{"id":33412,"date":"2024-01-12T08:16:49","date_gmt":"2024-01-12T07:16:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/?p=33412"},"modified":"2024-01-23T10:44:28","modified_gmt":"2024-01-23T09:44:28","slug":"artists-pledge-to-boycott-german-institutions-over-stifling-of-pro-palestine-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/?p=33412","title":{"rendered":"Artists Pledge to Boycott German Institutions Over Stifling of Pro-Palestine Speech"},"content":{"rendered":"
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FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION . . <\/p>\n

An article from Hyperallergic<\/a><\/p>\n

Hundreds of artists and cultural workers around the world signed a petition<\/a> calling to boycott German cultural institutions in response to the nation\u2019s \u201cMcCarthyist policies\u201d targeting critics of Israel\u2019s violence against Palestinians.<\/p>\n

(Update January 23. In response, the Berlin Senate has now dropped the anti-semitism clause in their funding agreements.<\/a><\/p>\n

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\nOne of the graphics accompanying the Strike Germany petition features the word \u201cStrike\u201d overlaid on an icon of German art history: \u201cDer Wanderer \u00fcber dem Nebelmeer\u201d (\u201cThe Wanderer above the Sea of Fog\u201d) (1818) by Romanticist Caspar David Friedrich. (image via\u00a0Strike Germany)<\/center><\/p>\n

Signed by over 650 people including artist Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Palestinian poet and activist Mohammed El-Kurd, and French writer Annie Ernaux, the anonymously authored \u201cStrike Germany<\/a>\u201d petition questions the European nation’s adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism<\/a>, according to which \u201cthe targeting of the state of Israel\u201d can be construed as a form of hostility toward the collective Jewish people. Since the German parliament’s 2019 resolution<\/a> equating the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement with antisemitism, the persecution of pro-Palestine speech and symbols has had profound effects on the local heavily state-subsidized art world. <\/p>\n

\u201cAs the genocidal campaign on Gaza continues \u2014 amounting to one of the deadliest assaults<\/a> on a civilian population in our times \u2014 the German state has intensified the repression of its own Palestinian population and those who stand against Israel\u2019s war crimes,\u201d the petition reads. \u201cPalestine solidarity protests are mislabeled as anti-Semitic and banned, activist spaces are raided by police, and violent arrests are frequent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Germany has stood by Israel nearly unconditionally since the October 7 Hamas offensive that killed at least 846<\/a> Israeli civilians, with Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the first Western leader to visit after the attack, declaring that the country had \u201cevery right to defend itself.\u201d Since then, as Israel faces accusations of genocide<\/a> at the United Nations\u2019s top court and the death toll from its ongoing bombardment of Gaza tops 23,000<\/a>, Germany\u2019s position has shifted slightly<\/a> but remained staunchly supportive.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, the Berlin Senate introduced<\/a> a clause that would require recipients of public funds to sign a self-declaration against \u201cany form of antisemitism\u201d as defined by the IHRA. Over 5,600 Berlin-based cultural workers across artistic disciplines, including visual artists Jumana Manna and Jesse Darling, opposed the controversial proposal in a recent open letter<\/a>; such laws, the missive says, \u201conly serve to create an administrative basis for disinviting and canceling events with cultural workers who are critical of Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paradoxically, Germany\u2019s persecution of anti-Israel voices sometimes extends to members of the nation\u2019s Jewish community. Last year, Hamburg\u2019s first antisemitism commissioner publicly attacked<\/a> South African artist and scholar Adam Broomberg, a vocal critic of Israel who is himself Jewish, because of the artist\u2019s solidarity with the BDS movement. <\/p>\n

After he was hired as a visiting professor at the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design this fall, the school\u2019s rectorate told him he could no longer instruct students, according to Broomberg, who explained that he had reached a \u201cverbal agreement\u201d with the administration barring him from teaching, although he would remain on the school’s payroll through the end of his contract this spring.<\/p>\n

(continued on right column)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Questions related to this article:<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
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Free flow of information, How is it important for a culture of peace?<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Presenting the Palestinian side of the Middle East, Is it important for a culture of peace?<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

(continued from left column)<\/p>\n

“I think the real danger here is a closing down of academic thinking and critical thinking,” Broomerg said. “And it also puts a lot of the amazing colleagues I had there in very precarious positions, because if journalists and the Senate are going to be scouring people’s social media feeds or anything they’ve ever written, and if you see my situation as a test case, you can imagine that a lot of them feel very anxious.\u201d<\/p>\n

The professor was leading a seminar that centered Palestinian and Israeli experiences and histories and had planned a small student trip to Bethlehem and Hebron, although the excursion was canceled after the events of October 7. He claimed the school\u2019s decision was due to pressure from the German government and right-wing press, which has mentioned Broomberg\u2019s active anti-Zionist posts on social media.<\/p>\n

A Karlsruhe University spokesperson told Hyperallergic<\/em> it could not comment on the contractual details of its employees, adding that as a public university, it \u201cmust mediate between public interest and the protection of its members.\u201d The spokesperson stated that when confronted with \u201ccontroversial\u201d social media posts from Broomberg, the school decided to \u201cseek a conversation\u201d with him, to involve the school\u2019s Academic Senate, and to consult \u201cexternal experts.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt really feels kind of McCarthyite,\u201d Broomberg added, repeating the same phrase used in the Strike Germany petition.<\/p>\n

Yamna El Atlassi, a Belgium-based Diversity and Inclusion consultant for the cultural sector who travels frequently to Germany, said she sees artists in the nation “facing a level of repression not seen in recent history.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI’ve always seen discrimination in play in the cultural sector in all Western countries, but the difference is that Germany was presenting itself as a champion of progressive thinking,\u201d El Atlassi told Hyperallergic<\/em>. \u201cThe dissonance between this attitude and what is really going on is important.\u201d<\/p>\n

She specifically cited the controversy<\/a> surrounding Documenta 15, during which several participating artists in the summer 2022 exhibition faced accusations of antisemitism for their pro-Palestine stance. On October 9, Documenta\u2019s leadership released a statement decrying the curatorial collective ruangrupa<\/a>, which organized the 15th edition, for its \u201cliking\u201d of social media posts expressing sympathy with the Palestinian cause.<\/p>\n

Dystopic episodes of institutions stifling pro-Palestine expressions are far from absent from the United States’s cultural spaces, where just this week, the news of Indiana University canceling<\/a> an exhibition of 87-year-old Palestinian artist Samia Halaby\u2019s works \u2014 reportedly over her vocal advocacy for her country \u2014 drew outrage. Meanwhile, faculty members there penned a letter<\/a> this week decrying the school\u2019s decision to suspend their colleague Abdulkader Sinno, a Political Science and Middle Eastern Studies professor, for his alleged involvement in organizing an event with the Palestine Solidarity Committee. The missive asserts that the school\u2019s decision comes as American universities are being pressured to \u201ccurtail free speech over the Israel-Palestine conflict.\u201d<\/p>\n

But in Germany, whose crimes and burden of guilt against the Jewish people are inscribed permanently in its history, the attitude taken toward Jewish figures who question the Israeli state\u2019s actions strikes many as especially chilling. The irony was felt a month ago when the Russian-American, Jewish writer Masha Gessen received a scaled-down version of Germany’s Hannah Arendt Prize, nearly revoked altogether after they penned a New Yorker<\/em><\/a> article in which they compared the humanitarian crisis in Gaza to Nazi German ghettos.<\/p>\n

\u201cGerman post-reunification \u2018remembrance culture\u2019 (Erinnerungskultur) \u2014 the state campaign to address Germany\u2019s genocide of the Jews \u2014 acts as a repressive dogma, reinvigorating the oppression that real \u2018rememberance\u2019 should work against,\u201d the Strike Germany petition articulates.<\/p>\n

\u2013 \u2013 \u2013<\/p>\n

If you wish to make a comment on this article, you may write to coordinator@cpnn-world.org with the title \u201cComment on (name of article)\u201d and we will put your comment on line. Because of the flood of spam, we have discontinued the direct application of comments.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION . . An article from Hyperallergic Hundreds of artists and cultural workers around the world signed a petition calling to boycott German cultural institutions in response to the nation\u2019s \u201cMcCarthyist policies\u201d targeting critics of Israel\u2019s violence against Palestinians. (Update January 23. In response, the Berlin Senate has now dropped the anti-semitism … Continue reading Artists Pledge to Boycott German Institutions Over Stifling of Pro-Palestine Speech<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75,15],"tags":[33],"class_list":["post-33412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-europe","category-information","tag-europe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33412"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33412\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}