I am currently packing my things to move to Bonn for an 18-months Humboldt Fellowship. I was initially looking forward to the break from teaching, although I knew I would be very homesick for London. In the last 8 months, however, excitement has given way to apprehension. The on-going attacks on German academics, students, and anyone concerned about what is going on in Gaza have been harrowing. As feared, my funder is also being called out for undermining academic freedom. This accusation came in around the same time as a friend ended up being being called a ‘Jew Hater’ by the biggest selling German newspaper, modelled on British right wing tabloids (I am not going to link the article). A geographer at FU Berlin, she apparently deserved this denunciation, because she co-signed a very mild mannered letter that defended students’ concern about human rights. My friend was not the only one appearing with full name, rank and and staff photograph in this paper; there were other colleagues as well, including Jewish scholars and Holocaust scholars working in Israel. The ‘news’ were also broadcast on national TV.
The worst part was that this article was informed and supported by the current German education minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger and other German ‘centrist’ politicians. In the paper, they proposed not only an investigation into this potential terrorist sympathiser cell, but also called for the academics to be put under state surveillance. An added irony here is that the denoucements of critical academics as ‘Jew Haters’ has frequent been underpinned by reference to the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism which actually explicitly states that it seeks ‘to protect a space for an open debate about the vexed question of the future of Israel/Palestine.’ So far, the academics have responded with threats to sue for libel, and a few conservative voices have come out in support. Possibly motivated by the potential loss of reputation and income, university bosses have suggested that the reactions were out of proportion. A few others have followed suit. While for some, this signals hope for an important debate about the legal situation in Germany, and about the growing influence of the far right in German politics, others remain pessimistic: if critical academics create a national scandal because of their defence of human rights, the country has a problem. Even if a few people talk about over-reactions, there is still the majority who don’t.
There are related events that support the turn to the right, such as the attack on postcolonial, decolonial and critical race theory. To me, the fearful suppression of these historical arguments signal a hinge, a hinge that already serves as a trigger in the US and in the UK. If the premises of these ‘theories’, and especially their historical foundations, were more widely accepted, this would create an impossible intersection with the current political mindset, an identity crisis that no one wants to deal with. Instead, what you currently get in the mainstream media are highly skewed interpretations of postcolonial, decolonial and critical race theory that support business as usual. An article in Die Zeit, for example, ironically entitled ‘Save Postcolonialism‘, has argued that postcolonial theory needs to be protected from its erroneous assumptions. Its current interpretation is bad, because it apparently teaches people to see things in ‘black and white’ – there needs to be space for more than that! Its argument reminded me of the vacuous piece by Zadie Smith, that says more about the author’s anxieties to confront reality (a useful response can be found here).
The shaming of critical academics is a familiar far right tactic and needs to be countered appropriately. I don’t think I am over-stating this. There is one event that, for me, sums up the political dynamics quite succinctly: A few weeks ago, the bank account of the German organisation Jüdische Stimme für gerechten Frieden in Nahost (Jewish Voice for Just Peace In The Middle East) was frozen by Berlin Savings Bank, as they considered them terrorists. The same bank, however, hosts accounts of far right organisations whose political views were considered perfectly in line with the German constitution. After pressures from activists, the bank then argued that ‘everybody needs a bank account’. This gives them impression that, German Jews are not part of Germany, but Neo-Nazis are. Is this the ‘Täternation’ we want? (A more indepth analysis of this situation here.) The current attacks on ‘Jew Haters’ embody the fear of confronting the roots of the issue: if academics and other activists manage to shift the German debate on colonial history, this would be a major dam break. This would not just affect terms of the current interpretation of the German ‘special obligation’, but especially the German relation with German Jews and Germans of colour: it would necessitate validation, more rights, more protection. This is what the far right and also the ‘centre’ are trying to prevent.
One way of dealing with this situation has been gallows humour. My German academic friends keep sending me the latest ridiculous examples, as a form of comic relief and as a mental preparation for the landscape I will be entering. As someone who is going to be working on a project in this area, witnessing this witch hunt is scary and infuriating. As several German colleagues and friends have emphasised: be prepared for the worst. At the same time, the current state of things is also perversely motivating: let’s see what can be done. This attitude was also emphasised in last year’s Guardian article by German author Fatma Adeyemir. Adeyemir called on concerned people not to leave the country but to support those who have been struggling for a long time, without the possibility to simply leave. At time where the far right is gaining not only ground, but re-gaining official acceptance, across the world, it may not even be possible to outrun them – you just need to decide how, where and with whom to take a stand.
Mutable Matter 