they picked up 15-20 percentage points. Unsurprisingly, the UAP lost Liberal Party recruit Craig Kelly’s lower house seat, but the party might yet claim a Senate seat in Victoria.

Finally, the Victorian Socialists (VS), openly championed the working class against the billionaires. They put up a decent fight in eleven seats theyn contested across northern and western suburbs of Melbourne. Fielding 700 volunteers, VS won more than 20,000 first preference votes when the counting of votes closed on election night. This is easily the largest number of votes for a socialist electoral project in many decades. In Calwell in Melbourne’s northern suburbs, VS notched up just shy of 5 percent of the primary votes and in Fraser in the west, 5.4 percent. Elsewhere in the north, VS fought off stiff competition for the left vote to win 3-4 percent. In some cases, VS candidates outpolled those from the far right. In November, VS will be repeating this enormous effort in the Victorian state election. (More details about the VS can be found in an article appearing on theleftberlin soon).

What happens now?

The newly elected Labor government offers little to the millions who wanted the Morrison government tossed out. Even though Labor’s leaders claim the party will defend workers’ living standards, they refuse to push for a real increase to the minimum wage. They will do nothing to keep a lid on prices. They will do nothing to control rents or expand public housing. And they will do nothing to help workers build union power to fight for higher wages on the job.

All the pressure now is the other way. With government debt ballooning from AUD$273 billion in 2013 to a forecast $1 trillion next year, and with interest rates rising, the bosses and their representatives in the financial press are demanding urgent action to cut government spending. For years, they were urging the government to do something to lift wages, now they are saying that wages must be cut to curb inflation. Expect public spending cuts from this Labor government in coming years. And don’t expect the ALP to go after the rich to do their bit. Labor is committed to tax cuts in 2024 that will benefit those on incomes of more than $200,000 to the tune of billions of dollars.

With the world economy now looking shakier than for some years, we can anticipate that a Labor government will do the bosses’ bidding in enforcing sacrifices for the working class. To prove their commitment to the capitalists during the election campaign, Albanese and Chalmers pointed to the experience of previous Labor governments. In particular to those of Hawke and Keating, when Labor brought the union leaders, bosses and government together to screw the working class. Or, as Labor’s leaders put it, to “lift productivity and profits”. This is just what they have in mind for us now.

Nor can we expect to see Labor take serious action to deal with climate change. Labor is committed to the fossil fuel industries and its carbon emissions targets are a joke.

While Labor offers nothing and as the economic circumstances for millions get tougher, we can expect to see growing dissatisfaction with a government with weak foundations for which only one-third of the electorate voted for. The right will undoubtedly try to capitalise on this dissatisfaction. With many of the so-called Liberal moderates losing their seats, with Peter Dutton keeping his, and with the Nationals holding up their vote, the balance in the Coalition will shift to the right.

Tony Abbott’s former chief of staff Peta Credlin wasted no time arguing in Murdoch’s Sunday tabloids that the Liberals must move further right to reconnect to their supporters in the outer suburbs who had abandoned them for the far-right parties. The far right will be emboldened by their experience in this election. If they can cohere their forces, may be able to mobilise people in protests against a federal Labor government. They did this in Victoria in opposition to lockdowns and vaccine mandates late last year and earlier this year.

The threat from the right must be combatted. If the Albanese government will not lift a finger to defend workers’ living standards in the face of rising inflation, unions will have to strike. That will involve an argument in unions to convince fellow workers we can organise and fight; but also against our union leaders who have done their best to turn unions into electoral machines to get the vote out for Labor. The union leaders have stood by for years ,while the bosses and governments have got away with whittling away jobs and workplace rights. That has to end.

To wage such a fight, we need to build a bigger socialist current in workplaces and on university campuses. The growth of the far-right vote at this election shows that other forces will take advantage of the situation. We have to fight for the politics of solidarity and socialism, against the politics of division and despair – to point a way forward for workers and students everywhere.

A version of this article originally appeared on Red Flag. This has been edited for an international audience.

 

Presentation – Storytelling and Research

Given at the Second Left Journalism Day School, 22nd May 2022


Presentation – How to do an Interview

Given at the Second Left Journalism Day School, 22nd May 2022


 

Theatre Review: “Draussen vor der Tur” by Wolfgang Borchert

A new performance of an anti-war play at the Berliner Ensemble is flawed but still worth seeing


21/05/2022

Today we face moves towards a new inter-imperialist war. Again…

It is timely that the Berliner Ensemble Theatre, is reviving Draussen vor der Tur (Outside the Door, or Being on the Outside) by Wolfgang Borchert (1921-1947). There are several aspects that socialists might be interested in: the author, the literary movement he belonged to, the play itself, the current production, and the theatre in which it is staged now in Berlin. I will discuss the first three.

The author [more information here, here and here]

Borchert wrote the play at 26 years of age, returning from forced service in the Nazi assault on Stalingrad in 1941. His father was in the Dada movement, and Borchert was a young poet. But to earn a living he became a bookseller while circulating anti-Nazi poems. This led to his first jail. On release, in 1937 he saw actor Gustaf Gründgens, playing Hamlet, which inspired him to become an actor. [Gordon Burgess, ‘The life and works of Wolfgang Borchert’; 2003; p.1-2; Woodbridge, Sussex]

Borchert was conscripted in 1941, and sent to the Eastern Front. There he claimed that his finger was shot off in single combat against a Russian soldier. The Nazis rejected this, seeing instead ‘self-mutilation’ to evade military service. Exonerated he escaped the death penalty, but was quickly re-arrested for anti-Nazi statements and poems. Under the Heimtückegesetz, (1934 Nazi ‘Treachery Act’) he was convicted of “defeatist statements”. Sentenced to nine months imprisonment, he was then sent back to the Eastern Front in a ‘punishment battalion’. All this led to chronic hepatitis, typhus and severe frostbite.

He survived and returned to his family in 1945. But he was a bed-ridden, physical wreck in the last two final years of his life. He wrote his famous play in an inspired burst in eight days. He only heard it as a radio ‘Horspiel’. A wonderful rendition of the original can be heard here. In 1947, he died tragically – one day before its stage premier.

In a foreword to the play, Stephen Spender wrote: “This appears to be the life of a perfect victim of our times, a man whose soul must bear simply the impress of the world of dictatorship and war and post-war horror into which he was born. It is in some ways like the life of a man born and bred in a prison cell.”

I will briefly review the play itself below, however his most famous poem also deserves attention. The poem’s is known as “Sag Nein!” (Say No!) a phrase that echoes through the poem. The official title is “Dann gibt es nur eins!” (Then there is only one). It was written as a Manifesto, lying on his deathbed in Basle, just weeks before his death. While I think it rings out in the original German, the power certainly comes across in translation:

“You. Man at the machine and man in the workshop. If they order you tomorrow not to make any more water pipes or cooking pots – but steel helmets and machine guns. then there is only one:
Say no!
You. Girls behind the counter and girls in the office. If tomorrow they order you to fill grenades and mount scopes for sniper rifles, then there is only one thing:
Say no!
You. Factory owner. If they order you tomorrow, you should sell gunpowder instead of powder and cocoa, then there is only one thing:
Say no!
You. Researchers in the laboratory. If they order you tomorrow to invent a new death against the old life, then there is only one thing:
Say no!
You. Poet in your room. If they order you tomorrow not to sing love songs, you should sing hate songs, then there is only one thing:
Say no!
You. Doctor at the bedside. If they order you tomorrow, you should the men write fit for war, then there is only one thing:
Say no! …
You. Mother in Normandy and mother in the Ukraine, you, mother in Frisko and London, you, on the Hoangho and on the Mississippi, you, mother in Naples and Hamburg and Cairo and Oslo – mothers on all continents, mothers in the world, if they tomorrow command you to bear children, nurses for war hospitals and new soldiers for new battles, mothers in the world, then there is only one thing:
Says no! Moms say NO!…”

The power that this poem can wield is seen as recited by actress and artistic director of the Hamburg Theater, Ida Ehre. She announced Borchet’s death on stage after the premiere. In 1983, Ehre  addressed an open air meeting for the “Kunstler fur den Frieden” (Artists for peace).

II) Borchert and the Trümmerliteratur (rubble literature) or der Stunde Null (hour zero) or Heimkehrerliteratur (or home coming) literature

Borchert was the most famous of this school of writers. After the war ended they made their way home from the fronts, from prison, or from exile. But Germany was changed. Many had begun writing about their experiences in the prisoner-of-war (POW) camps of the Western Allies. The school gave rise to ‘Group 47’, and work from the German Democratic Republic (GDR). In West Germany, Heinrich Böll became the most famous exponent. Writers of the GDR largely adopted (and sometimes distorted) variations of ‘socialist realism’. Borchert differed as seen below.

Trümmerliteratur aimed at realism, but was also influenced by existentialism and writers of the Resistance: Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, through to the more realist Ignazio Silone. American realists such as Ernest Hemingway, and John Steinbeck were another influence. The Allies had distributed these authors in the POW camps. The overall literary result aimed at a psychological raw truth, but coupled with a ‘magical’ realism.

Returning veterans found an unrecognizable ‘home’, with only ‘rubble’ and poverty. Moreover they were shunned by those in comfort. Yet their writings reverberated among the wider German people. Many found their houses destroyed and were left with nothing. Another theme was also urgent – a collective guilt for the war, for Nazi fascism and what came to be known as the Holocaust.

III) The synopsis of the play and four ‘magic’ realisms

A stark tone is set from the prologue. In the ‘Horspiel’, the prologue is intoned by a separate voice from the actor playing the lead personage, Beckmann – the returning soldier. (This differs from the production reviewed below). Beckmamn is listed in the cast list as “one of them”. The play starts as follows:

“A man comes to Germany.
He was gone a long time, the man.
Very long. Maybe too long.
And he comes back very different from when he left. Outwardly it is a close relative of those creatures that stand in the fields to frighten the birds (and sometimes people in the evening). Inside – too. He’s been waiting out in the cold for a thousand days.
And as an entrance fee he had to pay with his kneecap. And after waiting a thousand nights outside in the cold, he finally comes home.
A man comes to Germany.”

Returned soldier Beckmann finds his wife has another man, and she turns Beckmann out the door. Very soon, the ‘magic’ of Borchert’s realism becomes vivid. Four examples will suffice.

First, a burping ‘Undertaker’ watches as Beckmann is about to drown himself in the Elbe in Hamburg. He is joined by an ‘Old Man’, an extraordinary meeting. It is revealed that the Undertaker is ‘Death’ and constantly burps from eating too many dead: “Overeating. Outright overeating. That’s all. You can’t stop burping these days. Burp! Sorry! “ The Old Man declares he is one “in whom no one believes any longer”. He is God, and unable to prevent his ‘children’ from killing themselves.

A second ‘magical’ device is the personification of ‘The Elbe’. When the soldier Beckmann attempts to drown himself, he wonders what has happened. He is enlightened but startled by Elbe – who replies:

“You thought I was a romantic young girl with a pale green complexion? The type of Ophelia with water lilies in her loose hair? You thought you could spend eternity in my sweet-smelling lily arms. No, my son, that was a mistake on your part. I’m neither romantic nor sweet-scented. A decent river stinks. Yes. After oil and fish. What do you want here?”

Beckmann replies he wants “to sleep” and escape the world. Elbe rejects him, not actually unkindly – urging him to struggle:

“You snotty-nosed suicide. No, you hear! Do you think because your wife doesn’t want to play with you anymore, because you have a limp and because your stomach is growling, that’s why you can crawl under my skirt here with me?… I don’t want your miserable little life… Let an old woman tell you: Live for a while. Let yourself be kicked Kick again!… I want to say something to you, very quietly, in your ear, you, come here: I fuck your suicide! You baby”.

Beckmann is dumped on the shore, where a young woman either takes pity on him, or being lonely enough, fancies him. She takes him home. A sojourn is interrupted by a one legged giant cripple on crutches. It turns out to be her dead husband – killed on the front. Of his absence “the girl” said: “Starved, frozen to death – what do I know. He has been missing since Stalingrad. That was three years ago.“

It is implied but not certain, that the giant cripple was one of the eleven soldiers of a total of 20, who corporal Beckmann had led to their death, in Russia. Beckmann: “I was three years away. In Russia.. In Stalingrad”. He was following orders to lead a foray into the surrounding forces.

The third ‘magical’ image comes fast – it is the “Other”. This turns out to be an inner dueling, contesting Other – presumably Beckmann’s own consciousness. At the end of the play, the Other be silent, and thus desert Beckmann when he is at his lowest. But now, he urges Beckmann to get rid of his guilt, or his “responsibility” (“Die Verantwortung”). How?

By giving it back to his commanding officer. Beckmann finds the commanding officer, who has been eating caviar for three years while Beckmann and the minions were: “under the snow and had steppe sand in their mouths. And we spooned hot water. But the boss had to eat caviar. For three years. And they shaved our heads off. Up to the neck – or up to the hair, it didn’t really matter. The head amputees were the happiest.”

The commanding officer demands to know what Beckmann wants. Beckmannreplies that he wishes to give back responsibility, explaining this will let him sleep to avoid a recurring nightmare.

This brings the fourth devastating ‘magical’ example – a blood soaked General wakes him, playing a giant xylophone made of bones: “He’s got skullcaps, shoulder blades, pelvic bones. And for the higher notes, arm bones and leg bones. Then come the ribs—many thousands of ribs. And finally, at the very end of the xylophone, where the very high notes are, there are knuckles, toes, teeth. Yes, the teeth come last.”

Beckmann argues that responsibility is “not just a word, a chemical formula, according to which light human flesh is transformed into dark earth. You can’t let people die for an empty word.” The commanding officer is horrified, even guilt-struck. But he pulls himself together – and brazenly takes it as a wonderful act fit for the stage. Booted out, and prodded by the Other – Beckmann find his way first to a stage director. His act is deemed ‘too true’ and shocking for people, and besides it is not art.

Finally Beckmann tries to find his parents. They have committed suicide to evade denazification: “The old Beckmanns could no longer… They exhausted themselves a bit in the third Reich.. What does an old man like that need to still wear uniform. And then he was against the Jews, you know that, son, you. The Jews… Been a little active, your old man. Was amply used by the Nazis.”

Almost his last hope – his parents are no longer. Now only his Other deserts him as all seems hopeless. The last anguishing words in the play are: “Where are you, other? You’re always there! Where are you now? Now answer me! now i need you answerer! Where are you, then? You are suddenly no more there! Where are you, answerer, where are you.. Where’s the old man who calls himself God? Why isn’t he talking!! Please answer! Why are you silent? Why? Doesn’t anyone have an answer? Doesn’t anyone answer??? Doesn’t anyone give an answer???

IV) The Berliner Ensemble production by director Michael Thalheimer; and Beckamnn and the other – Karin Wehlisch.

The production premiered on the 25 March 2022. It is up against historical precedents including the Horspiel and film adaptions, not to say significant prior stage productions. The production tries therefore to be novel and modern. A staging with a forest of hanging lights that entwine around the actors is effective.

However in the quest for novelty ridiculous staging is introduced. For example the Director is put on rollerskates (which he nearly falls off inadvertently), and the commanding officer is shaved in a slapstick foamy scene. All this is simply distracting and does not add anything. Perhaps the most useless novel feature is that Beckmann is almost continually screeching. The monotony that this introduces compares badly with clips that can be seen from prior stage productions and films.

Nonetheless this live performance of the play is worthwhile, and the anti-war message is propelled. The intense history of the Berliner Ensemble and the shadows of Bertolt Brecht and Helene Weigel are always worth visiting. I intend to return to that theme. But in the meantime, for this play – the old-fashioned Horspiel trumps the ‘novel’ stage.

Draussen vor der Tür is currently playing in the Berliner Ensemble. Tickets available here.

Berlin Police Attack Demonstrators Mourning Shireen Abu Akleh

After violent policing, CDU now want to give police even more power against demonstrators


16/05/2022

On 15th May 2022, Nakba Day, people demonstrated throughout the world for Palestinian rights. This year’s demos were particularly important following the murder of Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, shot in the head by Israeli snipers a few days earlier, while she was wearing a press vest. Thousands demonstrated n London, Bahrain, Australia and Ramallah. In Berlin, however, all demonstrations were banned.

Just over a week ago, I wrote about earlier recent bans in Berlin, fuelled by Islamophobia, anti-Palestinian racism and the election of Berlin mayor Franziska Giffey on a law and order platform. At the time, many thought that these bans were a one-off, but it seems that something more permanent is developing. The Berlin police and media are increasingly insinuating that any demonstration for the rights of Palestinians is in itself anti-semitic.

Rally by Jewish Organisations Also Banned

Let’s take the case of 15 May. Palästina Spricht planned to have an information tent on Oranienplatz at the weekend with music, films and discussion, followed by a demonstration on Sunday. On the day that Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was murdered, the Berlin police banned all activities for Palestine for Nakba weekend. Their excuse was that “the protests presented an immediate risk of anti-Semitic chants, intimidation and violence”.

A second “rally for freedom of opinion, press and assembly” was registered to protest the ban. This was also banned, as was a rally by the Jüdische Stimme (Jewish Voice, an organisation of Jewish socialists) to mourn Abu Akleh’s death. Police argued that both protests fell under the same ban as the Nakba Day demos, as they were “Ersatzveranstaltungen”, i.e. replacement events.

Before I go on, just stop and think about this. The police can ban a demonstration for dubious reasons. Once they have done this, we have no recourse to complain, because any action to protest the ban can itself be prevented using the same legislation. Even people who are not sympathetic to the Palestinian cause should be deeply concerned about this worrying exercise of state power.

In reaction to the ban, Palästina Spricht issued a statement saying “this latest prohibition reveals the ongoing, coordinated, structural attempt to eliminate our social, political and communal existence in Germany… It is an alarming symptom of unwarranted state repression of certain groups – be it Palestinian, anti-racist or refugee voices. For us to exist has always meant to resist. We ask for your solidarity in our resistance and our existence. We will not be silenced.”

One event which was not banned was a ceremony at Bebelplatz, the square which is infamous for being the site of Nazi book burning. An advent announced a declaration of the “Antisemite of the year” contained a picture of a donkey’s arse on which you could see the logos of Amnesty International (!) and BDS.

The event was eventually withdrawn “to de-escalate the situation” following protests by Jewish activists. Justice senator Lena Kreck said that the Event “was not a good contribution to the important engagement against antisemitism. Nonetheless, the organisers, Solidarisch gegen Hass, continue to receive money from Berlin’s State Programme against Right-Wing Extremism, Racism, and Antisemitism.

Police Attack Flash Mob

As a reaction to the bans, Palestinians and their supporters organised a flashmob on Hermannplatz on Sunday afternoon. Flashmobs are a perfectly legitimate form of protest which are increasingly used by activists denied a voice in the mainstream media. Yet few flashmobs receive the excessive and violent police response as yesterday’s, with reportedly over 100 people being arrested, some violently.

Within 5 minutes, the flashmob was broken up by police, and all participants were kettled. One Palestinian activist, Ramsy Kilani, was not part of the action, but was aggressively thrown into the kettle by police. The police then strode across Hermannplatz making arrests. People were taken away for individually shouting “Free Palestine” or for simply asking what was going on. We can assume that they used racial profiling as they disproportionately picked up people who looked like they had an Arab background.

After being kept in the kettle in hot weather for 1-2 hours, all protestors had to give their details to police and were banned from Hermannplatz for 24 hours. Eventually, they cleared all of Hermannplatz, even telling the people eating ice creams on the square that they must leave. According to BZ, 1,100 police were deployed, at taxpayers’ expense. After questioning from protestors, police said that they had come from Karlsruhe and Saxony.

Reactions to The Police Attacks – Voices From The Kettle

Former Member of the Bundestag Christine Buchholz was at the protest. She expressed outrage that “the grief for the Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, murdered by the Israeli army on Wednesday was criminalised.” Buchholz continued: “the demonstration ban is a scandal and the criminalisation of this flashmob is absolutely disproportionate”.

“…the Nakba demonstration ban was in practice extended by the Berliner police to a ban of any Palestinian visibility in the Berlin public space…”

Pawel Wargen was also in the kettle. He said: “German remembrance has been reduced to the treatment of fascism as some kind of aberration, carefully obscuring the long-standing tradition of colonial violence that shaped it. Germany’s efforts to whitewash Israeli settler-colonialism and silence its critics today is proof that the lessons of the past are not only being ignored — they are actively suppressed.”

Majed Abusalema from Palästina Spricht, who was hospitalised after being manhandled by the police tweeted: “From supporting people who experienced police violence to being a direct the victim. The German police presence in Berlin was terrorising. They almost dislocated my shoulders, I can not move it for 2 weeks. I could not think ever I would be stopped for wearing my Pali Keffiyeh.”

Majed told me this morning: “I just come back from the hospital. They were so violent as if they know the target. I now have a sling for my arm and shoulder. Those idiots went too far, they copy Israeli soldiers. I am now in medicine.” Majed’s sister Shahd, a respected activist in the UK said: “I cannot count how many things have gone wrong here morally and legally. I wish I could hug him [Majed] but being miles away, all I can do is tell the world about this crazy world we live in”-

Ramsy Kilani said “the Nakba demonstration ban was in practice extended by the Berliner police to a ban of any Palestinian visibility in the Berlin public space. Already, wearing clothing in the colours of the Palestinian flag – red, green, white or black – or a Keffiyeh, a so-called Palestine scarf – results in police checks, arrests and in some cases police violence.”.

Rohit, a British-Indian protestor, was another person in the kettle. He said: “after providing my ID to the police and giving my personal information, I refused to get my picture taken. One of the cops told me that I don’t have a choice and responded that ‘even if I have to physically hold to make you do it, you will have to get your photo taken’. The police presence was personally terrorising for me and made me feel very unsafe.”

Liad Hussain Kantorowicz, an artist, activist and member of the Jewish Bund, was also on Hermannplatz. She stated:

“what we experienced in Berlin yesterday is a de-facto ban on wearing a Keffiyeh or any traditional Palestinian embroidery, or carrying the Palestinian flag – none of which are illegal. At this moment Palestinians and supporters of their struggle aren’t allowed to demonstrate, mourn, express joy. They’re very close to not being able to breathe in the public space. It’s a dangerous regression in freedom of speech and democracy in Germany, and unfortunately it’s parallel to a process we’ve seen over the last few days in Palestine, where Israeli police arrested and beat people for carrying a Palestinian flag during Shireen Abu Akleh’s funeral. It is ludicrous to call such acts as anti-semitic, particularly when corona deniers and querdenkers who are much associated with antisemitism were given a green light to demonstrate for months.”

Future Bans to Come?

Writing in the Berliner Zeitung last week, lawyer Ralf Michaels said: “As the Federal Court stresses: the ban and breaking up of an assembly can only be considered as a defence against dangers to elementary legal interests. The prohibition of an assembly can only be considered as an Ultimata Ratio if the damages cannot be stopped in any other way”.

Michaels is clear that this is not what happens in practice, causing him to ask “are all Muslims now under general suspicion? And what about the Jewish-Israeli participants? A solidarity rally for Abu Akleh registered by Jewish organisations was also banned.”

And yet the Berlin CDU’s reaction was to call for more and wider bans. Rbb reports that the CDU are demanding a reduction in the threshold needed by the authorities to ban demos. We can only presume that the banned demonstrations will disproportionately be those of migrants, Palestinians and the Left. Indeed the CDU paper specifically said that it wanted to ban “demonstrations against the state of Israel”.

Wieland Hoban from the executive of the Jüdische Stimme said “the state’s excessive, repressive response demonstrates its anxiety over support for Palestine, which makes it all the more important not to back down.”

The European Legal Support Centre reports that the police justified the bans by saying “gatherings that critically discuss the fate of Palestinians in Israeli-occupied territories are thus likely to mobilise people who, in specific cases, may be tempted to take actions or make statements that are not compatible with German legislation”.

In other words, the ban on Palestinian demonstration goes hand-in-hand with manufactured stories of “imported Antisemitism” which try to make dark-skinned Muslims responsible for past crimes of the German state.

What Do We Do?

In reaction to Sunday’s events, Wieland Hoban from the executive of the Jüdische Stimme said “the state’s excessive, repressive response demonstrates its anxiety over support for Palestine, which makes it all the more important not to back down.” This means that the Left in Germany and Berlin, particularly the non-Palestinian Left, has a great responsibility.

As Michael Sappir from Jewish-Israeli Dissent (JID) argued in an article we published on theleftberlin yesterday “The real and current balance of power between Israelis and Palestinians could not be clearer, but this is rarely mentioned in public debate in Germany. This must urgently change.”

Opposing the criminalisation of Palestinians in Germany is not just about fighting colonialism and racism (although this alone should be second nature to us). Do we really want a repressive and violent police to be given more powers to control our right to assembly? Do we want a crackdown on flashmobs, where participants are hospitalised?

If we don’t then it is time for the German Left to take a stand. I don’t believe that most German socialists support the murderous Israeli state – more that because of their country’s history, they are hesitant to say anything at all. But heavy policing used against Palestinians now will be used against us later. To misquote Pastor Martin Niemöller, first they came for the Palestinians – do we really want to have nobody on our side when they come for us?

There is some room for hope, and I think it lies with the younger generation of Germans, who are not all bogged down in old debates and can see the violent suppression of the Palestinians for what it is. Last Wednesday, a public meeting on the role of the Left in supporting Palestine was supported by SDS Berlin, the LINKE student group, and solid Nord-Berlin, the party’s youth wing.

Regarding the demo bans, Fridays for Future tweeted “Fridays for Future condemns @polizeiberlin for their decision to ban the Nakba commemoration demonstrations this weekend organized by Palestine Speaks. Freedom to assemble is a fundamental human right and we are appalled by this act of repression”, adding “Climate justice means justice for Palestine, solidarity with Palestinian organisers in Germany and across the world!”

There is the potential to overcome the specific problems that the German Left has with Palestine. This may require patient debate from those of us who are already active, but there are no short cuts to building a mass movement. Yesterday’s police actions cannot be allowed to take place again. This requires a movement which doesn’t just oppose police repression but stands clearly and loudly on the side of the Palestinians.