Today at the CDU Party Meeting in Essen, Angela Merkel was re-elected as the head of the CDU. With 89.5% of the votes, Die Zeit is reporting that these aren’t great numbers. Interesting to note, however, is that Merkel’s numbers in 2004 were worse: at that time, she only received 88.4% of the votes. What I find …
Follow Frauke Petry @FraukePetry Es ist bezeichnend, wie berufsempörte etablierte Politiker und Journalisten eine demokratische Wahl als Apokalypse verkaufen.#USAWahl2016* 12:23 PM – 9 Nov 2016 651651 Retweets 1,5681,568 likes “It’s telling that establishment politicians and journalists are selling a democratic election as the apocalypse” Two days after the election, many in the United States and …
As a slow warm-up to getting this blog up to speed this fall, here’s a short video to test the absurdity of the climate we find ourselves living in. Chancellor Merkel’s utterances at this party meeting – which seem to be a clear indication that the CDU is feeling itself pushed to the right – …
One of the first posts I made to this blog was about the Center for Political Beauty, back then a fledgling performance art/activist organization which had undertaken several short-lived, performative events to raise awareness about refugee politics. In that post, I wondered about both the role of performance in political struggle and how long such …
There was a brilliant moment in one of the presidential debates between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama where Mr. Romney was trying to lambast President Obama for being out of touch with the needs of the American military. Mitt Romney had made an impressive showing in the first debate, and Obama seemed to need a …
There’s a lot going on, as always, in European politics. Germany has proposed an “integration law” to be enacted later this month. Lutz Bachmann has provisionally been found guilty of inciting the people, a verdict many thought would not materialize and which has yet to be enacted. Austria has elected a far-right chancellor after Werner …
AfD Party Meeting in Stuttgart Last weekend, the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD/Alternative for Germany) party met in Stuttgart for their first national party meeting. This meeting was the focus of much attention for several reasons. First, the AfD is a new party, so what they decide at this meeting will shape both the party platform …
Yesterday, in response to a flyer circulated in Arabic amongst the 12,000 people stranded in the Idomeni camp on the Greek/Macedonian border, hundreds of refugees attempted to storm the border fence erected on the Macedonian border. They were pushed back by tear gas and rubber bullets. According to Doctors without Borders, more than 260 were …
This morning, the following things happened in this order: PEGIDA shared a post by Vera Lengsfeld, CDU politician, which implied that Merkel was responsible for the attacks in Brussels due to her open-door policy. I shared this post, expressing concern for Lengsfeld’s Orbanization – i.e. the process by which those who were involved in the Peaceful …
On March 7, 2016, the EU Heads of State or Government met with Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu to discuss the deal reached with Turkey about ten days later. The EU Council has published an English press release of the plan here. The initial paragraphs of this plan are already disappointing, and illustrate how shortsighted the …
There are three events that are of massive importance right now in the interaction between right-wing populism, irregular migration and refugee rights. First, the EU and Turkey are proposing a “one-in-one-out” deal that will involve a bizarre rearrangement of refugees being returned to Turkey as those in Turkish camps then get passage to Europe. The …
There’s a German idiom that may also be similar in British English, but it’s one I’ve never heard Americanized: “Ich glaub’, ich bin im falschen Film.” Literally this means: I think I’m in the wrong movie. Figuratively, it means that something is out of place. Something went wrong, and you ended up on someone else’s movie …
In the two-party governance system of the United States, graphs like these may seem confusing: tagesthemen ✔ @tagesthemen #ARDDeutschlandtrend: #AfD gewinnt, Union verliert. Die Analyse und weitere Ergebnisse um 22.15 bei uns. 1:03 PM – 3 Feb 2016 The state news channel ARD tweeted the results of an election poll yesterday with six viable parties, …
The events on New Year’s Eve at the Cologne Central Train Station have been instrumentalized, politicized, criminalized, sensationalized and radicalized. The amount of attention paid to Cologne has also made the event itself a national metaphor. Depending on your political position, Cologne can stand in for right-wing arguments that Germany is being invaded by macho Muslim …
A number of Americans have asked me about the events in Cologne this past week. A number of Germans who live in America are reporting that their communities are increasingly divided and agitated about what is happening. The events on News Year’s Eve at the Cologne central train station are a global event, and #koelnhbf …
On December 14th, Angela Merkel gave an hour-long speech to members of her party the CDU. She’s been having quite a run, especially after being named TIME Magazine’s Person of the Year, and the speech has been widely covered by English-language media. The Washington Post published a piece with the title “Multiculturalism is a sham, …
North German Radio (NDR – a subsidiary of ARD) has started a new long-form narrative storytelling series they are promoting with the hashtag #EinMomentDerBleibt (A Moment Which Remains). In twenty to thirty minute videos, refugees to Germany – all shot standing or sitting next to a wooden chair against a white photostudio paper background – …
There is rhetoric in the United States that keeps insisting on making the comparison between Nazis and ISIS/Daesh. And as an American Germanist/Auslandsgermanist, I feel compelled to articulate why this comparison falls short. One of the most disturbing instances I have seen comes from a meme circulating on Facebook. Vice News notes that this image was tweeted …
In the days after the Paris attacks, as France bombs the Syrian city of Raqqa, and American politicians use this tragedy to further their own political campaigns; as family members are called to account not only for the death of their family members, but also for their inability to discern radicalism developing in their brothers, whom …
About four years ago, the Berliner Werkstatt der Kulturen hosted a reading by the editors and contributors of the encyclopedia project Wie Rassismus aus Wörtern spricht (How Racism Speaks through Words). The bar area of the theater and gallery was packed – people were sitting on the floor, or uncomfortably close on some of the seats and …
As I write this, PEGIDA is posting updates to their Facebook feed after today’s march to the Border Crossing E48 near Schirnding in Bavaria. My feed is clogged with their posts of images of people carrying long banners that say things like “Hand in Hand für unser Land” (Hand in Hand for our Country) and “Wir …
The most recent news developments in Germany – including the kidnapping and murder of a refugee child, the spray-painting of slurs on a Holocaust memorial to the Rroma victims, and a rather creepy demonstration of the AfD in Erfurt – make it clear that violence will accompany refugee politics into the winter. If there’s anything …
Some thoughts on adjectives, citizenship and the future. Content warning: This may ramble. There was an interesting two-page spread in the Feuilleton section of Die Zeit earlier this month (October 8, 2005). On the left-hand side was a full-page essay by Etienne Balibar, a well-known French philosopher. On the right was an interview conducted by two …
What constitutes a feminist refugee politics? This question is not new. But there are some particularities about the current crisis which demand that discussions of gender take a larger part in conversations than it has so far. Gender matters – it always matters. There are a couple of tropes that have been circulating which are …
Protests in Berlin Berliners have been demonstrating today against the conditions at a registration point for refugees in their city. Tim Lüddeman (@timluedde) tweeted this composite image and a link to photos of the demonstration for non-commercial purposes with the hashtag #EsReicht (Enough!) that was the slogan of the demonstration, along with #LeGeSo, the German abbreviation …
In July 2015, PEGIDA posted a link to a GoogleMap. The map was littered with the red balloons GoogleMaps uses to denote location. Each balloon denoted the site of a home for refugees or asylum seekers. Lutz Bachmann had already encouraged his followers to camp out in front of a home for asylum seekers in …
Bernd Ulrich, the main editor for Die Zeit‘s political pages, has written a beautiful essay in the October 7th edition of the paper. Despite my frequent blog posts and twitter and facebook accounts, I am an open Luddite who makes her students hand-write assignments and who has a paper subscription to Die Zeit. I also have an …
Günther Lachmann, author of the 2005 book Tödliche Toleranz (Deadly Tolerance) and journalist for WeltOnline, published an article today on his website geolitico.de an article entitled “The Goal is a Different Germany.” In this article, Lachmann exams the refugee crisis from a perspective that exemplifies the positions of the “bourgeois” right-wing; the employed, well-educated right-wing …
On October 7th, 34 (male) CDU politicians issued a public letter criticizing Angela Merkel for her refugee politics. This letter lists suggestions for handling the refugee crisis as well as articulates frustration with the Chancellor as a representative of their party who no longer seems to adhere to the political mission of the CDU nor to European …
I don’t usually post something here twice in one day, but 34 CDU politicians have issued a letter to Merkel against the “policy of open borders.” If you speak German, take a look here. Commentary to follow. Tweet
Tagesspiegel7.Okt.15 German news media have been having a rough week when it comes to images. Der Tagesspiegel printed a rather unfortunate front page with an image of Adolf Hitler (played by an actor for the upcoming film version of Timur Vermes’ novel Look who’s back) above a title about Merkel’s decision to make the head …
On Sunday, the Day of German Unity, the German radio station Deutschlandfunk (similar to NPR) broadcast an interview with Chancellor Angela Merkel in which she stated that she would reject the changes proposed by the CSU which hoped to reform asylum law. This statement, although coded, made headlines in the FAZ , on n-tv, in the SZ, and in video form at …
The team from the Center for Political Beauty has posted pictures to their Facebook site showing a successfully installed rescue platform in the Mediterranean. https://www.facebook.com/politische.schoenheit/posts/881002485288137 Tweet
October 3rd is a national holiday in Germany celebrating the reunification between the Federal Republic (West) and the German Democratic Republic (East) in 1990. Today marks the 25th anniversary of reunification. Germans celebrate today by watching documentaries about divided Germany, visiting concerts and listening to speeches held around the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. According to Berlin Police, …
The Zentrum für Politische Schönheit is, by far, one of the most visible groups doing performance work with high media impact. This summer, as a tribute to those who die crossing the Mediterranean hoping to reach Europe, they dug up the grass on the lawn in front of the Bundeskanzleramt (the Office of the Federal …
Lutz Bachmann, after a delay of several months, has finally been charged by Dresden prosecutors for inciting hatred. After last Monday’s PEGIDA demonstration, an individual also filed a complaint for the same charge. Volksverhetzung and the legal paragraphs defining it include a paragraph against justifying the foundations and actions of Nazi totalitarianism, which is apparently seen …