In its crackdown on pro-Palestine speech, Germany has normalized racism and state violence in a way that goes beyond any conflict abroad, reminding us this really is the country of the 1920s, again.
What makes things worse is that such posts critical of Germany’s and Europe’s stance on rights violations often come from accounts praising China, Russia, and other autocracies for their politics. This is the case also here.
This is a blatant ad hominem attack here. I’m a bit flabbergasted at this kind of unfounded vitriol and smear, presented in such a passive aggressive manner. What are your receipts?
a cheap propaganda piece published via Substack
Zeteo is a real new media organization, with “Mostly Factual” rating on MBFC, only because of the reviewer’s perception that it does “one-sided reporting that can sometimes lack opposing counterpoints”, without any failed fact checks in its history. Their choice of publishing platform is irrelevant: as far as I can see in the sidebar, [email protected] does not have a rule about Substack, this is not [email protected].
written by a person who runs a YT channel called “Mad in Germany.” This person has no idea what is going on in Germany.
Wrong: “James Jackson is a freelance reporter and broadcaster based in Berlin and covering news, business and culture in Germany and Central Eastern Europe for publications like the BBC, Sunday Times, Time Magazine and others. A former trainee at Deutsche Welle, he produced an award-winning documentary about the trans history of Berlin and is a Poland fellow of the International Journalist Programme.” That bio definitely does not scream “has no idea what is going on in Germany”. Source: https://www.madingermany.org/about
I don’t understand why such a post is not deleted.
So, first you call me a bootlicker of autocracies, then you ask for the post to be deleted. You are creating an extremely toxic discussion and at this point, I’m pretty sure you’ve broken Rule 3 of the community.
Beyond that, for what it’s worth: Your Ai Weiwei point also misses the point. A private magazine can decline to publish, but spiking a commissioned piece for its political content is still evidence of a chilling climate. The article’s core claims are about escalating repression, police violence at protests, and the narrowing of acceptable speech. These are contestable on facts, not on the author’s YouTube channel. If you think the claims are false, show counter-evidence on policing, on protest bans, on international warnings, and on the treatment of Palestine-solidarity voices.
Further, you are choosing to double down on your smear precisely in response to a comment where I very very clearly say “I agree, absolutely agree, that Germany has not crossed the line yet, but the line is getting closer, and pretending the raising of the alarm is the problem is exactly how democracies sleepwalk into disaster.”
Do you have anything to contribute beyond toxicity, smears and paranoia?
I don’t know about all the accusations of smearing etc. I can just say I live in Germany as well, a different part of it. I occasionally leave the house and mingle with people. And what can I say? I’m seeing different things than that journalist. Violence hasn’t been normalized here. In fact there’s always a big outcry and everyone hates it. We have ten times less of it than for example the US. Sometimes administration even does sane things. And we’re kind of proud that society still somewhat works out. And I don’t think state violence is on the rise either. You were never allowed to say some slogans here. I’ve been shoved around and nearly had a horse trample on my foot on some protest 20 years ago. That’s just how it is. My city has 2 cops to protect the jewish synagogue. I suppose you can’t do your Palestine protest there or do some grafitti. But other than that the protests happen and I don’t see more state violence than for example 20 years ago. So the premise of the article is pretty much the opposite of reality as I perceive it.
Idk, why? Am I wrong? Is reality wrong or do I need glasses? I’m not saying Germany is perfect btw. We have systemic issues. We’ve always had and have racism, inequality, police violence, criminals. And political discourse is getting uncomfortable these days. And the idiots are way louder than a few years ago.
And as a suggestion, maybe give some context if you’re a journalist. If you have a picture of a protester being arrested, tell your english-speaking audience they’re let go by police 5 minutes later. And in Germany it’s not like in the US where you’d be brought to jail and then maybe deported.
Look, like I repeated multiple times in this discussion, nobody is saying Germany is a totalitarian state. There are worrying signs. I get that in your immediate experience those might not be there. But lived experience is not a substitute for structural analysis. The article is not saying that they are pervasive, but that they are becoming more common and that’s alarming.
We are on the same side here: the side that wants Germany to be a free and democratic country. Sounding an alarm should not be cause for defensiveness but for vigilance.
I’m a dual EU-Canadian citizen. Canada is not an authoritarian country. However in the past few years, more and more, provincial governments are using a constitutional trick called the Notwithstanding Clause to push various political agendas without having to care about judicial oversight. If someone rings the alarm that this is an authoritarian tendency, a slippery slope that could fundamentally erode our rights as Canadians, should I start calling them anti-Canadian propagandists? Or should I take stock and weigh the danger and maybe use my position as a citizen of a democracy to make noise about it?
«The price of liberty is eternal vigilance» because democracies don’t fail overnight. They erode at the margins, starting with the people it is easiest to vilify. The time to speak up is not when repression becomes universal, but when it becomes noticeable at all.
This is a blatant ad hominem attack here. I’m a bit flabbergasted at this kind of unfounded vitriol and smear, presented in such a passive aggressive manner. What are your receipts?
Zeteo is a real new media organization, with “Mostly Factual” rating on MBFC, only because of the reviewer’s perception that it does “one-sided reporting that can sometimes lack opposing counterpoints”, without any failed fact checks in its history. Their choice of publishing platform is irrelevant: as far as I can see in the sidebar, [email protected] does not have a rule about Substack, this is not [email protected].
Wrong: “James Jackson is a freelance reporter and broadcaster based in Berlin and covering news, business and culture in Germany and Central Eastern Europe for publications like the BBC, Sunday Times, Time Magazine and others. A former trainee at Deutsche Welle, he produced an award-winning documentary about the trans history of Berlin and is a Poland fellow of the International Journalist Programme.” That bio definitely does not scream “has no idea what is going on in Germany”. Source: https://www.madingermany.org/about
So, first you call me a bootlicker of autocracies, then you ask for the post to be deleted. You are creating an extremely toxic discussion and at this point, I’m pretty sure you’ve broken Rule 3 of the community.
Beyond that, for what it’s worth: Your Ai Weiwei point also misses the point. A private magazine can decline to publish, but spiking a commissioned piece for its political content is still evidence of a chilling climate. The article’s core claims are about escalating repression, police violence at protests, and the narrowing of acceptable speech. These are contestable on facts, not on the author’s YouTube channel. If you think the claims are false, show counter-evidence on policing, on protest bans, on international warnings, and on the treatment of Palestine-solidarity voices.
Further, you are choosing to double down on your smear precisely in response to a comment where I very very clearly say “I agree, absolutely agree, that Germany has not crossed the line yet, but the line is getting closer, and pretending the raising of the alarm is the problem is exactly how democracies sleepwalk into disaster.”
Do you have anything to contribute beyond toxicity, smears and paranoia?
I don’t know about all the accusations of smearing etc. I can just say I live in Germany as well, a different part of it. I occasionally leave the house and mingle with people. And what can I say? I’m seeing different things than that journalist. Violence hasn’t been normalized here. In fact there’s always a big outcry and everyone hates it. We have ten times less of it than for example the US. Sometimes administration even does sane things. And we’re kind of proud that society still somewhat works out. And I don’t think state violence is on the rise either. You were never allowed to say some slogans here. I’ve been shoved around and nearly had a horse trample on my foot on some protest 20 years ago. That’s just how it is. My city has 2 cops to protect the jewish synagogue. I suppose you can’t do your Palestine protest there or do some grafitti. But other than that the protests happen and I don’t see more state violence than for example 20 years ago. So the premise of the article is pretty much the opposite of reality as I perceive it.
Idk, why? Am I wrong? Is reality wrong or do I need glasses? I’m not saying Germany is perfect btw. We have systemic issues. We’ve always had and have racism, inequality, police violence, criminals. And political discourse is getting uncomfortable these days. And the idiots are way louder than a few years ago.
And as a suggestion, maybe give some context if you’re a journalist. If you have a picture of a protester being arrested, tell your english-speaking audience they’re let go by police 5 minutes later. And in Germany it’s not like in the US where you’d be brought to jail and then maybe deported.
Look, like I repeated multiple times in this discussion, nobody is saying Germany is a totalitarian state. There are worrying signs. I get that in your immediate experience those might not be there. But lived experience is not a substitute for structural analysis. The article is not saying that they are pervasive, but that they are becoming more common and that’s alarming.
We are on the same side here: the side that wants Germany to be a free and democratic country. Sounding an alarm should not be cause for defensiveness but for vigilance.
I’m a dual EU-Canadian citizen. Canada is not an authoritarian country. However in the past few years, more and more, provincial governments are using a constitutional trick called the Notwithstanding Clause to push various political agendas without having to care about judicial oversight. If someone rings the alarm that this is an authoritarian tendency, a slippery slope that could fundamentally erode our rights as Canadians, should I start calling them anti-Canadian propagandists? Or should I take stock and weigh the danger and maybe use my position as a citizen of a democracy to make noise about it?
«The price of liberty is eternal vigilance» because democracies don’t fail overnight. They erode at the margins, starting with the people it is easiest to vilify. The time to speak up is not when repression becomes universal, but when it becomes noticeable at all.