I began the day with a phone call to a German friend. Well, no, the day began as usual with my reluctantly leaving my warm bed to go out for a run around the village, despite there being snow forecast - which did not materialise, by the way. However the first thing I did on my return was to phone my German friend.
She had sent me a message last night asking me to take a look at something she had written, just to check that her English was clear. Phil and I were in the middle of watching something on TV and so I fobbed her off with a promise to look at it this morning. It was only this morning that I realised it was not some long document, a letter to her MP or something of that kind, but just a post on Facebook. Besides, her English is faultless!
So I wanted to apologise for not being a better friend last night. It was time we had a chat anyway. We’ve been trying for ages to arrange to go for a long walk together but weather, family visits, other commitments have been getting in the way.
Basically, this time she wanted to rant about her home country, promoted by the German authorities response to events at the film festival, the Berlinale. Apparently pro-Palestinian supporters had protested outside the venue on Sunday and about 50 people entered the ground floor of the main atrium shouting, "Stop the genocide", while large banners were unfurled from the galleries above bearing the message "Lights, Camera, Genocide" with an image of a clapperboard dripping in blood.
But it was the onstage criticism of Israel’s Gaza conduct which provoked the authorities. During the awards ceremony, Palestinian filmmaker Basel Adra accepted an award for his documentary about the West Bank and called on Germany to stop sending weapons to Israel, in remarks that were met with applause and cheers from the audience.
"It is very hard for me to celebrate when there are tens of thousands of my people being slaughtered and massacred by Israel in Gaza," said Adra, whose film "No Other Land" depicts the Israeli settler displacement of Palestinians in villages in the West Bank. So Culture Minister Claudia Roth said Berlin's Mayor Kai Wegner and the city's government, who share responsibility for the Berlinale, "will now investigate the incidents at the award ceremony”. The aim is to find out whether the Berlinale lived up to its claim of being a place for diversity, different perspectives and dialogue, the minister said, and to see "how it can be ensured in future that the Berlinale is a place that is free from hatred, hate speech, anti-Semitism, racism, hostility towards Muslims and all forms of bigotry."
Indeed several filmmakers used the festival's stage to protest the war in Gaza, and the investigation aims to ensure the Berlinale will be free from hate speech in the future, while maintaining that 'expressions of opinion at cultural events should not be fundamentally prevented'.
And German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Monday condemned the statements criticizing Israel's mass bombing of the Gaza Strip. According to deputy government spokeswoman Christiane Hoffmann, Scholz agrees "that such a one-sided position cannot be allowed to stand”.
However, Germany is among Israel's staunchest allies, and political leaders in Berlin have repeatedly stated that Israel has a right to self-defense. German arms exports to Israel peaked in 2023 with $353 million worth of weapons, including 3,000 portable anti-tank weapons and 500,000 rounds of ammunition for firearms, being approved - 10 times as much as in the previous year.
My German friend declared herself angry with and ashamed of her country, which seemingly has a whole lot of laws preventing people from criticising Israel. Mind you, we are not a great deal better here. The singer Charlotte Church has been facing criticism for singing an “antisemitc” song at a Sing for Palestine charity event. She led the Côr Cochion choir in Caerphilly, South Wales, in a protest chant at the pro-Palestine concert, with footage online showing Church singing along to From the River to the Sea, a song now deemed antisemitic. But so far nobody has obliged her to apologise!
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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