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Racism and Nationalism in Sport

It’s Great That England’s Footballers Are Taking a Stand against Racism, but I Still Won’t Be Cheering Them on the Pitch


10/06/2021

The 2020 football European Championship is finally upon us, and sport is moving to the digital equivalent of the front page. It is timely, then, that two new stories have emerged which show the effect of racism on English sport.

Cricketer Suspended for Racist Tweets

First, there’s the cricket. England bowler Ollie Robinson was suspended after old tweets of his were found, including those which said: “My new Muslim friend is the bomb;”, “I wonder if Asian People put smileys like this ¦) #racist;” and “The guy next to me on the train definitely has Ebola.”

The establishment rushed to Robinson’s defence. Oliver Dowden MP, Secretary of State for Sport, called for the suspension to be lifted, saying “Ollie Robinson’s tweets were offensive and wrong. They are also a decade old and written by a teenager. The teenager is now a man and has rightly apologised. The ECB has gone over the top by suspending him and should think again.” Dowden was supported by prime Minister Boris Johnson

In contrast, my old friend, the Liberation Theologist Dr. Anthony Reddie, commented:

“Maybe I have missed something here about the Ollie Robinson situation. 1st, he was 18, not 10 or 5. 2nd, he made racist and sexist remarks; remarks that were as repugnant then as they are now, as they were when I was aged 18, a long time ago. It’s not as if he was living in an epoch that had different values and perspectives (the excuse White historians make for racist actions and statements made during the age of empire and colonialism). I find it irritating, therefore, that we are STILL talking about education for White people about racism. 9 years ago was 2012, not 1812 or even 1912…

So we continue to make excuses for White people holding views that no one has any excuse to hold at this juncture in history. We’ve had a Race Relations act in 1965, an updated act in 1968, another Race Relations act in 1976, an amended act in 2000 and an Equality Act in 2010. When are we going to stop making excuses for White people making racist statements?”

England Football Team Continues to Take the Knee

Meanwhile in football, England manager Gareth Southgate is insisting that his footballers take the knee at the beginning of games. This is despite Tory MP Brendan Clarke-Smith comparing the act to the England squad giving the Nazi salute at a 1938 game in Berlin. The main establishment paper, The Times also called taking the knee a gesture which “has become meaningless and divisive”.

Some racist fans have responded by booing England footballers when they take the knee. Black Nottingham Forest player Lyle Taylor joined the abuse, saying that he has stopped taking the knee because it means supporting the “Marxist group” Black Lives Matter. Taylor’s understanding of Marxism seems a little confused, as later in the interview his main criticism of BLM seems to be that it’s supported by “massive, massive corporations”.

Boris Johnson has refused to commit himself. His spokesman issued an ambiguous statement saying “the prime minister fully respects the right of those who choose to peacefully protest and make their feelings known … On taking the knee, specifically, the prime minister is more focused on action rather than gestures”.

One of Johnson’s MPs, Lee Anderson took a much clearer position, promising to boycott England games. He posted on Facebook: “For the first time in my life I will not be watching my beloved England team whilst they are supporting a political movement whose core principles aim to undermine our very way of life.”

Taking the Knee – Part of a Proud Tradition

Southgate is right. Taking the knee is part of a proud tradition of people in sport taking a stand against oppression from Muhammad Ali refusing to fight in Vietnam to John Carlos and Tommie Smith making the black power salute at the 1968 Olympics.

Taking the knee in sport is most identified with (American Football player) Colin Kaepernick. At a pre-season game in August 2016, Kaepernick refused to stand for the US national anthem as a protest against police racism. He justified his action by saying “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color.”. Less than a week later, he also started taking the knee.

Kaepernick’s stance was taken up by other prominent athletes like LeBron James, Serena Williams and Megan Rapinoe. More importantly, perhaps, it crystallized a growing mood of anger against violent police racism, and when George Floyd was murdered in May 2020, sports stars taking the knee became almost ubiquitous, One could argue that this has helped normalise the righteous anger, but the visible participation of beloved sports stars has contributed to a climate in which Defund the Police has suddenly become a mainstream demand.

Besides, this was not just a gesture on the part of Kaepernick, who has been forced to pay for his actions. Then-president Donald Trump called for National Football League owners to fire any player who takes the knee. This is effectively what has happened to Kaepernick. Despite being one of the most gifted quarterbacks of his generation, he has been frozen out of the game and has not played in well over 4 years.

Sport is Political

For those calling for politics to stay out of sport, I’m afraid that that ship has already sailed. Sport is part of the superstructure of society. This means that in a neoliberal society, the rich oligarchs and corrupt regimes who own clubs will try to make fans pay as much as possible. And in a society which is imbued with racism and nationalism, this racism and nationalism will also be found in sport.

Black England player John Barnes noted that after he scored a wonder goal in England’s 2-0 defeat of Brazil, a section of English fans around the National Front “kept saying ‘England only won 1-0 because a nigger’s goal doesn’t count’”. In 1995, a friendly between Ireland and England was abandoned after a riot by racist English fans. Although the racism and fascism that used to accompany England games is not as visible as it used to be, we still often endure the nasty odour of nationalism.

When England play Germany, England fans regularly sing “Two World Wars and One World Cup” – which Wikipedia quaintly explains as being “part of the England-Germany football rivalry.” And yet this harking back to England’s imperial past, when “we” were capable of winning both wars and football matches, smacks of a pathetic nostalgia for the days when inhabitants of other countries (and Black Britons) knew their place.

Nationalism in German Sport

Every 2 years there’s an international football competition, be this the European Championship or World Cup. Around this time, every other house or car in England seems to be festooned with the St George’s Flag, which is otherwise mainly seen at the head of a Nazi demonstrations. If this feels intimidating to me, I shudder to think how it would affect the victims of everyday racism.

When I first moved to Germany in 1995, the atmosphere was quite different. In Euro 96 — maybe the high point of laddish English nationalism — there was nary a German flag to be seen. The memory of Nazi rule made many Germans somewhat reticent to openly display too much national pride.

Then 2006 happened. Germany hosted the World Cup, fan miles were erected and suddenly flags were everywhere. Most of this was “harmless fun”, and yet there was a definite change of mood. Suddenly Germans felt able to do what the Brits had done for centuries and celebrate their nation.

In 2007, the “citizen’s movement” pro-NRW was formed as a dubious collection of Nazis and “concerned citizens”. Many of the members of pro-NRW found their way into Pegida and the AfD. Three years later, former Berlin finance minister Thilo Sarrazin (SPD) published the best-selling book Deutschland schafft sich ab, in which he raged against immigrants, Jews and Islam.

Now of course there is no causal relationship between flags at football tournaments, social democratic racism and the worrying growth of far right parties, but the removing of taboos about talking about national pride helped contribute towards a climate in which Sarrazin was lauded and openly racist parties could grow.

Nationalism after Brexit

The European Championship is England’s first tournament post-Brexit, where both sides of the main media discussion showed an unhealthy obsession with the place people happened to be born. One side championed “Great” Britain (usually used as shorthand for England), while the other cheered for Europe – the same Europe that is sending troops into Mali and treating refugees with racism and imprisonment.

This debate has been accompanied by equivalently bland political slogans. As the wealth of the ultra rich rose astronomically, David Cameron insisted “we’re all in it together”. Meanwhile, following the removal of Jeremy Corbyn, new Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has wrapped himself in the Union Flag in an attempt to push a political vision in which nation trumps class.

Supporting “our boys” in the football isn’t the worst possible sin, but it’s part of the same process of saying that I’m essentially the same as my boss, or my landlord, or my prime minister, because we’re all “English” in a way that people from ‘less civilized’ countries are not.

This is not, by the way, the same as supporting your local team – especially in an England whose history is so tied up to imperialism. I support Bradford City, the team from the industrial multi-racial city in which I grew up. The last (and only) time they won any significant trophy was the 1911 FA cup.

For a couple of years (literally two) at the turn of the Millennium, City were in the Premier League. In the first season, when they finished 17th, one place above relegation, the local paper produced a supplement called “Heaven Seventeenth”. Since then, after the Chairman ran off with most of the money, the team has spent most of its time in the third and fourth divisions.

No sane City fan would call the team the best in the world. Compare and contrast with the way in which the England team is treated. Despite not having won any serious trophy in over 50 years, every tournament is preceded with hype that this is “our” year, followed by accusations of dirty foreigners and cheating referees when the team inevitably crashes out.

Such hubris is not unconnected to the way in which history is taught in British schools. “We” owned a third of the world, “we” single-handedly won two world wars, “we” ruled over an Empire in which racism and slavery were just unfortunate mistakes – or more likely, are not mentioned at all. Is it any wonder, that the English always seem convinced that “their” team is superior to all others?

But This Time it’s Different”, isn’t it?

But is this England side different? Never one to stop flogging a dead horse, Billy Bragg claims that Southgate’s behaviour reminds us of ‘what it means to be a progressive patriot’. Recently, Bragg reposted an “evocative” statement from Southgate on Facebook.

Addressing potentially racist England fans, Southgate wrote “Regardless of your upbringing and politics, what is clear is that we are an incredible nation — relative to our size and population — that has contributed so much to the arts, science and sport. We do have a special identity and that remains a powerful motivator.”

On one level, this is so much more than the bland statements that we have come to expect from football managers. Yet it still contains many of the same flaws that show up in Bragg’s notion of “progressive patriotism”. As I have argued elsewhere, ‘why should “standing up for the traditional value of fairness’ be seen as a specifically British quality? Are Britons really more fair than Iranians or Iroquois?”

Bragg assumes that Southgate’s act of solidarity – like that of the US-American Kaepernick can somehow be attributed to his nationality, as, presumably can the Maoism of former German player Paul Breitner or the socialism of ex-Brazil captain Socrates. Yet it is just not the case that all Englishmen – or US-Americans, Germans or Brazilians – would behave in the same way. I’ve already given enough examples of Tory MPs to show that this is simply not the case.

Having said this, we do live in interesting times. Former footballers like Stan Collymore and Neville Southall and current players like Marcus Rashford have done more to challenge Boris Johnson’s neoliberal politics than the “leader” of Britain’s Labour “opposition”.

For this reason, I want Rashford to score a hat trick in every game. There is one condition, though, and this is that England lose each of these games 4-3.

News from Berlin and Germany: 5th June 2021

Weekly news roundup from Berlin and Germany


04/06/2021

Compiled by Ana Ferreira

 

NEWS FROM BERLIN

Demonstration for cyclists’ rights

The Berlin branch of the Allgemeiner Deutscher Fahrrad-Club (ADFC) has called for a rally next Sunday. The aim is to demonstrate for a quick traffic turnaround in which the concerns of cyclists are given more attention. A total of 16 routes are planned across all districts, all with the Große Stern in Mitte as their destination. Afterwards, there will be a joint ride to the Brandenburg Gate, where a final rally will take place. For some of the routes, the city motorway 100 as well as the Avus stretch on the A115 will be closed in the meantime. Source: rbb

NEWS FROM GERMANY

Collaboration between CDU and AfD

The election of Max Otte as chairman of the CDU-affiliated Werteunion has met strong criticism in many quarters. In the past, Otte drew attention to himself with AfD-friendly statements. In 2017, for example, he announced in an interview he intended to vote for the AfD in that year’s Bundestag elections. But it is not only the election of Max Otte as the new Werteunion chairman that is causing a stir regarding the relationship between the CDU and the AfD. In the run-up to the election in Saxony-Anhalt, where the AfD could replace the CDU as the strongest force, the local CDU’s dealings with the AfD are under criticism. Source: fr

Solidarity with the junge Welt

The orders in the last three weeks have shown it: around 400 people have recognised the scandalous process and supported junge Welt quite practically with a subscription. One would like to think that German media would be just as prudent and recognise the harassment of the daily newspaper junge Welt as a possible gateway for tighter control of all media in this country. Many vehicles of the international media showed support to jW. For no one knows who will be harassed tomorrow by the German domestic secret service because of a disagreeable attitude in reporting. Source: jW

Teachers give out books containing racist language

The short story “A Beautiful Relationship” was given to a pupil in a German school. The story is from the 1980s, and contains the N-word. The pupil confronted the teacher about the text: “It’s 2021 now, why can’t school texts just use the politically correct term for Black people?”. There was nothing she could do about it and it was not her responsibility, replied the teacher. The choice of words in the assignment is not the only thing the pupil finds problematic, however. “I would have preferred my teacher to take me seriously and acknowledge that the text is hurtful to me.” Source; taz

German cities are too dirty

The EU Commission sued Germany because the annual and hourly limits for nitrogen dioxide have been exceeded in numerous areas since 2010. Germany is thus systematically violating the EU Air Quality Directive. However, air quality in German cities has improved recently, partly because of the Corona crisis. Deutsche Umwelthilfe (DUH) already stated the judgement from Luxembourg had “fundamental and far-reaching significance in the fight for clean air”. However, the association regretted the ruling came more than ten years after the limit values came into force. Since 2011, DUH has pushed through measures such as improvement of public transport, as well as speed limits of 30 km/h. Source: taz

Climate movement mobilises against motorways

The protest about the construction of the A14 is flaring up again. The climate movement plans to demonstrate in Wittenberge on Saturday. Activists want to travel to the bridge by boat or bicycle and there will be a demonstration from the train station in Wittenberge. For a long time, it was quiet about the A14, but after the BUND regional associations of Brandenburg and Saxony-Anhalt agreed to a settlement in 2019 and stopped further lawsuits, the motorway construction is considered to have been pushed through and the alternative concept – an expansion of the existing federal roads instead of building a new motorway route – to have failed politically. Source: taz

News from Berlin and Germany: 29th May 2021

Weekly news roundup from Berlin and Germany


28/05/2021

Compiled by Ana Ferreira

 

NEWS FROM BERLIN

Masked refuser stabs supermarket security guard

An unknown man attacked and injured a security guard at a supermarket in Baumschulenweg on Wednesday afternoon. According to the police, the 27-year-old security guard had pointed out to the unknown man at the entrance of the supermarket in Kiefholzstraße that masks were compulsory. However, the man refused to put on a mask and insulted the security guard several times in a racist manner. The suspect then abruptly hit the 27-year-old in the face with his fist and stabbed him several times with an unknown stabbing tool. The security guard called the police and the fire brigade. Source: Berliner Zeitung

NEWS FROM GERMANY

AfD names their election candidates

The AfD is entering the Bundestag election campaign with parliamentary group leader Alice Weidel and party leader Tino Chrupalla as top candidates. Weidel and Chrupalla are both considered opponents of co-party leader Jörg Meuthen, who recently tried to slightly distance the party from the far right. They also are clearly better known, have more experience and are also supported by the eastern associations. In their candidacy, Weidel and Chrupalla denied both that there were camps in the AfD and that as top candidates, they would further encourage a split within the party. Source: taz

Millions forced to take more than one job

The findings are clear: the number of employees with two or more jobs has risen by around 700,000 to about 3.5 million since 2013. And 91 per cent of the newly added multiple employees have had to take on at least one side job in addition to their main job because of tight household budgets. These are the results of a study published on Tuesday by the Cologne Institute of the German Economy (IW). The number of so-called hybrid employees, who are self-employed alongside their main source of income, has also risen by 13 per cent since 2013 to around 690,000 in 2019. Source: jW

Muslims blamed for rising antisemitism

Some high-ranking politicians claim that antisemitism was “introduced” into Germany by Muslims. CDU leader Armin Laschet spoke for instance of “immigrant antisemitism”. These politicians’ quotes were uncritically reproduced in many media. But the Shoah gives rise to the mandate to uncompromisingly fight hatred of Jews in this country. That means taking immediate action against any antisemitism, no matter who it comes from, with the full force of the law. The fact that many Jews do not feel safe in Germany today must be addressed and stopped immediately. Antisemitism, also from the Muslim side, is not tolerable. Source: nd

Could the Greens and the Left govern together?

The outcome of the Bundestag elections in autumn is quite open. However, a few things can be said. For example, it is almost impossible that the Greens will again become the smallest opposition party in the parliament in Berlin. At the moment, they are challenging the CDU/CSU. It is also unlikely they will end up in the opposition again. Therefore, the role of the smallest opposition party could fall to the Left. Unlike the Greens, who started their election campaign on a high of 8.9 per cent, the Left is in a poorer position. Would they be currently successful in an alliance? Source: faz

Anger and Dismay in Palestine

Berlin Bulletin No. 189 May 23 2021


24/05/2021

It’s no great surprise that most German media, reporting on the Israel-Palestine war, was one-sided, bigoted and misleading. There were samples of fairer treatment at first, showing the demolition of Palestinian homes, the shutdown of a meeting place for young people, the far-right gangs marching in East Jerusalem chanting “Death to Arabs,” and the invasion of the al-Aqsa Mosque at the height of Ramadan with stun grenades, tear gas and “skunk-fluid” spray. There were even timid hints that Netanyahu’s provocations aimed at distracting attention, gaining popularity and avoiding a prison term, even if it led, as he certainly knew and planned, to a major round of violence.

However, the fairer reports dwindled as the media returned to “Israel’s need for self-defense, the right of every country” – with no mention of any similar Palestinian need. It equated rockets fired from Gaza, or those ten percent which pierced Israel’s protective “Iron Dome” and then wreck homes and cause deaths, with the constant, hour-long torrents of death and destruction blasted by one of the strongest military forces in the world into a small, densely populated confine, which could in no way deter the fighter-bombers and missiles, the drones circling low, night and day, over homes and families, for Gaza had no “Iron Domes” sent over by US arms producers. The media seemed largely to accept the huge disproportion, showing the mourning and heartbreak when a Jewish child was tragically killed by a rocket, but remaining almost silent about Palestinian children.

Ibrahim al-Talaa, 17, told of feeling it was the end for himself and his family.

“The Israeli warplanes bombed many different places in my area with more than 40 consecutive missiles, without issuing the prior warnings they used to issue in the past three wars. The sound of the bombing and shelling was so terrifying that I cannot describe it… As the bombs fell heavy and close, the house was shaking as if it would fall on our heads… My nerves collapsed and I was about to cry out, but I tried to restrain myself, just to give my family some strength. I saw my 13-year-old sister crying in silence. I hugged her for a while trying to cheer her up.”

Maha Saher, 27, a mother of two daughters, Sara, 4, and Rama, five months old, told how, during the heaviest of attacks, her daughter Sara wept uncontrollably, asking for her father to return home.

“I don’t fear death itself. But I fear to lose one of my children – or they to lose me…I fear they will target my apartment while we are sleeping, as they did with the al-Wehda street massacre.”

Israeli warplanes had bombed three houses on al-Wehda street on Sunday, killing 42 civilians, mostly women and children. “They then destroyed the street itself to prevent the ambulances and fire trucks from reaching the destroyed buildings and wounded people,” she said.

It was Al Jazeera which quoted one father: “We awoke in the middle of the night to the sound of the bombardment… Now only two of our family are alive. 14 members, women, children and men, are gone. Six are still under the rubble.”

For much of the world, the sixty-six dead Palestinian children remained little more than numbers, like the daily count of new COVID cases. There almost seemed to be media rules for one-sided reporting.

Ongoing descriptions of conditions in Gaza were equally rare. Unlike Ashgerod or Bathsheeba in Israel, there was a water shortage, an almost total lack of clean water. We were not told what three or less hours of irregular electricity meant for people with COVID whose oxygen containers need electricity – or incubator babies when generators stopped working. And aside from the days and nights of bombing, how many were told of the decades of enforced shortages, joblessness, isolation, hopelessness and abiding fear in Gaza?

Such one-sidedness might be blamed only on Israel for not permitting journalists to enter Gaza. For the few already there, at Associated Press and Al-Jazeera, bombs aimed at their building, after a 60- minute warning, destroyed equipment and prevented further pictures of Gaza from their rooftop.

However, German media bias is part of a larger picture with a long history.

Back in 1949 the newly-founded Federal Republic of Germany soon grasped that the worsening Cold War enabled it to welcome back all but the most notorious Nazis in every field: schools, courtrooms, the police, universities, top military posts, the diplomatic service, all political levels, even as chancellor or president and, in the most essential, basic power positions, the same economic titans who built up Hitler and fattened themselves on war profits achieved with mass slave labor.

But there were two conditions for acceptance in the western community of nations. One was loud espousal of democracy and freedom, with elections and a variety of political parties, as long as they were not too conspicuously pro-Nazi – and safely supported western free-market rule.

The second obligation was a repeated, wordy repudiation of anti-Semitism and total approval of anything said or done by the government of the newly-founded Israel.

Germany has held to this exercise in bonding. A key episode was the Eichmann Trial in 1961. Israel refrained from any finger-pointing at active former Nazis and Shoah-leaders, most notably Hans Globke, known as “the second most important man in West Germany”. In gratitude, Globke’s protective boss Konrad Adenauer agreed to help finance and build up Israel militarily, with 2 billion marks for a starter.

This policy, praised as admirable repentance, cemented the West German rebirth as an industrial, political, military bastion and attack base against the “Bolshevik East”. However, the obligations remained. Did Israel support Guatemalan killer troops with Galil rifles und Uzi machine guns, and all bloody dictators in Central America with weapons and surveillance equipment? Was it eagerly supportive of apartheid South Africa, also in weapons development? Was it the last remaining supporter in the UN of Washington’s illegal blockade of Cuba after even semi-colonies like Palau backed away? Take care! While progressive Jewish journalists in Israel opposed their reactionary government, the mildest utterer of criticism in Germany was quickly condemned as an anti-Semite! Or if Jewish as a “self-hater!” Ignore that rule at your peril – of almost total censorship and ostracism!

This applied most strictly to the expanding settlement of the West Bank. Roads shut down for Palestinians, with roadblocks and checkpoints at every turn, ever smaller shares of limited water supplies, family ties between Arabs in Israel, Gaza or the West Bank restricted by walls and Israeli soldiers, West Bank children jailed, even tortured for throwing stones, homes with panicked children smashed into at all hours and the recurring bombing of Gaza recalling World War Two (or Korea and Vietnam) – it was all defended, even welcomed by nearly every political leader, publication and journalist as “necessary self-defense of our eternal friend” – through thick and thin.

As the polemics against “Palestinian terrorists” increased, whose violent or non-violent rebellion against occupation justified every countermeasure, I turned, always a history buff, to a speech by President Andrew Jackson in 1833, when he asserted that the Indians “…established in the midst of another and a superior race… must necessarily yield to the force of circumstances and ere long disappear.” They soon did; the U.S. Army moved 60,000 Indians to arid territory west of the Mississippi, with thousands dying in the “Trail of Tears.” Are there no parallels today?

In November 1868 George Custer and his Seventh Cavalry attacked the Cheyennes and Arapahos and slaughtered 103 warriors, plus women and children. He reported “a great victory … the Indians were asleep… the women and children offered little resistance.” He boasted: “The Seventh can handle anything it meets … there are not enough Indians in the world to defeat the Seventh Cavalry.” We know what happened to him.

No, Hamas is not modeled after Sitting Bull or Crazy Horse. But don’t Custer’s boasts find echoes in loud words heard in the Knesset? And again we must face the question: Which are the terrorists?

In Pontecorvo’s film The Battle of Algiers about the fight for independence after 130 years of French oppression, explosives concealed in baskets kill innocent French civilians. To a bitter rebuke, the Algerian response was: “Give us your bombers and you can have our baskets.” Desperate desires for freedom and equality, with no available peaceful response to torture and repression, lead almost inevitably to violent responses – anti-apartheid bombs in South Africa or the explosive derailment of German trains, even with civilians, by antifascist French partisans. Rockets from Gaza were nasty and bloody, but what else was available against fighter-bombers? And with 12 Israelis killed, two of them children, but almost 250 Gazans, 66 of them children, I must again ponder: “Who are terrorists?”.

The world is grateful for the ceasefire, but the price for it was heavy. Beyond the tragedy of any human loss or maiming on either side, airstrikes in Gaza hit 17 hospitals and clinics, wrecked the only Covid testing laboratory. Fifty schools were damaged or closed, three mosques were leveled and 72,000 Gazans lost or had to leave wrecked homes. Water, electricity, sewage disposal are now almost hopelessly crippled, far worse than before.

As those eleven terrible days ground on, the German media (as in the USA and elsewhere) found it increasingly difficult to distort or ignore what was really happening. More and more people questioned the almost total support for Netanyahu by every party except the LINKE (and even it was sadly split on some aspects). As a result, as if by command, the focus was altered. It was not Gaza’s rockets that became Germany’s main enemy but again anti-Semitism.

Of course it existed and, as always, had to be fought, relentlessly, as part of a century-long struggle. Anti-Semitic attacks or actions have indeed increased in recent years – committed mostly by Germanic Nazi-types who hate Muslim “foreigners” as much or more than they hate Jews. In fact, “anti-Islam” attacks were in the majority, if only because so many more Muslims live in Germany than Jews. But also, perhaps, because there are neo-fascist nests ensconced in the ranks of the police, the armed forces – even in some of the high positions which fascists wholly dominated in postwar years.

Of course, Palestinian desperation inevitably spread to Germany among sons, daughters or cousins of those killed or again homeless in Gaza or suffering under repression in the West Bank and Israel.

A week ago I took part in a demonstration to oppose the bombing of Gaza, alongside many thousands, mostly young Palestinians and other Arabs living in the West Berlin borough of Kreuzberg. Anti-Israeli feelings prevailed in countless signs, most of them hand-made on cardboard. But I saw and heard not one example of an anti-Jewish nature, I saw no crossing of the line to racism. The atmosphere was determined but peaceful; the sunny weather lent almost a picnic aspect.

After two hours my feet gave out and I left for home. Then, in the evening news, I learned that at the end of the march some group had indeed shouted anti-Semitic slogans. This caused the police to step in – hard. Or was it because the huge crowd, though dutifully wearing the obligatory face masks, could hardly keep to full social distancing in the crowded streets? So the march, one of three in Berlin alone that day, ended in violence and many arrests. As for the shouters, it seems that some may have been far-right Turkish groups. Long experience also leads to a suspicion that they included, in part, some hastily recruited provocateurs, so at least the closing minutes of what had been a peaceful demonstration would provide the media and the politicians just what they wanted. They did. The sober, fair description of the event by a journalist on Berlin’s official TV channel was quickly deleted – and replaced by an amazingly abject apology for “biased reporting.”

This disturbed march became the centerpiece of a campaign fed by excited reports about stones thrown at a synagogue, anti-Semitic smearing of a few plaques, burning of Israeli flags in two cities, a punch to someone wearing a kippa. All nasty, but not very hard proof of what the media shouted: “Alarming Antisemitism on the Rise!!!” Yet under the klieg lights the politicians outdid themselves in their warnings, while always adding their defense of Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state – but now tending to avoid direct mention of Benjamin Netanyahu. Who could admire him?

Interior Minister Horst Seehofer of the right-wing Christian Social Union, notorious for his efforts against refugees and immigrants, demanded “the full force of the law” against anti-Semitism.

Annalena Baerbock, the Greens’ candidate to be next German chancellor, interrupted her attacks on détente with Russia to visit a synagogue and declare that “I am shaken to hear that Israeli flags are being burned in Germany…In these difficult hours we stand firmly at the side of Israeli women and men…Israel’s security is part of German state reality“.

Armin Laschet, her Christian Democratic rival in the race for top office, not wanting to be outdone, demanded that the flag of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) be forbidden in Germany – although this secular, pro-Marxist organization rejects anti-Semitism.

A counter-demonstration was quickly organized at the Brandenburg Gate, where more political leaders added their anxious voices, denouncing burnt or torn flags and stones and again stressing Germany’s unalterable support for Israel’s right to protect itself. The dead children of Gaza went unmentioned.

It was a professor with Palestinian background who noted sadly: “I believe it is time for the people of Germany and the German elite to stop making Palestinian children in Gaza pay for the crimes of the German people against European Jews.” No halls were available for people with such ideas.

As for those Arabs demonstrating in Berlin; most of them, born here, could not be deported. But they had better watch their step! I could not help but recall the months after Pearl Harbor and how Japanese-Americans were depicted – and how they were treated! Or some Asian-Americans today!

So many people confuse the views and policies of some fanatics and some leaders, whether fundamentalist Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus or Buddhists, with large groups of very varied human beings in each category. To counteract this, in Germany, I would offer two suggestions – though without much hope of great success (except perhaps on a local scale):

Why couldn’t the Jewish Community in Germany state its disavowal of all repression of Palestinians in the West Bank, in Israel and in Gaza, its rejection of the accelerated settlement of West Bank areas, the discrimination of the Arab language within Israel, and the isolation and suffocation of Gaza – all policies of Netanyahu, his Likkud and other parties – and thus make clear that these are not “Jewish policies” and should not be Israeli policies. It could then call for a united front of both Jewish and Muslim groups and people in Germany to oppose all forms of anti-Semitism, Islamophobia or attacks against anyone because of color, religion or cultural differences. This might be the best way to oppose the sinister elements that have troubled Germany for so long, most terribly when in control, and still sinister when underground. Such a mass coalition could be a model for all of Europe and beyond.

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Previous Berlin Bulletins, a bio, photo and a list of my books, in English and German, are available at: victorgrossmansberlinbulletin.wordpress.com

News from Berlin and Germany: 22nd May 2021

Weekly news roundup from Berlin and Germany


21/05/2021

Compiled by Ana Ferreira

 

NEWS FROM BERLIN

Berlin minister resigns for copying her dissertation

Franziska Giffey is resigning as Federal Minister for Family Affairs. As reported, the Free University of Berlin (FU) is said to have concluded that Giffey’s dissertation, from 2010, should be withdrawn. In 2019, the minister herself declared, while there was already a previous examination of her thesis, she would resign her post in this case. Nevertheless, her now announced withdrawal is surprising for two reasons. Firstly, only a week ago Giffey did not want to hear about corresponding demands for her resignation. And secondly, the examination board of the FU, has not yet completed its task. Giffey has until the beginning of June to comment. Source: nd

Demonstrations during “Pfingsten” holiday prohibited in Berlin

Five protest rallies in Berlin, registered for Whitsun (“Pfingsten”), were banned by the assembly authorities – including two demonstrations by critics of the state’s Corona restrictions, each with 16,000 registered participants. A police spokesperson said on Wednesday evening that the bans were “primarily based on infection control and the predicted assembly situation”. The demonstrations, planned to happen from Saturday on, claim to want to walk for peace, freedom and fundamental rights, reject “pharmaceutical fascism” and supposed “compulsory vaccination for children”. By far the largest number of demonstrations with a corona-critical slant are registered for Whit Monday. Source: morgenpost

NEWS FROM GERMANY

Merkel and Lauterbach for rapid school vaccinations

The government wants to initiate a vaccination summit to get young citizens vaccinated as soon as possible. According to Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU), the consultations planned for 27 May will focus, among other things, on the vaccination of children, vocational school pupils and students. Since they have a particularly large number of contacts, rapid vaccination in these age groups is seen as the key to a lasting reduction in the number of corona infections. In a meeting of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group on Tuesday, Merkel emphasized that the Indian virus variant that the more aggressive a new virus variant is, the more people must be vaccinated to achieve collective immunity. Source; tagesspiegel

Corona vaccines to be available to all

From 7 June, anyone is over 16 years old will be able register for a vaccination against the corona virus in Germany. Federal Health Minister Jens Spahn went public with this happy news on Monday of this week. On the other hand, this makes it not possible to increase the vaccination rate in the short term simply because prioritisation is no longer necessary. And the difference between the various vaccines remains considerable: “If you want to be vaccinated with BionTech, you have a waiting time of four to six weeks, if you want AstraZeneca, you can have a vaccination appointment next week.” Source: dw

Data collection on leftists unlawful

The Göttingen police department has again lost a legal battle over the legality of data collection by the State Security Service on suspected members of the left-wing scene. The Göttingen Administrative Court ruled that storage in a newly created data collection under the name “PMK-links” is also illegal. “PMK” stands for politically motivated crime. The spying on the left-wing and alternative scene in Göttingen has unfortunately a much longer tradition. As early as 1978, for instance, the Lower Saxony State Criminal Police Office infiltrated two agents into the Göttingen Working Group Against Nuclear Energy.Source: nd