Dialog International

Sarrazin Nation?

I have been trying to forget Thilo Sarrazin, whose crude racial theories - put forward in his best selling book Deutschland schafft sich ab - were all the rage several years ago.  In the meantime, Sarrazin has pretty much faded from public view and is no longer invited on the TV talk shows.  His last book - a rant against the Euro - did not sell nearly as well as his first, so I was hopeful that Sarrazin's 15 minutes of fame was over for good.

Now, the United Nations has brought Thilo Sarrazin back into public view with a scathing report on the Federal Republic's response - or lack thereof - to Sarrazin's crude racial stereotyping: 

A United Nations committee has reprimanded Germany in strong language, saying that the country had violated an international anti-racism convention.

At issue are controversial statements made in 2009 by Thilo Sarrazin, a former finance senator for the city-state of Berlin, about Turks and Arabs, who he said sponged off the state and were incapable of integrating, among other things. But a complaint submitted to public prosecutors in Berlin was rejected on grounds that the comments were permissible under Germany's freedom of expression law. An appeal to the decision was rejected as well.

According to the UN's Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), however, this constituted a violation of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, because it failed to conduct an "effective investigation" into the matter.

"This is a historic decision," said the TBB Turkish Union, the cultural organization that submitted the case to the committee, in a statment on Thursday. "CERD has determined that Mr. Sarrazin's comments touch on a feeling of racist superiority or racial hatred and contain elements of incitement to racial discrimination."

You can read the entire CERD report here (pdf warning).

The UN committee has given Berlin 90 days to respond.

Much as I despise Sarrazin and agree with the sentiments of the CERD Report, I don't believe the German government has any compelling reason to respond to the report.  Sarrazin's book and his idiotic comments are protected under the right of freedom of expression.  The government has no role in censoring speech - even hateful, stupid speech - as long as it is not inciting  violence.  It is not the task of the German government to moderate the response to a book, no matter how detestable.  Descrimination based on gender or ethnic origin is prohibited under German Basic Law (Grundgesetz) and the government's job is to enforce the law. 

Sarrazin's festival of hate has played itself out in Germany; ultimately, it is Sarrazin who is the loser in the court of public opinion.  Let's leave it at that.

Should the word "Neger" be cut from German texts?

This is the silly season in Germany, where entire talkshows are devoted to the inappropriate suggestive comments of a middle-age politician to a young female reporter, or to whether the word Neger is racist and should be removed from any children's books. (The word "Neger" can be translated as the anachronistic "Negro" or the perjorative "Nigger".)  In a way, I am jealous that such innocuous topics can dominate public discourse. Here in America we are grappling with an epidemic of gun violence (240 shooting incidents just yesterday). 

The Neger controversy was started by German Family MInister Kristina Schröder: 

When Pippi Longstocking's father is referred to as "Negro-King" or Jim Button is called "Negro-Baby" (in the 1960 children's novel by Michael Ende) Schröder intends to "replace them on the spot while I'm reading, in order to protect my child from taking on such expressions," she told Die Zeit weekly.

"Even without bad intentions, words can cause damage," she said. "When a child is older, I would explain what kind of history the word Neger has, and how hurtful it is to use that word."

Depending on how it is used, the German word Neger can mean anything from the outdated and inappropriate term "negro" to the seriously offensive "nigger" in English.

This is not the first time that Kristina Schröder raised eyebrows with her politically correct approach to the German language.  Several months ago she confessed that when speaking with her daughter she referred to God as "das Gott" - using the neuter gender definitive article instead of the grammatically correct masculine "der Gott."

Should we change texts to conform to modern sensibilities?  Call me a purist, but I don't believe we should  - especially with a classic such as Pippi Longstocking.  Even when reading to children, we can use the language to talk about the work in its historical context and how attitudes have changed.

Every few years a the same controversy flares up regarding an American classic - Huckleberry Finn -  and Mark Twain's character "Nigger Jim".  Fortunately, most teachers have resisted the effort to "sanitize" this wonderful novel.  And last week I went to see Quentin Tarantino's new movie Django Unchained where the "N-Word" is used at least a hundred times.  Nobody in audience complained - maybe because the main figure Django turns the table on the slaveholders.

But I'm willing to admit that as a white male perhaps I'm missing something here.  Spiegel reporter Dialika Neufeld, whose father is Senegalese, has a much different take on the issue: 

"Is it acceptable to alter the original version of a text?

I say yes, when the texts in question are children's books that serve to perpetuate racist stereotypes. These books are not only read aloud to children, they are also read by children themselves, without anyone there to help them make sense of what they read. And the things children pick up from their reading, they bring with them into the classroom -- classrooms where their fellow students might have parents who come from Ghana or Pakistan. One in five children born in Germany today has some kind of immigrant background.

The worst thing for me as a child was being ostracized and insulted because of the color of my skin. And it wasn't just about language. This was the 1990s, when neo-Nazis set homes for asylum-seekers on fire and black people were chased through the streets by right-wing thugs. "nigger," for me, was neo-Nazi language."

Jakob Augstein a "Top Ten Anti-Semite"

According to the Simon Wiesenthal Center, Augstein, publisher of Der Freitag, son of Der Spiegel founder Rudolf Augstein, and himself a Spiegel-columnist, is one of the world's top ten anti-Semites, along side other personalities like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and groups such as Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood (see the list- pdf). BY including Augstein on this list, the Wiesenthal Center has made a big mistake; it diminishes the Center's important work and demeans the concept of "anti-Semitism".  There is nothing "anti-Semitic" about any of Jakob Augstein's writings.  Like many Liberal thinkers within Israel, Augstein has been highly critical of Israel's settlement policies and the positions of Bibi Netanyahu.  His criticism of Israel - still something of a taboo in Germany - has enraged LIkud apologists, who are eager to excoriate Germans for any hint of ant-Semitism. 

In this case, the Simon WIesenthal Center has overreached, and even conservative publications like the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung have come to Augstein's defense: 

In seinen Texten geht es nicht um die Juden und nicht um den Juden. Er propagiert keine Gewalt, zieht keine Traditionslinien und operiert nicht mit Vorurteilen. Was er kritisiert, ist nicht das Symptom eines in der Existenz der Juden oder Israels wurzelnden Übels, sondern das Resultat politischer Entscheidungen der aktuellen israelischen Regierung. Ein Vergleich seiner Zitate auf der Homepage des SWC mit denen der anderen aufgeführten Personen macht diesen entscheidenden Unterschied sofort deutlich.

("There is nothing in his writings about Jews or "the Jew".  He does not advocate violence, doesn't draw on lines of tradition and doesn't operate with any prejudice.  He's not criticizing some fundamental evil rooted in the existence of Jews or Israel, but rather the result of political decisions made by the current Israeli government.  A comparison with the other people or groups on the list makes this distinction clear.")

Why did the Wiesenthal Center turn their attention to Jakob Augstein?  It turns out they were influenced by none other than Henryk Broder  - a notorious Islamophobe who makes a nice living in Germany by smearing anyone who disagrees with him as an anti-Semite (an effective technique for stifling discourse in Germany). Henryk Broder was an inspiration to the Norwegian mass-murderer Anders Behring Breivik.  Last year, when the writer and anti-Muslim activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali expressed sympathy for Breivik in a speech given in Berlin, Broder gave her a standing ovation. 

German court acquits rapist; 15-year-old victim "did not resist enough"

This story has outraged many in Germany and beyond:

A German teenager who said she was raped by a 31-year-old man was told by the judge she had not defended herself enough for the law to convict him – simply saying no was not enough.

The young girl told her rapist to "stop" assaulting her, but that was not enough for the court to convict him:

The physically strong man and the girl had sex, despite her having told him, “No, I don’t want to,” the court heard.

“This is not enough to meet one of the three conditions laid out in paragraph 117 of the criminal law code,” Wolfgang Schmidt, spokesman for the court and a judge himself, told The Local.

“The door to the flat was unlocked, it was in a building with other flats. She could have left with the other women or called out for help, for example. There was no evidence presented to the court of violence being used, or threatened, and her position could not be described as defenceless.

To which the Mädchenmannschaft blog comments sardonically:

"Man kann schließlich von keinem Mann erwarten, dass er ‚Nein ich will keinen Sex‘ versteht!"

(You can't expect any man to understand it when you say:"No, I don't want to have sex!")

Of course, in the US, even consensual sex with a child under 17 is considered "statutory rape", although I suspect that many American Republicans would agree with the German court that the case here does not meet the standards of "legitimate rape.

Judith Butler in Frankfurt: Anatomy of a Witch Hunt

The prestigious Theodor W. Adorno Prize is awarded every three years on September 11 by the City of Frankfurt to recognize outstanding achievement in philosophy, theater, music or film.  This year it was awarded to Berkeley professor Judith Butler. The choice ignited a firestorm of controversy - especially among Jewish organizations - because of Professor Buller's vocal opposition to Israel's policies in the occupied territories. 

Judith Butler is a Jewish feminist, but is demonized by the Israel Lobby in the US and Germany as a "Jew Hater" and "anti-Semite".  Recently, she answered these charges in detail in a piece published in Die Zeit. It is worth reading the entire article, but I'll just quote an excerpt here:

Meine Auffassung ist, dass Juden und Palästinenser einen Weg finden müssen, unter gleichen Bedingungen zusammenzuleben. Wie so viele andere sehne auch ich mich nach einem wirklich demokratischen Gemeinwesen in jenem Flecken Erde, und ich befürworte die Grundsätze der Selbstbestimmung und des Zusammenlebens für beide Völker, ja für alle Völker. Und ich wünsche mir, zusammen mit einer wachsenden Zahl von Juden und Nichtjuden, dass die Besetzung ein Ende findet, dass Gewalttätigkeiten jeder Art eingestellt werden und dass die wesentlichen politischen Rechte aller Völker in der Region durch eine neue politische Struktur garantiert werden.

(I firmly believe that Jews and Palestinians must find a way to life together under common conditions. Like many others I long for a truly democratic governance on that patch of earth, and I support the fundamental rights of self-determination and coexistence for both groups- indeed, for all people.  And along with a growing number of Jews and non-Jews I hope for an end to the occupation, and and end to violence of any kind and that the essential political  rights of all peoples in the region are guaranteed by a new political framework.)

This response has hardly satisfied Judith Butler's critics.  In fact, as Haaretz reports, the witch hunt continues: 

This witch hunt originates in a dangerous strand of American Jewry that has been assaulting freedom of expression even in American universities. An article in The Jerusalem Post by one such person opened with the idiotic sentence, "Judith Butler ... came to prominence as an anti-Israel agitator almost a decade ago."

As Haaretz writes, Judith Butler is continuing the tradition of Hannah Arendt, who criticized certain states for suspending the legal status of certain groups of its citizens:

Butler is coming to Frankfurt in Arendt's footsteps. As she wrote in another work, "Hannah Arendt was hardly brandishing weapons when she argued in the late 1940s and early 1950s against Israel as a state based on notions of Jewish sovereignty. She becomes now a resource for post-Zionism ... Arendt was perhaps in the 20th century the most avid secular Jewish critic of Zionism, and she was able to articulate reasons why she found the establishment of the state of Israel to be illegitimate without thereby calling for a war against that polity."

No doubt today Arendt would be demonized by the Israel Lobby as a "jew Hater" and "anti-Semite".

I cannot find the text of Judith Butler's acceptance speech she delivered in Frankfurt.  According to one report on the speech, Butler did not directly address the hateful criticism of her, but rather offered reflection on the famous sentence from Adorno's Minima Moralia :"Wrong life cannot be lived rightly" (Es gibt kein richtiges Leben im falschen). That in itself is a suitable rejoinder to those who distort Judith Butler's writing and promote an unjust system.

Open Letter of the German Auschwitz Committee

Perhaps no group is more alarmed by the increase in neo-Nazi terror and growing intolerance against "foreigners" in Germany than the survivors of the Holocaust.  Now the Auschwitz-Komitee der Bundesrepublik Deutschland has published an open letter (pdf warning)  to Chancellor Angela Merkel, President Christian Wulff and cabinet minister Kristina Schröder asserting that they have abdicated their responsibility to prosecute right-wing extremism in German society:

iIn großer Sorge wenden wir uns heute an Sie. Antisemitische, rassistische und neofaschistische Ideologie und Praxis finden Akzeptanz bis in die Mitte der Gesellschaft. Sie, die Regierenden, tragen Mitverantwortung an den "deutschen Zuständen" heute, an der Ökonomisierung des Denkens, an der Entsolidarisierung der Gesellschaft, und, daraus folgend, an der sozialen Spaltung, die Ängste schürt. Rassismus, Antisemitismus und Fremdenfeindlichkeit haben heute wieder Konjunktur in Deutschland.

(Deeply concerned, we turn to you today. Anti-Semitic, racist and neo-fascist ideology and practice are finding acceptance in the mainstream of society. You, our government leaders, bear responsibility for the "German situation" today, advancing the commodification of thought, the lack of solidarity of society, and, consequently, the social division, the fears. Racism, antisemitism and xenophobia in Germany are back in fashion today.)

What is especially grotesque is that some of the aging survivors of Hitler's death camps are themselves under surveillance for being "leftist extremists".  78-year old Ernst Grube survived Theresianstadt and has been active in labor and other progressive causes, but the Web site Bayern gegen Linksextremismus ("Bavaria against Left Extremism")  lists Herr Grube as a potentially dangerous radical.  Meanwhile, neo-Nazi organizations have been operating openly - often committing violent attacks on "foreigners" (mostly Africans and Muslims) - in Bavaria and other regions.

The committee singles out Kristina Schröder for special criticism, since the minister for family affairs has made the false equivalence of left-and right-wing extremism.  Since the reunification more than 120 people have been killed by right-wing violence, while none have a been victims of "left-wing violence".  Recently Frau Schröder called the mainstream socialist daily Neues Deutschland an "extremist" newspaper.  There has been no similar condemnation of the völkisch-national weekly Junge Freiheit, which routinely promotes bigotry against "foreigners" (Fremde) in Germany and advances historical revisionism (a recent piece whitewashed the notorious Feme-Morde ("Vigilante Murders") in the Weimer Republic). 

A Libertarian Four-Step Solution for Healthcare

                  Cross-posted at Daily Kos.

Hans-Hermann Hoppe is a German-born economist and writer.  He is considered the most important philosopher of the Libertarian movement today, and the leading theoretician of the "Austrian School" of economics.  He has written several books and his writings often appear on the Web site of Ludwig von Mises Institute along with the musings of Ron Paul and other Libertarians.

Recently, Professor Hoppe outlined his solutions for solving the healthcare crisis in the US.

Hans-Hermann Hoppe's Four-Step Healthcare Solution:

1. Eliminate all licensing requirements for medical schools, hospitals, pharmacies, and medical doctors and other health care personnel. Their supply would almost instantly increase, prices would fall, and a greater variety of health care services would appear on the market.

This recommendation will no doubt upset Dr. Ron Paul and his son - all that unnecessary time in medical school.

2. Eliminate all government restrictions on the production and sale of pharmaceutical products and medical devices. This means no more Food and Drug Administration, which presently hinders innovation and increases costs.

Eliminating the FDA has been a long-standing dream of the Tea Party and the Extreme Right. I can see this being adopted in the Republican Party Platform.

3. Deregulate the health insurance industry. Private enterprise can offer insurance against events over whose outcome the insured possesses no control. One cannot insure oneself against suicide or bankruptcy, for example, because it is in one’s own hands to bring these events about.

Music to the ears of the giant insurers which can now become total monopolies.

4. Eliminate all subsidies to the sick or unhealthy. Subsidies create more of whatever is being subsidized. Subsidies for the ill and diseased breed illness and disease, and promote carelessness, indigence, and dependency.

The is de facto eugenics, and is sure to appeal to the Republican crowd that cheered the prospect of letting an uninsured man die.

These recommendations by Professor Hoppe may sound completely crazy, but all he has done is take mainstream ideas espoused by the Right to their logical conclusion.

For anyone interested in learning more about Hans-Hermann Hoppe, you might be interested in my blog post: The (sick) mind of Hans-Hermann Hoppe

9/11 Truthers March on in Germany

Thank goodness the 10-year anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001 is  behind us.  Although I no longer live in New York, I am still a New Yorker at heart.  My sons were born just blocks away from Ground Zero in lower Manhattan.  For years I worked at 222 Broadway across the street from the Twin Towers and was knocked off my chair when the first bomb exploded in the 1993 WTC bombing.  The WTC attacks made me sick at heart; even worse was how the fear was manipulated in the ensuing years.  But New Yorkers could not be manipulated and for the most part have put the terrible events behind them, despite the best efforts of the Murdoch media empire. 

We certainly have 9/11 Truthers in the US, but they rarely make much noise, except at Ron Paul rallies.  But Truthers apparently abound in Germany, fueled by an irrational anti-Americanism.  In Karlsruhe 400 Truthers marched on Sept. 10 :

A "conference" on 9/11 Truther theories was also organized and over 150 people showed up.  The anti-American activist Jürgen Elsässer boasts on his blog: 

Trotz aller Medienpropaganda lassen sich die Kritiker der offiziellen 9/11-Theorie nicht zum Schweigen bringen. Auf zwei größeren Veranstaltungen mit derselben Stoßrichtungen formulierten sie zum 10. Jahrestag der Terroranschläge die offensichtlichen Zweifel an der Theorie von „Ali Osama und den 19 Räubern“.

(In spite of all the propaganda in the the media the critics of the official 9'11 thoery refuse to be silenced. Two separate large events with the same thrust voiced doubt about the theory of "Ali Osama the 19 thieves.")

9/11 Trutherism is a phenomenon of both the extreme Right and the extreme Left in Germany.  What unites them is a blind hatred of America. 

Thilo Sarrazin and Anders Behring Breivik: From Theory to Practice?

  Was the right-wing Norwegian terrorist Anders Behring Breivik a fan of best-selling author and provocateur Thilo Sarrazin?  Much is still not known about the man, but there was this report in the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern News: 

Nach Angaben einer norwegischen Tageszeitung vertrat der Mann auf seiner Facebook-Seite rechtsextreme Ansichten, allerdings wurde dieses Profil gelöscht. Anders Behring B. ist Mitglied einer norwegischen Freimaurer-Loge und offenbar ein Fan der Thesen von Thilo Sarrazin. Unter verschiedenen Pseudonymen soll er in diversen deutschen Blogs zum Thema Sarrazin gepostet und sie befürwortet haben. Nicht wenige deutsche Blogger haben B. in seinen extremen Ansichten bestärkt und motiviert: Man dürfe nicht nur diskutieren, sondern müsse Zeichen setzen. Darunter auch Kommentare wie: „tue es doch endlich“ oder „es wird Zeit“.

(According to a daily newspaper in Norway the man was espousing right-wing extremist views on his Facebook page, but this profile was deleted. Anders Behring B. is a member of a Norwegian Freemason Lodge and evidently a fan of the ideas os THilo Sarrazin.  Using various psydonymens he allegedly posted comments on German blogs concerning Sarrazin and iwas a supporter. Several German bloggers encouraged Breivik and his extreme views: one shouldn't just discuss, one needs to act. Other comments like "just do it finally" or "the time is now".)

To be fair to Sarrazin, Breivik never mentions Sarrazin once in his 1500-page manifesto 2083 A European Declaration of Independence (Warning! pdf).  However, the piece echoes many of the sentiments of Sarrazin's Deutschland schafft sich ab  (Germany Abolishes Itsefl) .  In fact, Breivik could have entitled his work Norwegen schafft sich ab since, like Sarrazin, he believes that "political correctness" among the European nations have enabled Muslim immigrants to grow, out-reproduce their German or Norwegian counterparts,  and exert influence - subverting Western Civilization and Germany's Leitkultur (guiding culture).    And large chunks of 2083 sound very much like the books of Henryk Broder, Udo Ulfkotte and Necla Kelek in the relentless attack on multiculturalism:

We must destroy multiculturalism; deconstruct it, delegitimise it, and acknowledge it as the Utopian self-destructive fantasy that it is. All cultures are not equivalent. Some cultures are better than others, and some are our enemies and some our friends. This is reasonable, rational thinking. The foundational concept of multiculturalism is that all cultures are of equal value and worth. This is inclusiveness, tolerance, and “niceness” taken to the extreme. This is anti-intellectualism and irrational thinking that will result in the entire loss of our civilisations. Multiculturalism must be destroyed and swept into the dustbin of absurdity where it belongs. (Breivik p.402) 

We can read stuff like this every day in Junge Freiheit and on other right-wing sites. Or in books like Hurra wir kapituliern or Vorsicht Bürgerkrieg! Anders Behring Breivik took the hate expressed in these books seriously and decided to act.

Ulfkotte: Turkish women's poor hygiene to blame for E.coli/EHEC outbreak

The writer and "Islam expert" Dr. Udo Ulfkotte has made a nice career for himself in Germany by spreading hate and fear against Muslims.  In a recent interview he fantasized about all the "living space" (Lebensraum) ethnic Germans could have if only they could conduct forced deportation of all the Turkish and Arab people living in Germany. No matter that nearly all of Dr. Ulfkotte's hateful diatribes are based on lies: he is a much sought-after guest for TV talk shows and discussion panels.

But even Dr. Ulfkotte may have outdone himself with his most recent piece on the right-wing Truther site of Kopp Verlag (with thanks to Politblogger). Germany is facing a health crisis due to vegetables tainted with E.coli. Naturally, Udo Ulfkotte seizes the opportunity for yet another attack on immigrants from Turkey:

Im »Erdbeerland« in Pottenstein und auf mindestens zehn weiteren Erdbeerplantagen erfand man den Hosenzwang, weil Türkinnen, die dort saisonal gearbeitet hatten, bei der Arbeit auf die Erdbeeren uriniert und zwischen den Pflanzen auch noch andere »größere Geschäfte« verrichtet hatten. ... Bestimmte Migranten haben eben völlig andere Vorstellungen von Hygiene und der Einhaltung von Hygiene-Richtlinien als wir Europäer.

(In the "strawberry region" in Pottenstein (Austria) and on at least ten other strawberry farms workers are required to wear pants because Turkish women who were working there seasonally were urinating on the strawberries and even defecating among the plants....Certain migrants have a completely different concepts of hygiene than we Europeans.)

Dr. Ulfkotte goes on to describe a "fecal Jihad" being waged by Muslims against Europeans.

Thus far, there is zero evidence that the E.coli outbreak has any connection with strawberries, much less strawberries from Austria.  Authorities believe rather that cucumbers from Spain may be to blame.  But don't look for a retraction or an apology from Dr. Udo Ulfkotte.  He has never once retracted any of the numerous lies he's published at Kopp Verlag or elsewhere. 

Again, Ulfkotte is free to publish whatever he wishes, even if it's mostly lies.  What concerns me is that he is viewed by the German media as an "expert" and frequently appears on German television.  They are lending to this fraud credibility he in no way deserves.