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Month: March 2021

When the state is responsible for a woman’s death, you do not ask for permission to protest

Sarah Everard’s death in London and the problem with white liberal feminism


17/03/2021

Sarah Everard was a 33-year-old white woman who was walking home on the evening of 3 March, and who was last seen on CCTV around 9.30pm on a fairly well-lit road in Clapham, South London. She did not make it home that night. Her body was found a week later in a forest near Deal (in Kent, southeastern England), some 80km south of Britain’s capital. The main suspect in her case is a serving police officer, who has now been charged with her kidnapping and murder. Deal is where the police officer lives.

The grief that Sarah Everard’s family and friends must be feeling is unimaginable. Knowing that the person charged with her death is a serving police officer, who finished his shift just an hour before she was last seen, is enraging. Seeing that the narratives are being co-opted by white girl-boss feminism and the feminism that centres the innocence of white women, is a cause for despair.

A lot of the focus in recent days has been on the fact that Sarah Everard was just walking home. She called her boyfriend, she wore bright clothing, walked on a main road, and it wasn’t that late. She did all the right things, all the things that make you feel a little safer walking back home in the dark by yourself, but that you know are – ultimately – insufficient against someone determined to do you harm.

This is all true. No woman or gender non-conforming person should feel scared to walk home. The reason we do is based on experiences we all push to the back of our minds. Considering that a recent study has shown 97% of women aged 18-24 in the UK have been sexually harassed, and anecdotal evidence suggests that not only is this true, but also that many of us haven’t ever mentioned many of these incidents to other people, it is not difficult to draw the conclusion that we have accepted this as our lived reality and that we make daily allowances as to what kind of behaviour we see as not ‘a big deal’.

From an early age we are told to adjust our behaviour to mitigate the risk of harm we face simply existing in the world and many of us feel lucky that our experience was ‘only’ what it was. When cases such as this one blow-up in mainstream media, it makes us replay many of the things that have happened to us in the past, over and over, in our heads.

My initial reaction to Sarah Everard’s murder was fear. For myself, for the safety of those close to me who live just down the road from where Sarah was last seen, for the safety of all women and gender non-conforming people. And this is only about safety in public spaces – what about in our homes, where most gender-based violence takes place?

My next reaction was rage. The person charged with Sarah’s murder is a serving police officer, who, just a week earlier, was reported for indecent exposure in a South London McDonald’s. These two incidents are not unrelated. The fact that, unsurprisingly, no action was taken following the indecent exposure of a serving police officer, and a week later he was charged with the kidnapping and murder of a woman, is the focal point of this situation. Gender-based violence and state violence are one and the same. This police officer felt he was above the law – and that’s because he was.

Men, on the whole, believe they are above the law when it comes to gender-based violence. In the UK only 1.4% of all reported cases of rape end in conviction, effectively decriminalising it. Many victims do not even bother reporting, knowing that it will not lead anywhere, and may well lead to more violence directed at them, especially if their abuser is a person closely known (as most are). I will not be going into the debates around #notallmen here, but know that #notallmen has a similar stench to #alllivesmatter.

The biggest problem, as I see it, with the narratives that have dominated the past week is exemplified by what happened around the vigil on Clapham Common. A totally new initiative, Reclaim These Streets, was founded just to organise the vigil, planned to take place on the evening of Saturday 13 March. Wanting to do something and doing something about it, is commendable.

Here it is important to note that the Coronavirus Act in the UK effectively bans protests due to their threat to public health, and organisers get threatened with £10,000 fines. This is what happened to the Reclaim These Streets organisers and they called off the gathering on Clapham Common, and instead called for a doorstep vigil – asked for people to light candles on their doorsteps in memory of Sarah Everard.

An activist collective, Sisters Uncut, called for people to attend the South London vigil anyway [1]. Sisters Uncut is a collective led by women of colour, which has been active in the field of domestic and sexual violence for years. What happened at the vigil is now known to anybody who has seen the news – the royal PR machine went into overdrive by sending Kate Middleton to attend the vigil, secretly and yet without a mask (are royals immune to COVID?) so she would definitely be recognised, and the moment it got dark the police kettled those gathered, arrested four women, and manhandled many others. To those surprised the police did this: the police do not care about the photos because their power does not come from the public – it comes from the state.

What happened the next day is typical of many feminist debates. The most shared photo was of a white woman pinned to the ground by several police officers. ‘It was a vigil, not a protest’ and ‘it was just women and flowers’ made the rounds on social media. It was shocking to many white liberal feminists to see one of their own in this situation. This narrative is not only hugely hurtful to Black people and People of Colour, who have been experiencing and talking about police brutality for ever (it was just last summer where this same police force rammed horses into Black Lives Matter protesters in Central London), it also has hugely problematic undertones. It suggests that there is a ‘good’ way to protest and a ‘bad’ way to protest. The ‘good’ way is when protests are organised by white professional campaigners, who would have ensured it did not ‘come to this’, who would have got permission from the police, who would have made it all pretty and sanitised and instagrammable. The ‘bad’ way is a spontaneous protest organised by marginalised communities, where there are links made between the death of an individual and the system which not only allowed it to happen, but also benefitted from it happening. This, first of all, takes away from the fact that Black communities have organised vigils and other forms of remembrance for victims of state and gender-based violence, and paints movements such as BLM as ‘woke extremists’ and ‘riots’ – putting the onus of violence on those resisting and not on the state. Second of all, there is no difference between a vigil and a protest when a person died at the hands of an agent of the state.

Framing Sarah Everard’s death as one that was enabled by a patriarchal system is not taking away from the pain has caused. It does the opposite. The police work for the state, and they are tasked with upholding its values and ideology – which are the patriarchy, capitalism, and white supremacy (which are all sides of the same coin). They do this, systematically, by exerting violence on communities that resist the oppression they experience at the hand of these ideologies. This is why we say All Cops Are Bastards.

Taking it down to the narrative of the individual ‘rotten apple’ forgets that it is the system that empowered the perpetrator to do this. This is not just a ‘one-off’ – this is systemic. This is why the indecent exposure incident and the kidnapping and murder are related. It is the same system that empowers men to do things that start with cat-calling and not taking no for an answer, and in extreme cases ends with femicide.

It is, therefore, all the more disappointing (albeit not surprising) to see the Reclaim These Streets organisers giving interviews on mainstream media, not crediting Sisters Uncut with the task of organising and with having ensured the safety and legal support of attendees. What we are seeing instead is them sitting down with Cressida Dick, the head of the Met Police, and saying that it would be a disservice to make her resign since she is the first woman to hold the role. Girl-boss feminism at its finest.

What they are essentially also saying is that had they been allowed to organise the vigil as they planned, it would have been safe and the event would not have resulted in police brutality, as it would have just been a vigil, not a protest. They, the respectable professionals, would have done a better job than the rowdy (read: experienced) grassroots activists. On top of this, they have not publicly declared whether the now half a million pounds they raised would be going towards the fines of those arrested in Clapham, or where that money would be going at all. Where is the solidarity? Or is it only some women’s lives they care about?

Reports from those on the ground say that solidarity was very much present on the ground, both at Clapham Common, and a day later in Parliament Square. That this wasn’t just a white women’s protest and that it’s not a white women’s issue. Marginalised communities see this, despite the fact that the same media coverage and public outrage wasn’t afforded to Blessing Olusegun, who was found dead on a beach in East Sussex (southeastern England) last September, or Nicole Smallman and Bibaa Henry, who were found dead in a North London park last June. Blessing’s case was deemed ‘non-suspicious’ by police and dropped, and in the case of Nicole and Bibaa, eight police officers are currently under investigation for taking photos next to the sisters’ dead bodies and sharing them with their friends on WhatsApp. The state enacts violence both directly, through policy brutality and incarceration, but also through the systemic deprivation and dehumanisation of communities whose oppression upholds the system as it is, and such events show what low regard the state and its agents have for the lives of those from marginalised communitites.

The protests – led by Sisters Uncut – are continuing. They are currently focusing on the police and Home Secretary Priti Patel’s Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill (popularly called the Police Crackdown Bill) which was voted on in Westminster in the evening of 16 March. This is an extension to the curbing of the right to protest under the Coronavirus Act bill and it would effectively make demonstrations illegal. Protests that cause a ‘serious annoyance’ to ‘a section of the public’ could lead to ten years’ imprisonment.

The Labour Party leadership originally said they would abstain, but the protests put enough pressure on the party to ultimately vote against it. It still went through its second reading with a majority. The bill is not yet law as there are some more steps in the UK’s parliamentary procedure. Activist groups have declared the protests will continue. It should also be mentioned here that the Tory government shamelesslysuggested protecting women by placing undercover cops in nightclubs, and police officers continued to intimidate protesters during demonstrations outside parliament led by Sisters Uncut. This is not a battle that will be easily won.

It is not surprising that it took the death of a middle-class white woman to spark this sort of reaction. It is also not surprising that so soon afterwards there is a divide in opinions as to how to proceed and how to frame it. Sarah Everard’s murder lies at the meeting point of gender-based violence, state violence, intersectionality and the right to protest during a pandemic (and always). The answer should be obvious, but to many it isn’t: you do not ask for permission to protest, and the police is not our friend.

Read the Sisters Uncut response to Boris Johnson’s statement here.

Hanna Grześkiewicz is the joint speaker of the LINKE Berlin Internationals group

Footnote

1 There were also other vigils that happened in London and across the UK. Some were moved online, some were not, such as the North London vigil led by the Women’s Strike Assembly.

“Every Day We Do Not Strike, Patients Are at Risk”

Fighting Covid and defending the National Health Service. Interview with the nurse who was fined £10,000 for organising a socially distanced protest


16/03/2021

Interview with Karen Reissmann

 

Karen Reissmann is a long-standing socialist, a member of the Socialist Worker’s Party in the UK, and a nurse from Manchester. She is on public sector union Unison’s National Executive Committee (but is speaking here in a personal capacity). In March 2021, Karen was fined £10,000 for organising a protest over the government’s NHS pay offer of 1%. In 2007 she was victimised at work for speaking out and organising against cuts and privatisation. Questions by Phil Butland

How has Covid affected health workers?

It’s been awful. We have not had the right PPE (personal protective equipment), some of it was up to 6 years out of date, there was no acceptance that Covid was airborne, so we still have just paper masks to use most of the time. Well over 850 health workers have died, 10,000s were extremely ill and many still are suffering with Long-Covid. These workers were disproportionately Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME). 93% of doctors who died, and 74% of nurses, were BAME.

We have all made huge changes, we have worked long hours to fill the ever-growing gaps. We are exhausted and overwhelmed. Health workers are used to people dying, but not in the quantity that we have seen in the last year and not our own colleagues. Many health workers have developed mental health problems such as panic attacks, depression and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Britain seems to have vaccinated more people than, say, Germany. Is this a great achievement of Boris Johnson?

This is a great achievement of the National Health Service (NHS). Many contracts related to Covid have been given to private companies, which have completely failed to deliver. Our Test and Trace service that cost £37 billion is a complete failure, run by Serco and headed by the partner of a Tory MP. Vaccination research was funded by the government in our universities and the administration has been done by the local doctors in the NHS. That’s why it succeeded.

Health workers in the UK have just been awarded a 1% pay rise. How has the public reacted?

Health workers and the public are furious. The whole country clapped for us and we appreciated it from ordinary people. But when Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak clapped in Downing Street, people were cynical. It turns out we were right to be.

Is the money there to fund a pay rise? Doesn’t more money for nurses mean less for everyone else?

Not only did they offer 1% but they told us we should be grateful for this, after the year we have had, as some people are getting nothing! We don’t want any worker to get nothing. We all deserve a pay rise. They can afford a pay rise for everyone.

The government wasted £37 billion on a Test and Trace that does not work. This on its own would pay for a 15% pay rise for all NHS workers for 25 YEARS. Yes they can afford it but are choosing – not to tax the rich, not to tax profits over £250,000; but to continue to bailout business with grants, to replace Trident nuclear weapons (£120 billion) and build a new high-speed rail line (£100 billion+) and say there is nothing left for us!

They want us to blame each other. We need to stand together for a proper pay rise for all. Just like the banking crisis. We did not cause it, and we should not be made to pay.

You were just given a £10,000 fine for organising a demonstration for more pay for nurses. Why was the reaction so harsh?

Because the UK government has just had a year where 130,000 people died, the worst record per head of population in the world – disproportionately killing Black, poor, older and disabled people. They produced a budget that enriched the rich and impoverished the poor. People all over the UK are angry.

The UK government are desperate to stop protest, which they know could take off like wild-fire. Fining me for a perfectly safe, fully risk-assessed protest was to try and stop other people protesting. We now have the Police, Crime and Sentencing Bill going through parliament, which aims to allow the police to ban any protest that is having an impact! Even if the protest consists of one person.

They fear the collective action of working class people. Just look at their awful repression of women on a vigil for a woman allegedly murdered by a police officer. The women there were demanding an end to violence against women, and were attacked by male police officers. There is a battle for the right to protest, with the government using Covid as cover and people are beginning to see this.

British nurses are contemplating strike action. Wouldn’t this just endanger patients who are already vulnerable?

Every day we do NOT strike, patients are at risk – 170,000 beds have been lost in the last 10 years; 100,000 unfilled job vacancies; 4 million people on waiting lists for operations. Not one ounce of slack in the system. We need a government that will show a financial commitment to the NHS and to its staff. Otherwise more exhausted staff will leave and more patients will be at risk. We need to get rid of a government that continues its murderous policies. Strike action by NHS workers is the start of that.

British friends tell me that the opposition to Johnson’s government is now being led by people like you and the footballer Marcus Rashford. What has happened to Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party?

Keir Starmer, who thinks 1% is not enough but thinks 2.1% is. Who initially wanted to abstain on the new Police Bill, who criticised Johnson for not reopening schools sooner even though scientists said this would lead to 30-50,000 more deaths, who is more interested in persuading big business that the Labour Party is on their side again. The only people he is good at attacking are the left in his own party. That’s why genuine footballers who knew poverty and are not afraid to say so, have such a huge following and can stand up for poorer people when Labour does not bother.

What can people in Berlin do to support you and to fight for a decent wage for health workers?

You can offer solidarity, and you have done this. Workers across the world have common interests. But you can also fight your own government attacks, show people in the UK it is possible to fight, inspire us, and join our battle against capitalist governments whose priority always will be profit not people.

(Harry and) Megxit

Royals, Racism and the tabloid press


15/03/2021

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle gave an exclusive interview to Oprah Winfrey about their departure from Royal life. Just another act in the royal pantomime?

This probably won’t shock you. I’m a Brit but I’m not a monarchist. I like cream teas and endless rain. Beans on toast, fine. I can even tolerate a bit of Morris dancing. But The Queen and her nest of pampered parasites? Not for me.

I didn’t even shed a tear when Diana died. When Prince Edward visited a former work place of mine, I wasn’t allowed anywhere near him lest I not curtsey low enough, say something rude or spit in his coffee. Couldn’t care less. These posh people born into extreme wealth have no relevance to my life and I’d happily be shot of them. Or guillotined. I’m not fussy. [1]

However, I’ve found myself following the latest Harry and Meghan saga. Maybe it’s just because I’m bored; we’re in lockdown and I’ve finished Netflix. But this story has some elements of interest to me, a republican socialist, even if the main characters are not my usual cup of (English Breakfast) tea.

Royal Racism

One of the most discussed revelations in the interview was that a senior member of the royal family had expressed concerns about “how dark” Meghan and Harry’s then unborn child may be. This has shocked some people. I remain unshocked.

Of course the royal family is racist. A significant amount of royal wealth was acquired via empire and slavery, and the royals continue to enjoy that colonial wealth without a qualm. No apologies for royal involvement in slavery or colonialism have been forthcoming. The Queen still reigns over the Commonwealth, eloquently described here as a “contemporary manifestation of the British empire…Empire 2.0”. As Adwoa Darko writes in Gal-Dem magazine, “a family whose wealth and power is based on the subjugation of people of colour, would not be welcoming of a biracial woman into their fold.”

In the British monarchy’s recent history, Edward VIII, the King who abdicated in 1937 and met Hitler that same year, was a Nazi sympathiser. A certain Prince Harry dressed up as a Nazi for a fancy dress party, I wonder if he’s embarrassed by that now. Prince Philip, the Queen’s Husband, is famous for making casually racist comments, such as “if you stay too long you’ll go slitty-eyed” to some British students in China.

Philip’s persistent racism is generally reported by the British tabloid press as harmless banter, an amusing old man who doesn’t know any better. It could be seen as a hangover from colonial times, a continuing colonial mind-set of patronising superiority. We are supposed to find it charming. Princess Michael of Kent (whose father was a Nazi) wore a racist brooch to a royal dinner with Meghan Markle.

It is not surprising that a member of the royal family was racist about Meghan and Harry’s unborn baby. It has shown itself to be a racist institution full of racists. A lot of people are blind to it, or don’t really care. They like the palaces and grand weddings, the flags and the spectacle. They have been groomed to care about it by the tabloid propaganda machine. What is somewhat refreshing is that royal racism is finally being discussed openly.

The remarks made about the skin colour of a baby show the royals in a very poor light.

By speaking to the US media, Meghan and Harry, got around the obstacle of the royal-loving British media. They directly told their side of the story without the usual mediation and spin of ‘royal correspondents.’ They made the royal family look bad. They did not do their royal duty. This has outraged the tabloid press, and controversial media commentators like the odious Piers Morgan, who embarrassed himself over this live on air and later resigned/was sacked from his position as a presenter of morning TV show Good Morning Britain.

Royals and the Press – manufacturing mutual legitimacy

The relationship of the British media to the royal family deserves some attention. For many years, various ‘royal correspondents’ have fawningly presented the royal family as a benign force for good, gaining privileged access to royal sources in return for their flattering portrayals. It is very much in the interests of the establishment media moguls with their own wealth and privilege to do this. The royals sell papers, and more importantly, help normalise the status quo of rank inequality. The public are invited to buy-in to the royal pantomime and accept their role beneath it.

In return, the royals get good press coverage and can go about their obscenely privileged lives largely unhindered. Consider the lack of outrage from the British tabloid press over Prince Andrew’s friendship with the convicted paedophile, Jeffrey Epstein, and allegations of him having sex with an underage trafficked girl. I am not aware of tabloid cries to strip Prince Andrew of his royal title, the problem has been almost swept under the carpet. He has been allowed to ‘step back’ from royal ‘duties’ rather quietly. He will still benefit from the obscene royal wealth that he was born into.

Contrast this with the howls of outrage over Meghan and Harry’s interview. “WHAT HAVE THEY DONE?” shrieked the Daily Mail on the front page of its ‘Royal Crisis Special’. Prince Andrew didn’t get a ‘Royal Crisis Special’ with 25 pages of dross, I mean ‘Unrivalled Reports”. “NOW STRIP THEM OF THEIR TITLES” continued the Daily Mail, two days later. This interview has really upset the Daily Mail. The Daily Mail is keen to demonstrate its unwavering loyalty to the royal institution, it is not at all concerned with factual unbiased reporting. It knows its role in manufacturing consent for the royals and wider establishment, and it knows how to rile up its audience.

The, usually left-of-centre, Daily Mirror headline stated that the Oprah interview has caused “THE WORST ROYAL CRISIS IN 85 YEARS”. Worse than Prince Andrew associating with a notorious paedophile and facing allegations of having sex with an underage trafficked teenage girl? To the tabloid press, it obviously is a lot worse. An alleged royal paedophile is not even a crisis, but a mixed race woman daring to speak negatively about her royal experiences is.

A Racist Press

The British press, in addition to its fawning treatment of the royals, is often racist. Even if we keep our focus on the royals, the contrasting treatment of Prince William’s (white) wife, Kate Middleton, and Meghan Markle is illuminating. If Kate touches her baby bump she “tenderly cradles” it, while Meghan is treated to the headline “Why Can’t Meghan Markle keep her hands off her bump?…is it pride, vanity, acting – or a new age bonding technique?”

Kate was encouraged to eat avocado to cure morning sickness, but Meghan eating avocado was a linked to human rights abuses and referred to as a “Millennial Shame.” Kate’s wedding bouquet was “effortlessly elegant and understated”, while Meghan’s bouquet with mostly the same (now potentially deadly) flowers, may have put her bridesmaid’s lives at risk. On and on these comparisons go. See this Buzzfeed article for many more examples of contrasting articles.

I wonder why the mixed race duchess is treated so differently. Before the Oprah interview, ‘royal aides’ put out a story about Meghan being a ‘bully’ towards royal staff. Here the racist ‘angry black woman’ stereotype was utilised to create a pro-royal, anti-Meghan narrative.

This negative media treatment began long before the interview happened, it was consistent throughout her time in the institution, and likely contributed to Meghan feeling suicidal as a royal. I know she chose to become a royal and I’m not a mega fan of hers, but it is hard not to feel some sympathy for her in this situation. Growing up, girls are aggressively sold the royal fairy tale. Her new in-laws were racist about her baby, unsympathetic to her mental health struggles, and the tabloid press, in their role as royal opinion polishers, gleefully bullied her.

In the interview, Harry said that the royals are afraid of the tabloid press. This makes sense as they rely on them to present a benign and pleasant image to the public. To maintain, what Meghan described as the ‘fairy tale’. They are well aware that this arrangement could collapse and lead to a more negative portrayal if they don’t do their duty and perform as required. This is why they tolerate the fawning ‘royal correspondents’ and invite them to their parties; they reportedly hate having them around but it means they have some control over the narrative.

Following the Oprah interview, and subsequent public discussions around press racism, the Society of Editors (an industry body representing editors in the UK) issued a statement claiming that it was “untrue that sections of the media were bigoted”. Anyone who has seen the front page of a British tabloid newspaper knows this to be untrue, and over 250 editors and journalists of colour were quick to publically disagree.

The British media clearly has a serious problem with bigotry and a lack of representation. The Society of Editors later clarified their position to state that they understand “that there is a lot of work to be done in the media to improve diversity and inclusion [and they] will reflect on the reaction [the initial] statement prompted and work towards being part of the solution.” Their Chief Executive, Ian Murray, who had angrily defended the initial statement on TV, resigned from his position. The Meghan and Harry interview, and their pointed choice to speak to the US media, has meant we are talking publically about this issue. We must keep talking, and keep up the pressure.

What should be done?

We should abolish the monarchy. It’s an anti-democratic anachronism with a shameful history of racist oppression and colonialism. The notion that people are ‘subjects’ of a monarch is grim and oppressive, contributing to a harmful ruling class narrative that those at the top are special and deserve to be. That it is the ‘natural order’ of things. There should be no more poncing about in crowns, lording over people regarded as ‘lesser.’ The tourism angle doesn’t cut it for me either. Tourists still visit the palace at Versailles, and we know what happened to the royals in France.

I read a discussion on social media about possible alternative uses for Buckingham Palace, the Queen’s big London house. Suggestions ranged from housing for the homeless and social housing, to a big supermarket or giant Greggs (a popular British bakery, selling cheap pasties, cakes and sausage rolls). The housing options are the most sensible, but secretly I’d choose the Greggs.

More urgently, I think, we need to reckon with the British media. This will be a huge undertaking. But there are positive actions taking place. For example, Jeremy Corbyn’s Peace and Justice Movement is campaigning on the subject of media reform. It has also been heartening to see the journalist’s response to the Society of Editors absurd denial of bigotry in the British media, and the U-turn by the Society of Editors in the face of this pressure. There is the Media Reform Coalition, which is campaigning on and researching issues such as media ownership and control. And there are the relatively new left wing media organisations such as Novara Media and Double Down News that are attempting to offer a different perspective to mainstream establishment narratives, we should look to and support them.

Conclusions

Did the interview hasten the demise of the monarchy? Probably not significantly, although it would be good if it has helped a little to change public perception of the institution. The royal institution has weathered scandals before and as usual the tabloids have come out fighting for it. Opinion polls still show a lot of public support for the royals, especially the Queen. But maybe King Charles and Queen Camilla will be a less popular public face for the royal spectacle.

A recent poll carried out for our favourite propaganda rag, the Daily Mail, showed an increase in those in favour of abolishing the monarchy. 29% of respondents were in favour of abolishing it, with 50% against. Just over a year ago, 61% of those polled were against abolishing the monarchy. So things look to be moving in the right direction, likely due to the lack of interest in the royals from young people.

Should leftists care about the monarchy? I wouldn’t advise getting drawn into the spectacle of the royal pantomime, but at the same time we should pay attention to who has wealth and power in society and how they maintain it. The role and press coverage of the royals is part of that.

This recent ‘royal crisis’ has highlighted the symbiotic relationship between the royals and the tabloid press, and led to wider discussion about media racism. This is the important takeaway from this saga, in my opinion. Piers Morgan losing his job was also quite good. I don’t think the monarchy will last a whole lot longer, perhaps the next generation will say off with their… crowns. Let them eat sausage rolls.

Footnote

1 I should probably make it clear that this is a joke, for cowardly treason-related reasons.

“They’re also accusing Jewish people of antisemitism”

On the defamation of Palestine solidarity by state appointed “experts” and the effects of the Bundestag Resolution on BDS


14/03/2021

Interview with Wieland Hoban

 

Wieland Hoban is a composer, translator and executive member of the organisation “Jüdische Stimme für gerechten Frieden in Nahost” [Jewish Voice for just peace in the Middle East]. He represents the organisation in the organisation IJCJP (International Jewish Collective for Justice in Palestine).

Questions: Emre Sahin (ES). Answers: Wieland Hoban (WH)

ES: At the beginning of February, Wieland – in your capacity of executive member of the “Jewish Voice for a just peace in the Middle East”, you received an answer to a letter that you’d written to the Berlin senate in November. In the letter you had criticized the appointment of the social scientist Samuel Salzborn as the state of Berlin’s contact person for antisemitism. Why?

WH: The severe criticism came from our horror that Salzborn had been given this post. The letter set out our points of criticism: for example, Salzborn had reacted polemically to the simple usage of the term “Palestine”. He had denied the Nakba (the mass expulsion of Palestinians which preceded the establishment of the State of Israel), and he claimed that people only left because some big landowners had sold their plots of land. He also denied the existence of Islamophobia as a matter of principle. He called for the removal of the term, because he saw it as a provocation.

Salzborn uses every opportunity to blame left wingers or Muslims for antisemitism, paying less attention to the large virulent danger from the right. He and other like minded people mainly speak about what they call ‘Israel-related antisemitism’. This also exists to an extent, but does not pose an important danger to Jews in Germany. This is why we asked for urgent talks.

At first we sent a letter to the senate administration by post. Some weeks later, we also sent an e-mail, with the document attached. Then I rang them every couple of weeks to see what was happening, but each time I was brushed off. They said, the answer was in progress, and we would hear from them very soon.

Finally I tried to apply more pressure and shortly afterwards they did send a very insubstantial answer.

ES: Were your points of criticism addressed?

WH: Absolutely not. The answer mainly consisted of a replication of information that was already known. The job had been announced, many people had applied, and Salzborn was the most qualified candidate. The process was over, and therefore they didn’t find it “productive” to organise a meeting. None of the criticism was addressed, which wasn’t surprising. They couldn’t have done so without looking very bad.

ES: Salzborn is also known for accusing the party Die LINKE of antisemitism. But he got his job from a government in which die LINKE is a partner. How can you explain this?

WH: I think that no one really concerned themselves with the facts. He was a ‘specialist’ on antisemitism and had written about it. Essentially he is part of, let’s say, an antisemitism industry, in which certain theoretical models are used to endlessly repeat the same theorems, often referring to the work of Theodor W. Adorno.

This also corresponds to the so-called “Anti-Deutsch” tendency. Virtually no one has concerned themselves with the substance. Maybe they’ve looked at Salzborn’s resumé and thought that he’s a qualified academic, has published some things and maybe there were certain personal relationships.

It’s also the case that in Germany – for understandable reasons – there is too little knowledge about questions which concern Jewish subjects, ideas or also sensitivities. Then there’s the obvious support for the State of Israel, and Salzborn positions himself as very strongly pro-Israeli. That was also important to the administrations because they thought: “antisemitism is about Israel, Salzborn is pro-Israel, so that’s good”.

ES: How does the appointment of Salzborn as contact person for antisemitism affect critical Jewish voices in Berlin? It’s clear that he won’t talk to your organisation.

WH: You could say that it is a slap in the face. But we know from experience that such voices like ours are thin on the ground in Germany. People with similar beliefs tend to hold themselves back rather than going onto the offensive as the discourse has been poisoned. If you want to join it, you must also be prepared to go to battle or to stand up to great defamations.

ES: What is the role of the Israeli government of prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu? For example in 2018, Netanyahu sent a letter to Chancellor Angela Merkel demanding that the Jewish Museum in Berlin should not receive any financial support because the institution supported the pro-Palestinian campaign Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS). But the museum had not supported BDS.

WH: And although Merkel clearly rejected this request, the museum director Peter Schäfer met so much hostility that he eventually stood down. There are cases where the Israeli government really is involved, such as with the museum. Sometimes this is not from high positions, but through associations which have links with the government. As soon as you talk about this, you are countered that this is an antisemitic conspiracy theory. Even when you can prove it, connotations are made of some lobby or some government controlling everything from afar.

ES: Your organisation has been criticized by various Jewish institutions, societies and initiatives – in particular when you received the Göttinger Peace Prize in 2019

WH: There was also an attempt to prevent the prize giving ceremony by withdrawing permission to use the rooms. Fortunately this could be circumvented by using a different venue. On top of this, our bank account was closed because of allegations of antisemitic activities.

ES: Are the attacks on you still going on?

WH: We are a very small group, so not everyone pays attention to what we do. But we are working with others, and there was also the “Initiative GG 5.3 Weltoffenheit”. That aims to stop people being muzzled because of a real or alleged relationship with BDS, or a critical attitude towards Israel. This is very important as it brings the debate about BDS in the foreground again. The government wants to stifle discussion on the topic, especially a report from the ‘Research Services of the Bundestag’ which contradicts their views.

This report was commissioned by Felix Klein, the government’s antisemitism commissar, because he expected that the Bundestag anti-BDS resolution of the previous year was legal and would receive an official confirmation from the report. But the Research Services came to the conclusion that the resolution constitutes an excessive interference with the freedom of opinion, and that if it were made legally binding, this would be unconstitutional.

The resolution is curious in that despite its non-binding status – the Bundestag lawyers classified it as an expression of opinion – it almost had the effect of a law. This because it has been generally accepted on the ground. If you invite someone to a meeting and they can be put in some sort of relationship with BDS, you get no support, rooms, money etc. This leads to self-censorship and self restriction.

The discourse has now arrived at such a level that people like Salzborn or Felix Klein can also accuse Jewish people of antisemitism, for example when they support BDS. There is not the slightest attempt to listen or to want to understand, why they engage themselves like this. It is moreover pretty arrogant of them to claim this sovereignty of the discourse.

ES: Similar things happened in Great Britain. When Jeremy Corbyn was leader of the Labour Party, there were allegations of antisemitism against the party in order to discredit him.

WH: Exactly. There wasn’t such a resolution in Great Britain, and in principle BDS as a term is not used as strongly to delegitimize people as in Germany. That is also connected with the Bundestag resolution, which was able to reduce a whole movement – that of Palestine solidarity – to 3 letters.

But it’s not the case that everyone who stands up for justice in Palestine is automatically for BDS. It’s also not the case that everyone who supports BDS believes that anyone who does not do this is at fault. The whole debate has been reduced to this. If someone argues for the Palestinians, without mentioning BDS, they are immediately asked: “Are you for BDS or not?” Or they are told “That’s going in the direction of BDS”. It is no longer possible to talk about the substance.

My hope is that through the ‘Initiative GG 5.3’ or the report from the Research Service, it will become less natural to reduce this discourse to 3 letters, or that BDS is something which can’t be discussed, something antisemitic. Then the discussion can be: what is BDS about? Why should it be antisemitic? Why it is not antisemitic? And, why are there also Jewish people who support BDS or Palestine solidarity as a whole?

ES: When the fight against antisemitism is so important for the Israeli government, how can they maintain good relationships with some ultra-right governments in Europe?

WH: That is because the government, and above all Netanyahu, are absolute opportunists. It is more important to them to have allies – above all against Muslims. They don’t care what Hungary’s premier Viktor Orbán thinks about Jews. The notorious tropes – for example, that George Soros manipulates world events, continuing the old antisemitic propaganda lie of a “Jewish world conspiracy” – these are also things which Netanyahu says himself, because a powerful Left supposedly threatens his rule.

In Poland there was a law which essentially banned any recognition of any Polish complicity in the Holocaust. Shortly after, Netanyahu was in Poland, and was not at all disturbed by this, because that’s not important to him as long as Poland’s political leadership is pro-Israeli.

Or Netanyahu’s tolerance for ex-US president Donald Trump, who has made many antisemitic statements, but who is also pro-Israeli. If the Israeli government or its defenders speak of antisemitism, they often mean an opposition to or critical opinion of Israel. They can no longer separate Israel from Jews as a whole.

ES: A further controversy was the appointment of Ephraim Eitam to the post of director of the Israeli memorial to the victims of the Shoah, Yad Vashem, at the end of 2020. In the past, he has insulted the Palestinians as a “cancerous growth in the body of the nation”. After protests, the appointment was withdrawn, and now there is an interim director. Why was there a calculated choice of Eitam for the job?

WH: The procedures have made it very clear that the memory of the Shoah is political in Israel. It shows how important it is that people in decisive positions are to some extent anti-Palestinian. Eitam is definitely that – to a more noticeable extent than others.

But that is not so rare as it should be for high-ranking officials in Israel. And this does not just work against Palestinians, but also against migrants and refugees from Africa, usually from Sudan. They have already been designated by high-ranking politicians as a “cancerous growth” in society. This virulent racism comes from the state doctrine that Israel is Jewish. This means that Jews are at the top and other communities must be subordinate.

This article originally appeared in German in the junge Welt. Reproduced with permission. Translation: Phil Butland. Free three week subscription to junge Welt here. Support the jW campaign Who’s afraid of whom? (English translation coming here soon).

News from Berlin and Germany: 13 March 2021

Weekly news roundup from Berlin and Germany


12/03/2021

Compiled by Ana Ferreira

 

BERLIN

Berlin’s schools start to reopen

The German capital has been gradually restarting school. Primary school pupils are already back. Next Wednesday, grades 10 to 13 will follow, also in a rotating model. The only ones left would be the seventh to ninth graders, who would continue to receive only distance learning for the time being. But Berlin Administrative Court decided to not generally exclude them. The education administration is relieved that the administrative court did not want to follow the plaintiffs on a second point. Martin Klesmann from the school administration, makes it clear anyway that there are currently no plans to change the alternating lessons and the mask requirement. Source: nd

Interior Senator admits racial profiling

The Berlin police deploy 180 officers to an operation in Görlitzer Park. A residents’ initiative is making serious accusations that the police are only checking people because of the colour of their skin. Action must be taken. Residents and park visitors are sensitised to the issue and often stop when officers check black people or people of colour. Black Berliners sometimes no longer come to Görlitzer Park for fear of being exposed by controls. “This must not happen,” says Interior Senator Andreas Geisel. “But at this point dealers are controlled and dealers arrested because they deal, not because they come from Guinea.” However, Geisel said: “I’m realistic enough to see that it [racial profiling] exists” Source: rbb

GERMANY

Nazi criminals ran children’s homes in post-war Germany

Nazi war criminals were allowed to run children’s holiday homes in postwar Germany where draconian corporal punishment and bullying were normal, new research has shown. The revelations provide a new dimension to the experiences of so-called “Verschickungskinder” (“sent-away children”) and the special educational homes that existed in West Germany. A newly-founded survivors’ initiative and self-help group has estimated that as many as 8-12 million children were sent to such homes, often on the recommendation of doctors, schools, and youth welfare authorities. There are reports of how young children often returned from these homes traumatized, with stories of suicide attempts and depression. Source: dw

CDU man collects commission for mask business

In the affair about lobbying activities of members of the Bundestag in connection with mask deals, accusations are being made against another CDU member of parliament. According to Der Spiegel, Nikolas Löbel is said to have demanded and received commission for brokering protective masks. Löbel admitted “mistakes” in this context. As a member of parliament, he should have “acted more sensitively in his entrepreneurial activities”, he said on Friday in response to a question. According to him, Löbel’s company had collected commissions amounting to about 250,000 euros. Source: jW

Officer on trial for stealing ammunition

The multiple scandals surrounding the Special Forces Command (KSK) in Calw, Baden-Württemberg, involve the question of how large quantities of ammunition could disappear over the years, too. In the trial of KSK non-commissioned officer Philipp Sch. a partial answer to this question was given. As a witness, an officer described the loose handling of the issue of ammunition during shooting exercises. In the trial, Sch. has to answer for violations of the War Weapons Control Act, the Weapons Act and the Explosives Act. Investigators had discovered two kilogrammes of explosives, several thousand rounds of rifle and pistol ammunition and various weapons in his garden in Collm.Source: jW