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After the election, what’s next for the German climate justice movement? 

The climate movement must rethink its strategy and make it clear that ‘green growth’ and technological fixes will not save us from climate catastrophe.


02/11/2021

September came to an end in Germany with the much lauded ‘Climate Election’ and a very sobering result. Early in the year the polls had shown a clear majority in favour of progressive parties. However the election results show that conservative, neoliberal and right wing parties retain substantial support, despite their lack of climate ambitions. As usual, Germans were anxious about too much change and voted for the better of two bad options. The Green party’s lead in the polls had melted away in the weeks leading up to the election, the Left party (die Linke) almost failed to get into parliament at all, and meanwhile the far right once again received their reliable share of the vote.  

It is to the credit of the numerous groups that make up the climate justice movement that the climate issue had become so important in this election campaign. Fridays for Future have been striking tirelessly for nearly three years; lignite mines, forests and car industry exhibitions have been occupied as part of ongoing civil disobedience movement; and on a local level many people are organizing themselves into local climate protection initiatives. In surveys of the general public, climate is now always named as the most important issue we face. 

The climate justice movement in Germany has become versatile and powerful in recent years, and its voices have become an integral part of the political discourse. However, the election results clearly indicate that its strategies and plans must now change. 

Climate Action? Unfortunately they missed the point 

To understand why the election result is such a disappointment from a climate perspective, and why the movement must redirect itself, we first need to look back at the election campaign. In the run up to the election, climate change was at the top of the media agenda; however, the political discourse fell far short. Fighting climate change was primarily presented as a financial issue and the question was posed time and again: ‘What would climate action cost and how does your party suggest we pay for it?’. As a result, the much more pressing question was never asked: ‘What will it cost us financially, but also socially, politically and existentially, if we do not take action on climate change?’ Can we afford to not take action on climate change, or to do too little, at the expense of future generations? And what does that actually mean for our children and grandchildren? 

Secondly, throughout the campaign climate policy was framed as a punitive debate on what people should and shouldn’t do. ‘Will we soon not be allowed to own a car?’ ‘Can we still go on holiday to Mallorca?’ ‘How many steaks will your party allow me to eat?’ Instead of discussing the most necessary social and political transformation project of all time, the discussion was reduced to the ways in which regulatory policy should limit individuals’ behaviour. Climate action was associated only with sacrifice and not with the chance to transform our society to become fairer and more sustainable. 

These debates diverged greatly from the goal of climate action and the demands of the climate justice movement. It’s unsurprising, in this context, that the Social Democratic Party (SPD) Chancellor candidate Olaf Scholz was presented as the ‘Climate Chancellor’, despite his proposed withdrawal from coal mining by 2038, when there is unanimous scientific consensus that this would be far too late to meet the goals set by the Paris Climate Agreement. Armin Laschet, the Chancellor candidate for the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) was also pandering to calls for climate action. However, when faced with the catastrophic flooding in his own state North Rhine-Westphalia, he declared: ‘today is not the day to discuss changes to political policy’. Meanwhile, the Green Party candidate Annalena Baerbock was always on the defensive both personally and politically and faced constant sexist attacks. But through her constant repetition of buzzwords like “awakening” and “change”, she missed the opportunity to make a rousing and convincing case for climate action. Meanwhile, die Linke tried to concentrate on its core issue of social justice but stumbled rather awkwardly through the climate debates, in which the party leaders made statements completely contrary to their own manifesto. Ultimately, it was not made clear why one should actually vote for them at all.

Even before the election campaign, it was clear that none of the parties had a program that could meet the Paris climate target of limiting global heating to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. So it was already evident before the election results came in that the climate justice movement would not be represented by any party in parliament. Climate may have been the number one issue of the campaign, but despite all the protests, all the occupations, all the public appeals and legal challenges, climate action was not an electable issue. 

The ‘Climate coalition’ and the ideology of digital green growth

At this stage, coalition negotiations are still taking place, but it is quite clear that a new government will be made up of a ‘traffic light coalition’ led by the SPD, with the Greens and Free Democrats (FDP) as junior partners. So what exactly does this mean for climate protection? First of all, one could optimistically state that climate protection is important to all three parties and that they hold it up at least as a metaphorical fig leaf. It will not simply be a matter of making a commitment to climate action either. Since a historic ruling by the Federal Constitutional Court in April, the German government is already legally required to significantly increase their ambitions on tackling climate change. 

What will become important during the coalition negotiations is what the parties involved actually understand by ‘climate action’ and what measures they will and won’t push for. The following roles are most probable in the traffic light coalition: The SPD will be the biggest barrier to climate action since it typically puts the interests of workers in the fossil fuel industry, as well as banks and corporations, first. As the Greens want to hit the ground running, they will probably start by ambitiously putting a number of climate protection proposals and measures on the table. The FDP will predictably play for time. Instead of tangible policies it will propose vague notions of “innovations” and “digital technologies” that it believes will get us out of the climate crisis. 

That may be a simplification, but we might end up backed up behind a traffic light that refuses to turn green.

There is also another very real danger. While all parties can rhetorically agree on more climate protection, the FDP and the pragmatic wing of the Greens will be joined by technophiles and political technocrats who love technology and the catchphrase: ‘a growing green and digitized economy.’ Green and digital solutions are the great promise of salvation. We can continue to do business and live the same way with magically less emissions. This green growth ideology has been around for years and has delivered less-than-successful results. The global economy continues to grow and become more digital and green, but neither emissions nor resource consumption are falling.

Instead, we have global temperatures rising far too fast, widespread biodiversity loss, and deepening social divisions worldwide. Empirically, new and efficient technologies do not lead to less resource use; in the worst cases, they actually lead to more. Nevertheless, a traffic light coalition will mainly rely on exactly this old wives’ tale as a promising climate measure, with dramatic implications for the climate.  

So in the end, it could well be that the concept of climate protection will itself lead to very few controversies, and that the negotiating parties will be able to agree on it very quickly. The commitment to more climate protection could even become the glue that holds the coalition together. Especially if it is combined with promises of more business, more technology and, above all, more growth. After all, this sounds just as optimistic as it is meaningless and ineffective, and requires hardly any political sacrifice from the co-ruling parties.

For the climate justice movement, however, it is clear that climate protection can not be achieved by increasing the number of electric cars, nor by capturing CO2 from the atmosphere, nor with emissions trading or autonomous air cabs. But this also means that the resistance to these new climate policies will have to be organized differently from now on.

New strategies and struggles

If the new German government, in contrast to the Merkel years, is much more committed to climate protection and is at least, on paper, moving in the direction of the demands of the climate movement, then the climate movement must also change. Although the Green Party is now part of the government this will not lead to significant change. The climate movement is therefore not going to become less important. Quite the opposite. Precisely because climate justice cannot be achieved with purely technological and digital innovations, strong social movements are needed more than ever to point out these gaps and contradictions. It will be up to the young people at the demonstrations and occupations to highlight the inadequacies of these measures and demand a rethink. This will also require a rethinking of their own strategy. Many groups like Fridays for Future have so far committed themselves to continuing their current strategy, in an almost naïve hope that if they carry on protesting, their demands will eventually be listened to by politicians. Appeals alone, however, will no longer suffice. Instead, the climate movement must credibly and intelligently justify why green capitalist measures are insufficient and will only exacerbate our problems. They must explain why a comprehensive transformation rather than a green coat of paint is needed across the board. This task is much more difficult to accomplish than a strategy of cautious warnings that many have pursued so far.

Of course, the climate movement will always find its places of resistance and hope. At the moment, attempts are still being made to save the village of Lützerath from the coal excavators, which also puts a much earlier coal phase-out back on the political agenda. There will also be forest occupations again when new motorways are planned, just as there will be the Friday school strikes. But for a comprehensive critique of green growth climate protection policies, it will no longer suffice to highlight the same scandals in different locations over and over again. 

Therefore, long-term plans are needed now for the time after the “climate campaign”, after the occupations, after the mass actions and after the strikes. 

There are several possible scenarios. It is likely that many activists will soon withdraw from activism altogether. Some will accept the tiny success of the government but most will be bitterly disappointed in unachieved goals. Nevertheless, large numbers of young people in particular are now highly politicized and are committed to continuing the fight. They may decide to reform the more progressive parties from within, or form alternatives to them, in an attempt to give the climate movement genuine representation. Although the new Klimaliste party has already predictably failed in this attempt, new projects could still attract activists. Further development and escalation of the previous civil disobedience strategies is also conceivable. Many activists are already considering ways to disrupt the destructive fossil and green capitalist system. It is likely that some parts of the climate movement will become much more radicalized and begin new methods and tactics to galvanize radical climate action. 

Last but not least, there is the question of the extent to which the previous struggles can also be developed and expanded. Because real climate protection can only be achieved with climate justice, and that in turn requires a comprehensive social transformation, not just changes in energy production. It also means changing the way we work, where and how we live, how we get around, what we eat, and how we communicate with each other. This requires struggles throughout society, along the lines of the plaza occupations in Spain or the recent movement to change the constitution in Chile. The climate movement must also link local concerns with global justice in order to have a truly transformative effect on society. The next few years under a traffic light coalition will show if the climate movement can succeed in initiating precisely this revolution in our society.

This article was written in German for theleftberlin.com. Translation; Alice Lambert

 

 

“Not All the Walls Have Fallen With the Berlin Wall”

Interview with Taleb Alisalem about Western Sahara, Africa’s last colony


01/11/2021

Hi Taleb, could you start by introducing yourself. Who are you and how are you active politically?  

My name is Taleb Alisalem. I was born in the Sahrawi refugee camps and then I moved to Spain, where I had the opportunity to study and work and make a “normal life”. But obviously as Sahrawis we never can have a “normal life” because half of my family continues to live in refugee camps, and the other half lives in the areas of Western Sahara that Morocco occupies illegally. My town is still divided by a 2700km wall with more than 10 million mines along it. So we can never have a normal life as this conflict crosses over and completely modifies our lives.  

So that is why I dedicate all my time and effort to fighting to change this sad reality that my people suffer, to helping the voice of my people reach the world and above all, to making it possible for my people to finally return home in a free Western Sahara.  

Saturday, 6th November sees the 46th anniversary of the Green March. What was the Green March and why is it important?  

Western Sahara was a Spanish colony for almost two centuries, in 1975 Spain decided to leave Western Sahara without finishing the decolonization process. What Spain did is sell the territory to Morocco and Mauritania, this happened after signing an agreement in Madrid in November 1975. After that agreement, Morocco began its occupation of Western Sahara through what it called the “green march.”  

We Sahrawis call it the “black march” since it led to the beginning of the occupation of our land and the bombing of our people that resulted in the exile of thousands of Sahrawis to Algeria, and in the death of thousands more.  

Many African countries liberated themselves from colonialism in the decades following the Second World War. Yet Western Sahara remains a colony. What happened and why?  

That is a very good question, the fourth commission of the United Nations, which is in charge of the decolonization process of all countries in Africa, to this day, continues to consider Western Sahara as the last colony in Africa pending decolonization. Why?

Western Sahara was a Spanish colony for almost two centuries. Spain decided not to comply with the decolonization process and hand over sovereignty to the Sahrawi people, preferring to do “business” with Morocco and Mauritania and hand over the territory to them in exchange for trade agreements.

Obviously that was completely illegal, which is why, until today, legally Spain continues to be the administering power of Western Sahara. But no Spanish government has wanted to take responsibility and initiate that pending decolonization process. The relations between Morocco, which physically occupies Western Sahara, and Spain, which legally occupies it, are very good relations that do not contemplate respecting the right of the Sahrawi people to exist freely on their legitimate land.  

The United Nations have been present in Western Sahara for the past 30 years. What has been their role?  

When Spain left Western Sahara in 1975 and handed it over to Morocco, which began to occupy the territory militarily, the Sahrawi people began armed resistance, through their liberation movement, the Polisario Front. This movement went to war with Morocco to try to expel it from the Sahrawi territories that it illegally occupied. The war began in 1975 and lasted 16 years until, in 1991, the UN presented a peace plan that both parts, Polisario Front and Morocco, accepted.  

This plan consisted of stopping the war, with a commitment to carry out a referendum on the population of Western Sahara, where they could choose to be part of Morocco or be an independent state. The UN promised that this referendum would take place within a period of nine months.  

30 years passed and that referendum was never held. Morocco blocked all attempts by the UN mission (MINURSO) in charge of carrying out this referendum, and the UN did not want to impose any position on Morocco either. And so, 30 years passed where the Sahrawi people only waited in refugee camps, or were living in the occupied part of Western Sahara suffering all kinds of human rights violations by Moroccan occupation forces. Sahrawi people experienced 30 very hard years of a wait that never ends.

There had been a ceasefire in the area until around a year ago, but this has now been broken. What happened, and how has that affected the general life of people in Western Sahara?  

After 30 years waiting for a referendum that never came. 30 years where the Sahrawi people peacefully asked for a solution. 30 years where Morocco continued to exploit the natural resources of Western Sahara generating millionaire profits, and silencing with torture and jail the Sahrawis who dared to oppose the Moroccan occupation. 30 years where the other half of the Sahrawi people lived in refugee camps in one of the harshest deserts in the world. 30 years being separated  by a 2700 km wall built by Morocco. 30 years of silence from the UN, the international community and the European Union. The Sahrawis were already tired.

A group of Sahrawi people decided to travel to the extreme south of Western Sahara and hold a peaceful protest in an area called Guerguerat. This area was heavily trafficked by trucks that the Moroccan occupation used to transfer all the resources that they stole from Western Sahara. The group of Sahrawi protesters closed that truck crossing. Because of this, the Moroccan army left the wall on November 13, 2020 and fired weapons at civilian protesters.  

The Polisario Front considered this attack a breach of the peace agreement signed in 1991, and announced that we, the Sahrawis, are returning to armed struggle against Morocco.  

The Sahrawi people are a peaceful people, but that day we all celebrated that decision, because after 30 years of suffering endless waiting, finally, maybe the war could make the world, the UN and the international community listen to us.

How are West Sahrawis resisting occupation and how successful are they?  

Since Morocco occupied Western Sahara in 1975, it implemented a harsh colonial policy with the aim of completely erasing the Sahrawi identity. Morocco prohibited wearing typical Sahrawi clothes, speaking in the Sahrawi dialect, prohibited several Sahrawi houses living in the same street. It filled Western Sahara with Moroccan settlers, to whom the Moroccan government offered houses and work to travel from Morocco and move to Western Sahara. Also, the Moroccan occupation employed a tough policy in education where children were taught that the Sahara was always part of Morocco.  

All these strategies failed because there was always a great feeling of identity and revolution in the Sahrawi people, there were always protests against the Moroccan occupation, Sahrawi flags were always raised. The occupation forces practiced murder, torture, jail, even disappearances against any Sahrawi who publicly protested against the Moroccan occupation. There are thousands of registered cases of torture and murder. Organizations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the UN have denounced these events.  

Despite all this, to this day, the Sahrawi population who live in the occupied areas of Western Sahara continue to peacefully resist the Moroccan occupation. The most recent case is the case of the Sahrawi activist Sultana Khaya, she has been under house arrest for a year. At her home in Western Sahara, the Moroccan occupation forces surround her home, have tortured her to the point of losing an eye, have raped her and her sister, cut off their electricity and they are unable to leave the home where they are arrested. Despite this, Sultana and her sister go up to the roof of the house every day to raise the Sahrawi flags and shout slogans against the Moroccan occupation. You just have to look on the internet; this is happening today. The case of Sultana Khaya is just one example of hundreds of other cases of Sahrawis in the occupied territories of Western Sahara.  

How strong are Left-wing parties in Western Sahara? How are they active in the resistance?  

In Western Sahara we do not have parties yet, remember that our land still suffers from colonization. We only have a single liberation movement that unifies and represents all of our people. The Polisario Front is the armed movement that represents our people and fights for our rights politically and militarily.  

Once we have control of all our occupied territories, and the decolonization process is completed, resulting in the Independence of Western Sahara; that is when the liberation movement will dissolve to form different political parties.  

What is the German and European involvement in the occupation?  

The European Union is directly responsible for the occupation and suffering of our people. The European Union is responsible for two reasons:  

1- According to the United Nations, legally Spain continues to be the colonizing power of Western Sahara. Therefore, it is Spain who must promote the decolonization process so that Morocco leaves Western Sahara and the Sahrawi people can have the sovereignty and independence that corresponds to them on their legitimate land. Spain is a member country of the European Union, and if Spain does not want to assume that historical and legal responsibility, the European Union should press for Spain to comply.  

2- The European Union has trade agreements with Morocco that include Western Sahara, that means that there are European companies that are dedicated to exploiting the natural resources of Western Sahara, this generates very important economic gains for Morocco, providing an incentive  to continue perpetuating its illegal occupation.  

Former German ex President, Mr. Horst Köhler, was the UN Secretary General’s envoy for Western Sahara. Köhler spent many years trying to find a solution to this conflict but Morocco blocked all his attempts to reach an agreement, finally in 2018 he ended up resigning.  

Germany’s position has always been neutral, but as Sahrawis we do not ask for or expect neutrality, rather we need a clear position and support for our people and our just cause.  

One of the main German companies involved in the occupation is Heidelberg Cement, who are also involved in land grabbing in Palestine. You can also draw comparisons with the wall being built by Morocco on the West Saharan border and the one separating the West Bank from Israel. To what extent is your campaign united with other campaigns against imperialism and occupation?  

So far we know that there are more than 80 international companies exploiting the natural resources of the Sahrawi people, being direct accomplices with the Moroccan regime in its illegal occupation of Western Sahara.  

Most of these companies are European; some are from Germany. No European government has denounced these events, even knowing that the high European court has ruled on three occasions that the agreements of the European Union with Morocco should not be extended to Western Sahara since this territory is not part of Morocco.  

About the wall? After its occupation of 80% of the territory of Western Sahara, Morocco built the largest wall in the world after the Chinese wall, this wall completely seals the part that Morocco occupied. It is 2,700 km long and has more than 10 million antipersonnel mines along the entire wall. This wall completely divided the Sahrawi people, half live in refugee camps, the other half, on the other side of the wall in the occupied part. These families have not been able to meet for more than 40 years. I always say that “not all the walls have fallen with the Berlin Wall”. Unfortunately in my country, the wall still exists to this day.  

What are your immediate demands on the Moroccan government and on international politicians?  

Our demands are the same as always. We ask Morocco to abandon our land that they occupy illegally, we ask Morocco to stop exploiting our natural resources, to stop raping and murdering our people, we ask Morocco to destroy the wall it built to separate our people, and to recognize that was a mistake to occupy Western Sahara. We ask Morocco to give us our sovereignty so that the Sahrawi people can be free and have an independent state on our legitimate land.  

To the international community, our demand is to not be complicit in perpetuating the occupation and mistreatment of our people. We ask them to stop looking the other way, and to support the end of occupation and colonialism in Western Sahara.  

We tell the international community, that the war that is being experienced in Western Sahara right now will be a massacre if they do not act quickly to find a solution that brings peace to the region.  

Finally, what can people in Germany and elsewhere do to support your campaign?  

There are many ways to help, first of all our fight is against the information blockade. People can investigate, they can learn more about the Sahrawi conflict, they also can visit the refugee camps or denounce these events in their social circles. I invite all people who are interested in helping to participate in the events that are organized in support of the cause of the Sahrawi people.  

For example, this Thursday, November 4, there will be a talk about Western Sahara in Berlin, also on Saturday, November 6, we will hold a demonstration in front of the German Parliament to demand the rights of the Sharawi people. I invite everyone who wants to participate in all these events, I invite you to get closer to this cause and defend it because just causes belong to everyone.  

The ECHR ruling: a victory that puts us more clearly than ever on the side of the Law

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ruled that the French Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) Campaign is a legitimate form of protest


31/10/2021

It took 10 years for justice to end political maneuvering, and confirm the essential character of freedom of expression in democratic society. That includes the freedom to criticize the policies of a country by means of calls for boycotts. In this case, Israeli policies – by means of boycotts of Israeli products.

The beginnings of the BDS campaign in France

Following the Palestinian appeal of July 2005, BDS actions began in France in 2007.  Legal proceedings were launched by the AFPS and the PLO against French companies Alstom and Veolia for participating in the construction of the Jerusalem tramway. Actions calling for a boycott of products remained limited in number until 2009. There were only a small number of actions in 2009. Only one legal prosecution was made against these actions. On February 10, 2010, an activist was convicted following the complaint of a Carrefour store “for minor damage.” This complaint was reclassified by the prosecutor as an “incitement to racial, national and religious discrimination.” This was intended to transform this militant act into an ‘anti-Semitic offense’. [1]

The French government’s counteroffensive

With remarkable speed, only two days after this conviction, the Ministry of Justice sent a memo to the public prosecutors. This firmly urged prosecution against actions calling for a boycott of Israeli products on the basis of Article 24 paragraph 8 of the 1881 press law.

The Minister of Justice, Madame Alliot-Marie, announced the circulation of this memo at the CRIF dinner in Bordeaux on February 19. She said “I do not accept that people, non-profit leaders, politicians, or ordinary citizens, call for boycotts of products on the grounds that they are kosher or that they come from Israel.” So began the amalgam.

On May 12, 2012, the day of the transfer of powers following the presidential election, the then Minister of Justice, Mr. Mercier, added a layer to the affair. He sent a new memo, reminding prosecutors of Article 225-2 of the Penal Code, penalizing “offenses of discrimination consisting of impeding the normal exercise of an economic activity.”

These two memos were the source of the legal proceedings initiated by several prosecutors. Most often they responded to complaints from associations supporting Israeli policies [2]. They were against activists who had taken part in actions calling for boycotts, generally in front of stores selling Israeli products and products from Israeli settlements.

Nine legal proceedings took place between 2010 and 2015: five of them led to the acquittal of the activists, and four to their conviction. The judgment of the Pontoise TGI in December 2013, examples the rationale of the acquittals: “This call to boycott is, in reality, a passive criticism of the policy of a state, criticism falling within the free play of political debate which is at the very heart of the notion of democratic society. Thus, since the right to express oneself freely on political matters is an essential freedom in a democratic society, this call for a boycott falls within the normal framework of this freedom.”

On the other hand, the Court of Appeal of Colmar (2013) developed a reasoning reflecting the misuse of the 1881 law as “recommended” by the two memos to condemn defendants. The appellate court considered that calling for a boycott constituted discrimination against people, since Israeli products are manufactured by Israeli producers, who are groups of people who belong to a nation…

The appeal filed against the ruling of the Colmar Court of Appeal was rejected by the Cour de Cassation in October 2015.

The insidious ban and illegality of calls to boycott in public discourse

Despite the two memos, reflecting the political will of the government(s) to repress BDS, actions developed continuously over the following years [3] in multiple forms. These included: calls for a boycott of Israeli settlement products; calls for a boycott of Israeli products; calls for a boycott of certain public events promoted by the Israeli government; questioning French companies participating in the colonization; demand for sanctions against Israeli policies (including the suspension of the EU-Israel agreement with regard to the violation of its second article). Parallel to these developments, the two memos, the few judgments condemning activists, and (especially) the ruling of the Cour de Cassation in October 2015 – introduced the prohibition, or illegality of  boycott calls – into the public discourse.

The day after the Cour de Cassation decision, Le Monde reported November 2015: “doubt is no longer possible: the simple call to boycott Israeli products is totally illegal in France. And severely punished. Two rulings by the Court of Cassation […] make France one of the few countries in the world, and the only democracy, where the call for a boycott by an association or civic movement to critique the policy of a third party state is prohibited.”

In its wake the Paris Council vowed to “condemn the boycott of Israel and calls to participate in this boycott that are relayed at gatherings in Parisian public space” in February 2016.

A demonstration on the same day to protest against this was authorized by the Paris Police Prefecture, but included a clause that “[in accordance with the decisions of the Cour de Cassation] it is forbidden […] to call for a boycott of Israeli products. Anyone infringing this prohibition will be called into question.”

In October 2016, the Île-de-France Regional Council adopted an amendment “excluding all funding to organizations calling for a boycott of Israel.” A few months later it established a “Regional Charter of the Values of the Republic and Secularism” in March 2017, to exclude associations from regional aid if they “participated in the BDS movement, since these calls constitute a criminal offence.”

This questioning of the legitimacy of calls to boycott was further reinforced. Very serious and recurring statements were made by the President of the Republic and other political figures starting in mid-2017, amalgamating anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, to target the Palestinian solidarity movement.

Let us recall the discordant voice of the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Federica Mogherini.  In response to a parliamentary question on this subject, she stated September 2016 that “the EU stands firmly for the protection of freedom of expression and freedom of association, consistent with the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, which is applicable to the territory of the EU Member States, including BDS actions carried out on that territory. Freedom of expression, as emphasized by the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), also applies to information and ideas that ‘offend, shock or disturb the State or any sector of the population’.”

Unfortunately, this statement remained isolated. Successive Ministers of Justice under the Hollande presidency rejected requests to withdraw the memos.

The judgment of the ECHR seals the situation with a denial of previous rulings

The rejection of an appeal by the Cour de Cassation in October 2015 – in a very dry ruling (despite doubts expressed by rapporteur) – led 11 of the 12 convicted activists to file a petition with the ECHR in March 2016.

The ruling issued at the end  by the ECHR on June 11, 2020 concluded that France had violated Article 10 of the Convention. The ruling was unanimous among the seven judges who composed the Chamber, one of whom was French.

In its well-reasoned judgment, the ECHR emphasized that the judges in Colmar and the Cour de Cassation had limited themselves to considering that there was discrimination against the producers of the products on the basis of their origin in order to condemn the activists; but that they had not taken into account the resulting restriction on freedom of expression which was not “necessary in a democratic society.” The ECHR based its decision on the basis of the boycott action, the motivations of the activists and the circumstances of the action (see text below).

We quote three excerpts from the judgment:

“… it is clearly in order to provoke or stimulate debate among the consumers of the supermarkets that the claimants carried out the actions of calling for a boycott which led to the proceedings which they denounce before the Court.”

“The Court observes that the applicants were not convicted of making racist or anti-Semitic statements, or of calling for hatred or violence. Nor were they convicted of violence or of causing damage during the events of September 26, 2009 and May 22, 2010. It is also clear from the file that there was no violence or damage. The supermarket in which the applicants carried out their actions did not, moreover, bring a civil action before the domestic courts.“

“Indeed, on the one hand, the actions and remarks of which the applicants were accused concerned a subject of general interest, that of respect for public international law by the State of Israel and the human rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territories, and were part of a contemporary debate that is open in France as well as in the entire international community. On the other hand, these actions and comments emanated from political and militant expression.”

The judgment concludes more broadly on the nature of political speech:

“Political discourse is controversial and often virulent. It is nonetheless in the public interest, unless it degenerates into a call for violence, hatred, or intolerance. That is where the line is drawn.”

It should be remembered that the judgment enjoins the French State to pay financial compensation (material damage, non-material harm, costs, and expenses) within three months of the final judgment. [4]

The case is clear today: The call to boycott is a citizen’s right, which cannot be called into question, as long as “it does not degenerate into a call for violence, hatred, or intolerance.”

What’s next? [5]

We have always said during ten years of moral, political, and judicial pressure that “No, the call to boycott is not illegal”. We continued to practice this through our various campaigns.

We now have clear, formal confirmation from the highest jurisdiction that this is the case.

It is now up to us, to hammer home the truth that “the call for a boycott is a citizen’s right,” and that it is LEGAL. We must remind all public authorities, members of parliament, local authorities, companies, and all those who spread “fake news” – by informing them during our public actions with our leaflets, banners, slogans… so that everyone knows that we are on the side of the Law.

In the last nine months, two court decisions – the CJEU ruling on the labeling of settlement products, and the ECHR ruling on the right to call for a boycott – and the UNCHR decision – with the publication of a first list of 112 companies that contribute to the colonization of the occupied Palestinian territory – have confirmed the righteousness of our struggle, our objectives, lines, and means of action, thus clearing the way for the solidarity movement to continue and strengthen its struggle for the Law.

Footnotes

[1] ATTAC

[2] Including BNVCA, Alliance France-Israel, CCFI, Avocats sans frontières, and LICRA

[3] On average between 50 and 100 actions per year between 2010 and 2019

[4] For a total amount of about 100 000€.

[5] Article 73 of the Convention concerning the referral to the Grand Chamber requested by a party says: “Under Article 43 of the Convention, any party may exceptionally, within three months from the date of delivery of the judgment by a Chamber, file with the Registry a request for referral to the Grand Chamber, indicating the serious question concerning the interpretation or application of the Convention or the Protocols thereto, or the serious question of a general nature which, in its opinion, deserves to be considered by the Grand Chamber. 2. A panel of five judges of the Grand Chamber constituted in accordance with article 24 § 5 shall examine the application solely on the basis of the existing file. It shall not accept the application unless it considers that the case raises such a question. The decision to reject the application need not be reasoned. 3. If the panel upholds the request, the Grand Chamber shall give a judgment “.

This article first appeared in French on the Website of the Association France Palestine Solidarité. Translation: FM. Reproduced with permission.

Picture Gallery: Demonstration for Sudan, 30th October 2021, Berlin

Demonstration from the Sudanese Embassy to Joachimsthalerplatz


30/10/2021

A Room of One’s Own

Access to housing is central to women’s emancipation. Under capitalism, society punishes women for not having a partner.


When I was 17 I went to study and lived away from home, sharing a flat with three other girls in Salamanca. It was the first time I left my parents’ home and the first time I was sharing with people I didn’t know previously. When I was 22, I migrated to Germany and was living with a family I didn’t know either. At 23, I migrated again, to Ireland this time. I’ve been living on this island for more than seven years and have had to move out at least seven times, always sharing with different people who came in and out. During these years I also lived for a short time in Scotland, once again sharing with strangers. I have lived with many different people from different countries. I’m still in touch with some of them, but most of them, as soon as they moved out and left their keys behind, have disappeared from my life. I’ve also left many keys and disappeared from many other lives.

In less than two months I’m about to be 30. Although when I was younger I thought I would be adventurous and meet as many people as I could, the truth is that right now all I want is to have my own space. My priorities and needs are changing as I’m maturing and that’s fine. But in all these years I have never been able to even consider renting something for myself, as my salary does not allow me to do so. I don’t ask for much: a room, a kitchen, a bathroom, a living room where I can keep my books (if possible on shelves and not piled up in the corners I find in my room or under the bed), my paintings and, if I could, a small balcony to have my breakfast and some plants. That’s it. I’m not even talking about buying a flat for myself, an unattainable project. Sadly, I would not even be considered for a mortgage, neither in Ireland nor in Spain.

Living together as precarious single women

On reflection, the impossibility of accessing my own shelter is related to several factors: housing as a market product and not as a basic fundamental right, the resistance of governments to not to regulate rental prices, the excessively expensive standard of living, and salaries that are not enough to be able to have an independent life, especially for those of us who work in the feminised, and therefore most precarious, sectors.

It is devastating that in our thirties and even forties we have to continue sharing flats with strangers because we cannot afford to rent our own space. Now the media has created a new language to disguise the reality of this precariousness and how the housing market exploits this situation, they call it co-living. When I explain this personal and social concern to my friends and family the answer is always the same: wait until you have a partner, then you can have your own space.

But my question is, why does society punish us for not having a partner? A relationship should not be the glue you need to keep your life stable and secure. A relationship should be two people (or more in the case of polyamorous relationships), financially independent, who decide in their freedom to create a path together and share their life. But there can be no freedom and independence without the material conditions for this, which is why capitalist society forces us into relationships for the sake of our economic survival, especially for the most precarious workers. Many abusive relationships occur precisely for this reason: women, even if we work, are generally in more precarious financial situations than our male partners (in heterosexual relationships) and because of that abused women cannot leave the family home as they do not have economic independence. In 2021 we are still not fully emancipated.

Many authors have already written about this concept of singleness, female emancipation, and capitalism- from Flora Tristan to Rosa Luxemburg to Alexandra Kollontai to name a few historical examples. In her book Autobiography of a Sexually Emancipated Woman, first published in 1926, the Russian Communist revolutionary Kollontai argued that we must invent another way of relating to each other and change the sex-affective dynamics that we repeat almost unquestioningly under capitalism. More recently, in Why women have better sex under socialism? (2018) anthropologist Kristen Ghodsee outlines why “unregulated capitalism is bad for women and if we adopt some of the ideas of socialism, women’s lives will improve. […] socialism encourages economic independence and improves working conditions, work-life balance and, yes, even sexual relations”. Starting from the fact that capitalism cannot be regulated since it is a system that bases its wealth on the exploitation of labour and natural resources, if we want to have real emancipation of women and all those who do not fit into the heteropatriarchal binary system, we must overcome capitalism.

As long as society continues to live under capitalism, patriarchal, sex-affective relationships will follow an abusive pattern and we precarious single people will continue to be unable to have a space for ourselves. It is not only capitalism that prevents us from economic emancipation, but also from emotional and personal independence. In this patriarchal society, we, single women, are seen as broken, incomplete, demanding, grumpy and many other adjectives basically amounting to “there’s something wrong with you”. In my opinion, the natural state of any person is singleness, having a romantic and healthy relationship would be when we freely (emotionally and economically) decide to form and create it, being just another stage of your life, rather than the “beginning of the rest of your life”. In order to break with the status of capitalism that forces us to have a partner to be able to emancipate ourselves, we need policies on our side that facilitate access to housing, whether you are single or in a relationship, as well as policies that prevent the precariousness of feminised labour sectors.

My life projects do not include having a partner, for me, it’s not a goal to achieve. I would like to keep studying and training in my profession, be able to speak the languages I am passionate about, continue my learning in my political interests, master oil painting techniques, or write a book; these are some of my goals. If I meet someone and we want to have a relationship sharing our life for as long as it takes, welcome, it’s not an idea I resist. But since it’s not a goal in my life, why do I know that I will not be able to afford my own home being single and precarious? My life, as I have already said, is not going to start if I get married: I am already living my life. And as such, I want the right to my own space.

Nerea Fernández Cordero is the speaker of IU Exterior. This article was first published in Spanish in Nueva Revolución. Reproduced with permission.