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“Palestine should be central to every trade union around the world”

Interview with Chris Denson, National Executive member of the British teaching union NEU ahead of tomorrow’s union Day of Action for Palestine

Phil Butland
06/02/2024

Thanks for speaking to us. Could you just start by introducing yourself?

I’m Chris Denson. I’m a teacher in England. And I’m also a member of the National Executive of the National Education union (NEU).

The union executive recently passed a resolution on Palestine. Could you tell me what was in that resolution?

Well, we’ve passed several resolutions over the past few months, because as educators, as people who represent teachers and support children, we see that destruction that’s happening every single day. We see what’s happening to children in that area. We see what’s happening to schools.

So the resolution is quite lengthy. It talks about the fact that over 22,000 Palestinians have been killed – over 7,700 children since this war in Gaza began. It also notes that within two months, not only has every single hospital in Gaza been destroyed, we also believe that every single school has as well.

So no child in Gaza is being schooled at all, never mind the killing that’s going on. In the West Bank, access to schools is really difficult for Palestinian children. They’re routinely stopped on their way to school at military checkpoints. They’re held at gunpoint. They have bullets fired above their heads routinely. The terror that they’re facing is enormous.

As a union, both at local and national level, we’ve agreed that we should be at the forefront of this battle when we see such genocide unfolding in front of our eyes. When we see such human catastrophe, then, as teachers or support staff, as educators, we absolutely can’t stay silent.

Our union has been at the centre of the national demonstrations in Britain. In many of our towns and cities, our members have been talking on those demonstrations. Our General Secretary and President have spoken at the national demos. Key activists have been at the front and centre of those demonstrations to try to push back on what we see happening every day.

We have called a workplace Day of Action for 7^th February. At the last workplace day of action, quite a number of our schools did things. We want to widen this and make sure that these activities are happening in as many workplaces as possible. So we agreed to publicize this nationally, to our half million members.

We have put out some ideas for what schools can do. For example, in Coventry, where I work, we had our general meeting last night. Part of the meeting was set aside to discuss what we can do in our schools around Palestine. We’ve also vocally encouraged members to attend demonstrations wherever they can, and to take union banners.

We believe that unions should be at the centre of these pushbacks and are building a series of resources that members can use in schools to educate their students on what’s unfolding in front of their eyes, to support them through it, and to build some kind of resistance to the killing that we’re seeing every single day.

Some people would say that what’s happening in Gaza is tragic, but you’re a British trade union. You should be looking after your members in Britain. What’s Palestine got to do with British teaching unions?

I think Palestine should be central to every trade union around the world.. We don’t look at things in a narrow sectarian way. Within Britain, if we see any other union which is under attack, we support them. Last week, the rail unions were threatened with minimum service levels. We acted on that and sent our solidarity. When we see that migrants in our country are being treated appallingly, as educators and trade unionists we have to roll in behind that.

As a trade union, we should be looking beyond our own national borders. If we see people around the world who are suffering, denied their rights, killed, and brutalized, whether it’s in Palestine or anywhere else, it’s our duty to stand up and be part of the pushback, Many people across the movement would say that if you’re silent, then you’re complicit.

Trade unionists in Britain and Germany, and anywhere else in the world should be shouting from the rooftops when they see what’s unfolding in Gaza.

You mentioned the day of action on 7^th February. Could you say a bit more about what will happen? How many people will be involved?

It’s really difficult to say how many people it will involve. We have half a million people in our union across around 25,000 schools. We are writing to every single member and every single group to try to get things going on in those schools. We don’t know exactly how many will do that. But we hope that thousands of schools will get involved.

They could do various different things. When we had our discussion at a big meeting yesterday, we talked about what I’ve done in our school. We’ve run a series of assemblies for the children. We’re setting up working parties with student leaders to raise money for Save the Children in Gaza. We’re setting up safe spaces, so children can come and speak to us and speak to each other about it.

Where that’s not possible, we can call members’ meetings, get the whole staff together and show videos from the General Palestinian Teachers’ Union. We can look at how staff can start to raise money for Gaza. Whenever we speak to people from Gaza or the West Bank, they always tell us that aid and support is brilliant. But the biggest thing they want from us is to not stay silent – for Palestine to be a part of everybody’s conversation.

If the conflict continues, we hope for future days of action that will build and build. The more places we can get those conversations going, the more pressure we can apply to hopefully end the
the abuse that we’re seeing every single day. The treatment of the Palestinian people goes far beyond what happened in October. It’s 75 years of brutal occupation.

Your resolution mentions Prevent. For people who aren’t closely following British politics, could you explain what Prevent is and what it has to do with Palestine?

Prevent is something that was brought in under the last Labour government. It is supposed to be an anti-radicalization tool. If children are being radicalized, then schools are supposed to report any problems. This then gets picked up by the government and the police.

In reality, it doesn’t work that way. Many of the Prevent referrals are not to do with radicalization. They are about children in school with Palestine flags or badges, or parents raising money for Gaza. If you have a level of humanity, you want to do something to protect or to raise money for people who are undergoing the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. Absolutely none of this is anywhere near radicalization.

We know that when our children are seeing images every single day on the mainstream news and TikTok, they will want to come in and talk to people that they trust about those issues. The chilling effect of Prevent is that it drives these conversations underground. Children do not feel able to come to school and talk to their teachers.

It isn’t just the NEU saying this. Amnesty International has been absolutely clear that the Prevent agenda within Britain has had an absolutely chilling effect on human rights. We’ve seen instances over many years now where children have raised things, and tiny conversations that should happen in schools end up with police knocking on their parents’ door.

One child drew a picture of their family in their house, and wrote on the paper: “terrorist house”. The police turned up at their door, and terrified them and their parents. What actually happened was the child meant to write “terraced house”, but spelt it wrong. We know that if that was a white child who made a spelling mistake, there is no way that the police would have been involved.

We had another child who drew their dad holding a banana in his hand. The teacher thought it was a gun. Rather than having the conversation with the child. It was reported to Prevent, and the police ended up knocking on their door.

Prevent has an absolutely chilling effect on stopping the kinds of conversations that should be happening in our schools. If children are seeing these things, or even if they are being radicalized, the best thing for us to do is to provide spaces for them to come and talk to us as highly qualified professionals.

Prevent silences that. It is an absolutely blunt tool which is used to target Muslim communities and to try to police any kind of views that veer away from the government accepted norm. NEU feels that it does enormous damage to our communities and to the children in our schools.

Back to the NEU resolution. You helped introduce an amendment talking about Yemen. What does Yemen have to do with Palestine?

Yemen has a huge amount to do with Palestine. One of the things that concerns us the most is that we’ve seen children being murdered every single day. Children are being bombed on a tiny strip of land in Gaza. In the space of two months, we’ve seen one and a half times the destructive power of Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined dropped on Gaza.

We’ve seen every hospital destroyed. We’ve seen every school destroyed. We see people killed every six minutes. We see five children die every hour. Two mothers die every hour. Ten children every day are having amputations without anaesthetic, and our government is doing nothing to intervene.

Yet in the same time frame, Houthi rebels who are trying to disrupt ships carrying arms to Israel are seen worthy of military intervention. A bit of trade trumps children being murdered every single day.

If this was about upholding international law, we wouldn’t have been selling arms to the Saudis to drop on the Houthis for years. We wouldn’t be standing by and watching children being massacred, day after day after day in Gaza, Our government intervenes because it’s clearly an attempt to assert who really is in charge in the Middle East.

That is why the link to Palestine is so key for us, we can see clearly what is happening. It’s not about international law. It’s about international control of that entire area. It’s no surprise that the US and the UK getting involved in this while letting the destruction of Gaza happen every single day.

What can trade unionists in Germany concretely do about Gaza?

It’s a very difficult situation. But things move all the time. In Britain, what we’ve been able to do in trade unions and beyond has moved significantly. In the immediate aftermath of October 7^th, it was much more difficult. But people now see the destruction happening in front of their eyes every day. I’ve heard it called a genocide that’s being live streamed.

Whether we’re in Germany or Britain, we have to look at the situation that we’re in. I know that Germany has a historical contexts that makes it more difficult, and that the discussion isn’t as widespread, but we always have to look at how can we push the boat a tiny bit further.

It’s one thing to go from nothing to mass demonstrations. but can you start to have small meetings in schools, where people start to talk about Gaza? Can you start to have discussions in the wider trade union movement about what can be done? It’s just important that everybody looking at this tries to think what is the next step that I can move to?

Not everyone has to be at the exact same point within a week. But every single person who’s involved in the movement can think: “what is the one thing I can do to shift it on a little bit further? Can I get a meeting set up in my school? Can I get a meeting of staff going in our university? Can we work with students in the university to get meetings on this issue?”

Whatever it is, those steps need to be taken and the more the dialogue shifts, then the more bigger organizations like trade unions can start to make ground on this as well.

Is there anything that German trade unionists can do to support the NEU and your day of action?

Messages of solidarity are always good, particularly with issues like this where there is such a fight back. Even something as simple as a message saying “we back your action. We believe that you’re doing the right thing” is really powerful.

Obviously, if days of action can be proposed in other countries, then those would go down incredibly well. But on the most simple level, from members or trade union groups in workplaces or trade unions as a national body, solidarity is so important. Not just for us, but these actions will be seen by the people of Gaza. This makes such a difference.

300.000 demonstrate in Berlin. What next to stop the AfD?

The demonstration was a success, but building the unity which we need will not come automatically

Phil Butland
05/02/2024

On Saturday, February 3rd, 300.000 people marched in Berlin against the AfD. Other regional events were held throughout Germany. The demonstrations follow the “Remigration” scandal, when AfD politicians took part in a meeting in Potsdam with neo-Nazis and members of the Identitarian movement to discuss mass deportation of people “with a foreign background”.

Since the Potsdam meeting became public knowledge, there has been growing concern about the AfD, where Nazi Björn Höcke is plays an increasingly powerful role. Höcke is seeking closer connection with citizen forces responsible for anti-migrant PEGIDA demonstrations over the last decade, and for over 200 racist murders since reunification in 1989.

At the end of January, hundreds of thousands demonstrated against the AfD in Hamburg and Berlin. Many more demonstrations have taken place throughout the country. But these demonstrations have not been without issues. Some have been dominated by members of the ruling coalition, which has doubled the military budget, raised fuel prices, and failed to reach its own minimal targets for fighting climate change.

While increasing poverty, the Ampel coalition (SPD, Die Grünen, FDP) has been attacking migrants. In October, in an interview about Palestinian protests in Germany, Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) was quoted on the front page of the best-selling Spiegel magazine saying “we must finally deport on a large scale”.

This has led to a discussion in my branch of die LINKE (and elsewhere), where someone asked whether there is a difference between the deportation plans of the AfD and those of the current governing parties. Many more argue that the policies of the Scholz government are paving the way for the AfD. But the scale of deportations discussed by the AfD dwarves anything considered by the German government at present.

It would also be a mistake to see deportation as the only issue with the AfD. This misconstrues the threat posed by a party whose Nazi core is becoming increasingly influential. Hitler’s attacks on racial minorities were preceded by the destruction of any possible opposition, including moderate social democrats. If Björn Höcke came to power, Olaf Scholz would also be sent to a concentration camp.

Palestinian demonstrators finally included

In several instances over the last weeks there Palestinians—currently the victims of the most prevalent form of racism in Germany—were excluded from demonstrations against the AfD. Charges that Fridays for Future actively collaborated with the police to remove the Palestine block from last week’s demo appear to be unfounded. Nonetheless, police did exclude Palestinians, and individual demonstrators, including stewards, abused and spat at people in the block.

Non-German demonstrators have had similar experiences at other demonstrations. Egyptian activist Heba Attia Mousa, who lives in Bonn, reported being racially abused and accused of antisemitism for carrying a home-made placard which read: “Arab in Deutschland, the AfD wants to deport all of us, SPD & CDU want to deport 50% of my friends, The Green Party & SPD are financing bombs that kill my friends in Gaza”.

This week’s demonstration saw the potential for similar divisions after the Berlin police banned Palestine flags from the demonstrations at the last minute. This time, though, organisers welcomed the presence of Palestinians from the stage and there was a lively Palestinian block in the middle of the demo.

One of the speakers at the demo correctly said: “at some demonstrations, the block in which many refugees and migrants were taking part, carrying Palestinian flags or wearing a kuffiyah, were excluded by the police and some of them were attacked by other demonstrators. We need to talk about this, criticize it, and learn from it.”

This does not mean that Germany’s Palestine problem has gone away. Even at this week’s demonstration, Jewish socialist Rachael Shapiro reports: “in general the mood was very friendly—a lot of solidarity especially compared to the last few weeks where there were numerous extremely intense attacks on the Palestine movement and those in solidarity with Palestine from the police but also from Zionist demonstrators…an older German man came up to me and asked me quite aggressively; ‘What are the similarities between Zionism and the AfD?’ I could already see that he didn’t want to have a real conversation. Regardless, I tried to explain and after a few words, he rolled his eyes and half spit in my face, said: ‘ What do you know?’ I said: ‘my family was exterminated by Nazis. I think I am perfectly capable of explaining the similarities between Zionism and fascism’.”

Such behaviour has caused some Palestinians and migrants to consider boycotting the anti-AfD demos. Socialists have a task, both to persuade the victims of racism that their place is in the centre of the movement against fascism, but also to communicate to the White German Left that we need unity to force back the AfD.

Ban the AfD?

There is now a strong discussion about what the movement against the AfD should do next. Many people, including speakers at Saturday’s demo, are calling for a campaign to ban the AfD. A benefit of doing so is that the AfD would lose access to state funds paid to MPs and the people who work for them in the Bundestag. There are, however, some problems with this strategy.

Any attempt to ban the AfD would take years and has the potential to demobilise a movement which is already on the streets. Secondly, it would strengthen the AfD’s ability to position itself as being outside the political mainstream, an alternative to the corrupt government parties.

Furthermore, a ban would give power to the German state which has historically shown more interest in banning left-wingers than Nazis. If we call for a ban on the AfD, we cannot be sure that it will not use this power to ban socialist organisations. There is a precedent for this in Germany; in 1952, the SRP—successors to Hitler’s NSDAP—was banned. Four years later, the same ban was used against the German Communist Party.

What now?

The AfD is hoping for massive gains at the EU elections in June. In September, there are regional elections in 3 of the 5 East German states—where the AfD has been so far most successful. The AfD could become the strongest party in some or all of these states.

Despite the “remigration”-plan revelations, the AfD is currently polling around 20% nationally—higher than any of the parties in the governing coalition and second only to the conservative CDU. In some Eastern States its polling figures are well over 30%. Membership has risen by a third in the last year to total 40,000 members.

Rather than hoping for a state ban, we must ensure that the movement against the AfD stays on the streets, and refuses to allow the AfD to be normalised as a “party like any other”. Every time they attempt to show their face—whether through meetings, demonstrations or election stalls, they must be opposed and physically confronted.

Saturday’s demonstration was a great step forward, but one demonstration will not remove the AfD, nor the conditions which caused them to rise. Germany still has a neoliberal government which supports genocide in Gaza and attacking living conditions at home. We need to intensify the fight, both against the rise of the far right and for redistributative politics which will prevent impoverished people seeing the AfD as any alternative.

Labour’s “5 Missions for a Better Britain: Build an NHS Fit for the Future”

The new Labour Party manifesto is not enough to provide the Health Service which we need

John Puntis
04/02/2024

‘Labour’s third mission in government will be to: Build an NHS fit for the future: that is there when people need it; with fewer lives lost to the biggest killers; in a fairer Britain, where everyone lives well for longer. Each mission is built on the strong foundations of economic stability, national security, and secure borders.’

The recently released Labour Party Manifesto on the NHS

Time to consider the hard facts

For health campaigners who argue that now is the right time to advance a bold vision of health and social care, this document is disappointing. It shows no ambition from the party that created the NHS, and which now publicly recognises that it is ‘facing both an unprecedented immediate crisis and an existential long-term challenge’. Fundamental to this lack of ambition is the unspoken argument of ‘unaffordability’. This insists that there is no “magic money tree”, the prior £375bn quantitative easing for the banks is now the victim of short term memory loss. Labour seems, however, more than happy to endorse the magic efficiency tree – home to the arboreal and elusive ‘reform fairy’, charged with transforming a cash-starved NHS so long as it does not involve handing over any money! Unfortunately, a preoccupation with ‘costs’ rather than ‘benefits’ automatically means that spending on public services is seen as a burden rather than something that improves people’s lives and makes the economy more productive.

However, as John Adams pointed out ‘Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence’. Those who like to imagine that technological innovation, rearranging of beds and promises of future strategies for preventing illness will solve the current major problems of the NHS will be taught a harsh lesson. As Anita Charlesworth, Director of Research for the Health Foundation observed, it is quite simple: “Either we are going to have lower quality healthcare relative to other countries or we spend more”. The bottom line is that we spend less on healthcare than other developed countries and our spending has not kept pace with the combination of inflation, population growth, population aging and increase in chronic illness.

Funding is an essential part of the solution

A curious statement near the start of the document suggests that ‘the Left’ believes problems within the NHS can be solved with ‘more spending alone’. This is a straw man argument given that few people on the Left (or elsewhere for that matter) believe that money by itself will cure all the service’s ills. This is not least because it depends on how the money is spent, and there are clearly additional requirements. However, money is undoubtedly of fundamental importance in making the NHS and its under-staffed and crumbling hospitals and surgeries sustainable for the future. As Shakespeare put it: “if money go before, all ways do lie open”.

Some of those additional requirements are set out in the joint briefing published by Independent SAGE and Keep Our NHS Public. They include the need to build a consensus based on core values of decency, security, justice and compassion; understanding of evidence about the level and nature of health needs and how to achieve effectiveness, equity and resilience; exposing the myths that hold health, care and support services back e.g. that they represent only a cost rather than an asset, that they are unaffordable, that privatisation brings efficiency, and that public health is solely about personal choice.

This joint report drew some crucial conclusions that should inform any debate about reform. Namely that health care is fundamental to human well-being and a productive economy; much higher levels of funding than currently proposed are needed; more needs to be spent on public health; staff pay and conditions have to be improved; greatly increased capacity is required; planning is essential for meeting long term demand; much greater priority should be attached to using evidence-based approaches to reducing inequalities; service provision should be under direct control of Government rather than being outsourced, be designed together with service users, with inbuilt democratic accountability mechanisms. We may regard the need for evidence based policy as perhaps one of the key points here.

Re-stating the obvious

Many of these important concepts are largely missing from ‘Build an NHS fit for the Future’. If you wonder where inspiration for this document came from, it is instructive to look at what three things are set out as essential for repairing the NHS. According to Labour, these are:

More care at home in the community
Harnessing the latest technological advancements
Focusing on prevention through tackling the social determinants of health – a ‘prevention first’ revolution (- but curiously no mention of climate change, now the biggest threat to public health!)

Compare this with the 2014 Five Year Forward View which stated that:

The future will see far more care delivered locally
We will improve health technology; we will improve the NHS’s ability to do research and use innovation
There needs to be a big improvement in helping people live healthier lives so that they don’t get ill so much – this is called ‘Prevention’

“Five Year Forward View”, however, also went further than Labour by stating that even with action on prevention, putting money into new care models, investing in social care services, and becoming more efficient over time – nonetheless ‘if we are to reflect the growing number of people needing to use health services, we need to spend more on healthcare in this country’. There is also a demand side. With growing numbers of people we can add inflation, an ageing population, increasing numbers of people with chronic disease and multiple conditions, and an explosion in mental health problems. Labour recognises these demands but feels they can be met by changing the service and without investment: ‘Demographic change, an ageing population and more people living with long-term conditions means the service must change to meet the needs of the population today and be sustainable in the long- term’.

The belief that new technology and scientific innovation will inevitably reduce overall costs for the NHS is questionable given such levels of increased demand. In fact, medical technology is a primary driver of healthcare costs, and novel and expensive treatments include those for conditions previously untreatable. To take one recently much hyped key technological NHS expense-reducing policy of virtual wards or ‘hospital at home’, a recent study suggested that costs were in fact twice as much as in patient care. This also emphasises the importance of garnering evidence from pilot projects before uncritically rolling out innovations.

Building a two-tier system is not a solution

‘Build an NHS fit for the future’ makes repeated references to an NHS that is ‘free at the point of use’, but does not qualify this by ‘publicly delivered’, leaving it worryingly open for publicly funded services to be privately provided. All is revealed by the next statement: ‘the last Labour Government reduced waiting times by using the private sector, increasing staff numbers and spreading good practice. We did this before. We will do it again’. What is not pointed out here is that the last Labour government substantially increased investment in the NHS in order to successfully improve performance. In addition, its reliance on the private sector led to increased costs; the undermining of NHS services; and firmly established some key private sector players in the NHS – where they remain to this day.

Labour is clear that ‘to end the threat of a two-tier health system, we will use spare capacity in the independent sector to ensure patients are treated quicker’. However, investing in the independent sector (which does not have spare capacity and shares a single labour pool with the NHS) only effectively promotes a two-tier system. This, as David Rowland has outlined: ”may benefit a small proportion of users, but ultimately undermines one of the key solidaristic principles of the post-war welfare settlement……nor has the for-profit sector magicked into existence the infrastructure to provide an alternative to NHS care. Nor is a two-tier system inevitable due to market forces. It is in fact the product of government policy over the past two decades and any government can, if they choose, reverse this trend by sustained investment in the NHS and the removal of subsidies which promote the growth of for-profit provision in the UK.”

Suggesting the private sector has its own staff who are simply sitting around waiting to help out the NHS is wrong for reasons clearly set out by Rowland and others, and obscures its essentially parasitic relationship with the NHS. For example, outsourcing of mental health services resulted in spending on private ‘out of area’ beds reaching record levels to the detriment of financially stretched trusts and patients. Outsourcing of ophthalmology services poaches NHS staff and undermines patient safety. Even those who do feel the private sector has something to offer, to address the elective care backlog they acknowledge that it simply cannot be a substitute for addressing the major problems facing the NHS.

Misleading statements

Some statements (“the reality is that the NHS is still designed for the world of 1948, where people needed short term treatment for infectious disease or injury”) embarrassingly suggest that the authors have never been near a modern hospital providing intensive care, kidney dialysis, organ transplantation and day case surgery (to name but a few). They seem to be borrowed directly from Conservative former health minister Sajid Javid’s play book. Similarly with dentistry where it is said “people are desperate and they are starting to look outside the NHS for the care they need”. People certainly are desperate but the reality is that the majority of dental care is already delivered outside the NHS. Supervised tooth cleaning (already being done in some schools) and a meagre 700k more appointments each year will just not cut it. Labour should be able to do much better than this – time for a new vision, and to find the same courage to invest in our future as was summoned in 1948, despite a war ravaged economy and much higher levels of government debt than now..

“It’s So Berlin!” 3: Hashtag 161

Third instalment in our series of photographs and cartoons about Berlin and Palestine.

The Left Berlin
03/02/2024

Following last week’s contribution “Cancelled Remains“, here is the latest in the series of works by Berlin-based Palestinian artists Rasha Al Jundi and Michael Jabareen.

Titled “Hashtag 161” we wanted to draw your attention to… Nazi glorification. The number in the title refers to a specific military regiment in the Wehrmacht that fought the “Battle of France”

Photo: Rasha Al-Jundi

In this image, the abandoned items are two bedside tables. Incidentally, there was a shredded empty Amazon box which Michael also employed in the illustration.

Titled “Hashtag 161” we wanted to draw your attention to the core source of the alarming racism in Germany: Nazi glorification. The number in the title refers to a specific military regiment in the Wehrmacht that fought the “Battle of France” and later in what was known as the Eastern Front. Its last commanding officer, General Paul Drekmann received the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross of Nazi Germany.

While working on this series, our hearts were heavy with extreme anger and anguish at the ongoing genocide and ethnic cleansing carried out by the Zionist entity against our Palestinian people in the homeland. Our anger extends to the fascist brutality practiced by the German state that blindly collaborates in this ongoing crime and the hateful inciting slurs that are widespread in its mainstream media. The latter did not come from vacuum. They came from everything you see in this image.

We believe that this deeply entrenched racism within German society does not apply to the rising right wing, but also to the left and across the whole political spectrum. No one is innocent.

And after spewing racist slurs against our people, they still seek to consume part of our food culture. Oh the audacity!

Image taken in Wedding, Berlin (2023).

Dear German activists, I have some questions on integrity

Open letter regarding the exclusion of victims of racism from demonstrations against the AfD

Heba Attia Mousa

This letter is directed to many organizations: some that participated in organizing the anti-AfD demonstrations last week, and those who publicized it. In this letter I urge you to take action against a specific type of racism that some of your spaces are infested with.

I am writing this in between episodes of anger, rage, anxiety, and trials to empathise with those on the receiving end, so that I can articulate words that will make you read. BIPOC people might understand the emotional burden of having to explain how racism feels to people who have never experienced it.

I experienced a racist incident at the anti-AfD demo in Bonn on Sunday, 21st January 2024. I wanted to report on it when I’d calmed down the day after, when I woke up to an influx of similar cases of discrimination in my community across Germany. After the nationwide anti-fascism demos, while white people were congratulating each other, Arabs were checking on each other. Business as usual.

More than half of all people in Germany hold racist sentiments towards Arabs, racialised Muslims, and people perceived as such (source)

Those are not only right wing AfD voters or Ampel voters. In Germany, this phenomenon is especially prevalent amongst liberals (especially the anti-Deutsch current). It has been shown in the way anti-AfD demos were marked by exclusion of Arabs and Muslims, even though they are the AfD’s frontline targets.

In recent months, it has been shown with the rise of antisemitism, racism against Arabs and Muslims, and people racialised as such. Liberal spaces decided to selectively take a stance against antisemitism while leaving millions of Arabs and Muslims, and people racialised as such with their back to the wall (or as Arabs say: back to a falling wall), facing racist German politicians and media. I appreciate your sensitivity to antisemitism; still, I won’t excuse you further marginalizing a group that is screaming at the margin.

Anti-Muslim racism consists of individual attitudes and/or structural manifestations that express themselves in public discourse, social structures, and practices which lead to the exclusion and/or disadvantage of Muslims and people perceived as such. Muslims are turned into The Other as a result of negative characteristics being attributed to them. They are often considered backward, dangerous, oppressed by their religion, or difficult to integrate. These racist attributions designate them as either cultural, religious, or national non-members. This is where processes of racialization and dichotomization take effect: they construct seemingly opposing groups and position them hierarchically in relation to each other. This logic is based on a we/they distinction.

This definition⁴ is taken from a report by the Federal Ministry of Interior that was issued in August 2023 (i.e. before the racist shit hit the fan). The report offers a detailed explanation of why anti-Muslim hate is considered a form of racism. It explains the difference between Islamophobia and criticizing Islam or Islamism (a political ideology). In educating yourselves, you can detect these racist tropes and fight them, so I don’t need to take the emotional burden of explaining them to you. Although the biggest populations of Muslims worldwide live in Southeast Asia, not in the SWANA region, Arabs of all religions are racialised as Muslims and bear the brunt of Islamophobia.

I moved to Germany twice, once as a hijabi woman and recently without the hijab. My features can be perceived as a black Brazilian, Ethiopian, or anything in between. I spent the worst days of my life being a hijabi in Germany who white folks either hated or wanted to save. Although I wasn’t committed religiously to the hijab, I continued wearing it as a form of anti-racist resistance and to express my identity, until I decided to move back to Egypt and took it off. I hope that one day, I will be seen and heard in Germany for who I am, not through a distorted German lens.

The anti-AfD demo (Bonn)

On the day of the protest, I walked with a placard on my back that represents how political parties in Germany are treating me and my friends in Germany and Palestine, based on our nationality and (in)security of residency. At the bottom, I wrote a sarcastic note on racism in the liberal scene. During the demo, someone gave me a sticker that said Free Palestine with a heart in the colours of the Palestinian flag. I took it and stuck it on the cardboard. One of my flatmates joined later, with flyers from a Palestinian solidarity group in Bonn. We were walking together towards the front where we had been told the BIPOC block was.

Heba’s placard at the anti-AfD demo in Bonn; the placard reads “Arab in Deutschland, the AfD wants to deport all of us, SPD & CDU want to deport 50% of my friends, The Green Party & SPD are financing bombs that kill my friends in Gaza, The Anti-Germans are very German & anti-me :(“

A guy (let’s call him white guy in blue jacket) followed us and told me to take the sticker off, because national flags were not allowed. I thought that this was ridiculous, because I was not even waving a flag and chances were that most people wouldn’t see the sticker anyway.

To some extent, I get where your ban on national flags comes from, although you have been discriminatory in this, too. The Kurdistan flag, rightly, took centre stage because that is part of the Kurdish migrant experience. Someone from the organizing coalition argued that Kurdistan is not a state. Palestine is also a nation with a land and without a state. I would like you to be honest in addressing this ban and the role of censorship in the past months that led to it. Like, imagine if we were free people in a free country (sigh).

White guy in blue jacket said that I carried an unwelcome message and called me an antisemite. Up to this point, there had been no real conversation between us, except for his order and a clear “No” from me. Since there was no basis to his accusation, I called him out on his racism that echoed what we have been hearing from German politicians, including the President, the Chancellor, the Minister of Interior, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and guess who, the AfD. They all made statements that accuse any Arab/ Muslim/Palestinian or advocate for Palestinian rights of being an antisemitic terrorist sympathiser before we even speak.

Another protester witnessed this and came to my help, my flatmates were there as well. Another woman in a black jacket joined and stood by white guy in blue jacket. I was furious and shouting; white guy in blue jacket and white woman in black jacket were yelling at me about an offensive social media post from October 7th. I didn’t know what the hell they were speaking about, but I understood the concept of guilt by association. Someone my colour did something somewhere, a white woman saw it and now I am guilty. Enraging enough that nothing in the world that I can say in my defense will convince them, because their prejudgement will always be stronger than their judgement. Two more women from the organizing team joined, listened to my rage, and tried to understand. Much love to them.

Just to throw me deeper into my rage, white guy in blue jacket, asked me “Free Palestine from what?”. I can recall his face saying that and what scares me the most is not the difference in our moral positions, but his denial. Such an unaware person shouldn’t be in the awareness team. I told him “If the AfD comes to power, I will be dragged in front of you and you will say nothing.” He said, “They better shoot me first.” Very noble, but in that hypothetical dystopia, the fascists will first dehumanise us by spreading lies and fear, and then act on collective punishment (read history books, or the news).

Finally, he apologised for yelling at me. I told him that I don’t care about the tone of voice, but I care that he apologises for calling me an antisemite. He turned his back and left. I don’t know his name. The other organisers didn’t inform me of it either.

What is in my Free Palestine?

I know that most of you would do everything to avoid opening the topic of Palestine (I excuse migrants). It is not only the state’s silencing of leftist Jews and all Muslims, but also the active canceling campaign, ironically, by the Antifas. One more struggle that my community is going through is being unseen, unheard, ignored, humiliated, and threatened. Some of us have lost jobs, tenancy, or scholarships for expressing solidarity with Gaza or criticizing German policies (enters blue jacket). Some are not able to practice their right to protest because of the fragility of their residence or asylum situation. We are not allowed to be political or grieve together. This brings back a lot of trauma in those who were ready to die for democracy, and those who fled fascist regimes.

Even before the report on AfD’s secret meeting,planning to deport millions of people, we were discussing our way out of Germany. Those of us who are in leftist activist circles feel betrayed and isolated, because the spaces we thought were safe are not inclusive of us. The groups we identified with are now supporting carnage raged by an ultra-right-wing government on our people or acting as if it is not worthy of their attention.

White guy in blue jacket told me “Go read a book”. Ok, I live across the street from THE leftist bookstore in Bonn. I passed by one day and asked the guy to remove a racist book cover from the shop window. It portrays a Palestinian scarf wrapped in a jihadist slogan. While talking to him, I got engulfed by emotions and cried. He was nice and generous, offered me tea and listened to me. I asked him if he could put educational books about Palestine instead, but he told me that “Books about the Middle East, Jordania and these places, don’t sell”. There were books about Israel, Rojava, Kurdistan, and most recently, Sudan. I didn’t argue with him, but it sounded too familiar to me. I lived under fascism most of my adult life; they don’t burn books in 2023, they just don’t sell them.

The next day, I passed by with a friend who just moved from Cairo to Cologne. Originally, I had told her about the bookstore, because she wanted to screen her film on growing up Black and German, but this situation made her feel uneasy. My friend was raised in a Jewish, German, Arab, Muslim, and Black family. Her perspective on Palestine is worth reading.

All the people I know in Gaza are activists like you (but better). Ali Mohanna is an environmental activist and an artist. He started a cooperative called The Sea is Ours to grant Gazan kids an affordable public space. I met him in an EU fellowship program where he founded an open-air cinema in Gaza. Ali was never in a real cinema. He and his children now, including his newborn baby Rose, don’t have access to enough food or any clean water or healthcare.

Being a cycling activist, I connected with the cycling team in Gaza, all of whom cycle with one leg, because they were shot while peacefully protesting in the Great March of Return in 2018. The IDF said that 214 Gazans were killed by mistake, even though the soldiers were ‘just’ aiming at knees. Hazem from the team spent a year in Egypt trying to save any part of his leg. He had five different amputations and couldn’t get a prosthetic. Alaa, the team leader, could have saved his leg, but Israel didn’t grant him a medical permit to leave Gaza on time. They now deploy their bikes for aid delivery to the displaced.

Bisan is a feminist activist. Before streaming her video diary of the genocide, she worked with a feminist organization, founded by a Palestinian friend of mine, on the topic of reproductive health awareness. I used to see Bisan modeling silver accessories shaped after female reproductive organs before I started seeing her covered in rubble dust. She is now evacuating for the 6^thtime in three months.

My Lebanese friends are mourning journalist Issam Abdallah who was targeted by an Israeli tank in South Lebanon. My feelings for them all are a drop in the ocean next to the suffering of any Palestinian.

I came to the anti-AfD demo, as I come to leftist activists spaces, as a whole being. This includes my history, my emotions, my experience of life in Germany and life elsewhere, my understanding of justice and my connection to people. I am not willing to walk the anti-AfD walk, faking a sterilised version of myself that doesn’t include my struggles. If you march in our defence, you need to accept us for who we are, and show some integrity.

This article first appeared on Kandaka website. Reproduced with permission