Andreas Broeckmann on Thu, 19 May 2022 07:13:36 +0200 (CEST)


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Re: <nettime> The German "Open Letter" on Ukraine

Here's my two cents worth, as a contribution to the debate; I concur with most of Alex's description of the German scenario, and would like to point out two things - but really just as footnotes:
German "Russo-philia" has many names; there were ties between the monarchies at least since the 18th century, many cultural and scientific ties going both ways in the 19th, and treks of exiles in the 19th and 20th centuries, again in either direction. (I guess that there are studies about the reciprocity of despair about one's own country, at least in comparative literature, but maybe such an historical "balance of despair" [complementing those of "power" and "fear"] is also one of the foundations for the chagrin of the "Open Letter".)
One of the names in this bundle of relationships is called "Ost-Ausschuss der Deutschen Wirtschaft", the "East-Committee" of the German industry association BDI. It was founded in the 1950s, made its first cooperation contract with the Soviet Union in 1954, and was in the business of building gas pipelines (!) from 1970 onwards. - I can only speculate about how consecutive Federal governments have been lobbied and influenced by the Ost-Ausschuss and its interests.
Secondly, on the "Zeitenwende". Like others here, I regard the phrasing of this term critically (it has a special, unpleasant ring to it in German, a pathetic rhetoric that is usually associated with the right). But I think that the change we are experiencing indeed has a quality that seems different from what happened in 1999/2001, from the bombing of Belgrade to 9/11. There was a civic consensus throughout the last fifty years that Germany would stand back in the military aspect of the Cold War between the US and Russia (remember that this consensus was re-affirmed by Schröder in 2002 when he denied German participation in the US-led war on Iraq), and what I sense in the "Open Letter" is the attitude of that period when the honest hesitation and pacifist desire were somehow made possible and protected by NATO. We were somehow aware of this uncomfortable protection when we demonstrated against the stationing of Pershing II rocket systems in the early 1980s, but we were also honestly afraid of the war that our parents - from whose generation come some of the first signatories of this open letter - had lived through in the 40s. For me, the "change" that we are seeing now is a collective change in attitude. The decade-old German pacifist reflex (maybe to be written with a capital P?), a moral obligation that many in my 60s generation respected with pride, is fading. I see this in parallel with, and maybe effected by, the generational change (most members of the current German government were born after 1968).
Felix has called the coalition between the Greens and the conservatives "weird". I think it is weird only from the perspective of the 20th century assumptions about what it means to be left and right, conservative or progressive. These parameters have been shifting for a while, and when it comes to the relationship between the German Green party, and the economy, and pacifism, we might indeed see a phase change. This phenomenon looks "weird" only if you believe in "old physics". In the new time, we - and the "Ost-Ausschuss der Deutschen Wirtschaft" - have to get used to the idea that Putin's war in Ukraine is spurring the defossilisation of the German chemical industry. 

Regards,
-a


Am 18.05.22 um 10:04 schrieb Alex Text:

Hi everyone,
Olaf Scholz' term "Zeitenwende" (turn of an era) has been picked up a lot in the German debate and it is probably true as well for the radical left which since 1989 was focussed on 2 developments: opposition to "re-unified" Germany and the development of the Green Party. During the 90's the process of dissolving the pacifist consensus was obvious within the Greens which was seen as a way to get ready to join the government. After the election in the fall of 1998 this proved to be true very soon with NATO's bombing of Serbia because of Kosovo. This was the time of Joschka Fischers infamous statement about the lessons from WW2 (instead of "Nie wieder Faschismus, nie wieder Krieg!" - never again fascism or war - he said: "Nie wieder Auschwitz!" - never again Auschwitz - insinuating that in Kosovo industrial mass-murder needed to be stopped by military force).
Too often the Marx' quote about the repetition of history seems to make sense: as soon as Merkel (who had stayed in power as long as Kohl) was gone and a "progressive government" was formed, Germany was involved in a war again... But this time things are quite different: what we have seen during the Merkel years with the rise of the AfD is the development of a German version of "right-wing populism" which managed to usurp quite a few former leftist positions: on the forefront the pacifist agenda. Actually, the founding of this party in 2013 was followed quite shortly afterwards by the rise of two different social movements: Pegida in Dresden on the one hand (demonstrations against "Islamization of Europe") and so-called "peace winter" which was a reaction to the annexation of Crimea. Although many more or less prominent members of the party Die Linke took part in these demonstrations, it became soon clear that this was dominated by a strange mix of right-wing people with inclination for conspiracy tales. The word "Putin-Versteher" (someone who is inclined to "understand" Putin's policy in the sense of offering excuses for it - a very dumb,  but unfortunately wide-spread term which was coined after the sexist term of "Frauenversteher" which ridicules men who "understand" women, that is feminist positions). The "peace winter" of 2014 was already an erosion of the pacifist agenda. The preparation for what we see now.
What leftists in Germany had to face is the fact that there is a tradition of right-wing "Russia understanding". And a wide-spread fear of German and Russian complicity in Eastern Europe. The irony of history is that this year we are not only witnessing the 100th birthday of the founding of the USSR, but also of "Rapallo", the treaty between the Weimar Republic and the young Soviet Union for cooperation (including secret military training). Now we had to learn that since then a "Rapallo-complex" exists in all countries between Germany and Russia: Middle and Eastern Europe including those countries which Timothy Snyder called "The Bloodlands" (Baltic states, Poland, Belarus, Ukraine). It is worth reading Hannah Arendt's book on totalitarianism again in which she describes the rise of the two "pan-movements": pan-Germanic and pan-Slavic.
While there is a lot of talk about "Russio-phobia" these days, the question is, if we also have to talk about a specific German "Russio-philia"? Which brings us back to the 100th birthday of the USSR: We have to acknowledge that for quite some time now the Soviet Union has been "Russified". The Red Army is seen as a Russian Army, the Soviet victory over Nazi-Germany as Russian victory - and the Soviet Union as such as as a greater red Russia. One of the interventions of Ukrainian activists is to insist that this is a falsification of history. And accordingly the narrative in Ukraine has shifted: while after EuroMaidan the main reference of "history politics" were Ukrainian nationalists, now the Selensky government is trying to turn Putins 
propaganda against him: Ukraine is also fighting a "Great patriotic war".
But as far as Ukrainian leftit activists are concerned, there is one thing even more important than the fight against the falsification of Soviet history: "No f*cking westplaining!" Very soon after the escalation of Russia's war open letters to the Western left were published - recently again: https://lefteast.org/us-plaining-is-not-enough-to-the-western-left-on-your-and-our-mistakes/ <https://lefteast.org/us-plaining-is-not-enough-to-the-western-left-on-your-and-our-mistakes/>
Is there a specific German form of "westplaining"? I am afraid, yes. A rather notorious one. And it has to do with the history of the German left since 1989, especially with the attack on Kosovo in 1999. This was already a "turn of era", since it was the first participation in military action for Germany since 1945. The opposition against this development has led to a very special strand in the leftist spectrum which became known as "anti-German". One of the main protagonists was a man called Jürgen Elsässer. He was a rather prominent publicist - for a while the chief editor of the former East German youth newspaper "Junge Welt" and a contributor of the influential monthly magazine KONKRET. Elsässer is a key-figure since he changed from "anti-German" to neo-nazi and is now one of the main protagonist of the New Right. 
He founded his own monthly glossy magazine which is called COMPACT.
How could this happen? At a certain point Elsässer exercised self-criticism and stated that he was wrong: No longer did he believe that there was a specific danger of German neo-imperialism, but of a broader Western neo-imperialism. Already in 2009 he expressed sympathy for Ahmadinejad in Iran etc. And against this Western threat he discovered a new peace-alliance: only Russia and Germany united could stop the warmongering of the US and its allies. Which brings us back to the tradition of German "Russia-philia" which was strong during the 1920's in the circles of the so-called "Conservative Revolution" (Moeller van den Bruck etc.) It is exactly this milieu that the so-called "New Right" wants 
to reactivate for many years now (Götz Kubitschek etc.)
Now is this only a fringe phenomenon? I am not so sure. I am afraid that the Open Letter proves that there is a certain potential for linking this sentiment with mainstream currents. The tricky thing is that it is mixed with more or less authentic yearning for peace, for reconciliation between Germans and Russians etc. But as Felix wrote: for many years this mainly social democratic "Wandel durch Handel" policy was nothing but a fig leave for very material interests. We now have to acknowledge that "understanding Putin" was not only a speciality of Sarah Wagenknecht and other backward minded members of the party Die Linke, but quite a large consensus in German society which also served quite powerful economic interests. It was after all not only Gregor Gysi who expressed his dismay that with Russia's full-scale attack on Ukraine many of his political beliefs were shattered, but also the notorious liberal Wolfgang Kubicki. And if these two men discover that they have something in common, then one should consider if there is a specific "German ideology" in effect here...
To finish: The main message of Ukrainian leftists to the German left is to face the reality of economic complicity between the elites of Germany and Russia. Schröder is only the tip of the iceberg. The filmmaker Oleksyi Radynski has researched what has been called the "deal of the century" for quite some time now: https://www.e-flux.com/journal/107/322782/is-data-the-new-gas/ <https://www.e-flux.com/journal/107/322782/is-data-the-new-gas/> Soon after the war he had published "The case against the Russian Federation" on eflux (a translation was published by taz): https://www.e-flux.com/journal/125/453868/the-case-against-the-russian-federation/ <https://www.e-flux.com/journal/125/453868/the-case-against-the-russian-federation/>
In this context he also speaks of Putinism as a variation of what Andreas Malm and the Zetkin Collective has called "fossil fascism" (while Malm&Co. do not consider the case of the Russian Federation at all). You can see his statement here at a talk that I organize irregularly at Roter Salon at Volksbühne am Rosa Luxemburg Platz in Berlin: https://www.volksbuehne.berlin/#/de/veranstaltungen/diskussionsveranstaltung-ukraine-4 <https://www.volksbuehne.berlin/#/de/veranstaltungen/diskussionsveranstaltung-ukraine-4>
Let me finish by saying that this series was inspired by the open letters by Ukrainian leftists like Volodymyr Artiukh or Taras Bilous and others. We tried to refrain from "westplaining" and to start to listen. Not only to those who are directly affected by Russia's war of aggression, but also by the voices from Middle and Eastern Europe which were not heard enough. They have been warning about Nord Stream 2 for example. 
But there was no reaction. No "block the pipeline" action etc.
What to do now? Well, there is a tradition on the left to support the delivery of arms (which seems to be forgotten by many): "Weapons for El Salvador!" for example. Or recently for Rojava. If one does not want to go so far - that's fine. But then the question is: what else? Is there an alternative to be in solidarity with the people in Ukraine - and not to be called a "couch pacifist"? The only alternative I see is to support the call for an energy embargo. To denounce the "deal of the century" as a complicity of fossil fascists. And to put the war in a broader context of a decolonial perspective which needs to include the case of the Russian federation. But also the way that Eastern Europe was treated by Germany as well (for example how Kohl supported Gorbatchev). And a radical ecological activism to end the era of extractivism now. This is the "turn of an era" the world needs. 

Thanks for reading. Alex

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