Sanctions

Marc Batko

From:marc1seed@yahoo.com

To:marc1seed@yahoo.com

Sun, Apr 7 at 6:01 AM

Sanctions: The US and the EU are currently punishing more than a dozen countries worldwide State of emergency Neither in Afghanistan nor in Syria, Iran or Yemen have punitive economic measures changed the political behavior of the leaders. The population in particular suffers when it is exposed to continued impoverishment

by Jan Opielka

[This article posted in April 2024 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://www.freitag.de/autoren/jan-opielka/sanktionen-die-usa-und-die-eu-strafen-derzeit-eindutzend-laender-weltweit.]

The EU and the USA are also imposing economic sanctions on Afghanistan - and the population is suffering the most Afghanistan is also being economically sanctioned by the EU and the USA - and the population is suffering the most as a result

When people talk about economic sanctions today, they think of Russia, Iran or North Korea. However, the USA and the EU are sanctioning many more countries around the world and, according to experts, are causing hunger, disease and death, as well as sometimes severe refugee movements. Syria, Venezuela, Myanmar, Afghanistan, Yemen, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Niger, Mali and Libya are particularly affected.

The argument almost always sounds the same: action must be taken against dictatorial regimes that brutally violate human rights. Almost all regulated states are developing or emerging countries that have been shaken by internal conflicts or even civil wars, and often by disasters such as earthquakes. "Neither the Taliban in Afghanistan nor the Assad regime in Syria have changed their behavior because of the sanctions," says Conrad Schetter from the Bonn International Center for Conflict Research (BICC). "And people who are exposed to an emergency situation without prospects for a long time will eventually march towards Europe."

Sanctions encourage hunger in Afghanistan

This is hardly surprising. The situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated massively since the withdrawal of the USA and other NATO countries in summer 2021. The government in Washington immediately imposed punitive measures against the new rulers in order to hit the banking system, among other things, so that money transactions were hindered and food imports became drastically more expensive. In October 2023, the UN World Food Program sounded the alarm when funding for Afghanistan in the fight against hunger was cut by 80 percent compared to 2022 - from 1.6 billion dollars to 340 million dollars. "15 million Afghans are currently starving. Due to the lack of funding, we were forced to cut aid," said WFP Regional Director

John Aylieff. "Even if the Taliban make problematic decisions, humanity must come first."

Wazhma Sadat, a lawyer from Afghanistan who lives in the USA, writes about her relatives in the US magazine Foreign Policy. Some of them were able to work until recently, some of them ran small businesses, but today they have to beg for food. Instead of preventing major damage, repressive governments often see sanctions as a legitimization to continue breaking the rules, says Michael Kunz from the Swiss association "Afghanistanhilfe", which has been providing professional assistance on the ground for over 30 years. Experience shows that agreements with the Taliban are possible. "Although a ban on women working was introduced, we were able to reach an agreement at local level with moderate Taliban on exceptions in the health sector. It is important to strengthen these moderate forces against the radicals."

The UN refugee agency UNHCR estimates that 5.7 million Afghans have left the country. After Syrians and Ukrainians, they are the third largest refugee group in the world. A good 90 percent of these refugees are in Iran (3.4 million) and Pakistan (around 1.7 million). Germany is in third place with more than 200,000.

Medical care in Syria affected

The situation is similar in Syria. The USA and the EU had already imposed sanctions on the government of Bashar al-Assad at the beginning of the armed conflict in March 2011, which were greatly expanded during Donald Trump's presidency as part of the Caesar Act. Following a visit to Syria in the summer of 2023, UN human rights expert Alena Douhan published her report, which stated: "The blockade of bank payments and denial of supplies by foreign producers (...) have led to severe shortages of medicines and medical equipment." 90 percent of Syrians live below the poverty line and have limited access to food, water, electricity, medicines and heating materials.

Ibrahim Mohammad has lived in Berlin since 1998 and holds a doctorate in economics. His mother and siblings remained in Syria, where he visits them regularly. "The sanctions have had a devastating effect on the population, industry and agriculture have been destroyed and the economy has shrunk by 70 percent since 2011. A businessman friend of mine is unable to import primary products from Germany for the manufacture of hygiene products because he cannot transfer money abroad." Syrian companies also have to write off companies in China, Brazil or the Arab world, as they face penalties if business contacts are maintained. As a result, the black market alone is flourishing.

The sanctions were maintained until the catastrophic earthquake in Syria and Turkey in February 2023. Since then, the lifting has only served to facilitate the flow of humanitarian aid. This is why Paulo Pinheiro, Chairman of the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria, sounded the alarm in the UN General Assembly in October 2023: "In the last ten years, there is no evidence that sectoral unilateral coercive measures have led to positive changes in government behavior. It is the ordinary people who bear the brunt. Syria remains the scene of the world's largest refugee crisis, with more than seven million Syrians having fled the country." Last year, around 104,000 Syrians applied for asylum in Germany for the first time.

The bottom line is that the destructive effects of sanctions are underestimated and that they are mostly not about democracy or human rights, but about punishing governments that are not allied with the West. Abdulkader Sinno, Professor of Political Science and Middle Eastern Studies at Indiana University in Bloomington, USA, summarizes the possible consequences of such a sanctions policy on the East Asia Forum platform using Afghanistan as an example. "It is likely that the short-sightedness of the West and the rigidity of the Taliban will prevail and that the Afghan civilian population will pay for this with their lives. Western countries can disguise the effects of their policies with ad hoc food aid, and the Taliban can continue to retaliate against Western hostility by targeting women and supporters of groups once allied with the US. In the process, the Taliban can grant greater autonomy to their rare ally al-Qaeda." The last time similar sanctions were imposed on the Taliban, Sinno writes, was in 1999, which led to closer cooperation with al-Qaeda, the 9/11 attacks and "a global, US-led 'war on terror'" that has yet to end. Is that what the sanctions are all about?

The public omission in the Julian Assange case Perspectives and understanding Press, Media

[This article posted on 3/27/2024 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://zeitenwende-magazin.at/die-oeffentliche-unterlassung-im-fall-julian-assange/.]

Being free for Julian Assange

"The moment I said goodbye to Assange at the end of the afternoon has stayed with me. I had shaken his hand, wished him well and was about to leave, the doctors were already at the door. Then suddenly his grip on my hand tightened and he held me back. What he wanted to say was visibly difficult for him. 'I hate to say this...' he began. Then he hesitated for an eternal moment until the words finally escaped his lips: 'Please, save my life! (Nils Melzer on his first encounter with Julian Assange in Belmarsh prison)

Media omission

The main tasks of the media are firstly to conduct conscientious research and secondly to report objectively on these findings. In the case of Julian Assange, both were omitted with serious consequences.

Julian Assange is the journalist and founder of the WikiLeaks platform, first publicly admired and then dropped, who has shown us the ugly face of great nations through his work. And he is still doing it. Not in the way he would have wished - via the internet and other media - but in the way he is now being treated. He couldn't be trained, so the noose had to be tightened around his neck. The USA, Great Britain, Sweden and finally Ecuador - each of these nations tugged at their end of the rope. And people watched and continue to watch to this day. There was no worldwide intervention by politicians or the major media. Even some human rights organizations were not always sure whether Julian's life was worth protecting at all.

Public ignorance has its origins above all in the constant silence of the media. This should not be

an excuse; after all, there are enough people who have managed to inform themselves. Through this closer look, they have learned that a journalist in our "moral, always respecting human rights" West, who likes to haughtily criticize not so "blameless" countries, has been innocently persecuted for many years.

What is the purpose of the silent media? Do they want to please their imposing friend, the USA?

Can they not believe that such injustice is even possible in our great functioning democracy or do they even consciously support this persecution? Do they believe that looking the other way will make everything all right? Is freedom of the press not important enough for them to break their silence? Are they perhaps so accustomed to not asking questions that they don't even notice or welcome the censorship? Or do they not fully understand the consequences? Whatever the reason, it legitimizes an injustice that can continue largely unhindered.

The seemingly unrecognized danger to the entire freedom of the press cannot be emphasized often enough. The undignified treatment of Assange, an enemy of the US state, should make it clear that the claws of the US justice system can reach across the Atlantic to Europe, override the rule of law and human rights and break the most stubborn spirit. The threat is directed at all journalists.

The press remembers Assange - and sings the old song again

In early May 2019, just one month after the explosive removal of Assange from the embassy to "Her Majesty's Prison Belmarsh", the British "Guantanamo", as it is known due to its strict security measures, when Nils Melzer, the then UN Special Representative on Torture, inspected the famous detainee, the media did not follow his announcement for a press release. A single journalist from Ruptly, "a news agency associated with the Russian state television channel RT*" seemed to be interested in the results of the investigation.

The current hearing in London on February 20 and 21 has now apparently awakened the slumbering media after all. Julian Assange - not on the front pages, but at least brought back to life - is being mentioned in the mainstream media. Always with the addition of the well-known US accusations, of course.

Markus Lanz also gave Julian Assange space in his ZDF program on March 14. What was evident at the hearing in London's High Court in February was also evident in this debate - the other side has no new arguments. For years, they have been repeating the same, long-disproved allegations in the same tone, showing that they consider Julian Assange to be a bully, a dirty trickster, a narcissist, a rapist, a traitor and a life companion. The major media, which are not keeping quiet at the moment, are passing judgment on Assange without providing comprehensive information, thereby giving the impression that a criminal is being given his just punishment. This was also the case with Markus Lanz.

It was great that Gabriel Shipton, Julian's brother, was allowed to speak on the show - about Julian's state of health, the conditions of his detention and visits from his children. However, Lanz did not ask him about the untruths that still make his brother the media villain. Instead, two outsiders were allowed to shed light on Assange's situation: Kai Ambos, professor

of criminal law, and the journalist Heribert Prantl. Both agreed that it was time to release Assange. While Prantl argued for this on the grounds of press freedom, his opponent Ambos was more in favor of Assange's release out of compassion, "for humanitarian reasons", because he had already been punished enough.

What he accuses Assange of in particular - and indeed very emotionally - is the "grossly negligent" unedited publication of documents that endangered whistleblowers in countries such as Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq. Exposing war crimes would be important, but state secrets must be protected.

Ambos then goes on to claim that Assange voluntarily lived in the Ecuadorian embassy for years and also rehashes the Swedish accusations of rape, which are not being prosecuted, but only because they are partly time-barred. The image of the dangerous man is being painted anew.

Extradition to the USA could even be good for Assange under certain circumstances, Ambos continues. It is possible that he would not be sentenced at all due to the importance of freedom of the press in the USA. The death penalty would of course not be an option, as he could not be extradited under the European Convention on Human Rights. These assumptions by the Contra candidate could stem from a touching credulity in the democratic legal system. However, if one considers the numerous strange decisions that the constitutional states involved have made and implemented in the Assange case so far, this view should be described as naïve.

Assange advocate Prantl had unfortunately prepared his counter-arguments less well. He repeated: "Julian Assange is a digital pioneer. He was the first to try to process this type of data." He used this to justify "gigantic amounts of data that Assange would have shoveled into the net". Although he fortunately addressed the danger to the entire freedom of the press posed by the handling of Assange, he did not refute any of the slander, which hardly came as a surprise to him.

This is why clarification is so important, and why I would like to provide the missing answers here - all, unless otherwise stated, from the book by Nils Melzer, the former UN Special Representative on Torture and Human Rights Violations, who has dealt intensively with the Assange case and researched it meticulously and, above all, objectively, as his professional position demanded.

What is true?

Julian Assange - unsympathetic and narcissistic?

The fact that Julian Assange was, as Mr. Lanz's guest said, unsympathetic shows the image of him that was conveyed to the public. I ask myself the question of relevance for the television discussion, but also for his own judgment. After all, bias causes fact-blindness. And the big media have worked hard to turn the former hero into a monster.

Nils Melzer also had this prejudice at first, which he revised after a long period of involvement with the Assange case: "If Assange were a ruthless narcissist, then he wouldn't have this strong

sense of justice, which is evident in every interview, or this unmistakable interest in the fate of other people. This is the only way to explain why Assange got involved in a trial of strength with the world's most powerful governments in the first place. Making the injustice of their policies public, their double standards and the dirty secrets of their wars - this must have been such a need for him that he was prepared to risk everything for it."

Instead, Melzer describes him as "a highly intelligent, mentally extremely resilient man who was desperate to hold on to the threads of his own destiny, even though they had long since been taken out of his hands."

Julian Assange, the menace to humanity?

A ubiquitous claim in Assange debates is that Julian has endangered human lives through his unedited publication. I would like to quote Mr. Melzer again: "Contrary to what is often claimed, information that could endanger people and is not yet publicly accessible is redacted by WikiLeaks. (...) However, there is still no evidence to support the US government's oft-repeated claim that people have been endangered by the WikiLeaks publications. In the Collateral Murder video, on the other hand, defenceless people are not only endangered, but massacred on camera. But nobody talks about that. No one was ever punished for that."

There were "90,000 files with field reports from the war in Afghanistan, several hundred thousand from the war in Iraq and, from November onwards, a quarter of a million dispatches from US embassy staff from every country in the world. It is important to note that, on Assange's instructions, all of these publications are preceded by a rigorous "harm minimization process" in which the names of potentially endangered individuals are individually censored. For example, when the Afghan War Diary was published in July 2010, Assange withheld around 15,000 documents in order to give the US government and the international military mission ISAF time to identify sensitive data that needed to be redacted. Only the negligent publication of the password to unredacted original documents encrypted by WikiLeaks by a Guardian journalist a year later will prompt Assange to publish the unredacted documents himself."

Melzer goes on to say that the prosecution of Assange and other whistleblowers, such as Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden, is not happening "because these people would have done really great harm. No one was seriously endangered, no state assets were destroyed and no war was lost." Instead, further revelations, further WikiLeaks platforms, should be prevented, because the Collateral Murder operation was not an exceptional case.

Staying in the embassy - voluntarily?

The brazen claim that Assange voluntarily stayed in the Ecuadorian embassy for years must also be given attention. Doctor Sondra Crosby, a respected specialist in the examination of torture victims, visited Julian Assange in the embassy where he stayed between 2012 and 2019. Her report in early 2019 found that the conditions had had a "serious impact on Assange's health". "The cramped conditions and the resulting lack of opportunities for movement; the lack of daylight; the social isolation" had led to chronic stress, as Melzer explains. In addition, there were restrictions on visiting rights, a lack of medical treatment and his constant surveillance,

even during confidential medical consultations.

"Crosby's conclusion was unequivocal: from a medical point of view, Assange's treatment violated the prohibition of torture and ill-treatment in the international Convention against Torture."

As early as 2015, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention produced an expert report on Assange's situation in the embassy. The so-called "voluntariness" of his stay was clearly refuted in this report. Without an indictment by the Swedish authorities and with the fear of being extradited to the USA, the report already spoke of "a state of limbo incompatible with the presumption of innocence, the duration of which had long exceeded any acceptable level. (...) Assange's only way to protect himself from extradition to the USA, where an unfair trial and inhumane prison conditions awaited him, was to continue to hold out inside the building. (...) Like any other person, however, he should not be forced to give up the safety and integrity of his person and expose himself to the risk of serious human rights violations. For this reason, Assange's continued stay in the embassy could not be described as voluntary."

In May 2019, a month after his official abduction from the embassy, Melzer recognized physical, neurological and cognitive impairments during his visit to Belmarsh, "which in any case immediately reminded me of conversations with other political prisoners who had already been isolated for a long time". Assange's "voluntary vacation" at the embassy had therefore already left serious traces.

Fair trial and no death penalty for Assange?

Ambos' assumption that Assange would receive a fair trial and possible acquittal in the USA was contradicted years ago by UN experts on arbitrary detention. The human rights-violating British spectacle of biased judges and serious "unnoticed" errors could have been a foretaste of what awaits Assange in the United States.

"As detailed in my official letter to you, the British courts have so far failed to demonstrate the impartiality and objectivity required by the rule of law," Melzer wrote to then British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt.

In fact, no offense that could result in the death penalty has yet been charged, but even Nils Melzer was of the opinion that "even after his extradition to the US, the Americans would be allowed to add new and different charges based on the - indeed unusually broad - statement of facts in the extradition request. Possibly even offenses punishable by death or life imprisonment without the possibility of early release."

The Swedish charges

The allegations of rape from Sweden - an already completely cold trail that was reheated in the Lanz program - can be explained in a nutshell: No charges, no criminal complaint from the alleged victims, no evidence, but successful character assassination. The timing of these allegations "coincidentally" coincided with the fact that "the United States had encouraged its allies to find grounds to prosecute Assange. (...) Since then, both Sweden and the UK have done everything possible to prevent Assange from facing these charges without

simultaneously exposing himself to extradition to the US and thus a show trial and life imprisonment. His last refuge was the Ecuadorian embassy in London.**"

The Swedish proceedings were also riddled with legal irregularities and oddities. In addition, Assange was denied the assurance of non-extradition to the USA - "a standard instrument of international relations that is used worldwide on a daily basis, especially in connection with extraditions and the deportation of migrants. The extraditing state obtains a written assurance from the destination state that the person to be extradited will under no circumstances be executed, tortured or otherwise mistreated, that their procedural rights are guaranteed and thatin accordance with the universal principle of non-refoulement - they will not be extradited to a third country in which human rights protection is not guaranteed."

Judicial decision of March 26, 2024

The adjourned decision by the judges of the London High Court of Assange's appeal hearing on February 20 and 21 was only announced a month later, on March 26. This shows that even the British judiciary, which has not acted in an exemplary manner in the Assange case to date, does not appear to have blind faith in US case law. Assurances are being demanded from the United States that could and should have been requested years ago: The US should confirm that Assange is protected by the First Amendment right to freedom of expression, that he will not be disadvantaged as a non-citizen and that he will not face the death penalty***.

However, this does not mean that deportation to the USA is off the table, but merely postponed. If the USA does not comply with the demands on time and in full, Julian will be given the opportunity to appeal. If the assurances are given, Assange's lawyers may present new arguments for an appeal.

These judicial demands, in addition to Melzer's words, confirm that the fears of an unfair trial and the death penalty are very real.

The betrayal of state secrets

The issue of the need for state secrecy is also raised in the ZDF discussion. There is agreement that there are state secrets worthy of protection. There is disagreement as to whether Assange was "grossly negligent" in publishing them. This is where the difficulty begins: who decides what is in the public interest? In the Assange case, it is precisely those authorities who defend the secrecy of their own crimes while prosecuting the messenger who decide.

Nils Melzer writes in his book: "I have spent a good two decades in the international system, and I have come to the conclusion that we neither need nor should allow this kind of secrecy, which shields entire areas from the public. After all, there must be no sphere of state activity that is completely beyond the knowledge and control of the public. As soon as it exists, the door is open to abuse. This inevitably leads to the covering up of crimes, exploitation and corruption."

"The vast majority of classified information is kept secret to protect political security, not national security." (Julian Assange)

Sources:

* Nils Melzer: The Case of Julian Assange - Story of a Persecution; Piper Verlag, 2021

** Nils Melzer: Unmasking the Torture of Julian Assange; 26.6.19 (here in German translation)

*** Newsletter Gabriel Shipton, Assange Campaign Australia

Flying a false flag into the authoritarian state

Julian Assange, the "'Whistleblower Protection Act' and the Digital Service Act by Annette Groth

[This article posted on 4/5/2024 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://www.sozonline.de/2024/04/unter-falscher-flagge-in-den-autoritaeren-staat/.]

On the occasion of the hearing in the High Court in London on the fate of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on February 20 and 21, 2024, which attracted worldwide media attention, he and his merits were once again publicly debated after a long period of media silence. The subject of the hearing was the question of whether Julian Assange can appeal to the Supreme Court in London to stop his extradition to the USA.

There have been vigils and demonstrations in many countries to educate the public about Julian Assange and his "crime". His "crime", for which he has now been held in Belmarsh maximum security prison in London for almost five years, is the publication of the video "Collateral Murder". The video shows a US military helicopter opening fire on a group of Iraqi civilians. Several people were killed in the attack, including two journalists from the British news agency Reuters.

After Assange was granted asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London for almost seven years, from where he was abducted by police in April 2019, he is being held in the harshest prison conditions in the British "Guantánamo". He is locked in his cell for 23 hours and spends one hour of his free time in a locked room under supervision. The former UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Nils Melzer, described the detention conditions as torture.

Campaigns

Campaigns for the release of Julian Assange have been repeatedly initiated in a number of countries, including Germany. For example, the five major newspapers, including Der Spiegel, which published the first 25,000 so-called "Cablegate" messages from the US State Department on November 28, 2010, causing a sensation - and earning a lot of money - published a joint press release on November 28, 2022. In it, they expressed their deep concern about press freedom: "The charges against Assange are a dangerous precedent and an attack on press freedom." They called for an immediate end to the prosecution of Assange. "Because journalism is not a crime."

More than four years ago, on February 6, 2020, over 130 prominent figures from politics, science, media and culture published a joint appeal calling for the Australian whistleblower to be

released from prison immediately. At a press conference, the initiator of the campaign, investigative journalist Günter Wallraff, presented the appeal together with former federal ministers Sigmar Gabriel (SPD) and Gerhart Baum (FDP) as well as Left Party MP Sevim Dagdelen. "I am sitting here today because freedom of the press is to be criminalized," emphasized former FDP Interior Minister Baum. The signatories called on the German government to lobby the British government for Assange's release.

In September 2021, Annalena Baerbock also called for "the immediate release of Julian Assange" during her campaign for the 2021 federal election and as the Green candidate for chancellor. As Foreign Minister, however, she ignored requests for months - an unprecedented action by a federal ministry.

Stella Assange, a lawyer and Julian's wife, visited Berlin in April 2023 and wanted to meet Baerbock, but this did not happen. Instead, a commissioner at the Federal Foreign Office received the lawyer - on the condition that the meeting be kept secret. The Minister of State for Culture, Claudia Roth, was informed by Stella Assange about the situation of the prominent political prisoner and declared shortly afterwards in a Taz interview: "The release of Assange would be a good and important signal for freedom of the press." There are also very few journalists worldwide who have been campaigning for Assange for many years.

The USA wants to convict Julian Assange on the basis of its Espionage Act of 1917. If this happens, journalism can be defined as espionage at any time. Every journalist, every publisher worldwide will be intimidated. That would be the end of freedom of the press. That is why the Julian Assange case is important for all of us.

On February 24, no arbitration award was made, i.e. Julian Assange is still in the Belmarsh highsecurity prison and his health is deteriorating. It is a crime and a slow murder.

The 'whistleblower protection law'

In order to better protect whistleblowers like Julian Assange in the future, a new law came into force in Germany on July 2, 2023: the law for better protection of whistleblowers, known as the "Whistleblower Protection Act" for short. Publicist Ulrich Mies calls the law the "Spitzelunddenunziantengesinnungsförderungsgesetz" because it opens the floodgates to denunciation. This was already evident during the coronavirus pandemic. According to the law, authorities and companies with more than 50 employees must set up contact points that receive and process reports from whistleblowers confidentially. Anyone who violates the law faces a fine of up to 50,000 euros.

Since the Whistleblower Act came into force, more than one hundred reports have been received by the newly created external federal reporting office. In view of the defamation of Israel-critical and peace activists who campaign for a ceasefire in Gaza and Ukraine, a report could also be launched with reference to the "Whistleblower Protection Act". In the context of the prevailing cancel culture practice, to which many scientists, writers, artists and even celebrities such as Julius Frantz and Theodor Currentzis have fallen victim, the Whistleblower Protection Act is a very suitable instrument for defaming and silencing dissenters.

The Digital Services Act (DSA)

In order to prevent disinformation and hate speech, the Digital Services Act (DSA), the EU's "Digital Services Act", came into force in August 2023 and became legally binding in Germany on February 17, 2024. Alexander Grau, PhD philosopher and freelance cultural and science journalist, describes it as a "call for denunciation" because it also contains regulations "that formally call for denunciation and censorship. This does more harm than good to democracy."

Article 1 of the Digital Services Act affirms that freedom of expression and information are protected in accordance with the "Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union". The European Commission stipulates that only unlawful posts may be deleted. Entries that are merely harmful should not be subject to removal, as this would have a serious impact on the protection of freedom of expression.

However, this commitment to protecting Article 11 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights and ultimately Article 5 of the German Basic Law is just a facade. Behind it, the axe is being laid to fundamental principles of our democratic community. According to Article 34 of the DSA, the platforms not only have to delete illegal posts, but also "otherwise harmful information". They are to pay particular attention to "critical" and "detrimental" entries when checking whether they need to be deleted. The socalled recitals to the DSA illustrate the Commission's anti-democratic intentions.

The term disinformation is not defined anywhere in the DSA. In 2018, the Commission used the term to refer to "demonstrably false and misleading information." Alarm bells must be ringing loudly.

Who determines what disinformation is? Is it disinformation to claim that a peace treaty between Ukraine and Russia was ready to be signed in March 2022 and that Boris Johnson, the former Prime Minister of the UK, flew to Kiev and said no/no to it? So the treaty was off the table and the war went on, until today. This is fact and not disinformation or fake news, which unfortunately many people believe.

Is it "disinformation" that there are numerous Nazi groups in Ukraine and that one of them, the "Azov"-affiliated Ukrainian neo-Nazi organization "Centuria", has a branch in Magdeburg? The Anhalt Ministry of the Interior allegedly has no information about this, which is extremely strange, especially as the organization registers demonstrations, recruits members, spreads racist hate speech and collects donations.

In any case, this DSA law requires extreme caution and it is high time for loud protest. After all, it poses a serious threat to freedom of opinion and freedom of the press.

The 'Democracy Promotion Act'

Interior Minister Nancy Faeser now wants to pass the "Democracy Promotion Act". She declared on February 13: "Those who mock the state must deal with a strong state."

Florian Warweg, editor of Nachdenkseiten and accredited journalist at the Federal Press Conference, wanted to know what the Federal Government actually meant by "mockery of the state". The answer from the responsible representative of the Federal Ministry of the Interior was just as nebulous as the term "disinformation": "As with the whole package of measures ... it's about right-wing extremists, about the fight against right-wing extremism and for the protection

of democracy. In this respect, it is quite clear in this context. It has presented a so-called holistic approach, which applies, for example, to the prosecution of organized crime."

The above-mentioned laws, which have hardly been debated in public, show a frightening trend towards restricting freedom of the press and freedom of opinion. Democratic principles and basic laws are being undermined using the term "disinformation" and under the pretext of "fighting the right". The worst thing: Individuals can hardly defend themselves against this. We have arrived in an authoritarian and repressive state.

Annette Groth is a peace activist. She has worked for the UNHCR in Geneva and was human rights spokesperson for the Left Party in the German Bundestag. In 2010, she took part in the Free Gaza Flotilla.

Hand in hand with the arms lobby?

Trade unions do not represent the interests of the arms industry by Ulrike Eifler

[This article posted on 3/30/2024 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://www.sozonline.de/2024/04/hand-in-hand-mit-der-ruestungslobby/.]

The Economic Forum of the SPD, the Federal Association of the German Security and Defense Industry (BDSV) and IG Metall have agreed on a joint position paper.

Under the title "Securing sovereignty and resilience", the three organizations agreed on industrial policy guidelines for the defence industry. Powerful defense systems on land, in the air and at sea are to be developed with the help of government procurement policy. The spiral of escalation that an arms build-up inevitably entails remains unmentioned. Instead, the "Bundeswehr special fund" and the promised 2% NATO quota are celebrated emphatically. This is hardly surprising, as both hold out the prospect of huge economic stimulus packages for arms companies.

However, the paper is more than just an industrial policy strategy. It makes the state responsible for the planning security of the arms industry with the aim of stabilizing and expanding armaments profits. Trade unions, however, do not represent the interests of the arms industry. Signing the paper therefore sends out fatal signals: It does not orient members and political allies towards a policy of détente and peace, but strengthens the discourse of those who have an interest in military escalation.

BDSV and Economic Forum - the economic lobbyists

The three signatories could not be more opposed. While IG Metall represents the interests of dependent employees and campaigns for an improvement in their working and living conditions, BDSV and Wirtschaftsforum are classic business lobbyists. With 220 organized companies, the BDSV is an industrial association of the German armaments industry. The association is concerned with changing the security and foreign policy discourse. It is no coincidence that the board of directors reads like a "Who's Who" of the German arms industry.

Among them is President Armin Papperger, who recently posed with Olaf Scholz at the new Rheinmetall plant in the Lüneburg Heath.

The Economic Forum of the SPD also sees itself as an independent business trade association alongside the SPD. Its aim is to bring the interests of business to the SPD leadership. To this end, it aims to organize exchanges between business representatives and the party's decision-makers in parliaments, governments and party branches.

The association was founded in February 2015 on the initiative of the former CEO of TUI AG, Michael Frenzel. The advisory board includes almost all of the SPD's top management. And with Oliver Burkhard, there are personnel overlaps with the BDSV, as Burkhard, as a member of the Executive Board and Labor Director of Thyssenkrupp AG, not only sits on the extended Executive Committee of the Economic Forum, but also on the BDSV Executive Board.

Industrial policy concept

The orientation of the paper is problematic for several reasons. For example, the armaments industry's rearmament ambitions are clothed in an industrial policy discourse that claims to focus on the preservation of production sites and the associated jobs. This suggests that rearmament could be an answer to the challenges of economic stagnation, deindustrialization and transformation.

There is no doubt that more political control is needed to prevent deindustrialization, especially in the industrialized core regions of western and southern Germany. But in the past, the trade unions have resolved the contradiction between the terrible, deadly and destructive products of arms industry production and the interest in good jobs through a conversion perspective. Armaments companies should be placed in the service of civilian production.

With this demand, the trade unions are taking a stand against the powerful arms industry and large parts of the political establishment, which is drunk with war talk about ground troops in Ukraine and nuclear deterrence. But what other position could the trade unions take against the background of their history, in the knowledge of two terrible world wars and in view of the growing risk of new world wars?

Jobs can neither be preserved nor created on a destroyed planet. Instead of trying to solve the current pressure to transform industry by building up the arms industry and secretly sweeping the old conversion debates under the carpet, trade unions must become a stronger driver of transformation. The decision on what is to be produced and transformed must not be left out of their hands.

Trade unions must be the ones to link the transformation of industrial manufacturing processes with the question of the social benefits of their products. Defining social needs beyond war, destruction and death is therefore one of the central tasks of the trade unions in the transformation and in the peace movement.

Destruction of the social infrastructure

A strong focus on the arms industry would also have fatal consequences for society as a whole. The first attempts to finance the arms build-up through social cuts have already been made. Clemens Fuest from the Ifo Institute recently even used the central propaganda metaphor of the Nazis - "cannons instead of butter" - to get the population to agree to social cuts at an early stage. But apart from the ruthlessness towards the working classes, the rearmament course can also quickly prove to be poison for the already stagnating economy. This is because government investment in infrastructure, heating replacement or support for the unemployed strengthens

domestic demand. Billions spent on armaments, on the other hand, largely go abroad. For example, 10 billion from the special fund is currently flowing into the F35 fighter jets from US arms manufacturer Lockheed Martin.

But even if one assumes that the state's armaments investments go exclusively to companies in Germany, the question arises as to how society would benefit from them. Combat helicopters and tanks increase the gross domestic product, writes economist Maurice Höfgen, but not civilian prosperity.

In addition, there would be cut-throat competition in favor of military spending, which would be at the expense of necessary investments in climate protection, the expansion of education, the development of skilled workers, sustainable industrial restructuring or the relief of nursing staff, for example.

The problem of skilled workers, which is already being felt across all sectors, would also be significantly exacerbated, as the deployment of engineers and fitters in the renovation of school buildings, the production of electric cars or the installation of solar panels is of course much more sensible than in the production of battle tanks.

Climate policy revelation

The paper also makes a revelation in terms of climate policy. This is because it claims exemption from climate policy requirements such as CO2 pricing for an industry that is one of the biggest CO2 emitters.

In a study commissioned by The Left, the group of left-wing parties in the European Parliament, the CO2 footprint of German arms manufacturers is estimated at more than 3.4 million tons. For the entire German military sector, including the Bundeswehr, the figure is as high as 4.5 million tons. This corresponds to the CO2 emissions of around one million cars per year.

And the F35 fighter jet, which the Bundeswehr has already ordered, emits more per hour than the average annual emissions of a German. Rising military budgets are leading to a significant increase in CO2 emissions - a development that cannot be justified in view of the impending climate collapse.

Conclusion

The self-image of the trade unions includes improving the working and living conditions of the working classes. Strengthening the arms industry, which could even lead to a war economy in the medium to long term, is undermining the welfare state, endangering the climate and initiating a dangerous escalation of armaments.

For good reason, the SPD and trade unions have been pillars of the peace movement for decades.

At a time when the political class is outbidding each other in its demands for rearmament and engaging in a dangerous and absurd discussion about nuclear wars, the trade unions should not seek their place alongside arms lobbyists and war profiteers, but in the peace movement.

The trade union conference laid the foundation for this when it decided that IG Metall would

"emphatically advocate diplomatic solutions at all possible levels and through all channels":

"The spiral of escalation and armament must not be allowed to continue." A groundbreaking resolution that makes it clear: instead of joint positioning with the arms lobby, we need a selfconfident return to the traditional role of the trade unions and proactive intervention in the current discourse.

The author is the national spokesperson of the Left Party's Working Group for Trade Unions and Companies.

The right-wing backlash and the role of social media never again

Anti-social media?

April 1, 2024 | Lou Marin

[This article posted on 4/1/2024 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://www.graswurzel.net/gwr/2024/04/antisoziale-medien/.]

The technicist illusion in the emancipatory nature of social networks has been shattered ever since extreme right-wing and fascist groups and movements began to spread and even dominate them culturally. Many anarchist groups also had the wrong idea at the end of the 1990s and beginning of the 21st century. (GWR-Red.)

A text from the anarchist "Revolutionsbräuhof" from 1998 stated: "Many people can never organize on a voluntary basis? Oh yeah? In a 'communication age', in which we supposedly live, this of all things should be easier than in more antediluvian times. Where telephones, faxes, data lines, computers and the Internet make it easier to access and communicate information. Where knowledge is becoming more and more generalized, the old excuse that the 'cook is not able to govern the state' is no longer valid. Of course she can today, if she wants to." (1)

Today, the utopia of unrestricted digitalization as something socially progressive is only represented by the capitalist talking heads of the rich, the FDP, with their slogan of "technological openness". This is currently being implemented in the anti-ecological production "luxury strategy" of German car companies, mediated by the car fetishist and Federal Transport Minister Wissing. (2) During the "Arab Spring" of 2011/12, social media was still seen as "progressive" or at least usable in an emancipative sense. The reason for this was documentation of the forms of repression against the mass movements against dictatorships that took place initially in Tunisia and later in Egypt, Syria and Sudan, which were non-violent. But this euphoria has long since faded.

In the FRG: study on digital fascism

In 2019, researchers Maik Fielitz and Holger Marcks published the study "Digital Fascism. Challenges for the open society in times of social media'. In it, they state that the utopia originally associated with the internet of a society enlightened by digitalization, which could even far surpass the communicative advantages of a face-to-face democracy with plenary assemblies, plenary sessions or group-oriented consensus councils of speakers, has historically not come true. "Instead, we are seeing vast amounts of reactionary content on the internet that is spreading at viral speed - including right-wing extremist ideas. Social media in particular plays a key role in this, the study found." (3)

Overall, according to Fielitz/Marcks, this digital fascism is "no longer organized as hierarchically as we know it, due to the central role played by social media in its communication. That's why we use the term digital fascism." There is "an amalgamation of digital cultures that function visually via images, irony and fun, which go hand in hand with a far-right ideology and attempt to create a digital culture of hate." (4) Fielitz/Marcks conclude that we must attack the structures of these media if we want to oppose their right-wing dynamics.

It was the emancipative critique of technology that we developed in the anti-nuclear movement of the 1970s to 1990s, which we opposed to Marx's notion of the automatically emancipative function of the "unleashing of the productive forces". By this we meant that a technically complex structure such as a nuclear power plant could not be self-managed by the workforce without leading to catastrophe. Now a techno-dystopia seems to be setting in, as social media is increasingly being hegemonized by Nazis and right-wing extremists.

The extreme right-wing development of social media in the USA

According to the independent and critical New York journalist Angela Nagle, the antiemancipatory shift in social media use in the USA took place in 2016, the year of the Trump election. This also applies to the neo-fascist cultural struggles of the New Right in the USA (AltRight = Alternative Right, just as the neo-fascists in Germany are currently hegemonizing the word "alternative", whereas in the 1980s and 1990s it still stood for an eco-socialist, alternative transformation of society). Today, this reactionary use of many social media platforms, especially "4chan" and "Tumblr" (5), is crucial in the struggle of the neo-fascist right in the USA to bring Trump back to power.

As early as 2019, investigative journalist Julia Ebner warned in her book "Radicalization Machines" that the new technologies of social media in particular can be exploited by extremists, that they are "open to dictatorship", so to speak. (6)

Angela Nagle describes this "digital counter-revolution" as follows, based on the hegemonic form it has taken in the USA since 2016: "It was only a few years ago that the left-wing cyber-utopians claimed that 'outrage' had become networked, that the established old media could no longer control politics and that the new public space would in future be based on leaderless, user-generated social media. This network has indeed come, but it has not helped the left to power, but the right. (...) Those leftists (...) did not realize that the leaderless form actually tells us little about the philosophical, moral or conceptual content of the movement in question. (...) [Thus] we have since had to observe that this leaderless entity can adopt pretty much any worldview, even - strange as it may seem - that of the far right." (7)

The particular escalation and aggression that is increasingly taking hold in social media today is the result of transgression, of crossing boundaries. The New Right in the USA has appropriated this from the 1968 representatives of left-wing transgression, such as surrealism, and occupied it with its own content, "because the plea for equality is fundamentally a moral statement". And: "The understanding of dominance as sexual 'sovereignty' and the 'liberation of the id from the shackles of consciousness' all go back to this tradition of transgression. Just as Nietzsche appealed to the Nazis because he could be used to formulate a right-wing anti-moralism, this

same transgressive self-understanding is currently being used in the online world of the AltRight to excuse and rationalize the extreme dehumanization of women and ethnic minorities." (8)

Two stars of US online fascism: Milo Y. and Richard Spencer

With its excessive and aggressive anti-feminism, racism and homophobia, the online alt-right succeeded in gaining cultural hegemony in the USA through a different content-related occupation of social media than, for example, the libertarian-socialist-inspired grassroots movements since 1968. In the process, the fascosphere formed stars, with sometimes absurdly grotesque constellations of border-crossing, two of whom are presented here as representatives of this phenomenon.

Milo Yiannopoulos "was undoubtedly the biggest star to emerge from the rise of Trump's online right. (...) Milo has done more than anyone else to give the alt-right a presentable face by reporting positively on even its worst fascist manifestations - despite being gay and of Jewish descent himself." Milo defamed "political correctness, feminism, Islam, Black Lives Matter and Western liberalism in general" in hundreds of thousands of videos of his appearances at universities in the US and the UK. (9)

With so much culturally irreversible aggression spreading across social media, emancipative groups today should have lost all illusion in the progressive forces of the internet.

Richard Spencer, for his part, coined the term "alt-right" and is of the opinion that "non-white Americans should leave the country as part of a 'peaceful ethnic cleansing'. (...) The first step should be the deportation of undocumented immigrants under Trump's aegis, followed by 'negative migration' and finally a white ethno-state." At an event at the National Policy Institute, which he heads, he shouted in front of 300 people: "Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory!" (10)

Fascist transgressions and the mannosphere

"The right-wing style embodied by Yiannopoulos represents the link between the ironic, irreverent, taboo-smashing culture of 4chan and the politics of the right. (...) As a bursting forth of the id that has thrown off the shackles of politically correct language, the online mentality is closer to foul-mouthed comment column trolls than Bible lessons. It's more 'Fight Club' than family, more akin to the Marquis de Sade than Edmund Burke." (11) At the time of his popularity in the USA, Yiannopoulos' saw feminism as his main enemy. "He later adopted the slogan 'feminism is cancer', which was also available as a T-shirt collection." (12)

The Alt-Right fascists also mix this with the typical US-American gun mania: "After the 2016 Islamist massacre in Orlando, Florida, Yiannopoulos traveled there (...) to speak to a mourning crowd. He used the moment not only to speak out against Muslim immigration, but also in favor of gun ownership." (13)

The extent to which the transgression of borders now benefits digital fascism and has become hegemonic is shown by the fact that Yiannopoulos explicitly referred to 'Negroes with Guns', Robert F. Williams' radical call to arms (14), which was thus integrated into the sphere of digital fascism.

The so-called 'mannosphere' must also be mentioned in the context of this current fascist digital milieu. Originally, there was an emerging, largely emancipatory "men's movement" at the beginning of the 1990s, which also included "men against male violence" groups.

Since then, however, a misogynistic "men's rights movement" or "incel-sphere" has developed, hegemonically dominated by its masculinist tendencies, which is now flooding social media, especially in the USA. "The numerous websites, subcultures and self-images that belong to this anti-feminist internet movement have sprouted and grown to such an extent that this would undoubtedly have been recorded as a 'digital revolution' if it had been a matter of other cultural and political milieus." This is a (dis)culture "whose misogyny has reached rather gruesome proportions". (15)

In the online battles, "among the most important websites in the mannosphere were 'PhilosophyOfRape' on 'Reddit', where one could find topics such as 'corrective rape of feminists'". James C. Weidman runs a "men's rights activism and pick-up art blog that mixes evolutionary psychology, anti-feminism, and white supremacy advocacy. The blog states that women's economic freedom will lead to the collapse of civilization. According to Weidman, white civilization is being destroyed by 'miscegenation', immigration and the low birth rates of white women - which he blames on feminism. This decline can only be reversed through the deportation of minorities and the reintroduction of patriarchy." (16) Yet such aggressive and brutal transgressions, which are typical of digital-fascist social media, are precisely an expression of the contemporary form of patriarchy.

So now we know that the strategy of mass deportation of immigrants propagated by the AfD in its Potsdam meeting has a history in the USA - and has only been imported. With so much culturally irreversible aggression spreading on social media, emancipative groups should have lost all illusion in the progressive forces of the internet. Perhaps this will lead us to return to face-to-face forms of decision-making such as the consensus system for hut villages, forest occupations and future action camps and emancipate ourselves from the increasingly aggressive fascosphere of social media.

(1) From: "Die Schwarze Distel" - issue Dec. 1998 / Jan. 1999, see:

https://www.anarchismus.at/texte-anarchismus/einfuehrung-in-den-anarchismus/6280revolutionsbraeuhof-anarchistische-utopien-heute-2 .

(2) Cf. Michael Kerler: Is the luxury strategy of German car manufacturers really working?, in: Augsburger Allgemeine, website of 27.7.2022, see:

https://www.augsburger-allgemeine.de/wirtschaft/autoindustrie-geht-die-luxusstrategiedeutscher-autobauer-wirklich-auf-id63434896.html .

(3) Interview with Fielitz and Marcks on the study, in: Deutschlandfunk, 1.10.2019, see:

https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/digitaler-faschismus-wie-social-media-faschismus-foerdert100.html .

(4) Ibid. p. 2.

(5) The platform Tumblr (pronounced Tumbler) was founded by neoliberal webmaster and blogger David Karp in 2007. He was a Hillary Clinton supporter before 2016. Tumblr was acquired by Yahoo! in 2013 and remained under its ownership until 2018, see:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tumblr .

(6) Julia Ebner: Radikalisierungsmaschinen, Suhrkamp Verlag, Berlin 2019.

(7) Angela Nagle: Die digitale Gegenrevolution, transcript Verlag, Bielefeld 2018, p. 38f.

(8) Ibid. p. 52f.

(9) Ibid. S. 66.

(10) Spencer, cited in Nagle, p. 68 and p. 69.

(11) Angela Nagle, op. cit. p. 74.

(12) Ibid., p. 80.

(13) Ibid., p. 82.

(14) The book by Robert F. Williams, "Negroes with Guns", was published in 1962 and saw itself as an antipode to the non-violent civil rights movement around the SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) as well as around Martin Luther King within the anti-racist movement; it influenced Huey Newton and the Black Panther Party's gun mania at the time, cf.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negroes_with_Guns .15) Angela Nagle, op. cit. p. 105.

(16) Ibid., p. 113.

On militarization, solidarity with Ukraine and the edifice of lies anarchism

Chronology of an attack in St. Imier and the reception of writing bellicists in the WOZ & taz

[This article posted on September 13, 2023 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://www.graswurzel.net/gwr/2023/09/ueber-militarisierung-ukrainesolidaritaet-undluegengebaeude/.]

It quickly becomes clear that the AfD in Germany is throwing up over a poster that takes up a symbol of the old movement against military service, on which a rifle is broken. You are on the side of a dictatorship that is waging a war of aggression against another country, Ukraine. A dictatorship that we would also like to establish here. And to fend off refugees, the "Europe of fatherlands" needs what? That's right; the military.

It should also quickly become clear that authoritarian communists are against a poster that says "Against all war". Anyone in favor of a socialist state needs repressive structures and, of course, a military. Moreover, for the friends of the defunct Soviet Union and the GDR, the main enemy justifying war is still NATO, and will remain so for all eternity. Russia's attack on Ukraine is therefore reinterpreted as a justified war.

It is also clear that the German Greens are against a poster that takes an anti-militarist stance and depicts a destroyed tank. The Greens, corrupted by power, walk over dead bodies. That was the case in the Kosovo war, and it is no different now. 100 billion for weapons was waved through by a government in which the Greens hold the foreign and economic ministries. The defense against Russian aggression is leading this party back into a just war, alongside NATO.

So far, so clear.

But the fact that at an anarchist meeting this very poster, on which "For an anti-fascist and antipatriarchal anti-war movement" is advertised, was torn down by people taking part is astonishing.

We spoil: Anyone who reinterprets the hanging of the poster described above at an anarchist meeting as an attack, refuses to engage in the subsequent discussion about the difference between war and social revolution, and physically attacks antimilitarists has no business at any anarchist meeting. They position themselves as the enemy of an anarchism that historically rejects cadaver obedience, authority, command and obedience, the military, rape and nationalism, murder for base motives and militarization. Who tries to drive the anti-authoritarian character of anarchist practice into the trenches.

Anyone who can't stand it when people refuse to collect money for equipment and weapons for militarized men, i.e. soldiers in the trenches, has broken with anarchism. We are talking here specifically about "solidarity collectives" and their environment.

And it is irrelevant whether we are talking about those who push their "concern" as a subjectivist justification for a militarized position in order to stifle anarchist positions. Or whether they are those who unconditionally and submissively support the "affected" out of an oblique, identitarian understanding of "solidarity".

We can find their positions in the WOZ, an alternative Swiss weekly newspaper with a social democratic slant. Or in the catacombs and bubbles of trendy clubs or in hip cafés of the academic left-wing bourgeoisie.

The criticism of "Solidarity Collectives", for example, has already been put in a nutshell by a group that formulated a rejection of participation in the ABC Festival in Vienna on the occasion of the participation of "Solidarity Collectives" (e.g. in Autonomes Blättchen No. 53, page 52).

Now one can rightly ask: Why work on people who represent a militarized position?

Perhaps because everyone is worthy of not ending up in the real or ideological trenches?

Maybe because we don't want to break with people we think are worth fighting for?

Perhaps because we have other means against war at hand than militarism and the militarization of the male psyche - because it is predominantly men who are lying in the trenches as "anarchists" (the exceptions prove the rule). And there are also many women who loudly support them. The "propaganda of the deed" for these people is to propagate and implement nationalist, state defense.

So why work themselves to death?

Perhaps because feminism has been further along in terms of analyzing the military, war, rape and patriarchy.

Maybe because we have something to defend; a future that doesn't need the military and doesn't rehash the patriarchal shit over and over again in new guises.

Perhaps because we ultimately do not accept that patriarchy and militarism are currently reforming, both in society and in the bubble of identitarian anarchists.

Many have finished with the "Solidarity Collectives" and their environment. Rightly so, we think. But we have so far perceived these people, despite all their contradictions, as part of an anarchist movement. We measure them by these standards.

And so we do not accept an incident and assault in St. Imier and its reception by pro-war supporters in the social media and in the WOZ and taz as an opportunity to clarify our position.

No foot in militarism! No peace for pro-war activists on all sides of the front. Against all war!

On the incident and attack in St. Imier

We are at the anarchist meeting in St. Imier 2023. Over 4000 visitors. Several hundred workshops, exciting discussions and encounters. A great organizational achievement! (even if the organizers were overwhelmed at some point with the conflicts along queerness, colonialism, Islamophobia and of course the question of war and militarization). Our report describes the event of the "Solidarity Collective" on the topic: "Anarchists at War: Critical Analysis of Solidarity in the Context of the War in Ukraine".

The "Hall of the Spectacle" was filled with around 150 people. The organizers were already sitting on the podium, including a journalist from WOZ, who will be mentioned later. "Solidarity Collectives" had set up a stand with merchandising right at the entrance. (At the end of the meeting in St. Imier, a total of 3,000 euros was poured into the Solidarity Collectives war chest to supply the soldiers on the front in Ukraine, among other things).

When one person hung up the poster "Against all war" on a specially brought table away from the merchandising stand, it set off an avalanche that highlighted the whole dilemma of militarized practice. Because all those who want to respond to the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine using the classic logic of war must inevitably demonize any fundamental anti-militarist perspective so that their own self-image does not falter. This shows the dead end into which "Solidarity Collectives" has already maneuvered itself.

For as soon as the person had hung up the poster "Against all war" (see appendix), an aggressive young man stormed over from the merchandising stand and demanded that the transgender person take down the poster and leave. In all seriousness, the aggressive young man thought he could expel anarchists from the room on his own authority. The trans person told him that she wasn't leaving and that the poster would stay here and how he could decide about the presence of people. The guy immediately started to get loud, his body language was violent and he made no attempt to argue at all. Instead, he tore down the poster and shouted that the person with the posters should leave and physically threatened them.

Poster: https://de.indymedia.org/sites/default/files/2023/08/94445.jpeg

Now there are some truisms in feminism. If you are attacked, shout for help to change the situation and take the attack out of the "private sphere" and make the violence visible by shouting loudly. Loud shouting creates publicity, which has or can have a protective effect. This is exactly how the trans person behaved. She did not escalate the situation, she made it public.

She took another poster from the table, held it in the direction of the podium and shouted loudly and audibly into the room that she was being attacked, that these posters had been torn down, that this would not do and called for help.

The podium did not verbally rush to the attacked woman's aid, but refused to help her. A woman from the ABC-Dresden podium even reinterpreted the incident and called for the "disturbance" to stop.

A crowd quickly formed around the small bar table and other people from "Solidarity Collectives" also attacked the trans person verbally and physically. They tore posters off the table and insulted the person hanging the poster as a German "who has nothing to say here". The attacked woman responded with: "I'm not German, I'm Arabic." "But you live in Germany," was the response of a woman from Ukraine, who was later to sit on the podium. Nationalistic, reactionary attributions were the last thing one would have expected at an anarchist meeting. One of the attackers wore a "Solidarity Collectives" T-shirt with a Kalashnikov and behaved in the same way, being the first to tear the posters off the table.

However, other people from the audience came to the attacker's aid and intervened to ask why she was not allowed to stand there with the posters. Only the publicity and the intervention of other people protected her from further physical assaults.

A woman from the overall organization stood between the aggressive mob, identified herself as the organizer and tried to mediate. She asked the attacked woman to pack up the poster and took the position of the attackers. The attacked woman replied that this was completely unacceptable, after all it was an anti-war poster and that had to be tolerated here. Then the attacker was accused of having thrown the posters onto the Solidarity Collectives table, which according to the transperson was total nonsense, she had dragged the round stand-up table up from a lower floor herself and placed it two metres away from their table so as not to be associated with a militarized position.

The podium failed politically. The fact that some of the women on the panel later presented themselves as feminist but made no effort to rebuke the militarized man from "Solidarity Collectives", even though toxic masculinity is one of the problems that feminists usually have to deal with, speaks volumes about the tactical use of feminism to justify their own militarization in the Ukraine conflict.

Then a person who is known as a driving force behind "Solidarity Collectives" and who was later to sit on the podium as Boris from ABC-Belarus (small polemic in passing: although he has also been living in Germany for some time) also suggested that the posters be displayed in the foyer downstairs so that we could get started.

As the aim was to critically evaluate the solidarity work in relation to Ukraine and not to fend off a transphobic attack by testosterone-driven patriarchal men, the transperson packed up the posters and the commotion broke up.

But this memorable assault actually summed up the whole problem. A poster "Against all war", which comes from a queer, anti-militarist, anarchist, migrant and feminist position, was censored by people and perceived as a provocation because it questions their militarized position and identity politics on Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine. The posters had already been repeatedly torn down days earlier in St. Imier by the "Solidarity Collectives".

A false, incomplete narrative was spread about the incident described above, including by the WOZ, which will be discussed in more detail below.

As the event progressed, the woman on the podium, who had initially banned the trans person from speaking because of her origin, felt emotionally unable to take the podium. After the people from Solidarity Collectives had spoken to her, she took her place on the podium and the event could begin. It should be said about her that she rowed back in relation to the incident and said on the podium that she had overreacted, only to add that this always happens to her when Ukrainians are attacked. Which had never happened.

After the panel had completed three rounds on various issues, the audience was able to ask questions, make comments or express criticism. However, criticism only seemed superficially welcome; as soon as it became more substantive, an older Italian anarchist, for example, was attempted to have the microphone taken out of her hand. However, she refused to be silenced and held the oxygen device for her breathing supply in one hand and the microphone in the other. So the translation of her contribution was stopped. Again, the militarized man jumped in and ran forward the ten rows of chairs and looked ready to strike, at least that's what his body language conveyed, when it came to another Italian activist of the anarchist federation, who withdrew from the hall because of the assault.

But before the discussion started, the framework was set: "We are not talking about antimilitarism here today. Talking about anti-militarism would be censorship, because this is only about the perspective of those affected", said the moderator. As a reminder, we are talking about an anarchist congress and an event on the war in Ukraine. This sentence reveals a fear of confrontation in terms of content and an identitarian conformism in favor of the political line of ABC-Dresden. Here, censorship was spoken before anarchy could speak out.

As a result, critical questions were fended off with polemics or were not addressed.

In the further course of the event, however, the podium and the audience constantly referred to the incident at the beginning and defamed the poster person as a disruptive factor. When she wanted to take a stand and asked for the microphone, it was noticeable how the woman from the overall organization of St. Imier, who had given the microphone to the people in the audience who had come forward, now moderated around the transgender person concerned. She made the list of speakers according to power politics. Everyone who came forward was given the microphone, except the trans person who came forward. The trans person intervened with the microphone operator for so long, rejecting his restrictions on what she could and could not say, until she was finally given the opportunity to speak in consultation between the microphone operator and the organizer.

First, the person thanked the Russian and Ukrainian statements from the podium. Then she added, in roughly the same wording that had stuck with us: "We want to hear your experiences and your points of view. We also want the people in Russia and Belarus who are fighting against the regime to get out of prison, just like everywhere else. That is not in question. But the poster displayed here is not a provocation or a disturbance. It was claimed here that we had come to cause a disturbance. That is a lie. I was physically attacked here because I put up this poster. That is not acceptable. You simply have to put up with a poster like this." Referring to a

statement from the podium ("we are open to other perspectives"), the person said in approximate wording: "But we have to talk about differences in content. From our point of view, anarchists have no place in uniforms, not as soldiers, not at a military weapon. We distinguish between militarization and war and social revolution and self-defence."

Boris from "ABC Belarus/Dresden" commented on the contribution: "differentiate between war and social revolution" with the sentence: "why don't you go to Russia and make a social revolution there, or to Belarus" and wiped away any bridge-building to a discussion. For us, this type of response is a tactical devaluation/defensive tactic to avoid a critical discussion.

The person concerned later reported how she was approached one day later by a woman from Germany: "You have now disrupted Solidarity Collective events at least seven times. Why?" The victim replied: "I didn't disrupt anything." The woman: "Why don't you go to Russia, why don't you go to Belarus?" You can't talk at that level any more. ("Why don't you go over there?" was the slogan used against West German leftists in the 80s).

If a poster with anti-militarist content causes such a storm at an anarchist congress, it was in the right place at the right time. The scandal and assault that has become clear is that pro-war activists are using an anarchist congress as a place to raise funds for the front and inject their militarist propaganda into the anarchist scene. The assault consists of attacking a person who is putting up a poster in the spirit of anarchism. The tearing down of the poster and the attack on the person hanging it up was supported by the entire structure of "Solidarity Collectives". The group has thereby disqualified itself. The distortion of attackers and attacked is the usual reversal of the perpetrator-victim discourse in order to distract from the group's own use of violence.

We demand:

First:

A public apology from "Solidarity Collectives" to the transperson for the assault.

Secondly:

We call on "Solidarity Collectives" to stop supporting soldiers on the frontline and to get all anarchists* out of the trenches. We realize that this cannot be done immediately, especially if there is a mandatory military contract. But we demand a discussion on this.

(Anarchists have no business in the trenches of nation-state militaries - or they no longer are. For us, the people in the trenches are not "comrades" but soldiers who we have to get out of both sides of the front and win over for the social revolution. The constant comparison with Spain and the anarchist militias is precisely the counter-example to Ukraine. The militias fought without fixed command structures on a voluntary basis and for the social revolution. Ukraine is at war, the soldiers cannot simply leave the front or leave Ukraine as men. This is a militarized coercive relationship, tied to the body. It couldn't be more anti-feminist. And women in the military can't hide that either).

Thirdly:

We call on the WOZ to admit and identify the lies of the two journalists Kaspar Surber and Anna

Jikhareva (see end of this article) and to give space to the truth about the process described above.

All those who share our criticism are asked to massively bring this demand to the WOZ and its environment. Please send e-mails, talk to all WOZ employees. We want an anti-militarist WOZ and not a middle-class paper that opens the door to militarism.

Fourthly:

We call on anarchist structures to not just remain in the observer* position, but to take a stand on this and other wars beyond the logic of war and polarization.In the spirit of the poster, we call for a self-confident radical anti-war movement against all war, which cuts off the authoritarian communists*, the AfD, the Greens and the pro-NATO position, the Islamists, etc., and above all shows and implements other perspectives. Resignation and powerlessness only play into the hands of the logic of war

Fifthly:

If there are people collecting money for weapons and military equipment for "comrades" in Ukraine, call on them to get into the trenches themselves. Whoever collects money and lets others die or be murdered deserves the uniform, the weapon and must go to the front. The Bellicans on all sides who raise money with texts and parties(!), who supposedly don't get their hands dirty and who let others die, make us sick and disgusted. Sorry, but it has to be said so blatantly.

Sixthly:

Not only do we have the right to criticize "Solidarity Collectives" for their militaristic, nationalistic, patriarchal current practices, but we also have the responsibility to do so. Anarchism has always been diverse in its non-violent to armed social revolutionary manifestations and in its political forms of organization, from individual anarchists to syndicalism. The rejection of domination, the state, the military and war were and remain clear points of reference. Anyone who speaks out against the state, the military and war, and thus against domination, is anything but an anarchist. The political tragedy that we see in the current orientation of "Solidarity Collectives" makes it urgent for us to make the principle of "against all war" practical. "Blockade, boycott, desert, sabotage" is written on the poster. Some of this is already being done. It involves supporting deserters on all fronts and helping BIPoCs to escape from Ukraine, for example, as well as men who are tired of war. But there is still room for improvement. For example, for antimilitarist work in the ranks of the military. And blockades in front of weapons factories. Occupation of military training areas. Harassing soldiers in public. Disruption of pledges....

Seventhly:

If "Solidarity Collectives" continues to send money for weapons and equipment to the front, to soldiers who are in a line of defense with Ukrainian fascists who submit to a military and state authority, then we call on the entire anti-authoritarian, anarchist and queer-feminist scene not to provide "Solidarity Collectives" and their environment with places or structures. Furthermore, we call on you to attend all events organized by Solidarity Collectives and to demand a discussion there. We call on you to stop donating money and to make it available to groups that support deserters worldwide.

Anarchists

Now a few words about WOZ No.31 3 August 2023 "Im Zweifel für die Praxis". Reprinted in the taz under the title "Decent anarchism"

The article was written by: Kaspar Surber and Anna Jikhareva.

How the censorship of the poster and its journalistic narrative go hand in hand: Against its better judgment, the WOZ, for tactical and ideological reasons, used a narrative in the above-mentioned article on the Anarchist Congress in St. Imier that was put out into the world by the leaders around "Solidatity Collectives". The declaration that "we as privileged people" must "listen to those affected and must not question anything they say" is a declaration of political bankruptcy.

The incident of the assault against the transperson, the censorship of a simple, self-evident antimilitarist poster in St. Imier, the cronyism of the plenum of "Solidarity Collectives" with the attacker on the transperson at the Anarchist Congress, on the other hand, did not make the WOZ an issue.

Anarchism, however, is characterized by values that imply comprehensive freedom from domination. It's as simple as that. If WOZ editors want to take up the cudgels for militarism, they are welcome to do so, but they have no place at an anarchist meeting. They disguise themselves as anarchists (or as people belonging to the movement) without being anarchists. They bug themselves into social movements without having a relationship to them, they suck from the existence of anarchist resistance because we are their job, they pursue careers and poison a world with articles that should radically reject any kind of militarism.

How do the two desk-bound perpetrators do it? The WOZ introduces the incident we described above as follows:

"Participants from Russia, Belarus and Ukraine in particular have to experience how arrogant the Western worldview can be, even among anarchists. At practically every workshop, there are lectures on true anti-miltarism."

This is silly, of course, because Ukrainians, Russians and Belarusians do not exist. An identitarian and nationalist construct uses attributions that assume that everyone, for example Ukrainians, have the same position. Just because some are louder, their positions are not more correct than others who also exist and who evade the compulsion to speak out against Ukrainian nationalism and militarization.

And to back up this introduction, which did not correspond to the reality in St. Imier, comes the following incident: "A participant from Germany, for example, did not miss the opportunity to be the first to loudly display a poster with the slogan "Against all war" at a panel on anarchist positions on war."

Apart from the fact that the podium was completely unaffected by the hanging of the poster, because the poster was hung up at the exit of the room and there were at least ten rows of chairs between it and the podium, it is ludicrous to scandalize an anti-militarist poster that was hung up on a podium on "anarchist positions on war" (WOZ). How stupid you have to be to write something so absurd if it's not about something completely different. It's about reinterpreting an anti-militarist poster as a disturbance in itself - because it fundamentally questions a promilitarized debate and an identitarian, nationalist attitude. The existence of such a poster, and

this is the important information for us anarchists, is already a serious disturbance and provocation for some, which should be censored, made invisible and ultimately eradicated. Because the slogan "Against all war" has the power to expose the proponents of militarization, war logic and ultimately war, because it is perceived as an "attack" and is reacted to in exactly the same way. With censorship.

For us, it is once again confirmed that these people should be excluded from anarchist structures if they do not interrupt their progressive militarization. The WOZ, in any case, has behaved more than out of line in this case, it lies and covers up the assault and thus supports it. Both journalists should be kicked out of our places if they do not publicly retract their lies.

Another piquant detail: a journalist from WOZ was on the podium! She was of course quoted by Kaspar Surber. Without making her function clear. Here, media power is used manipulatively to generate opinions. Podiums are filled with positions that are acceptable to you and supposedly neutral quotes from these people, who are also supposed to embody an exclusive speaking position as "those affected" in order to give more weight to what is said. (It would not be surprising if the journalist Anna Jikhareva, who wrote the article with Kaspar, was even identical to the WOZ woman on the podium)

The desk-bound bellicist seems to be willing to use any shabby means to gain discourse sovereignty in the left about the war.

Anarchism has already survived many turmoil, it will also leave this war-logic-led interpretation by "Solidarity Collectives" behind.

Article on Indymedia:

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