BEWARE OF LEADER FIGURES. Extinction Rebellion
By Bettina Dyttrich[This article published on 11/28/2019 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://www.woz.ch/1948/extinction-rebellion/huetet-euch-vor-fuehrerfiguren .]
The Briton Roger Hallam, co-founder of the climate movement Extinction Rebellion (XR), has described the Holocaust as "just another fuckery in human history". Genocide is "almost a normal event," he said in an interview with the German weekly newspaper Die Zeit. Many, including many XR activists, react indignantly, Ullstein-Verlag has withdrawn the planned book by the British. Hallam's statements are stupid and selfish: he forces all XR activists to behave accordingly and gives those who consider the climate movement to be hysterical a reason for malice.
Roger Hallam is not just one XR activist among thousands of others. The problem lies in the structure of the movement: A small group from Great Britain founded XR last year. Hallam and his comrades-in-arms were known by name from the beginning and sought contact with the media. Because many people feel the need to be active in climate policy, XR has grown very rapidly and has reached a broad public. The groups in the different countries adopt the logo, principles, and sometimes communiqués, speeches and videos of the founding group without knowing its members personally. That's practical, because it's fast. But in the end it is a top-down approach. And above all: Those who call themselves XR automatically make themselves jointly responsible for what the founding group says and does.
Many left-wing basic movements reject leader figures. This is sometimes impractical for the media. But the distrust is justified - this is shown by the example of Roger Hallam.
The German left has been debating XR for months now. The movement appears in its appearance like an end-time sect, so a frequently voiced criticism. And it idealises arrest as a political means - without thinking that arrests could be dangerous and traumatic, especially for people who do not belong to the white middle class. It is to be hoped that the climate movement will emerge stronger from these controversies. It is too important to quarrel.
THE CHILDREN OF THE CRISIS. Protest Movements
From Beirut and Hong Kong to Port-au-Prince, Santiago de Chile or Baghdad: Millions of people have been taking to the streets for months for more respect and dignity. Are we experiencing a global revolt? An attempt to explain.
By Anna Jikhareva[This article published on 11/14/2019 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://www.woz.ch/1946/protestbewegungen/die-kinder-der-krise.]
No matter what the local context is, the worldwide protests unite more than it seems at first: scene at a demonstration in Hong Kong.
Photo: Kim Kyung-Hoon, Reuters"If I can't dance, it's not my revolution," the great anarchist Emma Goldman is said to have once said. Everywhere in the world they seem to be following their credo. In Beirut, people shoot pirouettes in the squares of the city and intonate Beethoven's 9th Symphony. In Hong Kong, they immediately dedicate their own anthem to their protest. And in Santiago de Chile, with the freedom song "El pueblo unido" and the pieces of Victor Jara, murdered by the military, the music of past revolts resounds. The social media contribute their share: They transport the uprising in real time to their homes.
For months, millions have been taking to the streets in dozens of countries and on all continents against the rulers. It all started with the yellow vests in France, which are already celebrating their first anniversary this week. As in Ecuador or Haiti, their protest was ignited by the increase in fuel prices. In Chile, increased prices for public transport were the decisive factor, in Sudan it was about staple foods and in Lebanon it was about the introduction of a tax on short news services.
The social question is back
In Zimbabwe and Algeria, in Egypt and Iraq, however, people are also rebelling against those in power who have distributed all their wealth among themselves. They call on elites to fight, who see the state as their property and therefore take corruption for granted. In Moscow, Barcelona and Hong Kong, on the other hand, they oppose authoritarian structures or the perversion of democracy and demand more codetermination, respect and dignity.
So there is a fire all over the world. But can the revolts even be compared? What do they have in common, what distinguishes them? And why is rage breaking new ground right now?
As diverse as the triggers of the protests may be, as different the local context may be - it unites them more than it seems at first glance. There is, for example, the influence that
movements have on each other, the way in which they fertilize each other and network via the social media. In Barcelona, activists are inspired by their march to Hong Kong airport, adopting hand signals and strategies - in Hong Kong, they wave Catalan flags as a sign of solidarity. "People are watching closely what is happening in other countries. When a concrete occasion arises, they try out what they have seen elsewhere," says Jannis Grimm, who investigates the Arab world at the Berlin Institute for Protest and Movement Research (IPB).
And there is also the brutal repression with which the rulers react to the displeasure of the population. The police use tear gas and rubber bullets, barricades are built and set on fire, street battles are part of everyday life. In some places the military even marches up against peaceful demonstrators. This week in Hong Kong, for example, the situation escalated when a policeman shot a young man and injured him, not for the first time. Also in France or Moscow the blatant police violence gave rise to talk.
But the protests also have something else in common: they are an expression of rebellion against a world in crisis - and against an economic system that makes a few rich, but makes all the more people desperate at the end of the month. In other words, the protests bring the social question back onto the public agenda with a vehemence.
"No Future" taken literally
"We are experiencing a wave of social protests of global proportions," says historian Boris Kanzleiter, who heads the foreign department of the German Rosa Luxemburg Foundation. The unifying element of the uprisings is the economic context in which they take place: While the prices of raw materials would continue to fall, government debt would rise. This means that less money ends up in the coffers - and correspondingly less with the population. In addition, there would be ever-increasing inequality and evershrinking cuts in the social sphere, a weakening economy and the looming economic crisis. "A generation is taking to the streets that is angry because it knows about its limited future prospects," says Kanzleiter.
At the end of the 1970s, the punk band Sex Pistols rejected the British elites and their false promises of prosperity with its slogan "No Future". Today many must take the saying literally. "Many young people no longer trust the political decision-making system to find solutions to ubiquitous problems such as climate change and inequality," believes political scientist Grimm. This basic feeling connects the protests in Iraq or Lebanon with movements such as the Climate Youth or the Extinction Rebellion.
According to experts, there have not been as many uprisings since the 1960s as in the last decade. But if you look at the uprisings of the last few months, you'll notice a wave of protest: the so-called Arab Spring and the occupations of squares from 2011 to 2013 - on the Syntagma in Athens, the Tahrir in Cairo and the Plaza del Sol in Madrid, at Occupy Wall Street in New York or in Istanbul's Gezipark.
Today, the tactics of the past are being reproduced, slogans like the famous "bread, freedom, social justice" are being revived. Today, as then, the movements are heterogeneous: Students and workers, pupils and the middle class. In some countries trade unions get involved, in others confessional borders are blown up. "As in 2011, the protests are very spontaneous and politically unclear," says Kanzleiter. And Jannis Grimm from the IPB has another thing in common: the absence of leaders. This makes it more difficult for those in power to weaken the movement by arresting individuals.
Twenty years ago, the "Battle of Seattle" against the WTO heralded a cycle of left-wing anti-globalization protests carried by social movements. The Arab Spring and the occupation of squares were mass phenomena - and a reaction to the austerity policy after the 2008 financial crisis. Today, those who have inherited the consequences of the collapsed economic order and have grown up with the mantra of alternativeism are taking to the streets.
Little to lose
Around forty percent of the world's population is under the age of 24. For many of these young people, precarious working conditions are the rule - and neoliberal "reforms" that result in nothing but social cuts. All the more fitting is the slogan that the demonstrators are shouting in Chile, the OECD country with the greatest inequality: "It's not about thirty pesos, but about thirty years". They believe that they don't owe the rulers anything, but vice versa. This makes it increasingly difficult for them to justify their rule.
Meanwhile, the years of crisis have also produced another phenomenon: In the USA Donald Trump was elected president, in Brazil the right-wing extremist Jair Bolsonaro. And in many European countries right-wing populism began its triumphal march. As in the climate and women's movements, Boris Kanzleiter sees the current protests as a counter-accent to this authoritarian wave.
The millions on the streets have achieved a lot. In Lebanon, Prime Minister Saad alHariri announced his resignation at the end of October, and in Chile the government has just promised a new constitution. The demonstrators, however, will not be appeased by these concessions; their radicalism is also fuelled by the fact that they have little to lose. "The question is whether the protests can continue," Boris Kanzleiter said, "so that new social movements can emerge that are longer-term in nature. And Jannis Grimm says: "Something has started to move that can no longer be captured". This would also be recognized by those in power who are currently still firmly in the saddle.
WITH THE FOUR GOSPELS AGAINST EVO MORALES. Coup d’etat in Bolivia
In Bolivia, racist and ultra-religious forces have come to power. The mere fact that this is not clearly stated is alarming. A guest commentary.
By Tomás Bartoletti[This article published on 11/21/2019 is translated from the German on the Internet,
Evo Morales has been in exile in Mexico since 12 November. The indigenous politician, who ruled Bolivia for fourteen years, resigned at the "suggestion" of the military to protect himself, his family and the members of his MAS (Movimiento al Socialismo) party. Nevertheless, his house was destroyed and that of his sister burned down.
Only hours later, the opposition senator Jeanine Áñez proclaimed herself the new "president" - in front of a parliament in which only a few parliamentarians, but all the more military, were present. When Áñez later appeared before the press, she had herself photographed with a huge book entitled "The Four Gospels" in her hand. The pictures went around the world.
Applause from the USA
The same symbolism was used by the bourgeois opposition leader of Santa Cruz, Fernando Camacho, when he knelt down in the government palace with the Bolivian flag and a Bible in his hand. Bolivia is Christian and the Pachamama, the symbol of the indigenous worldview, will never return to the palace, Camacho told the press.
Meanwhile, outside in the squares, the colorful Wiphala flags that have represented the idea of a "plurinational democracy" since Evo Morales took office, in which indigenous people are recognized as full citizens, were burned, and policemen tore the same flag from their uniforms. The White House in Washington described this as an "important moment for democracy"; the US applauded the Bolivian army, President Donald Trump said.
Meanwhile, demonstrations for the president are taking place in exile all over Bolivia - in the shadow of army planes in the sky. While many people were killed by the military during the ongoing riots, self-proclaimed President Áñez signed a decree "exempting the police and army from criminal responsibility".
The events in Bolivia triggered a debate throughout Latin America - and beyond: Is what happened there a coup or not? The mere fact that this question is being debated is alarming. If, in the case of Bolivia, we are not able to state clearly and unequivocally that it is indeed a coup, we will have to rewrite all the history books of the 20th century. It is urgently necessary to maintain the consensus that stood at the end of the experiences with
the Latin American dictatorships of the 20th century and state terrorism: "Nunca más"never again coup, never again human rights crimes.
In the socio-historical context of Latin America, it is not only significant that the military "proposed" the resignation of a president who was the first peasant-indigenous president after more than 500 years of colonial rule and rule by the white elites - in a country with around seventy percent of the indigenous population - to a president of all people. It is also noteworthy that opposition leaders now refer precisely to the historical insignia of 16th- and 17th-century colonial Christianization.
Morales changed the constitution to allow a third term in office, and the electoral process presumably contained irregularities that challenged its legitimacy. But the opposition did not act out of democratic conviction: The white elites are not concerned with defending republican institutions - they are concerned with protecting the privileges they have acquired since colonial times. These are precisely the privileges that Evo Morales' social and redistributive policies (which, however, took little account of nature) have significantly diminished. Why should the same white elite suddenly defend democracy now when it is the same elite that is linked to the conservative church and the military and that supported the previous coups in the 20th century?
Economically, the past fourteen years under Morales have been the most successful in Bolivia's history. The country is one of the fastest developing on the continent. From a cultural point of view, the plurality of the population was recognised for the first time. And with its social policy, the government has brought more than three million Bolivians out of poverty and reduced illiteracy to a minimum.
Bolivia has one of the world's largest reserves of lithium - the light metal is an essential component in the production of batteries. There is great international interest in it, not only from China and the USA, but also from Germany. What can be observed in Bolivia is a struggle for profit from natural resources. As in colonial times, when the gold and silver mines in the city of Potosí in the south of the country were exploited, wealth is to flow back into the hands of the white elite and their allies on a global level.
Today, this colonialist anchorage and its racist matrix are supplemented by a version of Christianity that no longer refers to the Vatican. New Evangelical churches, often of North American origin, are spreading in the region.
The image of the self-proclaimed president Áñez with the "Four Gospels" in his hand and that of opposition leader Fernando Camacho, who is rushing against the Pachamama in the name of Christ, testify to the advance of radical sectarian groups with strong economic power and networks reaching into the USA. The political influence of this evangelization can also be seen in other countries, such as Brazil. What now happened in Bolivia is a demonstration of its power. Racism was never gone
The fact that the "Nunca más" consensus is being called into question shows that racist and anti-democratic forces are reviving again and again in Latin America. Of course, racism and fascism have never ceased to exist - they have only taken other forms.
As in Brazil, for example, where the democratically elected government under right-wing extremist Jair Bolsonaro is using racist violence, persecuting opposition leaders and threatening the indigenous population. Or, as in Chile, where repression has continued uninterruptedly for weeks, in the name of democracy - and in violation of all international human rights treaties.
In Bolivia, on the other hand, we are obviously witnessing a civil-military coup, accompanied by radical evangelical tones. The appearance of this coup is very classic. So classic and archaic that its protagonists, with the Bible in their hands, chase an indigenous out of the country.
The Argentinian Tomás Bartoletti is a historian at ETH Zurich and an associate member of the Swiss School of Latin American Studies and the Latin America Centre of the University of Zurich.
THE ELITE WANTS THEIR POWER BACK. Putsch in Bolivia
By Toni Keppeler[This article published on 11/14/2019 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://www.woz.ch/1946/putsch-in-bolivien/die-elite-will-ihre-macht-zurueck.]
One may accuse Evo Morales of political errors and vanities. For example, that he disregarded a referendum that prohibited him from being re-elected president of Bolivia for the third time. Or that, according to the observers of the Organization of American States (OAS), the electoral authority occupied with his supporters tricked in this election. Does this justify a coup? After all, Morales accepted the OAS observers' verdict and called for a re-run of the October 20 election.
It did him no good. After fierce protests on the streets, the military threatened him, Morales resigned and went into exile in Mexico. Not a nice departure, but at least one that prevented bloodshed.
The fact that left-wing Latin American presidents from Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua to the late Hugo Chávez in Venezuela to Morales tend to consider themselves irreplaceable is not only a personal problem, it is a structural problem. All these men won their elections with votes that also came from beyond the left spectrum. They achieved this by addressing the many unsatisfied needs of the majority population of these socially extremely unequal countries and linking them to themselves. They have no programme, they are the programme. That makes it difficult to replace them. Morales has not even
tried. But even that does not justify a coup d'état, and there was no doubt that there was one last weekend in Bolivia.
Of course, no tanks rolled through the streets of La Paz, no radio and television stations were occupied by soldiers, no junta of generals ruled. This kind of coup is a thing of the past and took place last June ten years ago in Honduras. But even there, the military retreated into the background after kidnapping left-wing president Manuel Zelaya and bringing the old right-wing elite back to power.
Then came the legalistically camouflaged coups d'état with the impeachment of President Fernando Lugo in Paraguay in 2012 and of Dilma Rousseff in Brazil in 2016. The result was always the same: the white, rich upper class, displaced by the left, came back to power. Even in the bloody military dictatorships of the 1970s and 1980s, the generals did not rule, or not only ruled for themselves. Men like Chilean President Sebastián Piñera and Argentina's head of state Mauricio Macri became billionaires under their protection from millionaires.
That is what Bolivia is all about now. The small, white and rich elite there is particularly right-wing and racist. It has never been able to overcome the fact that an indigenous man, who as a child had been guarding llamas, has become president of a country that it regards as its own. She has never overlooked the fact that Morales has nationalised the mineral resources and, with the profits from them, has set up social programmes for the poor indigenous majority. She does not want to accept that he has placed indigenous languages, culture and jurisdiction on an equal footing with the descendants of the colonialists. In the early years of Evo Morales' presidency, it tried to divide the state into a rich white lowlands and a poor indigenous highlands. Now it is using the anger over Morales to reach for power, and the military is at the disposal of this dirty game.
Only Evo Morales' greatest merit can prevent this: In the thirteen years of his presidency, Bolivia's indigenous majority, previously condemned to submissive servitude, has gained political self-confidence. It has understood: Indigenous people can also govern, and they can probably do better than the rich whites. If the Quechua and Aymara take this selfconfidence to the streets, the unrest in Bolivia will continue for a long time to come.
BOLIVIA. WAS THERE A COUP?
by Pablo Solón[This article published in November 2019 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://www.sozonline.de/2019/11/bolivien/.]
Evo Morales could have ended his third term in office on January 22, 2020 as a very popular president and had the opportunity to run again in 2024 and possibly even win, he would not have forced his re-election for a fourth term.
As president of Bolivia, he did not respect the 2016 referendum, in which people voted against his re-election, and he urged the Constitutional Court to overturn those parts of the constitution that say a person can only be re-elected once. He also cheated in the October 20 elections to avoid a runoff election and to force the majority of his party in parliament.
The government has declared itself the winner despite serious irregularities. The rapid counting of votes was inexplicably stopped on the day of the election. The company responsible for the rapid count announced that an order had come from the head of the highest electoral authority and that electricity and the Internet had been shut down so that they could not continue their work. Independent analysts and the University of La Paz revealed various inconsistencies in the election and the company responsible for election supervision declared that due to a number of causes the whole process was "viciado de nulidad" (corrupt and null and void) and the election supervisors stated that they could not validate the election results.
The government tried to dismiss the displeasure caused by the electoral fraud. Evo Morales claimed that the young protesters had been bribed with money and good marks and didn't even know how to make a blockade - he even offered blockade workshops. As there were more and more strikes in all cities, he resorted to intimidating tactics and gave his supporters the green light to besiege the cities to see "if they hold out. The confrontations and violence provoked deaths and hundreds of injuries. The blockades and strikes did not end, they became more radical.
The government pretended that the mobilization was a fascist and racist coup d'état. In fact, parts of the reactionary right have celebrated the protests. In Santa Cruz, Luis Fernando Camacho, head of the Citizens' Committee, belongs to an ultra-right organization called the Union of Cruceño. In other cities, however, there were quite different articulations by independent groups and right-wing and left-wing politicians leading these protests. In Potosi, the government opposition was radicalized before the elections, when a treaty was signed that allowed lithium to be extracted from the Uyuni plains - without paying taxes - for a period of 70 years. In La Paz, two ombudsmen are members of the National Committee for the Defense of Democracy, who served under the Morales government and denounced human rights violations such as the repression of the Tipnis Native March in 2011. Carlos Mesa, vice-president of the neoliberal government of Sanchez de Lozada and main opponent of Evo Morales, has no party
structure behind him and was more a vehicle for the opposition than an organizer of protests. The protests in Bolivia are largely spontaneous and dominated by young people fighting against the abuse of power.
There are indigenous people and workers in the government and opposition. The government has significantly more support in rural areas, but the opposition also includes yungas coca producers, farm workers, miners and health and education workers, and especially young students, both middle class and working class. Unlike previous conflicts, it was the government that intensified racism by claiming that the protesters were trying to take away the indigenous rural voters who voted for the government.
During the conflict there were racist attacks from both sides. The burning of the Wiphala, the flag of the indigenous peoples of Aymaran and Quechuan, is inexcusable. At the same time, you can see on the social media that there are protest groups that condemn these attacks and defend the Wiphala.
The police initially defended groups loyal to the government that attacked the blockades. The most impressive incident was in Cochabamba, where there were violent confrontations between young people and the police. To guarantee their support, Evo Morales' government offered a bonus of 3000 Bolivianos (431 US dollars). After days of confrontation with the population, the police mutinied. This decision was not made by the police superiors but by the lower ranks. The government tried to negotiate with the police, changing some of the police.
THE UNITED STATES IS HEADING FOR WAR.
Calculated intensification of conflicts by
Mohssen Massarrat*[This article published in November 2019 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://www.sozonline.de/2019/10/die-usa-steuern-auf-einen-krieg-zu/.]
Following the recent air raids on oil facilities in Saudi Arabia, the Trump government has imposed sanctions on the Iranian central bank and the country's sovereign wealth fund for alleged financing of terrorist activities.
"We have now cut off all Iran's sources of income," boasted Finance Minister Steven Mnuchin. His ministry said all governments should be aware that they risk the "integrity of their financial system" if they continue to work with the central bank. Any sanction is about aggravating the conflict as desired by the American proponents of war. There is no concrete reason for the US to come any closer to war; there is a politicalstrategic reason.
It is true that the political leadership in the USA repeatedly asserts that it does not want war. It could not mediate that either. In all wars, the US leadership has always said that it does not want war, but it must tame a danger. Under Saddam Hussein that was the danger
of nuclear proliferation. In the case of Iran, it is the assertion that the United States will not allow Iran to acquire the atomic bomb under any circumstances.
The US is no longer the number one world power in economic terms, but it dominates in three important sectors: the financial sector, the military industrial complex, fossil energies - the latter under the control of the US leadership worldwide. The neoconservative direction is to prevent the USA from losing its dominance in the world, especially as new world powers are coming. China as a new world power threatens the position of the USA. But above all, the USA wants to protect its main economic instrument for controlling the world economy, namely the dollar, as a world currency and secure its supremacy. According to neo-conservative experts and politicians, control over the world's fossil energy resources must remain in US hands. This endeavor is associated with wars, with the interest in removing obstacles by means of war. The withdrawal from the nuclear agreement is intended to provide the pretext for weakening Iran - a power that in the long term could disrupt the interests of the USA in the energy sector, in the currency sector through cooperation with China and Russia - and possibly even through war. This step can be read very well from the policies of the neoconservatives over the last twenty years.
The Europeans do not really oppose this. The USA is no longer the world's number one economic power and not competitive in many areas. But after the wars they have built up structures - and in the last 20 years, under the policies of the neoconservatives, they have once again significantly strengthened them - that have turned the US allies into semicolonies.
In many respects, the EU is completely dependent on the US in political, military and energy policy terms, although it is economically stronger. The EU is under the nuclear shield of the USA. Germany, the Netherlands, and ultimately also the two nuclear powers France and Great Britain cannot defend themselves against a potential nuclear aggression by Russia without the military, the nuclear shield of the USA, purely theoretically. This is the scenario that is thought of militarily strategically. The Russian Federation has significantly more nuclear potential. So the Europeans say, and this is also being persuaded to them by the Americans, that they need the nuclear shield of the USA. They have become dependent. The EU cannot simply pursue its own foreign policy.
The same applies to energy supply. All transport routes and all fossil energy sources are under US control. And that is how it should remain, especially because in this way the USA can keep telling its allies in Europe, and also in Japan: Your energy security depends on us having the roads and sources under control and ensuring that the oil and gas flows from the Middle East, but also from Latin America.
Europeans do indeed feel dependent. They do not say so, but they act accordingly. And that ultimately means inability to act against states such as Iran. They are not in a position to save the nuclear agreement that they have signed, even though they are defending it. But they cannot ensure that Iran can bypass the US sanctions.
This is where the third factor, the US currency, comes in. The European economy, especially the financial sector, is also totally dependent on the dollar. And this dependence will continue as long as the dollar is strong enough. . At this point we again have the connection with fossil energies. Because the dollar is the currency basis for oil trading.
Iran is a factor of uncertainty here. Together with China and Russia it would possibly undermine dollar stability. That is why the USA has an interest in weakening Iran. This strategy ultimately includes war.
With its withdrawal from the nuclear agreement, the USA has once again committed a breach of law. Unfortunately, in recent years in particular, they have greatly lowered the inhibition threshold for repeatedly violating international law, in such a way that this is not noticeable at all in Europe. The German media does not even address this issue, nor does the USA weaken the UN institutions and undermine their function in this way, although this is a catastrophe for the world order if a power permanently breaks the law. This means normalization of the breach of law. Then other states that are in a position to do so, e.g. China or Russia, can also break international law. Then, in principle, we will have a world without the UN. But the UN is the result of the Second World War and an achievement of civilization for the construction of a world order based on law.
We are witnessing the gradual collapse of this order with regard to protective missions for the Strait of Hormus. In Europe there is unrestrained debate in the media about whether the EU should not now also send its own navy to the Gulf region in order to protect the free oil trade. There is little or no discussion of the possibilities for the UN to protect the Strait of Hormus in accordance with international law. That would be quite possible. The UN Security Council can adopt a resolution on this. But this discussion does not take place at all in Germany, for example. This is worrying, because it shows that in principle international law is no longer recognized, no longer seen, because of its permanent violations by the USA.
If the sanctions are further tightened, a big dilemma begins. The Iranian Government sees this as a provocation. The Iranian government is forced to react. And its reaction cannot be any different than to gradually withdraw from the nuclear agreement. It is precisely this situation that the war-driving camp in the US leadership is heading for. They want the conflict to escalate to the point where Iran also appears to be the perpetrator in the end. Then the next phase of propaganda against Iran can begin - and with it another step towards a warlike escalation.
I am very pessimistic. I hope, though, that the sanctions will also teach the Iranian Government a lesson. The Iranian economy is vulnerable because it is heavily dependent on imports and relies only on a very weak national production base. It should strengthen national production and reduce its dependence on oil revenues. It is not enough for it to refer only to sanctions.
The author is emeritus professor at the University of Osnabrück with a research focus on the Middle East, energy, peace and conflict research, and the NorthSouth conflict. The article is based on the interview Pars Today conducted with the author on September 4; parstoday.com.
“RULE OF WRONG”
How legal terms become political combat terms
by Paul B. Kleiser[This article published in October 2019 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://www.sozonline.de/2019/10/herrschaft-des-unrechts/.]
Stephan Detjen, Maximilian Steinbeis: The sorcerer's apprentices. The dispute over refugee policy and the myth of a breach of the law. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 2019. 263 p., 18 Euro
After the massive influx of refugees from Syria and the benevolent reception in many cities ("welcome culture"), various currents of the political right wanted to put an end to this development and combat the alleged "opening of borders".
One of the main agitators was the then Bavarian Prime Minister Horst Seehofer, who gave a inflammatory speech at the Political Ash Wednesday in Passau in spring 2016, in which he imagined the "rule of injustice".
Now Seehofer is a legal thin-board drill. The term "Rumpelstielzchen" was coined by Ulrich Vosgerau, a Cologne-based narrow gauge lawyer who used it in December 2015 in an article in the (meanwhile received) magazine Cicero. In the professional world, the author is regarded as an "eccentric and ideologically overexcited outsider". But in addition to Seehofer, Wolfgang Bosbach and other CDU members also picked him up. And of course the AfD was happy about such a steep draft.
Historically, the term "injustice state" was used for the Nazi regime after the war; after the annexation of the GDR, some also took it over for the GDR and the SED regime (cf. SoZ 12/2014). In November 2015 Seehofer raised the demand for an "upper limit" for the entry of refugees at the CSU party conference - Merkel stood next to him like a pupil who had been watered with water and had not done her homework.
In their book Die Zauberlehrlinge, the two legally educated authors Stephan Detjen and Maximilian Steinbeis show how legal concepts become political battle concepts and which lawyers prostitute themselves for party-political interests. They also trace the discussion processes of political decision-makers and analyze the intertwining of national and European law. They also describe various meetings and publications of reactionary
jurists who see German sovereignty threatened in the logic of the Nazi crown jurist Carl Schmitt and call for energetic measures to restore it.
Schmitt's conception assumes a friend-foe polarization, but where was the enemy in the case of the refugees? For Professor Otto Depenheuer from Cologne, they were "enemies" precisely because they asserted rights in Germany. This shyster has probably never heard of human rights before. One can only wonder to what acrobatic legal exercises - which the book quotes in detail - some professors got carried away with.
First of all, the authors of the book reject the repeated assertion that Merkel "opened the borders". This is complete nonsense in view of the Schengen agreements and their rules on freedom of movement. A closure of the borders, as demanded by the head of the Federal Police, Dieter Romann, and discussed at the political level, could only have been achieved with massive force. That was clear to everyone involved. The hardliner Romann wanted to accept such things ("secure borders above all"). Politicians quickly realized that such an approach would have had devastating consequences for the international reputation of the Federal Republic. At first, border controls were to be carried out again, as had been organized for the G7 summit in Ellmau (Bavaria) for a few days. But with thousands of refugees, even the German bureaucracy failed.
Some lawyers declared that a rejection of refugees at the border was a violation of the Dublin Agreement. During the Ellmau Days, too, asylum seekers were allowed into the country to decide on their applications later.
Discussions then began as to whether an upper limit now demanded by the CSU would be permissible and legally enforceable. This was about §18 of the asylum law, which stipulates that an applicant "is to be refused entry if he or she comes from a safe third country". This would have been the case in Croatia and Austria. But in the event of such countries being overtaxed, Dublin determined something else.
In view of the difficult legal situation, the Bavarian state government turned to the former constitutional judge Udo di Fabio, who was to draw up an expert opinion. He has the reputation of "not turning a pen open" for less than 100,000 euros. In 2005 he had published a reactionary pamphlet under the title The Culture of Freedom against "aversion to attachment and childlessness". Even the FAZ spoke of a "program of reflexive pétainism: work, family, fatherland - all under the protection of the dear God". He thus did the constitutional court a disservice.
In his expert opinion (after the end of his term in office) he repeated the calamities of the state fetishists that the "principle of loyalty to the federation" required the federation to "remain a sovereign state exercising a monopoly on the use of force on its territory". Allegedly this also included - and now he touched on racism (the logic of blood law)controlling the "composition of the population". This was a "compelling prerequisite for the possibility of liberal democracies". But he wisely did not answer the actual question of the admissibility of the admission of refugees; later - confronted directly with this question - he said: "There had not been a constitutional violation.
Nevertheless, Seehofer sent the report to Angela Merkel with the claim that Fabio would accept the "violation of the constitution" and Bavaria would go to the constitutional court if the "current uncontrolled entry" was not stopped. But this was no longer the case because of the disgraceful agreement with Turkey.