Christopher Street Day has certainly never had the reputation of being an anti-capitalist, revolutionary event rooted in the radical tradition of the Stonewall Riots. This year’s CSD, however, has proven it is nothing more than a political charade. Cologne welcomed the Zionist block with appropriated Stars of David in rainbow colors, a Bundeswehr advertising van, the police and all political parties from green to black (CDU) with open arms while exercising brutal police oppression and censorship against Palästina Solidarität Köln. PSK had planned to march in a radical block registered by Offenes Antifaschistisches Treffen and Offenenes Feministiches Treffen that included ZORA and Young Struggle Köln, Pride Rebellion Duisburg and Föderation Klassenkämpferischer Organisation. They had joined forces for the visibility of multiple marginalized people in the queer community and PSK was participating under the motto of “No Pride in Genocide.”
PSK was banned from carrying all political symbols, including a banner stating “QUEERS* FOR A FREE PALESTINE FIGHT AGAINST RACISM, ISLAMOPHOBIA, HOMO/TRANS*PHOBIA, ANTISEMITISM, APARTHEID!” They were told that CSD is not a political demonstration and Palestine has nothing to do with the event. The pro-Israel block, meanwhile, was allowed to proceed unimpeded. Watermelons displayed with Israeli flags were seen as neutral while the colonized and those marching in solidarity with them were excluded. T-online slandered the radical block just three days before, accusing them of taking advantage of the demonstration for their own purposes, stating that regardless if one is for or against Israel, these politics have no place at CSD. The flagrantly hypocritical slogan of the parade, “FOR HUMAN RIGHTS – Many. Together. Strong” was unveiled just one day after a historic ICJ ruling declared Israel to be an apartheid state.
When offered the “compromise” of participating at the very back of the parade with keffiyehs as the only visible symbol of Palestinian solidarity, the block collectively rejected. As comrades found themselves in chaotic discussion with the police, rain began to pour over their handcrafted, sparkly watermelon signs and a PSK heart decorated with banners in the colors of the Palestinian flag. A large police presence was called in to harass the group after they organized their own spontaneous demonstration, deeming chants of “Yallah yallah intifada” unconstitutional and threatening protesters with criminal charges. Additional police officers were subsequently mobilized as the block began to disperse. Members were beaten, kicked and restrained by chokehold inside of a pharmacy in Cologne Central Station. The person who registered the protest was later informed that a counterdemonstration wasn’t legal after their group had already been excluded from CSD.
Though intersectionality has its limitations and can easily tread the danger of losing its class perspective, PSK’s attempt to bring anti-colonial struggles and queer liberation to the streets is an important act of solidarity and resistance as queer Palestinians are being dehumanized and defaced. In addition to facing extermination, Palestinian queerness is also weaponized by the Israeli army through harrassment and outings.
Attacks against peaceful, pro-Palestine demonstrators at Pride events this year have been widespread. Over thirty people from Queers for Palestine were brutally assaulted and arrested on 26 July by the Berlin police, followed by an estimated two dozen arrests at Internationalist Queer Pride on 27 July. BIPOC Kollektiv from Bonn also reported being attacked by Zionists at CSD in Cologne. After starting a spontaneous protest in solidarity with Palestine within the #niewiderquiet block, they were shown middle fingers and one participant had a beer poured over them. BIPOC Kollektiv wasn’t expelled from the event, but the organizers and the police did nothing to hinder the harrassment mainly affecting FLINTA* protestors, some of whom had Palestinian roots.
It is crystal clear that CSD events are in no way a commemoration of the Stonewall Riots. Instead, CSD is squarely positioned on the side of pinkwashing and wholesale mass slaughter. Complicit, it facilitated a continuation of the violence committed against queer, trans and BIPOC people in New York City fifty-five years ago.
It is indeed alarming in an time of ever-increasing police violence and rapid armament that the Bundeswehr was allowed to hand out flyers at CSD stating “Freedom Fighters: Your Body, Your Identity, Your Sexuality, For Human Rights, All Genders Welcome” to the crowd. After Netanyahu likened protesters holding up signs saying “Gays for Gaza” to “Chickens for KFC,” one also has to wonder what part of Germany’s already marginalized queer community might be sent to the battlefield in the name of democracy. Our world order is anything but stable after Israel’s assassination of Imsail Haniyeh in Iran and its bombing of Beirut, the latter presumably after manufacturing just cause through a red flag operation in Golan Heights. If Pistorius’s current draft legislation comes to pass, all eighteen-year-old men in Germany who are liable for military service will have to fill out an online questionnaire. It is difficult to determine if a binary, cis definition of men is meant in the context of the Bundeswehr handing out flyers at Pride, but it is clear that the Ampel-coalition is ready to speed up the domestic production of weapons. As the left-wing, anti-capitalist block was denied a voice at CSD, Amazon, Tyssenkrupp and the green to black alliance were allowed unimpeded presence, all of them directly supporting Israel’s genocidal regime. Just as its horrificly racist, anti-Palestinian float signalled last year at Karneval, for which mayor Henritte Reker served as a festival committee member, Cologne has decided to side squarely on the side of genocide.
