Less than a period ago I was banned from entering Germany.. erstwhile I asked the German authorities who made the decision, erstwhile and why I received the authoritative answer. It says that for reasons of national security, I will not get an authoritative answer to my question. Suddenly, I remembered the days of my childhood erstwhile I was 10 years old, and Germany seemed to be a safe refuge from authoritarian power.
Under fascist regime, colonels in Greece were not allowed to perceive to abroad radio stations. That's why all night around 9 my parents would hide under a red blanket with a tiny shortwave receiver and, with difficulty grasping the words among the noises and crackles, they would effort to perceive to a Greek broadcast from Deutsche Welle's German radio station. So in my boyish imagination there was a mythical land – “Germany”. My parents told me about it that it was a place that was friendly to “democrats”.
Many years later, in 2015, German media declared me an enemy of Germany. I felt profoundly affected due to the fact that it had nothing to do with the truth. What Minister of Finance of Greece opposed the manic stubbornness with which the German Government imposed strict force on all countries belt tightening policy. Not only because, in my opinion, this policy must have proved disastrous for most of my fellow Members in Greece, but besides due to the fact that in the long run it damaged the interests of most Germans. present the spectrum of deindustrialisation it is simply a long shadow on the German economy and seems to confirm my predictions.
In 2016, erstwhile we started the pan-European movement Diem25 and we wondered in which European capitals to inaugurate it, my choice fell on Berlin. In Berlin's Volksbühne Theatre I explainedWhy: "Nothing good can happen in Europe unless it starts in Berlin". For the same reason 3 years later symbolically I ran for European Parliament elections As a typical of the Diem25 movement, not in Greece (where I could easy get a mandate), but in Germany.
Having specified a long relation with the country of Goethe, Hegel and Brecht, I do not realize in any way why the centre-left German government prevented me from entering. Even the people closest to me can't explain how deep that shock is for me. The question of what it looks like under the law to refuse to answer my question about the justification of the ban, I leave it to my lawyers. I am besides putting aside concerns about my own safety erstwhile the German authorities are recklessly insinuating that I someway pose a threat to the national safety of their country. I do not want to enter into what this ban means for the full of the European Union, where freedom of movement and association have been fundamental values since its inception. I want to look for a deeper sense of the German authorities' decisions.
Direct an excuse to ban was the Palestinian legislature in Berlin, organized jointly by the German organization MERA25 (representing the Diem25 movement), many groups supporting Palestine and a German association called the judaic Movement for Righteous Peace. But this ban has been in the air for a long time.
Last November, Iris Hefets, a friend of mine and a associate of the judaic association, hosted in Berlin one-man protest. She walked alone, silently, carrying a poster that said: “I am a hebrew and a citizen of Israel. halt genocide in Gaza". What happened next? She was arrested on suspicion of anti-Semitism. shortly thereafter, funds were frozen in the bank account of her organization. The officials seem to have escaped the bitter irony – although the most appropriate feeling here is alternatively fear – that the German state confiscates judaic property and arrests peacefully demonstrating Jews in Berlin.
In preparation for the Palestinian Congress, a coalition of groups representing almost the full political spectrum of Germany (which besides included 2 leaders of my erstwhile comrades from the German left) did an different thing: she published together websitewhose sole intent was to condemn us and our initiative. Their charges?
First of all, it says about us that we "triviate" Hamas' terrorist attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. It did not convince them that we condemned, as war crimes, all acts of force against the civilian population regardless of who they were. They besides wanted us to condemn any opposition effort against the strategy that even erstwhile Mossad chief Tamir Pardo called an apartheid strategy designed to either banish Palestinians or forever trap in captivity.
They besides wrote about us that we are not “interested in discussing the anticipation of peaceful coexistence in the mediate East against the background of the war in Gaza”. Really? All participants of our legislature are demanding full equality between the political rights of Jews and Palestinians – and many of us, following the voice of the late Edward Said, are besides in favour of one common country as a solution to the conflict.
The accusations against us are so completely irrelevant, but the key question remains: how is it possible that almost the full German political class signed under this diatryb, thus preparing the ground for police repression that came shortly after? How could these people be silent while the police arrested Udi Raz (another judaic companion), broke up our conference and, yes, prohibited me not only from crossing the German border but besides distant participation online in any event held in Germany?
The answer most likely contains what Germany calls Staatsräson, his reason for the state: protecting the life of Jews and Israel's security. However, the fresh actions of the German state in no sense service the safety of Jews (not in the case of my friends Iris and Udi) or the Israeli state. The only thing Germany's policy presently protects is Israel's right to commit all the war crimes that its leaders will commit to make a two-state solution – which the German government allegedly supports – long impossible.
If I am right, there is something else behind the current political consensus in Germany. possibly the German political class thus demonstrates its attachment to the national truths of faith, which unite all believers in common will: Germany's strength is export, China is the base of German industry; Russia is simply a origin of inexpensive energy, and unconditional support for Israel is proof that a moral renewal has taken place in Germany.
When specified a creed is anchored in human convictions, any rational discussion with it becomes virtually impossible. And the fear of public condemnation for questioning these truths of religion explains the unanimity of the participants of the collective attack on those who dare to question them.
There's hope in all of this. They are young Germans who see piles of bodies piled up in Gaza, do not fear excommunication for rebellion Against the dogmas that endanger German democracy, undermine the regulation of law and insult sound sense. Therefore, despite the ban imposed on me by the German authorities, I do not lose religion in this country.
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Copyright: task Syndicate, 2024. www.project-syncicate.org. He translated Marek Jedliński from English.
