Previously to the protest, the B5-activists had tried to talk to the operators of the B-Movie. Representatives of the B5 attended a meeting with the group responsible for running the B-Movie and expressed their concern about the close collaboration with the group Kritikmaximierung Hamburg – one of several diehard-“Anti-Germans“ organized in this group also publishes in the right-wing journal Bahamas. This criticism was opposed by the statement that a counterbalance was needed against the allegedly „anti-Semitic“ B5 and this was the reason why the movie would be shown. Of course they failed to present solid evidence to support this claim. What kind of reaction to their blatant vilification could the cinema-operators possibly have expected – a champagne reception for a cultivated night at the movies in Jeunesse-dorée atmosphere?
The main objective of the protesters was not to prevent the broadcasting of a movie. Contrary statements are devoid of any truth. The movie contains enough problematic euphemisms about Israel’s domestic policy towards the Palestinians, that surely could have been discussed with suitable dialogue partners. But the movie-hosts and their disciples who are blinded by the „Anti-German“, neo-conservative ideology are definitely no adequate partners for such a discussion. Moreover, the director of the movie, glorifying the Israeli army in one of his later works, is far more disputable as some of the Germans can acknowledge since they are seizing the historically as well as politically illegitimate power of definition about the Jewry and wrongly identify Jews with Zionists and Israel.
The B-Movie was blocked to counter the intended and deliberate provocation of the group Kritikmaximierung Hamburg. They refuse to label themselves as „Anti-German“ and claim they are already beyond this stage. Nevertheless Kritikmaximierung absolutely conforms to the „Anti-German“ mainstream. Nowadays „Anti-German“ positions are hegemonic in the left scene. Even though only few of them openly admit that they are „Anti-Germans“, many of the left-wing activists denounce Anti-capitalism as barbaric. They state that Josef Ackermann, chief-executive of the Deutsche Bank, should not be held responsible for his actions. Almost any criticism against the representatives of the ruling class is discredited as „structurally anti-Semitic“. Finally they hold the view that Anti-Imperialists are actually Nazis – although nobody really knows who they are and what characterizes them. Those concealed „Anti-Germans“ may not be aware of the fact that they after all act and talk as authentic „Anti-German“ neo-conservatives. The German left scene as a matter of fact reached a consensus on „Anti-German“ positions.
The emergence of Kritikmaximierung may be regarded as a new attempt to establish a group a beyond the radio station Freies Sender Kombinat (FSK), which has become politically meaningless in the meantime, and other „Anti-German“ support groups that serve the acting out of German narcissism in Hamburg. The group is in no way an isolated grouplet of free floating will’o the wisps. They are part of the neo-conservative movement which regards itself as the „wrecker“ (Bahamas) of the German and migrant left.
The spectrum of the immediately mobilized followers of the group Kritikmaximierung, which arrived near the B-Movie shortly before the scheduled beginning of the film, speaks for itself. The „Anti-German“ denomination of Hamburg had gathered. The ranks were closed and what objectively has belonged together for a long time finally came together: The phalanx comprised of gut-driven young and old autonomist jungle world subscribers and the intellectually posturing and more eloquent doyens with Bahamas-positions was equally impressive as it was telling and revealing. Finally the enlightened Western whites wanted to put the „uncivilized“ and „barbaric“ migrants and their accursed internationalist friends on trial.
Besides pertinently known internet bloggers (e.g. cosmoproletarian-solidarity.blogspot.com), members of the Hamburg-based „Anti-German“ rookie group sous la plague, leading figures of the autonomist-“Anti-German“-event-center Rote Flora, singularized FAU activists and members of the infoshop Schwarzmarkt, people from FSK, the group Emancipate, the Hamburger Studienbibliothek (HSB), Stop the Bomb activists – warmongers, who propagate a NATO attack on Iran – and Bahamas authors and editors wanted to gain access to the B-Movie and support Kritikmaximierung against the hallucinated „anti-Semitic mob“ which emanated from their own delusional state of mind.
With regard to such a form of „solidarity“, a differentiation between so called softcore and hardcore „Anti-Germans“ has become obsolete and would bypass the fundamental political problem. This was also proven by a „discussion“ which took place in the Rote Flora one day after the events, where people wanted to lament about the cancellation – which has been annulled in the meantime – of the top favorite band of autonomist „Anti-Germans“, Egotronic – who preferredly get turned on by the copious sorrow and death in the Middle East in front of their audience. Critics of the „Anti-Germans“ had been thrown out of the Rote Flora before this „discussion“ started. One preferred to stay among oneself.
This procedure comes as no surprise for the Rote Flora has long since become a party zone for neoliberal upper and middle class youngsters. It appears to be futile to look for political events, a culture of debate, or simply a little sympathy for refugees, welfare recipients and other people in need in the Rote Flora. Instead you find „Anti-German“ yuppies who indulge in hollow electropop-doodling during carefree champagne parties – this is a fleer at the self-proclaimed standard to be a „community center“ and a „Flora for all!“ Whoever is not in sync with the brand oriented dresscode of the fashion center is scrutinized skeptically. Whoever looks like he/she might originate from the Arabic-Muslimic cultural area may easily be suspected of being an „enemy of Israel“ or even an „Anti-Semite“ here. Whoever dares to openly voice an opinion which differs from the softcore-“Anti-German“ mainstream gets defamed, socially ostracized, intimidated, mobbed out – under a „politically correct“ pretext – by a clique conscious of its power – and if that does not work one is simply banished from the Rote Flora.
While the so-called Florists, the henchmen of the Rote Flora, do not give a damn about the suffering and adversity of the wretched of the earth, their whining and lamenting about the events in front of the B-Movie is so much the bigger. The statements of the self-proclaimed anti-Semite hunters are bursting with exaggerations, misrepresentations, lies and victim myths – ridiculous, if one keeps in mind how many of them were actually present . Whoever wants to hear „Jewish pigs“, „faggots“, etc. at any cost will hear it – even though nobody has shouted it. Such allegations are the vulgar methods which anyone who has ever had a conflict with „Anti-Germans“ or simply got into contact with them should know. Their raggedly working journalistic stooges as well as their accomplices in the Linkspartei (the German Left Party), like the member of the Hamburg state parliament Christiane Schneider, are no exceptions in this respect. The notorious and embarrassing self-stylization and self-portrayal as victims of whatever is a common practice of („Anti“-)Germans.
There was no brawl, as various „Anti-German“ groups, bloggers, etc. are pretending. What, however, did occur were a few considerate and comparatively mild reactions (jostles and four slaps in the face) to insults which were repeated after several requests: „leftist Nazis“, „leftist fascists“, „anti-Semites“, „Jew haters“, etc. Fairly politically mature people and people with a historical conscience and political background should actually know that one should not make use of the term anti-Semitism and such historically misrepresentative construction of words in such an inflationary manner. But who mainly wants to fight the Left makes use of them. Among others the group Kritikmaximierung has sustained this trend with the publication of a statement in which the blockaders are defamed as „Neonazis“. It is self-evident that leftists will not tolerate such hostilities and belittlements of anti-Semitism and fascism, which „Anti-Germans“ usually use in order to muzzle and denounce anti-globalizationists, anti-war and peace activists, the Israeli Left, and other critics of the Israeli government and its aggressive policy of settlement and occupation. But most likely the party followers of the ultra right Avigdor Lieberman are not used to any reactions to their authoritarian demeanor other than subservience anymore.
„Anti-Germans“ justify their alleged political legitimacy through their reputed critique of anti-Semitism, with which they have gained power in the past decades. Nowadays their positions are hegemonic in the autonomist scene. However, their „critique“ of anti-Semitism is merely a ticket for entering the establishment of bourgeois society as well as a radically neo-conservative positioning in an emancipatory dress alongside the German conservative party (CDU), Christian fundamentalists, the governments of the USA, Great Britain, and Germany, the profiteers of capitalist exploitation and other executors of the administered world.
There exists not only the negative but also the (seemingly) positive „rumor about the Jew“ – primarily in Germany. Philo-Semitism – which emanated from anti-Semitism and which is fostered by prejudices towards „the Jew“ and categorizations of „the Jews“, and which is extremely popular among „Anti-Germans“ of any kind –, can turn into open anti-Semitism again any time due to precarious historical circumstances. „The Jew“ is not the enemy of the Germans anymore but the friend of the Germans, who try to gain the power to define who is allowed to be a „real“ Jew nowadays and who is not, 65 years after the end of WWII.
Whoever does not fit into the frame of the Jewish Israeli who is gun-toting and loyal to the government – e.g., a Jewish critic of Israeli policy – has to face being insulted as „alibi Jew“, „self-hating Jew“ or „anti-Semite collaborator“, and is accused of „supporting anti-Semitism“ or marked as „anti-Semite“ right away. Among other things, precisely these inflationary accusations of anti-Semitism by „Anti-Germans“ have discredited the critique of anti-Semitism. Thus, the critique of anti-Semitism has become totally arbitrary content wise and has been turned into a toy for German needs. The „Anti-German“ critics do not care about anti-Semitism, let alone about the individual fate of Jews. They are only concerned with the options of political power that a critique of anti-Semitism may offer, with the German attempt to come to terms with history and with combating the Left. The same goal that individual 68ers tried to accomplish with the wish for delegitimizing Israel, is now being longed for by their sons and daughters, as expressed in their hate of Palestinians and Arabs in general. But German guilt and the German guilt complexes cannot be erased – not through denial, not through a historically illegitimate appropriation of the victim role and also not by equating the Jewish victims of the crime against humankind, which was perpetrated by the Germans, with the Israeli state.
But this totally Germano-centric way of dealing with anti-Semitism is not the only trademark of the „Anti-Germans“. Open or latent racism against Africans, Asians, South Americans, and other people in the poorhouses of the world, the legitimation and approval of the extremely violent occupation of the Palestinian territory – which violates international law – by the Israeli government, the legitimation and support of wars (like the war on Gaza, the Gulf War against Iraq and the planned attack on Iran), and the prevalent anti-terror doctrine, the defense and apology of capitalist exploitation and oppression – these are the most striking elements of the „Anti-German“ ideology.
The group Kritikmaximierung Hamburg is on par with this neo-conservative trend and is part of the former outer-parliamentarian Left after 1989/1990 and epitomizes the political zeitgeist: anti-Zionism, the critique of Israel, and anti-Semitism are assumed to be identical by them. To conceive of and attack capitalism as a system of structure and agents, as mastery of humans over humans, is supposed to be „regressive“ and „anti-Semitic“ and so on and so forth. Why should one tolerate such a group in one’s vicinity? Certainly no one will be happy if the PR departments of Lockheed Martin and Blackwater come knocking on the door.
No one could seriously be surprised about the fact that the B-Movie cinema would be struck by the neo-conservative wave, that has been swamping Germany for years. Even completely different institutions of far bigger societal relevance have been undermined by the coalition of the willing. The holiday academy of the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung (the Left Party’s educational foundation), to which „Anti-German“ hard-liners like Thomas von der Osten-Sacken and Stephan Grigat had been invited, is only the most recent example among many others.
Kritikmaximierung Hamburg try to get their program through by all means – supported by Phase 2, jungle world and the autonomist brand clothes and testosterone Antifa 2.0. Unconditionally wanting to be on the side of the winners in a capitalist society is essential to the German authoritarian character. And there are certainly enough dutiful helpers on the heap of ruins of the German Left.
Kommunistische Assoziation Hamburg (KAH)
Hamburg, November 2009
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