“Cognitive warfare” – Clarifying remarks on a propagandistic term
by Christian Gaedt
[This article posted on 6/8/2024 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://www.nachdenkseiten.de/?p=116384.]
Citizens
who are not familiar with propaganda could develop a positive attitude
towards the new weaponry of “cognitive warfare” because it raises hopes
of a more humane form of warfare with “soft power” weapons. However,
what is referred to as “soft power” usually leads to a war with the
usual atrocities. A commentary by Christian Gaedt.
About the author: Dr. Christian Gaedt is a psychotherapist and lives in Wolfenbüttel.
The
term “cognitive warfare” originated in the NATO environment. Since NATO
sees itself as a defensive alliance, this new “weapon” serves to
improve its defensive capabilities. The term “warfare” suggests that
these new “weapons” will be used against the enemy in the event of a
defensive alliance, i.e. in a war. For
citizens who are not familiar with propaganda, this nomenclature does
not arouse any doubts or fears. They may even develop a positive
attitude towards this new type of weapon, because it not only improves
defense against the threatening enemy, but also awakens the hope of a
more humane form of warfare with “soft power” weapons. However, what is
referred to as “soft power” usually leads to a war with the usual
atrocities. Propaganda serves to make war with deadly weapons possible.
It
is therefore appropriate to be suspicious and to critically examine the
situation, because firstly, it is doubtful that these new weapons meet
the requirements of the ethical standards that NATO wants to defend.
This is even indicated by the authors who have scientifically
accompanied the introduction of these manipulation techniques into
NATO's arsenal[1]. Secondly,
in modern warfare, the line between war and peace is becoming blurred,
i.e. so-called “soft power” weapons are also being used outside of clear
acts of war. And thirdly, modern warfare involves the fight for the
acceptance of war as an instrument for resolving conflicts by citizens,
i.e. for the “war-readiness” of the population. And
it involves building up or maintaining the citizen's immunity to
hostile propaganda. In these areas of application, the citizen himself
is the target.
The
methods used here – introduced by NATO as “cognitive warfare” and made
acceptable to the public – are not referred to by that name for
understandable reasons in non-military operations. Their use remains
unrecognized. In principle, however, the same techniques are used as in
military operations. The general feature of the weapons used under the
name of “cognitive warfare” is that they are based on modern
manipulation techniques. A general and unambiguous term for these forms of propaganda would be “cognitive manipulations”.
The
term “cognitive” is intended to indicate that this method of
manipulation directly interferes with cognitive processes. These methods
are thus distinguished from other psychological manipulation
techniques. Cognitive functions” include perception, attention,
recognition, imagination, memory, action planning and communication,
etc., but also the critical examination and evaluation of information. The
common goal of all cognitive manipulation techniques is to weaken,
circumvent or override these critical judgment functions of the target
person.
If
the aim is to change the attitudes and behavioral tendencies of a
target person without their knowledge, the information processing
process must be disrupted in such a way that critical examination and
judgment cannot take place.
The
mass “influencing”, one could also say “seduction”, of one's own
population for the purpose of improving “war readiness” does not do
justice to the right to respect for the “dignity of man” enshrined in
the constitution. The citizen is, so to speak, reduced to an uninformed
participant in a psychological mass experiment. This is no different in
modern advertising. However, this is manipulation of consumer behavior. In
war propaganda, on the other hand, it is a matter of war and peace,
life and death, and even the possible annihilation of the entire
population. Here, the manipulators prove to be inhuman. The language of
the creators of modern propaganda makes no secret of their disparaging
view of humanity, as far as their target group is concerned, that is,
the entire population without the “elite”. Walter Lippmann speaks of a
“disturbed flock of sheep”.
Whether
“cognitive warfare” will ever be as effective in a war as NATO
representatives hope it will be remains to be seen. The following quote
shows the inhumane goals that seem unrealistic from today's
perspective[2]:
"The main goal is not to win without a fight, but to wage a war
against what an enemy community thinks, loves or believes by changing
its perception of reality. It is a war against the way the enemy thinks,
how his mind works, how he sees the world and how he develops his
conceptual thinking. The desired effect is a change in worldview and
thus an impairment of peace of mind, certainty, competitiveness and
prosperity."
Apart
from the fact that the authors of this quote no longer distinguish
between soldiers and civilians, this quote reveals the derogatory,
inhuman attitude of the authors towards a culture whose citizens were
declared “enemies”. They are concerned with the destruction of this
other culture, which is classified as hostile.
These
objectives of “cognitive warfare” raise ethical questions that have not
yet been considered. The fact that NATO has introduced these methods of
manipulation as a new “weapon” shows how seriously it takes this new
form of warfare and how effective it is in the eyes of those
responsible. The ethical problems that arise have not been considered. It is therefore all the more important that civil society should address these issues and resist this development.
For
example, it is worth asking whether the list of recognized human rights
needs to be expanded. Similar problems arise with the application of
medical, neurophysiological interventions in the cognitive functions of
the human brain. A working group at the University of Basel has been
looking into the ethical issues arising from this3. This working group
has called for four new human rights: 1) the right to cognitive freedom,
2) the right to mental privacy, 3) the
right to mental integrity and 4.) the right to psychological
continuity. In view of the cognitive weapons that will be used in future
wars, which aim to achieve similar changes in brain function as those
that can be caused by neurophysiological interventions, the demand for
these new human rights should be included in peace policy work.
Propaganda as an instrument of power
Modern
manipulation techniques, such as those used in “cognitive warfare”, are
also used as war propaganda to target one's own population. The primary
aim is to make the population “war-ready” or to ensure that they remain
so. To this end, an abhorrent enemy image must be created, with a
demonized leader and barbaric soldiers.
War
propaganda can be continued unchanged in times of peace. It then not
only serves to maintain the ability to wage war, but is also useful in
pursuing goals that are not directly military.
It
is known that the more firmly the prevailing ideology in a society is
anchored in the population, the more successful propaganda is. Citizens
must therefore know their “values”, which they have to defend and for
which they should also die if necessary. They must not only know them,
they must also have internalized them as “the highest good”, as a
reliable ethical compass. If this is achieved, a possible war would
become a defensive war. As a fight for the “highest good”, it would receive an accepted legitimacy.
Since
war propaganda strengthens the ideological bond between citizens and
the state (the “values”), it makes sense to turn this side effect into a
primary goal. With a deeper ideological bond to the state,
non-war-related state propaganda would be more effective. Citizens would
then be easier to govern. This makes a largely “non-violent rule”, i.e.
a seemingly democratic government, possible.
This
is one of the reasons why war propaganda is also used in times of
peace. Maintaining the necessary image of the enemy is a central task of
propaganda in times of peace.
Particularly
in times of crisis, when the ideological cohesion of the state and its
population becomes fragile due to contradictory or negative experiences
on the part of the population, the government resorts to increased
propaganda and cultivates enemy images. This makes it clear that
propaganda must also be seen as an instrument of power, that it can not
only make war possible, but also makes restrictive government easier.
All power comes from the (manipulated) people. Guided democracy?
One
might think that this development of propaganda into an instrument of
power is a by-product of wartime propaganda. This need not be the case.
The modern methods of manipulation that have developed from the
advertising industry do not need the threat of war to be effective. The
only prerequisite for their effectiveness is that the population can be
manipulated. For
Walter Lippmann and Edward Bernays, two pioneers of modern propaganda
theory, this manipulability was the basis for influencing citizens in
their consumer behavior. It was only later that they also took on the
task of preparing for wars.
For
Lippmann, the ability to manipulate the population is a danger to
democracy in his sense. His concerns were based on the fact that the
right to vote of an “irrational mass of voters” could have a
difficult-to-control, disruptive influence on the fate of the state.
Lippmann[4] compares the crowd of “mass people” with a “disturbed flock
of sheep” that must be guided by an elite through propaganda. He expresses the conclusion he draws in the following quote in drastic terms[5]:
“[…] The population must be put in its place, […] so that each of us
can live free from the trampling and bellowing of the confused herd.”
Like
Lippmann, Edward Bernays[6] also sees the need to manipulate the
population through propaganda in order to make a well-functioning
society possible.
“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits
and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic
society. Those who manipulate the unseen mechanisms of society form an
invisible government, which is the true ruling power of our country.”
Since
Lippmann and Bernays regarded the average citizen – especially when
they act as a “mass” – as irrational and susceptible to manipulation,
that is, as politically incompetent, they considered it necessary for an
elite to guide democracy. The instruments for this were available with
modern manipulation techniques and were therefore widely accepted in
political circles, at least by the elite. In
an interview, Aldous Huxley, the author of the novel Brave New World,
pointed out the possible development of a society under the influence of
modern manipulation techniques. The following passage is taken from
this interview.
[…] They will rule by getting the consent of the people they govern,
by bypassing the rational side of people and appealing to their
subconscious, their deeper emotions, so that people will even love their
enslavement. […]
In
view of the irresolvable contradictions in a society, total
manipulation will not be possible. It remains a dystopia far removed
from reality. Nevertheless, the mass use of increasingly effective
manipulation techniques brings with it incalculable risks for democracy.
The
democratic principle of “all power emanating from the people” is not
protected from the “people” increasingly being transformed into a more
and more “manipulated people”. This process is imperceptible to those
affected.
That
is why the risks posed by the ideas of Lippmann and Bernays must be
taken seriously. Their methods are based on a questionable concept of
democracy and a view of humanity that cannot be reconciled with “Western
values”. In the concept of democracy put forward by Lippmann and
Bernays, manipulation plays a central role in maintaining their form of
democracy. In
this model of democracy, manipulation is an indispensable instrument
for the elite to lead the politically incapable masses in the right
direction and thus avert harm from society. In this model, there can be
no arguments against the manipulative control of society as long as the
control is exercised by the elected elite.
In
a state such as the Federal Republic of Germany, which is based on a
constitution that enshrines the equality of its citizens, propaganda has
a destructive effect on democracy. This model of democracy cannot
survive the covert disappearance of free political opinion-forming and
the gradual transformation of the “free citizen” into a “manipulated
citizen” without suffering damage. The
least that can be expected as damage is that the permanent
(manipulative) practice will drive forward what is a central element in
Lippmann's concept of democracy, namely the (partial) transformation of
the population into a “sheep flock”.
However,
Lippmann and Bernays' concept of democracy met with fierce opposition
in their day. One of their most important opponents was John Dewey[8].
Criticism also came from Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky[9]. Like
Lippmann, Dewey saw the population as only capable of making complex
political decisions to a limited extent. However, unlike Lippmann, he
rejected the incapacitation of the population through an elite
democracy. Instead,
he called for the possibility of unrestricted participation of citizens
in political discourse and an intensification of political education.
Dewey's demands implicitly express the hope that the population will not
become a herd of sheep, that propaganda will lose its effectiveness.
In
view of the fact that politics cannot be imagined without propaganda,
the central question is how to protect democracy, how to protect the
population from the negative consequences. This question has not been
answered.
The
citizen, at any rate, cannot be protected from attempts at
manipulation, but he can immunize himself against it. “Believe little,
question everything, think for yourself.”[10] This is the advice that
the publisher of the NachDenkSeiten, Albrecht Müller, gives to anyone
who wants to free themselves from the pull of manipulation. There is
probably no better advice. To
ensure that it is not just an isolated, individual solution, the
conditions for citizens to empower themselves to deal with propaganda
must be created. What is needed above all is an unrestricted diversity
of civic education opportunities and fields of activity. Only through
more democracy can democracy be protected. The call for “more democracy”
is still justified today.
[«1]
The Cognitive Warfare Concept, Bernard Claverie and François du Cluzel
innovationhub-act.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Open-Innovation-Cognitive-Warfare.pdf
[«2]
B.Claverie and F. du Cluzel (2022), quoted from Jonas Tögel, Kognitive
Kriegsführung – Neueste Manipulationstechniken als Waffengattung,
Westend (2023), p. 146
[«3]
Marcello Ienca, Roberto Andorno Towards new human rights in the age of
neuroscience and neurotechnology, Life Sciences, Society and Policy
volume 13, Article number: 5 (2017)
[«4] Walter Lippmann, Public Opinion, Transaction Publishers (1922)
[«5] Walter Lippmann The Phantom Public, Transaction Publishers (1925), quoted from Tögel p. 61
[«6] Edward Bernays Propaganda, Horace Liveright, New York (1928)
[«7] Aldous Huxley interviewed by Mike Wallace (1958) Tögel, loc. cit., p. 183
[«8] Lippmann-Dewey debate in the late 1980s, see Wikipedia entry on Walter Lippmann
[«9] Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent, Pantheon Books (1988)
[«10]
Albrecht Müller, “Believe little, question everything, think for
yourself. How to see through manipulations”, Westend (2022)
Operation Bagration – The most successful operation of the Allies in the Second World War
Neutrality is not a fair-weather option
The military-industrial complex is killing us all
The
NZZ uses this picture of the Allied troops landing in Normandy on June
6, 1944 to illustrate an article that claims that this landing –
literally! – “began the liberation of Europe from Nazi terror”. When
every history student knows from their first semester that it was the
Red Army that forced the German Wehrmacht to retreat in the gigantic and
costly battles of Stalingrad (August 1942 - February 1943) and Kursk
(July 1943). The NZZ's formulation is not a matter of opinion, it is a
lie in view of the historical facts. (cm)
Coming to terms with the past as a way of repressing the future? – The aftertaste of the commemorations
By Leo Ensel
[This
article posted on 6/8/2024 is translated from the German on the
Internet,
https://globalbridge.ch/vergangenheitsbewaeltigung-als-zukunftsverdraengung-der-nachgeschmack-der-gedenkfeiern/.]
Preliminary
note from the editorial team: Today and in the coming days, the
“débarquement” in Normandy (in English: “D-Day”), the amphibious and
air-supported military operation of the Allies in World War II, will be
commemorated with great pomp and ceremony. It was on June 6, 1944, 80
years ago, that the liberation of Western Europe – Western Europe! –
from Nazi rule began. –
Our author, with all due respect for historical awareness, is
increasingly concerned about certain forms of state-organized
commemorative ritualism. We are therefore reprinting here, unchanged, an
essay he published five and a half years ago, in mid-November 2018, on
the occasion of similar events marking the centenary of the end of the
First World War. It is read today with very different eyes against the
background of current events...
These
days, everyone is proclaiming that we have to learn from history. But
the moment we ask what lessons we have to learn, the argument begins. In
the shadow of coming to terms with the past, the conflicts of the
future can be prepared.
Commemorative
ceremonies are en vogue. Never before have there been so many days of
remembrance, most of them celebrated in the presence of the highest
international political dignitaries, as in the last four years. June
6, 2014: 70th anniversary of D-Day (landing of the Allied troops in
Normandy); September 1, 2014: 65th anniversary of the German invasion of
Poland and the beginning of World War II; January 28, 015:
70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz; May 8/9, 2015: 70th
anniversary of the end of World War II; November 11, 2018: 100th
anniversary of the end of World War I. The meetings of yesterday's enemies and the reconciliations over the graves were legion.
The
same gestures, the same lessons learned from the past, the same good
intentions for the future. And almost always the same cast of
characters. It is strange that it was precisely during this time that
the slide into a new Cold War accelerated rapidly!
The road to hell is paved with good intentions
The
commemorative days did not end the war in eastern Ukraine or the war in
Syria, in which both the West and Russia are directly or indirectly
heavily involved. The
peak of the commemoration period coincided with the rearmament of
Poland and the Baltic states, the largest military exercises conducted
by Russia and NATO since the end of the Cold War, numerous critical
incidents between NATO and Russia over the Baltic Sea and elsewhere, and
the rise of ultra-right-wing parties in the European Union. Exactly
three weeks before the celebrations marking the end of the First World
War, Trump finally announced the US withdrawal from the INF Treaty.
With
all due respect to the need to come to terms with the past, when the
conflicts of tomorrow are being prepared in its shadow, then it becomes
critical!
It
starts with the famous lessons that are said to be learned from the
past. The platitude that those who do not learn from history are doomed
to repeat it is now being bandied about on every street corner, either
in a schoolmasterly, unctuous or menacingly murmuring undertone. But the
dispute begins as soon as the question arises as to what can be learned
from history.
For
example, on September 1, 2014, former German President Gauck announced
at the Westerplatte in Gdansk that history teaches us “that territorial
concessions often only increase the appetite of aggressors.” This was a
barely veiled warning against an appeasement policy towards Russia in
the face of the annexation of Crimea and the war in eastern Ukraine,
which the West has so apostrophized. The unspoken premise: Putin
is as insatiable as Hitler. If we give in to him today, he will grab
Poland and the Baltic states tomorrow! Because we failed to do so back
then, so the supposed lesson of history, it is absolutely imperative
that we do so today. Whether the analogies that are so readily drawn are
even accurate is a question that the history-master rarely bothers to
ask. The main thing is that the event goes off without a hitch, like a secularized church service.
How coming to terms with the past mutates into repressing the future
If
the important commemorative ceremonies leave me feeling uneasy, it is
because I cannot shake off the feeling that at least some of yesterday's
enemies, who are now reconciling for the umpteenth time with regard to
yesterday's and the day before yesterday's war, could well be tomorrow's
enemies again and that they are doing little to prevent this fatal
development.
Take
the day before yesterday, the day of remembrance for the end of the
First World War in Paris. Who was not there among the more than 70 heads
of state and government present: Trump, Putin, Merkel, Macron, Erdogan,
Netanyahu, Poroshenko... Just imagine for a moment that the attendees
had spontaneously decided to turn the commemoration into an
international security conference. They
would no longer have been reflecting devoutly on the war that ended a
hundred years ago, but on how to end the current war and prevent future
ones! They would certainly not have run out of topics to discuss.
Unrealistic? I know that myself! But you're still allowed to dream...
Unfortunately,
things turned out differently. If it is true that Macron wanted to
avoid a more intensive discussion between Trump and Putin about the
future of the INF Treaty, then the French president has sacrificed the
chance of a slightly less uncertain future to an impressive memorial
service, including his self-staging. This
is not changed by the report from Trump's press secretary that the
American president had a productive discussion about the INF Treaty, the
nuclear agreement with Iran, trade and sanctions during the two-hour
lunch with Putin, Merkel and Macron. “In addition, the situation in
Syria, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, China and North Korea, among other
things, was discussed.” In
plain German, this of course means nothing more than that the two-hour
reconciliation lunch went exactly according to the logic of the famous
social worker saying: “It's nice that we talked about it!”
In
this way, coming to terms with the past mutates into repressing the
future. And days of remembrance become a form of valium for politicians
and the people.
If
there is any lesson history can teach us about the history of memorial
days, it is this: coming to terms with the past may be nice and
uplifting. But the crucial task of today is:
to cope with the future!
End of the text by Leo Ensel.
June
6, 2024: The headline of the NZZ (screenshot) shows how Swiss media
also distort history, because in their eyes it must have been the USA
and the UK that defeated Hitler. One can only be ashamed of such media.
Assiduous false statements
by Peter Petras
[This
article posted on 6/3/2024 is translated from the German on the
Internet,
https://das-blaettchen.de/2024/05/beflissene-falschaussagen-69015.html.]
On
May 20, the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC),
Karim Khan, announced that he had requested international arrest
warrants for Jahia Sinwar, the leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and
two other Hamas leaders, as well as for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu and Defense Minister Joav Galant. Ron
Prosor, Israel's ambassador to Germany, called this “an outrage” and
said that the chief prosecutor was demonizing and delegitimizing “Israel
and the Israeli people”.
However,
the ICC does not sit in judgment over states and peoples, but only over
individuals, and only when it is a matter of core crimes under
international law, such as “genocide”, “crimes against humanity”, “war
crimes” and the “crime of aggression”. The
basis for this is the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court
of 17 July 1998, and its headquarters are in The Hague (Netherlands),
where the International Court of Justice is also located. The ICC is
currently supported by 123 states, including the EU member states. The
USA, Russia, China, India, Turkey and Israel have not signed the
statute, have withdrawn their signature or have not ratified it.
US
President Joe Biden expressed outrage that there was “no equivalence”
between Israel and Hamas. The German Foreign Office in Berlin said that
the simultaneous application for arrest warrants against Hamas leaders
and members of the Israeli government gave the “false impression of
equivalence”. Hamas had “committed a massacre” on October 7, 2023, while
Israel was exercising “its right to self-defense”. The
chairman of the Bundestag's Foreign Affairs Committee, Michael Roth
(SPD), also criticized the simultaneous nature of the charges: “This
further encourages the reversal of the perpetrator-victim relationship.”
However,
if you look at Karim Khan's statement in full (Telepolis, 21.05.24),
you will see that the prosecutor argues in a very nuanced way. First of
all, he speaks of “applications” in the plural and of “war crimes in the
context of an international armed conflict between Israel and Palestine
and a parallel non-international armed conflict between Israel and
Hamas”. The
first section is about the crimes of Hamas on October 7, 2023, the
killing of hundreds of Israeli civilians, the kidnapping of at least 245
hostages, who “were held under inhumane conditions and some of them
were subjected to sexual violence, including rape, during their
captivity”. The
accused Hamas leaders are responsible for these crimes, “as
accomplices” and “as superiors”. At the end, Khan again calls for the
immediate “release of all hostages kidnapped in Israel”
The
second section concerns the charges against Netanyahu and Galant and
their “criminal responsibility for [...] war crimes and crimes against
humanity” that “were committed on the territory of the State of
Palestine (in the Gaza Strip) from at least October 8, 2023”. The
chief prosecutor includes the “starvation of civilians as a method of
warfare”; the “intentional infliction of great suffering”, intentional
killings and “cruel treatment as a war crime”; “intentional attacks on
the civilian population as a war crime” and “extermination and/or murder
as a crime against humanity [...], including in conjunction with death
by starvation”. The
indictment assumes that these crimes were “committed as part of a
widespread and systematic attack against the Palestinian civilian
population as part of state policy” and are continuing.
Conclusion:
Israel, like all states, has “the right to take measures to protect its
population”. However, this does not release any state, including
Israel, “from its obligation to comply with international humanitarian
law. Regardless
of any military objectives, the means that Israel has chosen to achieve
these objectives in the Gaza Strip – namely the deliberate causing of
death, hunger, great suffering and severe physical and health damage to
the civilian population – are criminal.” Netanyahu and Galant are ‘both
as accomplices and as superiors’ the main culprits. There can be no
question of equating and reversing the roles of perpetrator and victim. German politicians have only thought of this out of deference to the Netanyahu government.
Roderich
Kiesewetter, who is considered an expert on foreign policy by the CDU,
spoke of a political scandal. Netanyahu is “the democratically
legitimized head of government of an attacked democracy” and is being
treated “like war criminal and aggressor Putin”. CDU leader Friedrich
Merz said: “But the International Criminal Court was established to hold
despots and authoritarian leaders accountable, not to arrest
democratically elected members of government.”
The
man has studied law, but here he is making an obvious false statement.
The Rome Statute does not deal with the internal affairs of states, but
only with the legal jurisdiction for the prosecution of core crimes
under international law. We know that the USA also committed a wide
range of war crimes in Vietnam, Cambodia, Afghanistan and other
countries. These
included the murder of Afghan civilians, including bridal parties, by
drone attack on the orders of Nobel Peace Prize winner Barack Obama. US
President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair should
have been tried before an international criminal court for the crimes
committed during the 2003 Iraq War – but so far only war criminals from
Yugoslavia and Africa have been tried there.
There
is another problem. The statement that Israel is the only democracy in
the Middle East is also incorrect. In his classic work “Totalitarian and
Authoritarian Regimes” (published in English in 1975 and in German in
1999), political scientist Juan J. Linz showed that the original
contrast between totalitarian and democratic regimes is too simplistic. He
argued that a third type of regime should be included, one that is not
democratic but not totalitarian either. He typologically distinguished
between seven different regimes, including “racial or ethnic
‘democracies’”. (I use Linz's formulation as it was coined in the 1970s
and adopted into German 25 years ago, independently of today's identity
debates.) He
sees the classic form of this in apartheid South Africa: “Regimes that
exclude a large part of the population or even the majority from a
limited pluralism for racial reasons can be described as racial
oligarchies or authoritarian regimes.” In
this case, it was a matter of the strict separation of two societies
and political systems in one state, which was ultimately maintained by
political violence, with the rights of one side, the whites, to
participate in elections and to publicly express opposition being
comparatively large.
The
other example Linz discusses in this type is Israel. “Paradoxically,
Israel, with its democratic political culture, its democratic
institutions, including proportional representation, which strengthens
party pluralism and ensures equal voting rights for all citizens, is
developing into a 'race democracy'. This is happening despite the
contrary statements of its political leaders. This
illustrates the difficulties of creating a democratic, multicultural,
multilingual, multi-ethnic state when a dominant collective sense of
identity is confronted by a demographically significant minority that is
equally aware of its identity, and when both are separated by major
cultural, religious, linguistic and economic differences.” A
common democratic state would have to “guarantee the equality of Jews,
Arabs and other minorities, in fact and not just formally.” “Such a
development, however, would be diametrically opposed to the fundamental
assumptions of the Zionists and the religious characteristics on which
the Jewish state is built [...]. As
long as this is the case, the Israeli state will remain democratic for
only one part of society and violent and authoritarian for the other.
Global financial architecture
by Jürgen Leibiger
[This
article posted on 6/3/2024 is translated from the German on the
Internet,
https://das-blaettchen.de/2024/05/globale-finanzarchitektur-68987.html.]
outdated, dysfunctional, unjust
António Guterres, 2023
At
the Paris Summit for a New Global Financing Pact a year ago, UN
Secretary-General António Guterres characterized the global financial
architecture as “outdated, dysfunctional, and unjust”. It no longer
meets the needs of the 21st century world, a multipolar world
characterized by closely integrated economies and financial markets, as
well as geopolitical tensions and growing systemic risks.
The
term global financial architecture refers to the complex system of
actors and institutions, political and economic regulations, objective
relationships and laws that determine financial relations on the world
markets. It determines the monetary conditions of world trade, currency
relations and the possibilities and costs of borrowing. The situation
and development opportunities of the world economy and individual
countries are highly dependent on this system.
With
regard to central institutions such as the International Monetary Fund
(IMF) and the World Bank – both of which are specialized agencies of the
United Nations – Guterres pointed out that they were founded under
completely different conditions than today in the wake of the Bretton
Woods negotiations 80 years ago; more than three-quarters of the
countries that exist today were not present. This is also evident in the
fact that developing countries in particular are massively
disadvantaged. For
example, the European Union countries were recently allocated almost 13
times more special drawing rights per inhabitant than African states.
And although the challenges facing the financial system have increased,
the capital paid into the World Bank would shrink massively in relation
to global gross domestic product. Developing countries pay up to three
or four times higher interest rates on their loans than the G7
countries. The
current financial system “perpetuates and exacerbates inequalities,”
Guterres notes, and therefore calls for a “new Bretton Woods moment”.
It
is generally assumed that the Bretton Woods system collapsed 50 years
ago. However, this is only partly true. Although the gold-dollar
standard with its fixed exchange rates and the obligation of the US
central bank to exchange dollars for gold was abolished, the US dollar
retained its role as the international reserve currency. The
US currency dominates international payment transactions with a share
of over 42 percent, foreign exchange trading with 44 percent and almost
half of international business with bonds and debt securities. Almost 60
percent of all currency reserves are in dollars. And the IMF and World
Bank Group not only remained as central institutions of the world
financial system, but also expanded their position as global lenders
dominated by the USA. Although
China, for example, has overtaken the United States in terms of GDP in
purchasing power parity, the US holds 17 percent of IMF shares, while
China holds only 6 percent. The situation is similar at the World Bank
Group. When the IMF's internal accounting currency, the Special Drawing
Rights (SDR), was introduced in 1969, many people hoped that it would
replace the dollar as the reserve currency. However,
it remained a purely accounting and credit unit within the IMF. A few
years ago, some countries returned to this idea, but it quickly
disappeared back into the drawer.
The
SWIFT payment system, which is used to process international payments,
is also part of the global financial architecture. It is formally
organized as a cooperative in Belgium and has nothing to do with the
World Bank or the IMF. But here too, the USA and the “West” in its wake
are doing as they please. Information on international payments and data
is being accessed with impunity. With
the help of SWIFT, the sanctions policy against undesirable states is
being implemented – of course “voluntarily”. There are now 22 countries
on the US sanctions list. The existing financial architecture was able
to mitigate the financial crisis of 2008/2009 to some extent, but it was
not able to prevent it. A
whole series of developing countries are in deep debt crises, and the
creation of an adequate sovereign insolvency law has so far been
prevented by the G7 countries and in the interests of private creditors.
The UN's development policy goals (Sustainable Development Goals 2030)
are also being spectacularly missed because their implementation is
failing due to the limitations of the international financial
architecture.
Guterres
had this problem in mind when he called for a new Bretton Woods moment.
But he is also responding to a certain pressure from certain states.
Many of the disadvantaged countries have grown tired of the eternal
promises of reform and are looking for alternatives outside existing
structures. This
search has only just begun and the results so far, especially in the
context of the BRICS+ system with China at the top, are still a long way
from really breaking through the existing hegemonic relationships. However,
the intentions are clear: independence from the “West” and a reduction
in its ability to impose sanctions, the relativization or even
replacement of the dollar as the leading currency through the transition
to economic and financial relations based on each country's own
currency, and the expansion of the New Development Bank of the BRICS
countries, based in Shanghai, as an alternative to the World Bank Group.
There is even speculation about the creation of a BRICS currency. The
fact that these plans are not unrealistic is clear from the fact that
over 40 percent of the world's population lives in this group of
countries and that it generates about a third of global GDP. The pace of
growth is significantly higher than in the West. The Brics+ countries
hold 42 percent of global foreign exchange reserves, which are an
essential part of currency reserves; converted to dollars, this would be
equivalent to 2.8 trillion dollars, which would have considerable
firepower if used in a coordinated manner.
The
main players in the existing system are obviously on alert. They
probably also suspect that an economic war could hinder the newly
emerging forces, but not stop them. Even the sanctions imposed after
Russia's invasion of Ukraine do not seem to be having the expected
effect. Clear-sighted minds understand that the existing financial
architecture can only be preserved in its substance by reforming it. “Everything
must change so that everything remains as it is.” The famous sentence
from Tomasso di Lampedusa's novel “The Leopard” could not be more apt.
The
UN Secretary-General seems to be serious about it. He has proposed a UN
Future Summit, the Pact for the Future, to be held in September. One of
the main topics of this summit is to be the reform of the international
financial architecture. It is to become more modern, effective,
inclusive, representative and fair. The representation of developing
countries in international financial institutions is to be improved. A
higher-level body is to be created within the UN to ensure the
coherence of the financial system. The problem of sovereign debt
defaults is to be solved by creating a suitable mechanism. Public
funding to tackle the climate and development crisis is to be increased
and used more effectively. The special drawing rights at the IMF are to
be increased and fairer access ensured. A global “tax architecture” should be created to effectively combat tax evasion and tax avoidance.
The
changes to the financial architecture that Guterres is seeking are
certainly to be welcomed, but they will be difficult to implement. Not
that this is not feasible in organizational and technical terms, but the
unequal distribution of power in this system represents a major hurdle,
because the established states, led by the USA, would have to
voluntarily relinquish power. So the revolution is unlikely to happen. The
muddling through, the tinkering with small reforms in mini-steps, will
continue as before. And the Brics+ countries will continue to work on an
alternative system. The outcome of this struggle is uncertain for the
time being.
“Product liability” for texts on current affairs
by Herbert Bertsch
[This
article posted om 6/3/2024 is translated from the German on the
Internet,
https://das-blaettchen.de/2024/05/%e2%80%9eprodukthaftung%e2%80%9c-fuer-texte-zum-zeitgeschehen-68965.html.]
What is happening now
is the total occupation of the present
Heiner Müller, On the State of the Nation, 1990
And
what if Müller's “now” were today? More than ever, if “total” is
capable of being intensified. With far-reaching implications for the
theory and practice of contemporary events and history.
“In
this situation, historical research faces two inextricably linked
challenges: how do we deal with the difficult past, and can history help
to solve the problems of today's world? […] The present, our own time,
interprets the past for the needs of tomorrow in order to influence the
politics of tomorrow. The future is thus the most important dimension of
history, and that is precisely what I mean by the public use of
history.”
The
opening quotation, including the confession, comes from the Finnish
historian Seppo Hentilä, who is familiar with the German problems in
connection with Finnish neutrality; I refer to “Finlandization” as a
controversial term with similarities and indirect long-term effects that
continue to this day. This is not just about Finland as an object in a
geo-strategic sense during the East-West conflict. Finland
neither became a people's democracy nor a frontline state of the West.
According to Hentilä, Finland “integrated itself into the West in terms
of trade policy, while maintaining secure economic relations with the
Soviet Union, and developed into a Nordic welfare state with one of the
highest standards of living in the world.” So the Finns were doing well,
but the West did not like this constellation, which did not allow it to
exert the usual influence on other states.
It
was no coincidence that in 1966 the Federal Republic, represented by
Rix Löwenthal, who at the time was advising Willy Brandt on
international security, initiated an international discussion, which led
to the term “Finlandization” becoming popular. In Finland itself, there
were enough contrary tendencies in its eventful history with Russia to
the treaty policy with the Soviet Union characterized by President Urho
Kekkonen. Löwenthal,
however, had West Berlin in mind rather than Finland, with the concern
that despite the stabilizing function of the Wall, further ambitions of
the Soviet Union could be on the political agenda. The strategic goal of
this action: nothing from the Finnish model would be considered for
Germany as a whole, a constituent state or even just West Berlin.
In
the course of history, the situation was reversed. In the meantime,
Finland has reached the highest level of integration into the “West”. In
north-western Europe, the NATO flag is flying over the Baltic Sea –
once a symbol of coexistence as the “Sea of Peace”, which reached its
unique peak with the Helsinki Final Act.
Now
there is only capitalism throughout Europe, including Russia and other
successor states of the Soviet Union; but even there, with its
contradictions. But without the retarding effect of the socialist
system, which was said to be the ultimate cause of all evil in world
politics. There must therefore be other causes for its continued
existence. At the time, there was talk of the “military-industrial
complex”. “It
is indisputable that America's industry has become more dependent on
arms production than other Western industries. It makes a difference
whether an economy has a high share of arms production in the long term
or whether it has to switch to a high share of defense production for a
short period of time, for a period of war” (Der Spiegel, 31/1989).
At
present, the priorities are not only being restored; soon the ideal
situation will prevail: sales of military equipment are booming, with
the destruction of the products being secured, which will be honored by
third parties for eternity. “According to the report, Germany is using
the military aid budget item to pay for war goods that Ukraine buys
directly from industry. In addition, it is used to finance follow-up
orders for weapons that the Bundeswehr has handed over to the Ukrainian
army.” (dpa-AFX,
19.05.2024). More than just a footnote: in Germany, we already have our
own profiteers. The share price of “Rheinmetall” was already at 250
before the end of last year, and now at 524 with a dividend of 5.70
euros.
The
transition to a direct and indirect war economy in the current social
era requires, of course, sufficient acceptance by the respective
population, which is based on partisan infiltration with relatively
pronounced tolerance. Contrary to the principle of diversity as a
democratic value, a mainstream is being built that is supposed to
achieve the goal “without alternatives”. “There
are numerous examples in the world of how history is determined by
truths that those in power regard as correct, or at worst as the only
correct truths,” says Hentilä, adding regretfully: “Certain products of
political historical research have become commodities with their own
markets.”
The
circle of those involved can easily be extended to include politicians,
consultants, authors, political scientists, activists, experts and
anyone with an interest in the subject. The confusing result of the
numerous statements at all levels of society prompts Hentilä to renew a
proposal from his colleague Juhani Suomi regarding the desire for
regulation: “We need a product liability law for historiography
throughout the EU.” That
was and remains probably illusory, but it is not just a charming idea.
According to this, we would then have to deal with these rules: “Every
manufacturer of a product is liable for the defects of the product. The
manufacturer is not only the actual producer of the goods, but also the
manufacturer of a partial product that is still being built into another
product. [….]
If a defective product is manufactured that kills or injures a person
or if an object is damaged, the manufacturer of the defective product is
liable and must compensate the injured party for the damage.” How about
if, especially in these times, we were to handle our products more
carefully without the threat of legal sanctions?
Let's
take the almost universally used phrase: “What good is the best social
policy when the Cossacks come?” An additional modification of the text
included. We
probably do not owe the latter to the FDP chairman Christian Lindner,
although it was updated to suit his ministerial office, but to Hugo
Müller-Vogg at Focus Online on March 1, 2024: “What good is the best
liberal tax policy if the Russians come?”
The
sentence was spoken by Joseph Friedrich Naumann (1860–1919), a
Protestant theologian. He remained in the field of social policy, but
not with the Social Democrats, but with the Liberals, whose policies he
added the social component. However, this was overshadowed by his
enthusiasm for national power and greatness. The
FDP found him to be a suitable name giver for its “Foundation for
Freedom”, which earned it the reproach from the historian Götz Aly in
2011 of having “a skeleton in the FDP's closet” in Naumann.
Whether
used by Helmut Kohl, Christian Lindner or a myriad of other
beneficiaries, the declared intention is to stylize Russia as Germany's
hereditary enemy, whether under the Tsar, with the Soviet system or
without. As with the hereditary enemy France, the aim was and is to
attribute aggressive intentions and actions to the enemy, which must and
can be countered up to and including a preventive strike. Who checks whether one is being too generous in one's ideological armament, for example, misinterpreting it?
On
July 14, 1895, Naumann's attack on the “false conception” of social
democracy in the national question appeared under the rubric
“Wochenschau” in the magazine DIE HILFE. Beginning with the sentence
mentioned, it then continues: “Anyone who wants to pursue domestic
policy must first secure the people, the fatherland and the borders, and
must ensure national power. This is the weakest point of social
democracy. We
need a socialism that is capable of governing. Capable of governing
means: capable of pursuing a better overall policy than before. Such a
capable of governing socialism does not yet exist. Such a socialism must
be German-national.” So much for the original. Except for the first
sentence, there is no mention of an acute fear of an invasion on the
eastern border. The
invocation of a traditional bogeyman clearly serves as a means of
attacking a rival party in the empire, not Russia. The current use of
the sentence as proof of the constant threat from the east is therefore
an unfair interpretation; presumed ignorance is negligent. In short: a
case for product liability.
Living instead of cannons
by Franz Schandl, Vienna
[This
article posted on 6/3/2024 is translated from the German on the
Internet,
https://das-blaettchen.de/2024/05/wohnen-statt-kanonen-68996.html.]
The
Austrian Communist Party is using this slogan to try to get into the
European Parliament. And it doesn't look too bad. After the brilliant
result in Salzburg, the Communists now want to continue their success at
the European elections and the national elections in September. The KPÖ
should also benefit from the slipstream of the green turbulence.
Unlike
the KPD, the KPÖ was never a mass party, even though many disappointed
Social Democrats found their way to the Communists after the failed
uprisings in February 1934. By then, however, the party had already been
banned. It lost a considerable proportion of its cadres in the
anti-fascist resistance, of which it was the most important force. Not a
few of them were purged, of course, both in Austria and in exile. After 1945, it was considered a Russian party. Accordingly, it was written off and largely written off.
Unlike
the PCI or PCF, the KPÖ was hardly able to point to any measurable
results after 1945, and it was gradually voted out of the parliamentary
bodies. Until 1989, the KPÖ was a loyal vassal of the Soviet Union.
There were rarely any deviations. As soon as they formed, their
protagonists were quickly sidelined or excluded. There was no tolerance.
The KPÖ was always loyal to the Kremlin. It
only broke with Stalinism when it collapsed. With the demise of real
socialism in 1989/91, it was thought that the KPÖ was finally finished.
The bloodletting in its own ranks was considerable. In 2003, the party
was also expropriated by the German Treuhand (trust agency) by court
order, with its assets confiscated as disguised property of the SED. For
many decades, the KPÖ unofficially acted as a broker for various
business deals between Austria and the Eastern Bloc countries, eagerly
collecting commissions.
For
many years, the traditional Volksstimme festival in the Vienna Prater
was like a journey back in time that made people feel wistful or even
depressed. The end seemed to be near. But that turned out to be a
mistake. The KPÖ apparatus, which had not been spoiled by success,
proved to be tough and long-winded precisely for that reason. The
opening of the party was somewhat sudden and haphazard, but it had its
merits. The
party has allowed itself to be open to a number of things, both in its
publications and in its alliance policy. It has largely said goodbye to
the unbearable appropriation and patronizing. Even if it was often more a
result of insecurity than of strategy, the party has gone from being a
closed shop to an open one. It has managed to transform the remaining
stock into an asset and to stabilize it. The strange mixture of camp mentality and camp rage should be history.
The
influx of the Young Greens, who were expelled from their mother party
in 2017, proved to be a real stroke of luck. The coup was a tactical
masterpiece. Above all, the party's public image has changed
drastically. Hardly anyone today seems as young and fresh as the KPÖ.
What's more, there are no careerists or opportunists there. The
mandatory salary cap does not necessarily invite them, but conversely
increases the attractiveness of the organization and its
representatives. The importance of the funds that distribute the
donations of the deputies to the socially needy should not be
underestimated.
The
KPÖ is very reserved in its public appearances. Certain positions – the
KPÖ Steiermark, for example, advocates leaving the EU – are not
publicly expressed. Nor does it push itself forward in the area of
migration. The motto seems to be: don't rock the boat. Therefore, there
is no way to speak of an offensive in terms of content. Often, it is not
clear what the communists actually stand for, or where they are
heading. The
KPÖ is not exactly sure either. The explicit is not their strength at
the moment. Sahra Wagenknecht, for example, pursues a much more
offensive and edgy policy than the KPÖ. Politically, the KPÖ is
perceived as a social democratic formation, not as a revolutionary
force. According
to the party leader and EU top candidate Günther Hopfgartner, the party
is not primarily oriented towards the left, but rather towards
developing the “political subject in practice”.
They
are moderating their way into parliament. However, the communists do
not get most of their votes from the working class. Although the KPÖ
(unlike other left-wing movements) is at least marginally anchored
there, it is not their real bastion. This was also shown by this year's
elections to the Austrian Chamber of Labour, the professional
association of the non-self-employed. Despite
gains, the percentage of communists here is well below the benchmark
now reached in urban areas, such as Graz, Salzburg or, more recently,
even Innsbruck. Nevertheless, the KPÖ is able to score points with the
growing number of non-voters and encourage quite a few of them to vote.
However, it is only a fraction of this very amorphous mass of
disaffected voters that is being addressed.
The
housing issue is presented as the central concern, as if it were a
mantra. So far, this approach has paid off. Despite the explosive nature
of the issue, however, there have been no mass rallies (as in Berlin).
Mobilization on the streets and at the ballot box do not have to be
synchronized. It is a single-issue event, even if the EU election
campaign slogan “Living instead of guns” now suggests an expansion. They
are strictly against arms deliveries to the warring parties, are in
favor of negotiations and are a staunch advocate of Austrian neutrality.
They want to “break with the logic of war,” says Hopfgartner. The
Middle East conflict is somewhat more delicate than the Ukraine war. Walter
Baier, the former chairman of the KPÖ and now president of the European
Left, calls for sanctions against the Israeli government, supports the
recognition of the state of Palestine and vehemently criticizes the
double standards of the EU's political elites. Nevertheless, people
often duck away. Various statements appear very defensive. People
practice diplomacy and hold back on anti-imperialist solidarity. They do
not want to be accused of left-wing anti-Semitism.
The
popularity of the party cannot be explained in terms of class or
program. However, there is currently a strong need for a force in the
party spectrum that neither runs aground on the right nor positions
itself in the center again. This need is more diffuse than decisive, let
alone differentiated. But the mere fact of its existence is a novelty. Above
all, communism is no longer a spectre, but rather a stimulating
tingling sensation that extends far into the middle classes. There are
indeed voices that seriously ask why the KPÖ is not banned. However,
it is left to former Chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel (ÖVP) and his party
colleague, the Governor of Lower Austria, Johann Mikl-Leitner, to blow
the anti-communist trumpet loudly. But that does not catch on. On the
contrary, at the moment a third of those surveyed already consider the
KPÖ capable of governing. The brand is perceived as anything but “toxic”
(Schüssel). It
should also not be forgotten that it was the forerunners of the
People's Party, the Christian Socialists, who disposed of Austrian
democracy in 1934 (years before the Nazis).
The
KPÖ is not necessarily doing right what it did wrong in the past.
However, the organization has not made any really serious mistakes. It
is not the position, but the constellation that makes the KPÖ strong.
The party is on a roll. Its successes are more likely to come to it than
to be home-made. At the moment, this mood is catching on, but it is
doubtful whether this will be enough in the long term to stabilize or
expand its successes.
At
any rate, they are no longer spectators. For years they were
competitors, but were not taken seriously as players. The question that
often arose in national elections was whether the KPÖ would break the
one-percent barrier or not. This time, however, the hurdles (5 percent
in the European elections and 4 percent in the national elections at the
end of September) should be surmountable. The argument of the wasted vote no longer applies, and the communists are back on the stage.
Kafka (I): Places
by Mathias Iven
[This
article posted on 6/3/2024 is translated from the German on the
Internet, https://das-blaettchen.de/2024/05/kafka-i-orte-68980.html.]
When
Franz Kafka died 100 years ago today, few people could have imagined
the place he would one day occupy in literary history. He has long since
become a classic. His texts are available in countless editions and
languages, and millions know his name and the names of his protagonists:
Gregor Samsa, Josef K., Karl Rossman... But what is the source of the
appeal of his works? And above all: who was Franz Kafka? There
are still one or two previously unknown details to be discovered. For
example, when it comes to his travels, which took him to Munich, Berlin
and the Baltic Sea resort of Müritz, among other places.
*
Munich
– In the fall of 1901, Kafka enrolled at the University of Prague. He
was still searching. He was interested in chemistry, switched to law,
and took courses in art history and German studies. He was quite
interested in the latter subject, but the lectures on offer rather put
him off. Paul Kisch and Emil Utitz, two of his former classmates, drew
his attention to Munich. Why not change the place of study? But
the decision was clearly a difficult one for Kafka. In December 1902,
he told his friend Oskar Pollak: “Prague won't let go. […] This little
old lady has claws.” It was almost a year before Kafka traveled to
Munich for the first time, in November 1903. In the two weeks he spent
there, he only managed to get a rough overview of the city. Although
Paul Kisch had offered to help him, misunderstandings arose and a
planned meeting did not take place. Kafka returned to Prague and
continued his law studies.
Kafka's
first publication came about through the mediation of his friend Max
Brod at the beginning of 1908. Eight short prose pieces were published
under the title “Betrachtung” in the bi-monthly magazine “Hyperion”,
which was founded by Franz Blei and Carl Sternheim and appeared in
Munich. Four years later, these pieces were to be included in Kafka's
first book, which was published under the same title.
Kafka
came to Munich for the second time on August 26, 1911, but only in
transit. He was traveling with Max Brod and wanted to continue on to
Milan via Zurich and Lucerne. Their train arrived in Munich at around
9:45 p.m. They had met a young woman in the compartment and persuaded
her to join them on a whirlwind tour of the city. In
the pouring rain, they take a taxi through the streets at a
breathtaking pace. After only 20 minutes, they are back at the station.
At 10:30 p.m., Kafka and Brod continue their journey.
Four
years after his first public reading, which took place on December 4,
1912 in Prague, Kafka appeared before a larger audience for a second and
final time on the evening of November 10, 1916. He was invited by the
bookseller and gallery owner Hans Goltz, and Kafka's story “In the Penal
Colony” was part of the evening's program. Due
to the censorship authorities, the reading was announced in the Munich
newspaper as a “tropical Münchhauseniade”. The approximately 50 people
present were irritated. According to the writer Max Pulver, “a stale
smell of blood seemed to spread with the first words”; there was
“confusion in the hall, a lady was carried out unconscious”. One
critic spoke of a “materially repulsive” lecture, and another thought
that Kafka had shown himself to be “a voluptuary of horror”. Completely
depressed, the author returned to Prague on November 12, never to
return.
What
Alfons Schweiggert has compiled on Kafka's stays in Munich is more than
just a collection of biographical facts. It also provides a vivid
depiction of cultural life in the former royal capital. Schweiggert has
added an extensive chapter to the book, which is now in its second
edition, based on his volume “Kleine Seele, springst im Tanze” (Little
Soul, You Jump in the Dance), published in 2004. It
contains not only 15 texts written between 1897 and 1920 and referred
to as “Kafka poems”, but also addresses the question: “Can really
convincing reasons be given for calling this writing-obsessed man a
‘lyricist’, or is this not just an unfounded assumption?”
Alfons Schweiggert: Kafka in Munich. Between Light and Darkness, Allitera Verlag, Munich 2024, 173 pages, 18.00 euros.
*
Ostseebad
Müritz. – On July 1, 1922, Kafka was put into “temporary” retirement.
His advancing tuberculosis no longer allowed him to work regularly in an
office. Cures and recuperative stays had been unsuccessful. And so he
also viewed the upcoming trip to the Baltic Sea with skepticism. He was
to go to Müritz with his sister Elli and her two children. Why
this particular place was chosen is anyone's guess. In Grieben's travel
guide, one could read: “Life in Müritz is simple and relatively cheap,
but there is no lack of sociability. Large promenade on the two 320 and
350 m long landing stages. The town has a central water supply and
electric light. Beautiful dune promenade.”
After
a stopover in Berlin, Kafka arrived in Müritz on July 6, 1923. His
sister and children had moved into their quarters at the “Glückauf”
guesthouse the day before. In a quiet location, eight minutes from the
beach, 22 guest rooms – “with an unobstructed view of the sea” – offer
modest comfort. Kafka
looks around and makes a discovery: “50 steps from my balcony is a
holiday home of the Jewish People's Home in Berlin. Through the trees I
can see the children playing. […] When I am among them, I am not happy,
but on the threshold of happiness.”
Kafka
was very familiar with the work of the Jewish People's Home. It had
started its work on May 18, 1916, initiated by the medical student
Siegfried Lehmann. In the summer of 1916, Kafka's then fiancée Felice
Bauer offered Lehmann her help and, with the enthusiastic support of
Kafka in his letters, looked after a group of 11- to 14-year-old girls
for a while.
The
Jewish People's Home looked after children aged 7 to 14 at the Müritz
house “Kinderglück”. An advertisement promised: “Individual treatment,
meals according to modern principles, experienced supervision”. A week
after his arrival, Kafka met Dora Diamant there (see Blättchen, 1/2024),
who looked after the children's physical well-being as a cook and
housekeeper. The
two of them strike up a conversation, and she tells him about her
childhood in Poland and how her path led her to Berlin and the
Volksheim.
They
meet almost every day until August 6, the day Kafka leaves. Since the
vacation is not yet over, Dora has to stay. They agree to meet in
Berlin. Kafka, whose health has not improved, wants to look for
accommodation there, and everything else will take care of itself. On
September 25, 1923, he picks Dora up from the train station in Berlin
and drives with her to Miquelstraße...
The
old Müritz no longer exists, neither the landing stages nor the houses
“Kinderglück” and “Glückauf”. However, the numerous photographs
collected by Günter Karl Bose for his excellently designed book convey a
vivid picture of the conditions at the time. Bose pays particular
attention to Tile Rössler, who was 17 years old at the time and worked
as a carer in the house “Kinderglück”. The
novella “Dina and the Poet” by Martha Hofmann, which was first
published in 1942 and centers on the encounter between Tile and Kafka,
is still worth reading today.
Günter Karl Bose: Franz Kafka in the Baltic Sea resort of Müritz [1923], Quintus-Verlag, Berlin 2024, 96 pages, 20.00 euros.
*
Berlin.
– Kafka first came to the Spree at the beginning of December 1910 for
almost a week. He was particularly enthusiastic about the performances
he attended at the Deutsches Theater, the Kammerspiele and the Lessing
Theater. Further short visits can be traced between March 1913 and July
1914. The
reason for this was Felice Bauer, whom he had met in Prague in August
1912. We know about the ups and downs of their relationship from the
hundreds of letters they exchanged. “I am going to Berlin for no other
reason,” Kafka wrote to her on March 19, 1913, “than to tell you, who
have been misled by letters, who I really am.” In
early March 1914, Kafka proposed to her in the Tiergarten, where they
often went for long walks. They unofficially became engaged a good six
weeks later, and on June 1 they celebrated the event at Bauer's
apartment at 73 Wilmersdorfer Straße. However, the couple separated just
one month later. The second engagement in July 1916 also did not lead to marriage; the relationship was finally ended in December 1917.
In
a new issue of the Frankfurter Buntbücher, Michael Bienert, who
probably knows Berlin's literary venues better than anyone else, has not
only reconstructed the events outlined above, but has also gone on a
search for clues. The
map included in the book allows the reader to find places that no
longer exist, such as the Hotel Askanischer Hof, which Kafka favored,
Café Josty on Potsdamer Platz, the Pochhammer river baths on
Jannowitzbrücke, or the Wertheim department store on Leipziger Platz.
We
learn from a letter to his parents dated July 1914 that Kafka was still
considering Berlin as a possible place to work, despite his failed
marriage plans: “I think my plan will work like this: I have 5,000
crowns. They will enable me to live somewhere in Germany, in Berlin or
Munich, for two years, if necessary, without earning any money. These
two years will enable me to work on my writing and to bring out of me
what I could not achieve in Prague, between inner slackness and external
disturbance, with such clarity, abundance and unity.” However, it was
not until 1923 that his plan became reality.
After
his stay on the Baltic Sea, Kafka first traveled to Prague before
setting off for the northern summer resort of Schelesen on August 16,
accompanied by his sister Ottla. He returned from there on September 21
and, two days later, traveled to Berlin, intending to stay “only for a
few days”. It turned out to be six months, during which he changed his
accommodation twice. Kafka
initially moved into a room at Miquelstraße 8 in Steglitz. After a
dispute with the landlady over the rent, he moved to Grunewaldstraße 1 3.
But here too, it was all about money, so that on February 1, 1924,
Kafka had to move again, this time to Heidestraße 25/26 in Zehlendorf,
to the widow of the writer Carl Busse. However, as his health continued to deteriorate, Kafka was forced to leave Berlin for good on March 17, 1924.
Aftermath.
Only a few people know that the foundation for Kafka's posthumous
discovery was laid in Berlin. At the end of August 1924, his book A
Hunger Artist, on whose corrections he had worked until the end, was
published by the small avant-garde publishing house Die Schmiede. A
little later, Der Prozess was published at the same place, the first
novel published from the estate administered by Max Brod.
By other means
War is the organized form of conflict in a state context – and a consequence of human polarity.
Once
again, the signs point to war. The continent that sees itself as a
peacemaker is being driven deeper and deeper into a major war that is
completely contrary to the ideal of peace. The country that has taken up
the cause of “never again!” after the last great slaughter is
particularly conspicuous. Wars are conflicts that are carried out by
states. Due
to polarity, humanity is forced to live in conflict, but this does not
necessarily mean that these conflicts have to lead to war.
by Felix Feistel.
[This
article posted on 6/3/2024 is translated from the German on the
Internet, https://www.manova.news/artikel/mit-anderen-mitteln.]
The
signs are pointing to war, and once again in Europe. NATO, under the
leadership of the USA, is drumming up support for a major conflict with
Russia and has been preparing for this for years. Russia, in turn, sees
its national interests threatened and has pre-empted NATO in Ukraine.
The
lust for war has once again gripped large sections of Western politics
and the media, as well as large sections of the population. At
demonstrations, the demand for arms deliveries to Ukraine is being made
under the questionable slogan “Creating peace with heavy weapons”.
Europe,
the continent that wanted to become a haven of peace after the
disastrous Second World War, is being driven deeper and deeper into the
next great war, and at least parts of the population welcome this
course. Particularly noteworthy is the country that, after the last
great slaughter, has taken up the cause of “never again”.
Human
history, at least the part that we know today, seems to us like a
succession of wars. In fact, the writing of history is largely a list of
the great wars of mankind, and where it is not about wars, the focus is
on their preparations or revolutions. The conflict that is carried out
with weapons and violence seems to be the defining characteristic of
man.
This
raises the question of why people go to war with weapons every few
years. According to the dictionary, wars are organized, armed conflicts
that are usually fought by states or paramilitary groups. War is the
father of all things, as Heraclitus wrote thousands of years ago. And
Carl von Clausewitz observed that war is the continuation of politics by
other means.
Both statements contain a grain of truth. For war is the last stage of a conflict that could not be resolved by other means.
When diplomacy fails to resolve a conflict, the parties resort to
arms. Thus war is indeed the continuation of politics by other means.
As
we know from our history lessons, war has caused the rise and fall of
mighty empires, from the ruins of which new empires, new states and new
structures have emerged. War shapes the people who experience it,
through profound trauma, and thus determines their lives. It
kills and maims people, drives them from their land, provokes hunger
and disease – and is thus a primal force, the “father of all things”,
capable of turning entire regions of the world upside down.
Through polarity into conflict
But
why must human beings live in constant conflict? The answer could be
found in a spiritual concept. Earthly, material life forces everything
that manifests itself in it out of unity into polarity. This also
applies to animals and plants, but it applies to human beings in
particular, since they can organize their abilities to think and act so
comprehensively that they have an impact on the entire planet.
Polarity
can be found in all areas of life. It can be found at the atomic level
in the positive protons and the negative electrons, in the poles of
electrical outlets and in magnetism. Humans have two hemispheres of the
brain that are completely different and that actually each represent a
brain of their own. Sometimes it is interpreted as follows: the female
is opposed to the male, the sun to the moon. Many examples of this
polarity could be found.
Many
religions also express this polarity. The Christian story of creation
describes the moment when man was thrown out of unity into polarity,
when the androgynous Adam was given a female counterpart, who, as the
female and thus receptive pole, was persuaded by the serpent with the
forked tongue to reach for the fruit of knowledge.
This
knowledge, which is conveyed by the fruit, is only possible in
polarity, since it is only through polarity that a unit becomes an
observable and recognizable second. This knowledge inevitably leads out
of paradise, where everything is equal and one, and the way back is
forever barred. But this fall from grace, as it is judged and condemned
by religion, is not to be understood in a pejorative sense.
Christian sin is nothing other than being in polarity. Man cannot help but live in sin, since he lives in polarity.
Chinese
philosophy also recognizes polarity, represented as black and white,
the well-known Yin and Yang. This should not be understood as a division
into good and evil. It is simply a matter of two different forces that
act on the world and are interdependent. In the classical
representation, each color already has a core of its opposite within
itself, a sign of the eternal flow, a pendulum perhaps, that takes place
between these two forces.
Karl
Marx would call this dialectics: when a state already contains all the
elements of its opposite, which then, as a logical consequence, come to
fruition. For the two poles need each other.
What
would light be without shadow? It would not be perceptible at all. What
would man be without woman? Or vice versa? Reproduction could not take
place. Electrical current could not flow without the two poles, and
magnetism would not be possible either if there were no south pole and
north pole on each magnet. It
is only man, with his moral concepts, who divides the two poles into
good and evil and then struggles to realize what he has interpreted as
“good”. The problem is that other people have different moral concepts
and make different divisions – and that is how conflict arises.
Repression is not the solution
Since
humans are polar beings, they can only ever decide in favor of one
pole. However, this decision requires the denial of the opposite pole.
This often repressed pole does not disappear. The repressed parts that
come to the surface are what the psychoanalyst C.G. Jung called “the
shadow”. This shadow consists of all the poles that one refuses to
realize, either consciously or unconsciously. It is always there, but often unconsciously, which does not make it any less effective.
In
the human body, the repressed aspects strive to the surface in the form
of illnesses in order to become conscious and be integrated. But not
only repression, but also the passionate fight against the pole that is
perceived as bad inevitably leads to its expression.
Repression and fighting against it do not make the pole disappear,
but rather manifest it. In doing so, you fight against what you have
repressed inside yourself.
You
then find in others what you deny in yourself. What you fight as “evil”
and do not want to admit to yourself then pushes to the surface. This
can be seen, for example, in the moral guardians of virtue who fight the
supposed evil in the world – and then become exactly what they fight.
The
anti-fascist movement is a good example of this: it has already become
just as fascist as the thing it is supposedly fighting against. Once in
positions of power, the defenders of democracy and the fighters against
dictatorships around the world also turn their countries into
dictatorships, but of course only to protect democracy.
At the state level
This
polarity can also be found at the state level, where the old adage
applies: as above, so below. Conflicts at this level are sparked by
opposing intentions.
While NATO wants to expand as far east as possible and preferably
smash Russia in order to exploit its resources, Russia, understandably,
does not want that. The fact that opposing moral values also play a role
here can be seen from the propaganda with which both sides are dealing.
While
the West portrays Russia as an unjust state because, for example, the
LGBTQ ideology is not widespread there and is even restricted, Russia
accuses the West of moral decay precisely because this ideology is so
widespread there. But even in the fight against the supposed enemy, the
two sides are coming closer together. If
Russia is described as a dictatorship because censorship and the
persecution of opponents take place there, then in the West the media is
censored and opponents who name these practices in their own country
are persecuted. The repressed aspect pushes to the surface.
The
poles can never be reached as final states and the opposite pole cannot
be extinguished. Just as in Yin and Yang, each color already contains
its opposite color, so too does each state push back into its opposite.
If peace has been established in Europe since 1945, at least supposedly,
then this state must at some point tip over into its opposite.
Conflicts arise that escalate into war. And that is no surprise, since human beings cannot live without conflict due to their polarity.
Conflicts
are part of the human growth process, leading us back to unity,
ultimately to death, which completes this unity – until we return in a
new incarnation. And the same applies to societies, organizations and,
by extension, states. Banning war from the world is therefore a
difficult undertaking. It is at least not possible by simply working
intensively for peace or even by “fighting” war. In this way, you force war to manifest itself. And the very idea of “fighting” war, that is, fighting for peace, is absurd.
Today,
we could say that it is not nations and states that decide on wars, but
a class of rich oligarchs who want to increase their profits and expand
their power – and that is perfectly logical from their point of view.
These people, with their one-sided fixation on wealth and power, have no
choice but to enter into conflict with others who have similar
interests. At the same time, they enter into conflict with those who
have opposing interests. Now
they have attained the position of power to drive nations into wars, to
mobilize large armies and to profit from the conflicts.
In
doing so, humanity is the victim of the one-sided orientation of these
people, who are out for wealth and power and in the process suppress the
pole of modesty and devotion. They also fight against this in the form
of a class struggle from above. It can be assumed that the one-sided
fixation of these oligarchs will turn into its opposite again – if not
in this life, then in the next.
Integration
Conflicts
are not only inevitable, they are absolutely necessary. For it is only
through them that people can grow and develop – and thus become more and
more of what they already are. The same applies at the level of
communities, which grow together through conflict, and of societies,
which have conflicts both internally and externally.
Conflicts
express the opposite poles and strive for integration, a decision, and
thus for further development. Avoiding conflicts is therefore not
possible at all, but only brings new problems. In the individual, this
is expressed in the development of symptoms, at the level of societies
in dissatisfaction, division, violence.
Human
beings are therefore forced into conflict by their very polarity. But
does this mean that war is a natural part of human civilizations? Well,
not necessarily. Human structures that encompass large areas of the
world and involve many people are likely to lead inevitably to war. Wars
are an expression of conflicts that begin at the individual level and
work their way up through society to the state if they are not resolved.
Sinful, i.e. polar, people hold public office and are influenced by other polar people.
Conflicts that are not resolved or suppressed within the individual
are projected outwards, and so entire societies and even states can do
exactly the same. For here too, the old adage applies: as above, so
below.
But
that does not have to lead to war. There is archaeological evidence of
historical societies that managed to get by without war for centuries or
even millennia. It cannot be assumed that there were no conflicts in
these societies. But there were other ways to transform these conflicts
and integrate the opposite poles.
For
example, an Indian tribe in North America, north of what is now
California, had an interesting tradition: the clan whose harvest was the
richest was given the honorable task of organizing a large festival at
which the entire community consumed the surpluses – and probably a lot
more. The wealth pole, which potentially brings power, was thus
integrated by those who tended more towards the other pole participating
in it.
Other
societies around the world had a rich tradition of regular rituals in
which conflicts were transformed, sometimes in a theatrical way. For
this purpose, kings were sometimes even elected for this period, but
they had no significance or power outside of these rituals. The polarity
and its resolution are also expressed again and again in ancient
mythologies and Greek tragedies. The conflicts were thus dealt with at
the level of art and the poles were integrated. This may be a remnant of early rituals.
Even
today, there are countless alternative ways to resolve conflicts. Here
too, the way in which the conflict is presented often plays a role,
which then leads to integration and thus to a resolution of the
conflict. In addition, it is often not even opposite poles that clash,
but simply a lack of understanding of the triggers for wars, fights or
conflicts, as Marshall Rosenberg, founder of non-violent communication,
has experienced time and again.
Over
the course of time, humanity has developed conflict resolution
mechanisms that do not involve violence. For the integration of opposite
poles in human polarity, the use of weapons would therefore be
completely superfluous. There are many peaceful means of resolving
conflicts that inevitably arise and integrating opposite poles. Whether
this can be applied at the level of powerful entities such as states,
which are usually led by people who are not at all aware of their
conflicts and their repressed parts, is very questionable.
Felix
Feistel, born in 1992, studied law, specializing in international and
European law. He worked as a journalist during his studies and has been
working full-time as a freelance journalist and author since his state
examination. He writes for manova.news, apolut.net,
multipolar-magazin.de and on his own Telegram channel. His
training as a trauma therapist in accordance with the Identity-Oriented
Psychotrauma Theory and Therapy (IoPT), which he also works in, has
broadened his understanding of the background to events in the world.
Read more
The Power of Illusion
01.06.2024 by Felix Feistel
The sixth dimension
Current article
The sixth dimension
The highest magic of life
Learning from failure
Is the federal government prepared to learn “lessons from Afghanistan”?
by Conrad Schetter
In
twenty years of German involvement in the intervention in Afghanistan,
there have been very few statements from the political sphere on the
situation: now and then a progress report on Afghanistan, impressive
figures on the construction of roads, the literacy of children or the
improved water supply. There was hardly any self-criticism.
However,
30 months after the return of the Taliban and the failure of the
intervention, the German government and parliament are now full of
contrite self-criticism: at the end of 2023, the joint evaluation by the
Federal Foreign Office, the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation
and Development and the Federal Ministry of the Interior was published.
At the end of February 2024, the Enquete Commission “Lessons from
Afghanistan for Germany's Future Networked Engagement” published its
interim report. In
a total of almost 900 pages, the evaluation and the commission
meticulously trace a devastating picture of failure in Afghanistan.
On
the positive side, it must be emphasized that the political sphere is
facing up to its responsibility with the evaluation and enquiry, and
that mistakes made in Afghanistan are being revealed without mercy. This
is remarkable and a sign of a vibrant democratic culture. The fact that
the Ministry of Defense did not participate in the evaluation and thus
remains silent on the extent to which it is willing to learn from
Afghanistan is a missed opportunity.
The
reports clearly show what went wrong in 20 years of Afghanistan policy:
the political apparatus showed little interest in understanding
Afghanistan; social and political contexts were hardly taken into
account in the objectives of the mission. The desirable determined the
agenda, not the feasible. The list of failures is long. What
is particularly interesting is that, at the hearings of the Enquete
Commission, the impression was created that the political
decision-makers seemed to know exactly what was going wrong in
Afghanistan and were ultimately not surprised by the failure. Everyone
seemed to know about the abuses of the intervention, but always conveyed
a different image to the outside world.
The
interim report and evaluation reports also fail to answer the question
of why this failure continued for a full 20 years – without any critical
voices being raised; without a culture of error being established in
the ministries; without any adjustments being made. Everyone knew that
the intervention in Afghanistan was heading for disaster; everyone
watched in virtual paralysis, but no one took any countermeasures. The
Bundestag did not demand interim evaluations – as the Dutch parliament
did, for example – on which it could have made its approval of a mandate
extension dependent; nor were there reporting and communication loops
in the ministries that would have enabled the unvarnished passing on of
critical assessments through the various hierarchies in the ministries
to the minister and chancellor. This
is the actual, unspoken finding of the reports now available, which
makes one freeze in horror. Because it highlights the fundamental
failure of German politics in dealing with undesirable developments.
Many
of the proposals in the reports now available on “Learning from
Afghanistan” are good, but not new – and they all fail to address the
question of how a different culture of error can be established in the
political apparatus and how countermeasures can be taken in the event of
blatant mistakes. It is therefore not surprising that the first voices
in the ministries are already being raised to describe Afghanistan as a
unique event that will not be repeated. Afghanistan
thus appears to be an accident. This assessment is convenient, because
it allows us to cling to the existing foundations of political practice.
But this is precisely where the mistake lies. If there is one lesson to
be learned, it is this: a retrospective analysis cannot undo the damage
that has been done.
Conrad Schetter is the director of the Bonn Center for Conflict Studies (BICC) and has been working for many years on issues such as areas of violence in Afghanistan.
published in: Wissenschaft & Frieden 2024/2 Focus Mediterranean, page 5
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