Palestine solidarity activists, artists and cultural workers are holding a lively, peaceful picket at the Goethe Institute in Johannesburg. Germany’s financial support to global organisations in cultural and academic sectors has molded cultural production into an extension of state policy.
Protests are also taking place at the German Consulates in Cape Town and Gqeberha. In Namibia a protest is planned at the German Embassy in Windhoek on 23rd February.
African Artists Against Apartheid (AAAA), a pan-African network of artists, journalists and cultural workers working towards a free Palestine, said: “Germany profits richly from the discourses and spaces of reflection that cultural workers from the Majority World bring forth. We will refuse bullying and disciplining by the German state. As Gaza is annihilated while the world watches, we all have a RESPONSIBILITY to fight for internationalist solidarity and the RIGHT to speak out against genocide.”
Germany has declared it will intervene on Israel’s behalf at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), opposing South Africa’s meticulously argued case where the highest court in the world has ruled that there is a plausible case of genocide.
German weapons exports to Israel have increased ten-fold since the start of the assault on Gaza. At the same time, Germany saw fit to suspend its funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).
In 2019, the German Parliament passed an anti-BDS resolution, forcing cultural institutions to operate with the understanding that in Germany there is no space for solidarity with Palestine, under threat of withdrawn funding.
During Germany’s colonisation of Namibia between 1904 -1908, Germany committed the crime of genocide, killing more than 70 000 people. Indigenous people were forced into concentration camps where many died due to starvation, thirst and disease.
Though the Namibian genocide was Germany’s first, it was certainly not its last. Between 1933 and 1945, Germany killed at least 6 million Jews, 1.9 million non-Jewish Poles, 3.3 million Soviet prisoners of war, 250 000 – 500 000 Roma and Sinti people, 250 000 people with disabilities, 15 000 people from the LGBTQ+ community and 1 000 Jehovah’s Witnesses.
In Germany today, solidarity activities against Israel’s genocide are mislabelled and banned as anti-Semitic. Activist spaces are raided by police and violent arrests are frequent. A reactionary wave has resulted in a slew of firings, cancellations, public doxxing, and outright censorship, effectively silencing any criticism of the Israeli state.
The words of the late President of Namibia, Hage Geingob will be immortalised as he stated that: “Germany cannot morally express commitment to the United Nations Convention against genocide, including atonement for the genocide in Namibia, whilst supporting the equivalent of a holocaust and genocide in Gaza.”
Activists and Artists are protesting to demand:
• That Germany withdraws its military, political, diplomatic and cultural support for Israel in the face of plausible genocide charges at the ICJ.
• That German cultural institutions including the Goethe Institute refuse to police the politics of their artists and instead insist on their autonomy from state policy, invite critical discourse, and allow for dissent.
• That the German state stops conflating criticism of the State of Israel with anti-Semitism.
• That German cultural institutions commit to overturning the anti-BDS resolution and fight against all forms of racism and bigotry in an equal manner. There should be no tolerance for anti-Palestinian repression, as well as the manufacturing of a climate of anti-Arab racism and Islamophobia already widespread in German society.
• That Germany revokes its suspension of funding to UNWRA
For more information please contact:
Kyla Davis, African Artists Against Apartheid: 076 715 2414
Roshan Dadoo, Coordinator, SA BDS Coalition: 082 816 2799
Rina King, Chair, SAJFP: 082 854 5692
This press statement was released by African Artists Against Apartheid and SA BDS Coalition on 09 February 2024.
