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Germany’s Left Party Expels Palestinian Activist

Ahead of national elections, the Left Party is demonstrating its loyalty to German imperialism

Nathaniel Flakin
17/12/2024

On Saturday, an arbitration panel of Die Linke voted unanimously to expel Ramsis Kilani. The Palestinian-German Trotskyist had been accused of “bringing the party into disrepute” by Martin Schirdewan (co-chair of the national party at the time, though he has since resigned) and Katina Schubert (former vice-chair). As I reported back in October, Die Linke’s leadership has been working together with right-wing media like Der Tagesspiegel to attack Palestine solidarity activists and leftists inside the party.

Kilani, a leading member of the group Sozialismus von Unten (Socialism from Below, SvU) and a prominent activist in Berlin’s Palestine solidarity movement, was expelled with immediate effect. The charges were based on snippets from social media distorted by right-wing journalists, too absurd to rehash here. Kilani constantly speaks at demonstrations and posts on social media — were there any evidence he was an antisemite or a Hamas supporter, it surely wouldn’t be hard to find. Instead, he publicly defends a secular, left-wing program of combining “unconditional support for all Palestinian resistance” with building “the working class’s self-organisation and power.” This would be pretty standard within almost any left-wing party internationally, but it is grounds for expulsion from Die Linke.

The next day, the party’s top leadership discussed the case. As reported by Thies Gleiss, a majority declared they can’t get involved in arbitration cases — despite the fact that the whole process was started by then-members of the leadership. They refused any expression of solidarity with Kilani, which Gleiss called “a political scandal.”

Family Background

At the beginning of the hearing on Saturday, Schubert made reference to her own family’s Nazi background. She clarified by email that she had one grandfather who sympathized with the Nazis and one who was in opposition. She did not respond to a follow-up question about what this could possibly have to do with Kilani’s expulsion.

While this will sound strange to anyone outside Germany, this is what the German bourgeoisie tells working-class immigrants: “Because our grandparents committed genocide, you are now legally required to support the state of Israel.” After World War II, ruling-class ideology said that the entire nation was to blame for the capitalists’ crimes — a guilt that would be absolved via support for Israel. This leads to the descendants of Nazis demanding that everyone in the country support “Israel’s right to exist.”

Kilani’s family background could well be more relevant: his father, stepmother, and five half-sisters were murdered by Israeli bombs in Gaza in 2014. Even though five German citizens were killed, prosecutors refused to lift a finger to investigate.

In any case, politics are more than genealogy. Our family trees do not, by themselves, define our political programs. This is why Palestinians, Jews of different nationalities, immigrants from around the world, and even a few Germans can be found at Berlin’s Palestine solidarity demonstrations.

Staunchly Pro-Zionist

From far away, it might seem like Die Linke has a range of positions on the Middle East: one recent article describes a party with “anti-imperialists, pacifists, [and more than] a few supporters of Israel.” In reality, though, the leadership is steadfastly pro-Zionist. As party co-chair, Schirdewan spoke at a pro-Israel rally on October 22, 2023, after thousands of Palestinians had already been killed.

It’s noteworthy that the German bourgeoisie has tried again and again to show “solidarity with Israel” in the middle of Berlin, but even when hundreds of politicians, NGOs, and corporations have signed the calls, they have never been able to mobilize even 10,000 people — and sometimes just a few dozen. This is because the German government’s support for Israel is extremely unpopular. Polls show consistently that 60 to 70 percent of people oppose weapons shipments to Tel Aviv. In other words, Schirdewan was demonstrating his loyalty to the regime — and his disloyalty to his own members.

Meanwhile, in the state of Brandenburg, a politician from Die Linke serves as the official Antisemitism Czar. Andreas Büttner is a former member of the conservative CDU and then of the neoliberal FDP, as well as a former cop and a former businessman. It’s not clear how he ended up in a “left” party. On Twitter he claims there is “no genocide” in Gaza, contradicting Amnesty International as well as the UN, and that the Golan Heights “belong to Israel,” putting him to the right of the German government. Such far-right views are allowed in Die Linke, but left-wing ideas are not.

It is true that a few members of Die Linke express solidarity with Palestine, such as the local branch in the Berlin neighborhood of Neukölln. Yet these genuinely left-wing voices remain isolated in the party. While Kilani received lots of solidarity, including from Die Linke’s student organization, prominent party members have all ignored the case.

Independent Socialist Candidacies

Jacobin would have you think Die Linke has been taking a step back to the left, with new party co-chair Ines Schwerdtner (the founding editor of Jacobin Germany) addressing “specifically working-class interests.” Yet the expulsion of Kilani shows that Die Linke continues to defend bourgeois interests. The new leadership is largely trying to ignore the Middle East (“Don’t mention the war!”). For the upcoming elections on February 23, the party is instead betting everything on three older reformist politicians: Gregor Gysi, Dietmar Bartsch, and Bodo Ramelow, all three of whom support Israel. Bartsch, for example, voted in favor of banning left-wing Palestinian groups.

While Die Linke has won praise from right-wing media for the expulsion, it has been losing support from genuines socialists. The last year has seen an exodus by groups like SvU and Revolutionäre Linke (Revolutionary Left, RevoLi), both connected to the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) in Great Britain. SvU just announced their definitive break from the Left Party. As Klasse Gegen Klasse, the sister site of Left Voice in Germany, we were always critical of revolutionaries working in this reformist party — for more than 15 years now. It is a positive step that they are leaving.

But it’s not enough to simply hand back their membership cards. Revolutionaries need to build a political alternative to Die Linke, based on class struggle and internationalism, with a strong focus on opposing the German government’s support for genocide. The upcoming elections offer an opportunity to present such a program to a wide audience. Revolutionary socialists are running so that anyone disappointed by Die Linke can support working-class, socialist candidates who stand steadfastly with Palestine. To SvU, RevoLI, and anyone else leaving Die Linke: let’s discuss how we can build such a campaign together.

Support Ukraine’s Resilient Workers

Help Us Provide Electrical Generators through their unions!

The Left Berlin

Winter is coming to Ukraine, temperatures are dropping, but nearly 60% of the country’s electrical generating capacity has been knocked out by unrelenting Russian air strikes. After causing tens of thousands of civilian casualties, the Russians are bent on freezing every child, woman, and man.

The Ukraine Solidarity Network in the United States has teamed up with two Ukrainian trade unions, the Free Trade Union of Railway Workers and the Independent Trade Union of Miners of Ukraine, and an NGO called Kryla provide portable electric generators to families in need. Our initial goal is to raise $6,000 dollars for 12 portable generators for union members and their families. These brave workers and their families are in urgent need of support.

The UN Reports that Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure are impacting millions, creating serious humanitarian and public health risks, and adding hundreds of thousands to the 10 millions already displaced by the war. Other critical systems including water and education are also being severely disrupted.

Your donation will provide essential power to some of those who need it most. Let’s show our solidarity with Ukraine’s rank-and-file workers and the vital work they do under unimaginable conditions.

Donations will be collected through GoFundMe and sent to Kryla’s bank account from where it will be transferred to the official bank accounts of the unions.

A personal journey to A Case Against Voting

Whether in Ireland, Germany, or the US, I can’t find anyone worth voting for

Luke Hosford
16/12/2024

The three countries I have spent an extended time in during my adult life, the US, Ireland, and Germany, have just held, or are about to hold elections. This has caused me to reflect on the political journey I have gone on in a relatively short period of time. The person I was when I first became interested in politics would probably despise the person writing this. The political events and crises that have shaped my current views and caused the thought of voting for any of the candidates or parties on offer to seem a variation of unthinkable, unimportant or uninspiring to me now.

While there can be many motivations for voting, the one I was most exposed to and the idea I will be reacting to here is that it was a civic duty; one should vote to be able to engage properly in politics.

The first indignation I remember hearing at someone not being bothered to vote was a schoolteacher in Ireland raising her voice to highlight that men had died for our right to vote. However brutally delivered, this basic point makes sense in an idealised world. We live in a society, and voting for who represents your preferences in the state’s decision-making house is important, part of the social contract even. A social contract you had no decision in being a part of, but a contract nevertheless. What the other side has to do to break the contract is never explained. To have a meaningful political opinion, you must vote. No matter what you say about anything else. And if you don’t agree with the nature of this decision-making process?

In many ways, I represent the ideal politically-informed citizen. I talked about and was interested in politics from a young age. I followed them as if they were a football team. I read mainstream newspapers. I thought what the government was doing was interesting. I studied political science. I voted when I turned 18. People who did not follow politics asked me (and still do) who I thought would win an election.

After a while, I outgrew this. Some of this came naturally as I got tired the repetitiveness. But also, I realised I had lived through the world’s largest financial recession in 2008, the rise of the far-right, the Covid pandemic, the initiation of a major interstate war in Ukraine, and now the livestreaming of a genocide in Gaza. To see how consistently boring and predictable the politicians who I was supposed to admire were sparked a reaction in me.

After the 2008 financial crash, the Irish government subserviently implemented an EU austerity package that thinned out the state’s public services and sold other assets to the nearest bidder. The effects are seen today in the crippling housing crisis, resigning Ireland’s youth to an extended sentence in their childhood bedroom, while faceless international capital scoops up vacant properties for their portfolio. The obvious mistakes and oft-ignored greed of a few European bankers is rarely questioned, and quickly forgotten. The cause lies, of course, in oppressive power structures, an undemocratic EU, and the undermining forces of globalisation and financialization.

The rise of the far right in the USA and the UK should have been a wake-up call for those countries where their popularity was still fringe. Any attempt at locating the rise of fascism in economic conditions seems to have been left to fringe economists or historians, and instead the focus on personalities is the tactic of choice across the US, Ireland, and Germany. The limited worldview of all involved seems to have prevented any efforts at improving education, redistributing wealth, or addressing grievances. They have now taken to either name-calling the supporters of these figures or just adopting the fascist policies anyway. But this is democracy by majority rule. Parties don’t have to care about people who don’t vote for them in any serious manner. No wonder the main emotion of far-right voters is insecurity and fear of losing control over their lives. They don’t have much control.

The Covid pandemic was the real inflection point in my personal political liberation. This seemed to me like an obvious opportunity for societal self-reflection and accounting. However, the main focus of most governments was to get everything back up and running as quickly as possible. Back to the office. Back to exams. Back to airports. I was reminded so obviously of the economic inequalities that define our world by how impossible it was to deliver vaccines to the Global South. Token mentions of the need to vaccinate everyone were made at major international gatherings, but it would have taken measures of unprecedented scope for such a goal to be realised. These facts to me were indisputable evidence that things don’t work the way they should, and a protracted discussion on morality wasn’t necessary to determine that.

Then came the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. While this was obviously an aggressive act by an imperial power, the overreaction on the part of the States and the media I had grown sceptical of dumbfounded me. Sensing the opportunity to define an insecure European identity, politicians and media outlets competed for the honour of Most Outraged. The sheer preponderance of comparisons to Hitler and claims the invasion was “unprecedented” or “unprovoked” were themselves strong enough to initiate scepticism even if it was offensive to any understanding of history.

Then came the assault on the people of Gaza. This is obviously more relevant to politics in my later homes of the USA and Germany, which continue to arm and support Israel, demonise Palestinians, and slander anti-Zionist protestors. The Irish state’s inability to act is, however, still an illustration of the power dynamics that ultimately govern international politics. Despite my inherent cynicism at this stage, I am perplexed that the pictures coming from Gaza broadcast over an ever increasing range of platforms have not budged mainstream policy.

How much evidence is needed to withdraw your consent of this system? By voting, you are expressing an inherent support for the social contract that allows people who have acted this way to represent you. Voting within a democracy should be an “expression of the struggle within, expressing the solution to a struggle within oneself”, according to theorist Donald Winnicott.

There is a great solace to be found in people who have had similar experiences to you, where politics is a major part of their person. Accounts abound about how important voting was for immigrants coming from authoritarian countries. The pride they have in their vote and their ability to make change was truly inspirational. I believe everyone should have that feeling when voting or expressing a political opinion, as it is or should be a personal reflection and a reflection of yourself. It should be an act of identity formation, in comparison to more overtly repressive regimes. If you think this personal expression would be better attained through a different way of organising, I do not think you should have to lend any legitimacy from your personal expression. When I look at the electoral options on offer in my past homes, there is nothing that comes close to representing my preferences or accounting properly for the failures the governing process itself has produced.

If you don’t want to vote racist, in Ireland your options are limited. Votes for small, social democratic parties are essentially votes for conservative coalitions, as they will never be able to govern alone. There are also “radical Left” options, but they have been calling for a “left government”. This would involve governing with a party that has made it increasingly clear over the past few years it is a centrist party, while also imploding from a series of scandals. If belief in this centrism hasn’t been shaken by now, I don’t know it ever will be.

In Germany, the mainstream parties have taken to coopting the far-right’s agenda. The nation’s borders have been effectively closed since September when controls were reintroduced, and they say want to ship migrants back to Afghanistan. Die Linke is in an even greater crisis, increasingly pro-EU and pro-NATO, and facing significant infighting.

When it comes to the US, what are you even voting for? Kamala Harris decided the Hillary Clinton strategy of courting Republican voters was her best shot. She had, at various points, promised to appoint a Republican to her cabinet, appoint a board of advisors which will intentionally include Republicans, and was joined by former Republican Liz Cheney at an event where a Muslim-American Democratic politician was refused entry. It is hard to tell if they thought this tactic would actually work this time around, or whether she is actively opposed to listening to some of those kicked out of a democratic propaganda event in Chicago. Trump’s comprehensive victory in every swing state shows just how flawed a strategy this was.

If you don’t feel politics is properly representing your opinions, and you don’t feel a major difference between the options presented to you, you have a right to remove the legitimacy you personally lend to this social contract. Just because a large segment of the same political class that let you down feels this is the way to make change does not mean you have to think that way too. In many ways, they rely on your submission to this method of political action for legitimacy. If only 20% of people voted, that would certainly rob a lot of the legitimacy any administration takes from an election victory.

If you think you are making a difference by voting, statistically speaking you are not. This narrative is an effort of democratic psychology. It should be up to those benefitting from your vote to convince you to lend them legitimacy, and withholding that vote should be considered a reasonable option.

There are many reasons to vote, including to show solidarity with people or candidates you personally believe in. You could also vote because you might think it does no harm and sure, why not? There are other forms of political expression, participation, and strategy that do not rely on voting alone, but see it as one part of a broader political strategy. I am not discounting those here, just countering an argument I have heard most of my life and describing the political journey I have gone on to get here. You should be able to withdraw your personal participation in a system that has failed you so often.

INSORGIAMO / WE RISE UP

Where are we now?

Angelika Stepken
15/12/2024

This text combines quotes from Dario, Michele and Roberto / Collettivo di Fabbrica with a conversation with Angelika at the Ex GKN factory on December 5, 2024.

Summary of the situation

The ex-GKN factory in Campi Bisenzio near Florence has been occupied for three years, five months and 25 days. In July 9, 2021, 422 permanent employees were informed by email that the factory was closing. The Collettivo di Fabbrica has been keeping watch day and night in three shifts, since then – seven days a week, 365 days a year, from a barrack in front of the factory halls. In two weeks, the Tuscany region willdecide on a law toallow industrial development consortia to expropriate land in the interests of ecological conversion. hat was promised last June when workers pitched their tents in front of the regional administration for 21 days and three members of the Collettivo were on hunger strike.

The Collettivo di Fabbrica wages a unique struggle for the preservation of jobs in the region, to convert ecologically the former FIAT factory to photovoltaic panels and cargo bikes from half-shafts for fossil fuel engines. It aims at a self-determined assembly democracy. What makes it unique? T he duration of the struggle, the versatility of intersectional collaborations and a broad political-cultural public relations work that created and keeps alive an immense solidarity. After almost three years of occupation, 40,000 people still took to the streets in Florence on May 18, 2024 to support the collective’s demands. in August 2024 the proclaimed people’s shares for the planned factory consortium had reached 800,000 euros, four weeks later it was 1.3 million. The collective collaborates with Fridays For Future. On October 12, Greta Thunberg participatedin ameeting in Campi Bisenzio. Solidarity with other struggles (from opponents of the Florence airport expansion to the struggle for the rights of the Palestinian people) is expressed. At the collective’s weekly meetings – with temperatures just above zero and burning logs in metal barrels – more than 100 participants still come together, including many outsiders. Of the former 422 employees, 120 have remained, without pay for the past eleven months. They continue to go into the factory, or rather the barracks, day and night for the usual three work shifts of eight hours. They dedicate themselves to enormous mobilization and self-organization, with intelligence, perseverance and exhaustion.

How did it all begin?

“On July 9, 2021, we were dismissed by collective mail: On the same day, we unhinged the factory gate and the permanent assembly began. There was already a history of union struggle and internal organization that had been handed down since the days of the old Fiat plant (until 1994). Then, with the closure of the company, we made a virtue of necessity and organized in a different way: we tried to involve as many people as possible, starting with the environment here in Florence. We knew that you can’t save yourself and that the fight can’t be an abstract thing, we have to turn it into something concrete, real and tangible. If you come out, show your face to the outside world, you get solidarity from other people. We wanted to show that we are not just waiting for trade union intervention from FIOM (metalworkers’ union within the national trade union confederation CGIL), but that we want to move the environment first and foremost.”

“Back then it was like a perfect storm, although there was absolutely nothing perfect, everything was improvised. But a number of factors came together. . . the inherited militant tradition of this factory, which was fossilized. . . gave us themes like workers’ pride and the assembly democracy of the metalworkers. There was a notion of willingness to fight, of there being a moment when we fight, when we strike, when everything stops.

When the Melrose financial fund came on the scene in 2018, we understood that we were at the end of a journey. This was the transition from Fiat to GKN (British public limited company) in 1994; and the downsizing of GKN from more than a thousand employees to just over 400. Fiat left, replaced by FCA (Fiat Chrysler Automobiles), FCA became Stellantis and then GKN, handed over to this global financial fund Melrose. Its’ mission was obviously to close us down. In all those years, from 2007 onwards, this process was not a linear one where someone decided that we had to move in a certain direction. It was more of a melee. They did something and we prepared ourselves to react. A process in which we were forced to grow.

In 2018, it became clear, that participatory trade union work is the only way to withstand this conflict. We officially declared the factory collective and trained our liaison delegates. Trade union democracy in Italy has many shortcomings, but it recognizes the autonomy of union representatives in the workplace. When I am elected as a union delegate, I respond to the workers who elected me, not to the union structure.

This kind of relationship between us and the environment meant that thousands of people came here when the factory closed. Of course, that encouraged us and also opened up new horizons. People came here for shifts, to contribute with their legal, creative and other skills.”

Events of 2021

July 9, 2021: The Melrose financial fund, having acquired the multinational company GKN in 2018, initiates redundancies for 422 employees at Campi Bisenzio..

September 18, 2021: 40,000 people demonstrate in Florence to demand withdrawal of the dismissals.

September 19, 2021: The Florence court overturns the dismissal proceedings for anti- union behavior.

A reindustrialization plan is drawn up by the factory collective with researchers from the University of Sant’Anna in Pisa.

Drafting of an “anti-delocalization law”

“Yes, there was a real contamination. The spring lasted from July 2021 to December 2021 and cannot be repeated. We were still drawing a full salary and were in a permanent democratic assembly, the factory was virtually in our hands. If the company had brought the work back at that moment, this story would have ended. But the new owner brought a whole new struggle. We suddenly found ourselves in a vacuum: we’re in a permanent assembly, they’re not laying us off anymore, but they’re not bringing our jobs back either.”

“After the GKN-Melrose, was sold to the new owner Francesco Borgomeo on December 23, 2021, we gave this gentleman the chance to submit a business plan. his opportunity was never taken, he never submitted an official plan to any legal body, such as the former MISE (Ministry of Economic Development) and the current MIMIT (Ministry of Enterprise and Made in Italy). So if you don’t submit anything to the Ministry, no business plan, then it’s clear that everything you say is just a lie.

So, through the social network that had formed, we developed some ideas together with the University of Pisa and others: Conversion to cargo bikes and solar panels. The project is there, the business plan is there. But the company is turning a deaf ear, there was no communication between us and them. After three and a half years, only one solution exists – the state, the region, intervenes to end this story.”

Events of 2021-2022

In November 2021, Francesco Borgomeo was appointed consultant by Melrose with the aim to look for investors to reindustrialize the site.

In January 2022, a framework agreement was signed where Borgomeo would carry out the reindustrialization itself if no investors are found by July 2022.

Let’s Rise Up Tour starts where the collective travels the country and encounters the different realities fighting for convergence.

– 26 March 2022: Double mobilization together with ‘Fridays For Future’, 30,000 people take to the streets.

In November 2022, Borgomeo stops paying salaries.

The mutual aid workers’ association SOMS Insorgiamo is founded to organize microcredits, cultural events and reindustrialization from below. Work begins on a new industrial project.

December 2022: Referendum for a public and socially integrated factory – 17,000 signatures are collected in just a few days

New problems began of an ‘emptiness’.

“The problem now was this emptiness. We present the first industrial plan with the University of Sant’Anna and then a new owner comes along who says “No, no, I’ll take care of it.”

Then it became more complicated, more complex. Now it’s no longer a fight against the bad international financial fund, but suddenly there’s an Italian entrepreneur says he wants to do great things. We are trying to reach an agreement to verify the existence or non-existence of an industrial plan as fast as possible, but instead: emptiness again. A period of waiting. And we have to fill it … It was very clear that this waiting, to today, is intended to let us die.

Forty thousand people on the streets saying no to layoffs – that was over. You have no money, you are not fired, you are nothing. Nothing, we are nothing. Each time we had to invent new actions, in new situations, in new contexts, to connect with the world around us. It wasn’t always easy between us either, coming here every day without pay. We had to keep it all together.

We first tried to set up an aid fund. As a collective we had the resistance fund, which existed before the plant closure. It paid for the costs of the struggle, the megaphone, the banners and so on. It tries to give loans as much as possible. The idea is not to create a charity mechanism, but an interest-free loan that the worker can slowly pay back after the struggle has been won. Then, in October 2022, we founded SOMS Insorgiamo, the mutual aid association, to best regulate our finances. The fund can make mutual reimbursements so that part of it benefits the employees, but it is aid – it cannot replace a salary.

Then money was specifically raised to finance our industrialization project. Crowdfunding raised 170,000 euros, of which 150,000 was the share capital for founding the workers’ cooperative. But there’s another technical complication: the cooperative can’t start working yet, because the moment I join the cooperative, I step back from my old postulate. We have arrived at a total paradox. We don’t know what the other side plans. They have been playing for two and a half years. Supposedly the ownership of the factory changed last spring. We don’t know if the current ownership is driven by political calculations? We can only guess.

Events of 2023-2024

In February 2023, the company is voluntarily liquidated and the government retroactively grants a severance fund valid until end 2023.

The first working class literature festival takes place in April

International tour to Paris, Vienna, Amsterdam, Barcelona to build a network with European energy communities and ethical supply cooperatives.

Work on a regional legislative proposal for industrial development consortia t to intervene

in cases of relocation to promote the green transition of Tuscan industry

November 2023: during the great flood in Campi Bisenzio, the factory becomes the center of disaster prevention from below.

April 2024: Second workers’ literature festival

May 18: Demonstration with 40,000 participants in Florence

Tent camp outside the Tuscany region, hunger strike

July 12, 2024: Concert to mark the third anniversary of the struggle

Continuation of the Azionato Popolare, shareholders’ meetings

“The hunger strike from June 3-16, was the only moment that really made me angry, because now hope dropped, then it became really critical. After camping outside the Tuscany region for two weeks, we realized that the institutions were not responding. We decided to go on a hunger strike in a vote on a voluntary basis. In this situation, the public had to intervene.”

“We knew that the hunger strike was a very delicate tool. There was a certain risk that communication with our solidarity sector could break down. A hunger strike is usually used by people who are reduced to having no other tools. Then, on the thirteenth day, they told us that the bill would be presented to the committee. So there was a sign from the regional government. The bill should have gone to committee in July, now it is expected to be voted on by December 19th.

Ultimately, the problem with this fight is that it is not easy to simply say many, many words every day .. To maintain credibility, from time to time you have to show the determination to put words into practice.”

“Nothing moves on a political level. Politicians never were able to have a discussion about this proposed law to create an industrial consortium with expropriation.. It would really be a new law, a new instrument for the region to create consortia, both public and private, with the participation of municipalities, to transform industrial areas in crisis. It’s about finding not only a solution for the ex-GKN, but a way forward for other companies in crisis. A precedent is being set for all companies in crisis in the Tuscany region.”

“The immense regional, national, international publicity and solidarity help us, sometimes even too much. If it were less, we could become weak. Now we are prisoners of all these expectations.

Breaks are dangerous in the struggle, we are fast, we have been fighting for three and a half years now. And we are waiting for our wages, for the provisional management of the company and for the decision of the Tuscany region on December 19.”

The slogan for the next few weeks:

RESISTERE ALL’INVERNO PER PRENDERCI LA PRIMAVERA !

(Let’s resist winter to get spring!)

insorgiamo.org
insorgiamoconilavoratorigkn
Insorgiamo.international

Our Bodies, but Whose Choice?

As abortion laws are debated in the Bundestag, they’re fought for in the streets

Ines Colaco
14/12/2024

On 5 December, the Bundestag was home to a heated debate about abortion, ahead of a potential vote, prompted by an inter-party bill spearheaded by Carmen Wegge, of the SPD, and Ulle Schauws, from Die Grünen.

The initiative, striving for a revision of the existing law, had the support of a large alliance of associations, including pro familia Bundesverband — a national chapter of the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) — and different feminist and migrant groups, as well as trade unions and some Protestant church associations. The 73 signatory associations published a press release with a joint appeal for Bundestag members to approve the draft law to regulate abortion, as it translates a “long-standing social and scientific debate into concrete political solutions”. It also stated that “the arguments have been exchanged, and the recommendations of independent experts have been taken into account. Now is the time to act.”

Supporting the legal proposal, Schauws accused the current law of being “deeply patriarchal” and carrying the idea that women don’t have “the right to decide for themselves about their pregnancy and thus about their life and their body”. Wegge similarly pointed out that the present criminal framing of the law “not only leads to stigmatization”, but also has “a dramatic impact on the care situation of women”.

On the opposite front, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its sister party Christian Social Union (CSU) don’t see a need for action, and criticized the rush to reform without a broader public debate. Unsurprisingly, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) has also spoken against a revision. The Bundnis Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) coalition would be willing to support the draft law.

Illegal, but can be done

The sense of urgency to “act now” has to do with the country’s old fashioned legal framework when it comes to pregnancy termination. Abortion is considered a criminal offence in Germany under section 218 of the Strafgesetzbuch, the German Criminal Code — alongside to murder and manslaughter — with consequences that can go from a fine to imprisonment of up to three years, for both the person that undergoes abortion, as well as the doctors who perform it. It is worth noting that Section 218 has been inscribed in the country’s criminal code since 1871.

Women and pregnant people can only access abortion with no legal consequences under three exceptions: if the pregnancy is a result of rape, if the pregnancy poses a major health risk, or if it’s practiced in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, under specific conditions. The latter case represents an incongruous situation of “it’s illegal, but can be done”, with add-ons of administrative, bureaucratic and economical obstacles.

In the first trimester, abortion can only go through if a mandatory counselling session takes place, as well as a three-day waiting period. Besides the questioning of the person’s ability to make decisions about their own body imposed by the compulsory counselling, the reflection period delays the procedure on an already short timeframe.

Even though, technically, women and pregnant people can undergo abortion until the 12th week, there’s a real issue with access: between finding a service provider, potentially travelling to access it, and finding a way to fund for it, it’s often too late.

Associations have been denouncing a lack of service providers in the country, with some cities having none. As a result, many people end up deciding to undergo the procedure in the neighboring Netherlands — those who can afford it, of course. Besides, there are fewer and fewer doctors able to perform abortions in Germany. This is due to retirement and medical education rarely including abortion in the curriculum, as it’s not compulsory in gynecological training — despite being one of the most common gynecological procedures. In addition, healthcare professionals are allowed to refuse to perform abortion based on conscientious objection, which sometimes results in entire hospitals not offering the service due to moral or religious reasons from one person in the leadership.

On the economical sphere, abortion being officially against the law, costs are not covered by health insurance. These might vary between 350 to 600 euros, and, if the person needs to stay at the hospital, they have to pay the daily rates themselves. There’s a possible application for cost coverage in cases of low or no income — but this is yet another administrative burden, which needs to have written confirmation by the doctor and the health insurance company.

All of the above causes material obstacles to real access to abortion, making it a class, racial and gendered issue that affects people who are already in vulnerable situations the most. Alongside people with low incomes, those who face greater barriers include people with refugee status, migrants, people in undocumented situations and those whose native language is not German (as denounced by Doctors for Choice).

By considering abortion a criminal matter instead of a healthcare one, the state sends a clear sign of stigmatization. “For the women affected, it makes a big difference whether what they are doing is right or wrong”, stated Frauke Brosius-Gersdorf, the deputy coordinator of an expert commission on the topic.

Slowly but surely, some steps in the right direction

Despite the conservative legal framework, some headway was made in recent years: the abolition of the ban on the “advertisement” of abortion services, and the setting of boundaries against harmful “pro-life”actions, such as harassment towards pregnant people at counselling centers.

Until 2022, under Section 219a of the German Criminal Code, doctors were forbidden to “advertise the termination of pregnancy”, facing a fine or imprisonment of up to two years if contravening the ban. This was the case with doctor Kristina Hänel, who was found guilty and fined for providing information about abortions in multiple languages on her website. Hänel took the matter to the Federal Constitutional Court, hoping to stir up the debate about Section 219a, in which “advertisement” was defined so loosely that doctors were prohibited from including any information on their websites about abortions, including methods to perform, risks of the procedure and costs — symbolizing a systematic targeting of medical staff offering the healthcare service. The case received widespread popular support and finally, two years ago, the Nazi-inherited law was scrapped, freeing doctors from criminal prosecution, and allowing pregnant people to access information on abortions and find a doctor more easily.

More recently, in early 2024 and as a result of the increasing number of “pro-life” protests and vigils in front of family planning centers and clinics all across the country, an amendment to the Pregnancy Conflict Act was passed. The alteration, proposed by the Federal Minister for Family Affairs, Lisa Paus (Die Grünen), aimed at preventing “sidewalk harassment”, as it is known, towards people who are seeking an abortion. Anti-abortion demonstrators are now prevented from approaching the centers and clinics within a 100-metre radius, as well as from putting anti-abortion flyers and posters within the same perimeter. The law considers as an administrative offence behaviours such as intentionally making it difficult for pregnant people to enter the facilities, imposing one’s opinions on them, harassment and intimidation, and making false factual statements about abortion. This amendment is therefore intended to protect both those who are seeking an abortion, as well as the staff of the counselling centers.

Will Section 218 be overthrown altogether?

The initiative for the law reform is in line with a report made by an expert commission of 18 people appointed by the government earlier this year to look at the regulation of abortion outside the criminal code. The commission’s non-binding recommendations included the legalisation of abortion in the early stages of pregnancy, within a timeframe that should be decided by lawmakers following the existing medical and ethical guidelines, which would potentially even allow it to extend beyond the current illegal-but-not-punishable 12 weeks.

The Union parliamentary group — the second largest in the Bundestag — composed of the opposition parties CDU and CSU, has positioned itself against the commission’s guidance, with the parliamentary group leader Thorsten Frei threatening a lawsuit against the government’s coalition if they were to implement the recommendations. With a federal election coming up early next year, in which CDU/CSU is currently leading the polls, it comes as no surprise that they would do their best to prevent the current government from making any advancements on this topic — which is probably why they’re deeming it “completely unnecessary for the coalition to deal with such an issue now”, in Frei’s words. Along the same lines, Andrea Lindholz (CSU) has accused the government of not aiming for social consensus, but for the implementation “of its ideological ideas and thus of a minority in this country”.

It seems, however, that the Union is wrong both about the majority’s opinion, and even about their own voters’ preferences. A population survey done in March 2024 shows that more than 80% of the German population think it is wrong that an abortion is illegal, and that around 77% of Union voters support a regulation outside the penal code.

Last week, several thousand people took to the streets in Berlin and Karlsruhe in favor of a full legalisation, and for the scrapping of Section 218 all together. The pro-choice movement would like to go beyond the proposal on the table, though, by also abolishing the mandatory counselling. This is one of the demands of the petition launched by the Bündnisses für sexuelle Selbstbestimmung (Alliance for Sexual Self-Determination) — a broad alliance composed of individuals, associations, feminist and political groups, unions and political parties such as SPD and Die Linke.

With a likely shift to the right after February 2025, the clock is ticking for the Ampel coalition. The law reform needs at least 367 votes to be passed in the Bundestag. It is still uncertain, however, if and when the vote will take place. First it will have to make the rounds in the Legal Affairs Committee. It’s yet to be seen if the coalition will be able to give the green light to self-determination, or if they’ll leave the motto “my body, my choice” gathering dust until the next election manifesto.