tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca/topics/germany-1289/articlesGermany – The Conversation2024-03-22T10:15:52Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2261502024-03-22T10:15:52Z2024-03-22T10:15:52ZWilliam Blake’s Universe: making a European out of the poet and artist who never left England<p>William Blake’s Universe, the new (free) <a href="https://www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/plan-your-visit/exhibitions/william-blakes-universe">exhibition</a> at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, is a celebration of work by the <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/romanticism">Romantic artist</a>, writer and visionary. </p>
<p>Famous now but little known in his lifetime, Blake (1757-1827) has been given star billing by <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/william-blake-artist">Tate Britain</a> recently. But at the Fitzwilliam, he is made to share the spotlight with fellow artists from Britain and Germany, notably <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Philipp-Otto-Runge">Philipp Otto Runge</a> (1777-1810), whose luminous <a href="https://online-sammlung.hamburger-kunsthalle.de/de/objekt/HK-1016/der-morgen-erste-fassung?term=&filter%255Bobj_actuallocation_s%255D%255B0%255D=19.%2520Jahrhundert&filter%255Bfacet_obj_artistName%255D%255B0%255D=Philipp%2520Otto%2520Runge&context=default&position=9">The Small Morning</a> hangs in the exhibition’s final room.</p>
<p>The approach of exhibition curators David Bindman and Esther Chadwick is quietly provocative. Blake is known tb as a poet, he never left Britain, and he never met Runge. He was also a contrarian, with broadly anti-establishment views. So what is at stake in reframing Blake as a European artist, and does the exhibition convince?</p>
<h2>Blake’s universe</h2>
<p>The exhibition’s title and the life-sized cast of Blake’s head that greets you as you enter, suggest its aim will be to present a trip inside his mind. And to an extent, it does. The bulk of work on display is by Blake himself, much of it drawn from the Fitzwilliam Museum’s own magnificent collection.</p>
<p>Particular highlights are Blake’s glowing drawing <a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1856-0209-417">Albion Rose</a> and the mysterious <a href="https://blakearchive.org/copy/europe.k?descId=europe.k.illbk.01">Ancient of Days</a>, his beautifully coloured, hand-printed poems <a href="https://blakearchive.org/copy/america.o?descId=america.o.illbk.02">America</a> and <a href="https://blakearchive.org/work/europe">Europe</a>, and his energetic re-interpretations of ancient Greek sculptures like the <a href="https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/image/media-6749">Laocoön</a>.</p>
<p>Also on display are spectacular works by other artists, including Benjamin West’s <a href="https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/art-artists/work-of-art/death-on-the-pale-horse-1">Death on the Pale Horse</a> and Caspar David Friedrich’s series of seven sketches in sepia, <a href="https://www.museothyssen.org/en/collection/artists/friedrich-caspar-david">Ages of Man</a> (Die Lebensalter).</p>
<p>Evidently this “universe” does not belong to Blake alone. It is rather a shared imaginative and cultural space, inhabited by Blake and other Romantic artists across Europe from the 1770s to the 1820s. </p>
<p>Portraits of the main players appear in the exhibition’s ante-room. First Runge, whose soulful self-portrait is twinned with Blake’s life mask at the entrance. Then John Flaxman, James Barry, and Henry Fuseli, whom Blake knew personally, and Asmus Jacob Carstens and Caspar David Friedrich, whom he did not. </p>
<h2>Blake the artist?</h2>
<p>It is revelatory to see Blake in the company of artists like these. Poems like The Tyger, London and the verse <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/54684/jerusalem-and-did-those-feet-in-ancient-time">And did those feet</a> (better known as the hymn Jerusalem, after it was set to music by Hubert Parry in 1916), mark Blake out as a poet.</p>
<p>In fact he was this and more. The online <a href="https://www.blakearchive.org">William Blake Archive</a> hints at the range of his work rendered in text, engraving, printmaking, drawing and painting. </p>
<p>It was rare for Blake to write a poem without illustrating it. Working with his wife Catherine, he hand-engraved, hand-coloured and hand-printed “illuminated books” of his verses, releasing dozens of copies over his lifetime essentially as small press editions. </p>
<p>However, he made his living creating and selling visual art – engravings and book illustrations – to commercial publishers. He also produced single and serial works of art for private patrons. </p>
<p>Blake aspired to be better known as an artist (and writer too), and to share his work with a larger audience. But his career floundered, hampered by the precariousness of the art market during the Napoleonic wars, the low social status of his commercial engraving, and his contrary views.</p>
<h2>The exhibition</h2>
<p>The bold exhibition design ensures there is a strong central narrative. Each room focuses on the engagement by European artists with the past, present and future. </p>
<p>The past is that of classical antiquity and the old masters, whose works were copied and repurposed by artists across Europe as they honed their skills in academy schools. The present is that of war and revolution, in America, France and Haiti. The future is that of spiritual renewal, conceived of variously in mystical, Christian, pantheistic and nationalist terms. </p>
<p>Within this historical narrative are clustered smaller scenes which reward attentive viewing. Sketches after Michelangelo, visits to a leper hospital, and the mystical Christian philosophy of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jakob-Bohme">Jakob Böhme</a> are just some of the themes identified and shown to be common concerns among what initially may seem like a disparate group of artists.</p>
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<p>The exhibition architecture invites active engagement too. Separated pages of Blake’s illuminated book, Europe, are displayed on a corrugated screen zig-zagging across the central room, jagged as a bolt of lightning – a phenomenon associated with political revolution. </p>
<p>Early on in the exhibition, a window is cut from the “past” to the “future”, complicating the historical narrative. Is it true that we always progress, that things always get better?</p>
<h2>Blake the European?</h2>
<p>Blake never had the funds to travel to mainland Europe, nor was he sponsored by one of his patrons to go to Rome. He also never read German, although he did learn Italian later in life, and illustrated Dante. </p>
<p>He was not, like <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/samuel-taylor-coleridge">Samuel Taylor Coleridge</a>, influenced by German idealist philosophy. But to be schooled at the Royal Academy, as Blake was from 1779 to 1785, was to learn from European models. And to have a <a href="https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/display/document/obo-9780199730414/obo-9780199730414-0029.xml">Moravian</a> (a type of Protestant) mother may have included learning German songs and hymns in childhood.</p>
<p>The Bible, Dante, Shakespeare, the mystics Böhme and Emanuel Swedenborg were all favourites of Blake’s, and commonly read across continental Europe. Add to this the reverberations of revolution, war, trade, imperialism – all of which sound in Blake’s art and poetry – and it’s clear that Blake was not insular in his outlook.</p>
<p>The question of Blake’s Europeanness is posed everywhere in this exhibition, but never overtly. The working title “Blake in Europe”, was lost along the way. Never quite asked are further questions about the limits of the shared European Romantic culture that the exhibition promotes. Which culture, or cultures, you could ask, and whose?</p>
<p>As <a href="https://blakesociety.org/open-letter-to-the-guardian/">Sibylle Erle, Chair of the Blake Society</a> has said: “For us, Blake is for everybody.” Go to William Blake’s Universe if you can, and see what you think.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/226150/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah Haggarty works for the University of Cambridge, to which the Fitzwilliam Museum belongs. Sarah Haggarty wrote an essay for the exhibition catalogue for William Blake's Universe. </span></em></p>A subtle and thoughtful show, full of shimmering connections that put Blake back in touch with European art figures and influences.Sarah Haggarty, Associate Professor in English, University of Cambridge, and Fellow and Director of Studies in English, Queens' College, University of CambridgeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2254382024-03-20T16:35:47Z2024-03-20T16:35:47ZPeat Bog Soldiers: how an experimental Scottish band contributed to a concentration camp archive in Germany<p>Can a rock band make history? Not in the sense of releasing bestselling records, being garlanded with awards, or achieving notoriety through more controversial means. But rather, can a rock band actually <em>make</em> “History” with a capital H?</p>
<p>Song has always been a medium through which popular tales of the past have been recounted. Scotland, for example, has a strong tradition of folk songs dealing with historical events and figures that have indelibly marked the country.</p>
<p>These range from <a href="https://presserfoundation.org/researching-gaelic-songs-in-the-scottish-highlands/">Gaelic songs</a> about the devastating injustices of the Highland Clearances, to songs about the life of Glasgow’s most famous <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9020kjy51xo">Red Clydesider John Maclean</a>, who fought for workers’ rights during and just after the first world war.</p>
<p>So songs might well be regarded as popular history. But what if we flipped the initial question around: can history be made by a rock band? If we gathered their songs, their videos, their own words about their music, their artwork, how would it measure up against the standard output of the professional academic historian? It would certainly look, sound and feel different. But what might be lost in shifting into this new terrain? And what, if anything, might be gained?</p>
<p>These are some of the questions being explored by <a href="https://osf.io/uh2ga/">The Tenementals</a>, a Glasgow-based group of academics, artists, musicians and filmmakers, of which I am a founding member. As a professor of political cinemas with a longstanding interest in radical history and its expression in cultural form, my work looks at ways to recount radical pasts. The city of Glasgow, with its own radical past, offers a useful test case.</p>
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<p>We have been recording a series of songs that explore Glasgow’s political history, from the <a href="https://glasgowdoorsopenday.com/event/the-1820-radical-war/">Sighthill Martyrs of 1820</a>, to the <a href="https://womenssuffragescotland.wordpress.com/main-sections/suffrage-militancy-in-scotland/">militant suffragettes</a> of the early 20th century. This work spotlights the city’s reputation for protest, interrogates its ongoing entanglements with <a href="https://glasgow.gov.uk/slaverylegacy">empire and slavery</a>, and speculates on where one might find hope in the city. </p>
<p>The Tenementals is a “wild” research project which has one foot in higher education, and one foot in the city’s vibrant music scene. It is wild for a few reasons: it is largely unfunded, it moves to its own beat, and it operates outside higher education’s regulatory frameworks. </p>
<h2>Anti-fascist anthem</h2>
<p>One aspect of this wildness is that it is free to go where it has to go. When The Tenementals played a strikers’ benefit gig last year, we wanted to perform a song beyond our normal repertoire. We opted for the classic German anti-fascist anthem, Die Moorsoldaten (The Peat Bog Soldiers), which was <a href="https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/the-birth-and-long-life-of-peat-bog-soldiers-on-its-90th-anniversary/">written and first performed</a> in Börgermoor concentration camp in north-west Germany, by left-wing political prisoners in August 1933.</p>
<p>Banned from singing traditional protest songs, the Börgermoor prisoners created a six-verse song that recounted their daily experiences. </p>
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<p>Up and down the sentries pacing<br>
No one, no one can get past<br>
Flight for freedom is sure death-dealing<br>
Fenced-in castle holds us fast</p>
</blockquote>
<p>A simple chorus separates the verses.</p>
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<p>We are the Peat Bog Soldiers<br>
marching with our spades to the moor</p>
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<p>A sense of defiance emerges as the verses build and it culminates in a new final chorus line:</p>
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<p>Then, the Peat Bog Soldiers<br>
No more will march with our spades to the moor.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The song is (seemingly) simple, rhythmic and memorable. It became well known in German opposition circles, and was taken up as an anthem by the <a href="https://international-brigades.org.uk/uncategorized/international-brigade-memorial-trust/">International Brigades</a> during the Spanish Civil War. It was also was sung by the Free French Army during the second world war as a message of resistance in the darkest of times. </p>
<p>Although the song has been covered by many English-speaking artists, including Pete Seeger, Paul Robeson and Irish band-of-the-moment, Lankum, it remains relatively unknown in Britain. </p>
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<p>We asked a young Scots-German singer, Lily-Belle Mohaupt, to lead us on the night of our gig. She sang it so beautifully that we decided to record two versions: one in a new translation by ourselves, sung in English and German, and one completely in German, the full six-verse version which is rarely performed or recorded.</p>
<h2>A new connection, another history</h2>
<p>After we released the song, we were surprised to be contacted by Fietje Ausländer, former archivist at the <a href="https://www.komoot.com/highlight/603806">Documentation and Information Centre of Emsland Camps</a> (one of which was Börgermoor) in Germany, a few kilometres from the site where the song was first performed.</p>
<p>Ausländer explained the centre’s purpose is to archive materials related to the history of 15 labour and punishment camps, and that due to its national and international fame, Die Moorsoldaten has become one of the archive’s focal points. </p>
<p>Our version of the song – which includes a CD recording, a video and artwork from the promotional campaign – is now to be archived alongside other versions of the protest song which Emsland archivists have amassed over the years. One of our versions will also be included in a CD of the archive’s favourite covers scheduled for release in 2025.</p>
<p>The CD seeks to introduce the song to new audiences, illustrating the philosopher Jacques Derrida’s assertion that “archives are for the future”. These archives of radical activity create a space for solidarity between generations to develop – a place in which artists, academics and activists in the present converse with the ghosts of the past and those yet to discover these histories in the future. It is a privilege to be part of the conversation.</p>
<p>Although we set out to create a history of radical Glasgow in song, we find ourselves a small part of another history, one which sought in similar ways to fight against injustice. Our interests, though, like the prisoners who sang Die Moorsoldaten on 27 August 1933, lie in carving out radical futures.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/225438/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Archibald is a founding member, songwriter and singer with The Tenementals. For this work he has received funding from Creative Scotland and Glasgow City Heritage Trust.</span></em></p>A radical research project in Scotland has created a new layer of history for a concentration camp archive in Germany.David Archibald, Professor of Political Cinemas, University of GlasgowLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2255922024-03-19T14:07:40Z2024-03-19T14:07:40ZHow we discovered the wreck of a torpedoed British ship after a 109-year mystery<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581637/original/file-20240313-18-d09lmt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1879%2C720&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The SS Hartdale is lying at a depth of 80 metres, 12 miles off the coast of Northern Ireland.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michael Roberts/Unpath’d Waters</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A British cargo ship which was torpedoed and sunk during the first world war has finally surrendered its 109-year-old secret. </p>
<p>The SS Hartdale was steaming from Glasgow to Alexandria in Egypt with its cargo of coal when it was targeted by a German U-boat in March 1915. The location of the ship had long been a mystery, but my colleagues and I have, at last, pinpointed its final resting place. </p>
<p>The old adage that we know more about the surface of the Moon and about Mars than we do about Earth’s deep sea may no longer hold entirely true. But the reality is that we still have a great deal more to learn. </p>
<p>Even our seemingly familiar shallow seafloors near the coast are relatively poorly mapped. Many people may think such areas are well explored, but there are still fundamental questions we can’t answer because detailed surveys haven’t been done.</p>
<p>The UK’s surrounding seas hold a vast underwater graveyard. Thousands of shipwrecks, from centuries of trade and conflict, litter the seabed like silent historical markers. </p>
<p>Surprisingly, even though we know where many wrecks lie, their true identities often remain a mystery. But the <a href="https://unpathdwaters.org.uk">Unpath’d Waters</a> project is now linking maritime archives with existing scientific data to help reveal some of these secrets. </p>
<h2>History meets science</h2>
<p>Scientists are using detailed sonar surveys from more than 100 shipwrecks west of the Isle of Man. Combining this underwater data with historical documents from around the world, researchers are piecing together a massive nautical jigsaw puzzle, finally revealing the true stories of these sunken vessels. </p>
<p>The first successful identification to be made as part of this work is that of the SS Hartdale. When the 105 metre long vessel was torpedoed at dawn on March 13 1915 by the <a href="https://uboat.net/wwi/boats/?boat=27">German submarine U-27</a>, two of its crew were lost and its final location remained unknown.</p>
<p>Researchers began by scanning known wrecks in the attack area, narrowing the possibilities down to less than a dozen. Then, they compared wreck details with official records and diver observations, eliminating candidates one by one until the SS Hartdale emerged as the perfect match. The vessel is lying at a depth of 80 metres, 12 miles off the coast of Northern Ireland.</p>
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<img alt="An old longitudinal section drawing of a ship." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582797/original/file-20240319-18-d8akp2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582797/original/file-20240319-18-d8akp2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=269&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582797/original/file-20240319-18-d8akp2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=269&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582797/original/file-20240319-18-d8akp2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=269&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582797/original/file-20240319-18-d8akp2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=339&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582797/original/file-20240319-18-d8akp2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=339&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582797/original/file-20240319-18-d8akp2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=339&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The original plans for the SS Hartdale from 1910, originally named Benbrook.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://hec.lrfoundation.org.uk/archive-library/documents/lrf-pun-w864-0026-p">The Lloyd’s Register Foundation</a></span>
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<p>Important details about SS Hartdale are available online via the <a href="https://hec.lrfoundation.org.uk/archive-library/ships/benbrook-1910-hartdale/search/everywhere:benbrook/page/1">Lloyds Register Foundation</a>. This includes plans for the construction of the ship, formerly known as Benbrook, built for Joseph Hault & Co. Ltd in 1910. This information, together with eye-witness accounts reported in the national press at the time, have proved to be crucial in confirming the wreck’s identity. </p>
<p>The US historian Michael Lowrey also provided the project team with a translated copy of notes extracted from an official German account and scans of U-27’s official war diary made by its commanding officer, <a href="https://uboat.net/wwi/men/commanders/391.html">Kapitänleutnant Bernd Wegener</a>. These contained descriptions of the events leading up to the sinking, coordinates for the attack and the exact location on Hartdale where the torpedo struck its hull – a detail strikingly confirmed by the sonar scan data.</p>
<p>Armed with this compelling evidence, the research team reached a definitive conclusion. The only viable candidate for the SS Hartdale was a previously “unknown” 105 metre long wreck. It has been lying just a few hundred metres to the south of where U-27 launched its fatal attack.</p>
<h2>Unrestricted submarine warfare</h2>
<p>Following its attack on Hartdale, the U-27 went on to play a prominent role in how naval warfare developed during the rest of the first world war. This came during a period of escalating tension in 1915. </p>
<p>Following the sinking of the British ocean liners, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Lusitania-British-ship">RMS Lusitania</a> in May, and the <a href="https://wrecksite.eu/wreck.aspx?11110">SS Arabic</a> in August of that year by U-boats, the way the war at sea was being conducted became increasingly heated and controversial. </p>
<p>Shortly after the SS Arabic was sunk by a different U-boat, the U-27 was itself attacked and destroyed by the Royal Navy Q-ship <a href="https://www.westernfrontassociation.com/world-war-i-articles/the-baralong-incident-29-january-1917/">HMS Baralong</a>. Q-ships were heavily armed merchant ships designed to lure submarines into making surface attacks. </p>
<p>The surviving German sailors, including U-27’s commanding officer, were then allegedly executed by British sailors in front of American witnesses. It has since become known as the “Baralong incident”.</p>
<p>German outcry over this event combined with other factors contributed to the start of <a href="https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/the-u-boat-campaign-that-almost-broke-britain">“unrestricted submarine warfare”</a> by Germany in February 1917. This meant that warnings were no longer issued to merchant vessels prior to U-boat attacks and loss of life was significantly increased.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/225592/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Roberts receives funding from Arts and Humanities Research Council </span></em></p>The SS Hartdale was sunk by a German U-boat in 1915 and its final resting place had long been unknown.Michael Roberts, SEACAMS R&D Project Manager, Centre for Applied Marine Sciences, Bangor UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2246972024-03-04T17:03:15Z2024-03-04T17:03:15ZBaader–Meinhof group member arrested after 30 years on the run – but Germany still can’t close the chapter on far-left terrorism<p>One of three long-time fugitive members of the German far-left militant organisation Red Army Faction (RAF) – better known as the Baader–Meinhof Group – has been arrested in Berlin. The now 65-year-old Daniela Klette, who was living in the German capital under the false name Claudia Ivone, is assumed to have gone underground at the end of 1989. She is thought to have participated in three terrorist attacks between then and the RAF’s disbandment in 1998. </p>
<p>Together with two remaining fugitives, Ernst-Volker Staub and Burkhard Garweg, Klette is accused of attempted murder and 12 robberies between 1999 and 2016 – activities aimed at keeping the group afloat.</p>
<p>German interior minister Nancy Faeser <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/ex-raf-terrorist-s-arrest-shows-state-s-perseverence-minister-says/ar-BB1iYxF6">celebrated</a> the arrest as being down to “decades of tireless investigative work” and as evidence of the “perseverance and staying power” of state officials. Yet the more common response to Klette’s arrest has been surprise at how she managed to live in a lively area of Berlin without being arrested.</p>
<p>This feeds into wider confusion about why the government’s overall efforts have not yet closed the chapter on a dark period in Germany’s recent history. </p>
<h2>Extreme violence, extreme silence</h2>
<p>According to the German Federal Prosecution Office, the RAF <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/red-army-faction-a-chronology-of-terror/a-2763946">murdered</a> 34 people and injured many others as part of its campaign for radical socio-political change that began in 1970. Despite limited public support from the beginning, the RAF was considered a considerable threat by the German state.</p>
<p>The RAF showed organisational flexibility with a structure and leadership that evolved over time. Klette, Staub and Garweg are assumed to be members of the brutal “third generation” of the RAF, which focused on activities against the military-industrial complex. Among other crimes, the group claimed responsibility for the <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003065876-13/ethnic-ideological-terrorism-western-europe-raymond-corrado-rebecca-evans">1985 murder of Ernst Zimmermann</a>, the CEO of the Motoren and Turbinen Union (MTU), which delivered engines for battle tanks and combat planes.</p>
<p>Few traces were left behind at the RAF’s crime scenes, however, and the murders associated with the group remain largely unsolved. Those RAF members who have been convicted typically reveal very little, even when in custody – especially not the identity of other members. </p>
<p>Klette’s arrest is a reminder that tracking down terrorists can take a long time. Thorough police work can be fundamental – and the downfall of the RAF’s first generation is often seen as an <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1057610X.2012.639062">example</a> of that. Significant arrests were made in late 1970 and 1971. From January 1971, the manhunt was centrally coordinated through a special Baader-Meinhof federal police unit, which adopted innovative profiling techniques and computerised datasets.</p>
<p>Public assistance can also be crucial. In 1972, police officers in Hamburg were able to arrest RAF member <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1972/06/08/archives/a-fourth-anarchist-seized-by-germans.html">Gudrun Ensslin</a> in a clothes shop after the shop assistant had found a gun under Ensslin’s coat and called the police. Only after taking her fingerprints at the station did the officers realise that they had arrested one of the most wanted fugitives in Europe.</p>
<h2>Under the radar</h2>
<p>Klette’s case also shows that living on the run after a career in terrorism is not a glamorous existence. At best she appears to have been living an “ordinary” life, hiding in plain sight in Berlin, where she gave maths tuition, attended sports sessions and sometimes chatted with neighbours. But she also committed a number of armed robberies over the years to support even this life. The authorities found a machine pistol, an anti-tank weapon and a Kalashnikov rifle in her flat, and she was <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/journalists-used-ai-trace-german-far-left-militant-well-before-police-pounced-2024-02-29/">described</a> last week as an ongoing “threat to public safety and order”. </p>
<p>How could Klette have stayed under the radar in Berlin for for so long – and why have Staub and Garweg continued to evade capture? It is difficult to understand why German authorities have struggled to solve so many of the crimes associated with the RAF over the years. Victims of attacks committed by the RAF and their family members have long called for better public information about investigations, perpetrators and institutional failures. But it’s not even <a href="https://dserver.bundestag.de/btd/18/107/1810744.pdf">clear</a> how many investigators the BKA has instructed to track fugitive RAF members since the 1970s.</p>
<p>One likely explanation for the failure to capture the RAF group members lies in the tactics and modus operandi of the third generation. Terrorist organisations are learning institutions, and the third generation built resilience by absorbing important lessons about secrecy from earlier RAF generations. It is assumed that not all members of the third generation are even known about.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1762568945368805541"}"></div></p>
<p>It has also been <a href="https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/terror-bekaempfung-in-deutschland-warum-der-verfassungsschutz-die-raf-nicht-stoppen-konnte-a-85474dee-2fc6-4fb1-a41b-3927c00e5712">suggested</a> that the male-dominated security institutions have failed to fully acknowledge the central role that women played in these campaigns of political violence – and that they therefore overlooked them. In Klette’s case, it has <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/01/world/europe/daniela-klette-red-army-faction.html">emerged</a> that journalists identified her with the help of AI tools as long ago as November 2023. Why police failed to arrest her – or decided not to arrest her – until the end of February 2024 is puzzling.</p>
<p>The RAF never managed to shake Germany’s democratic order in any seriousness but Klette’s case is a reminder that the story of far-left terrorism is not over, decades later. Culprits are still on the run and potentially still committing violent crimes to fund their existence – and many questions remain unanswered.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/224697/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Claudia Hillebrand does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Daniela Klette was working as a maths tutor in Berlin under an assumed name.Claudia Hillebrand, Senior Lecturer in International Relations, Cardiff UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2231512024-03-04T13:36:15Z2024-03-04T13:36:15ZA far-right political group is gaining popularity in Germany – but so, too, are protests against it<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578973/original/file-20240229-18-u1ukal.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">People in Hamburg, Germany, protest against right-wing extremism and the AfD party on Feb. 25, 2024. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/at-a-demonstration-against-right-wing-extremism-on-february-news-photo/2033875417?adppopup=true">Hami Roshan/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Hundreds of thousands of people have been <a href="https://www.euronews.com/2024/02/19/we-are-the-firewall-thousands-protest-against-far-right-in-german-city-wolfsburg">protesting across cities in Germany</a> since early 2024, standing up against the Alternative for Germany party, a relatively new, far-right, nationalist party that is known as the AfD. </p>
<p>What has driven so many Germans to suddenly protest against a small, extremist political party?</p>
<p>The protesters in Germany are directly responding to the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/turning-back-clock-germanys-afd-economy-2024-02-01/">AfD’s radical policy</a> positions and the fact that it is currently in second place <a href="https://www.politico.eu/europe-poll-of-polls/germany/">in the polls</a> for the upcoming federal election, which will take place on or before Oct. 26, 2025. </p>
<p>While the AfD did not win any parliament seats in its first federal election in 2013, the group’s popularity <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/german-election-far-right-afd-loses-nationally-but-wins-in-east/">has been rising</a>. The AfD held about 13% of the seats in parliament from 2017 through 2021 and was the third-largest party in parliament. Since 2021, it has held about <a href="https://www.bundestag.de/en/parliament/plenary/distributionofseats">11% of the seats</a>. </p>
<p>After the next federal election, the AfD could become the second-largest party. While this limited power would not let it enact any extreme policies that could potentially reduce freedom and respect for civil liberties in Germany, the AfD could use its position in parliament to disrupt the policymaking process, criticize establishment parties and attract new voters for future elections.</p>
<h2>What is the AfD and why is it so controversial?</h2>
<p>Several politicians and journalists formed the AfD in direct response to the <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-eurozone-crisis-and-implications-for-the-united-states/">Eurozone crisis</a> of the 2010s. </p>
<p>That crisis was triggered by several European governments in the European Union, including Greece, Portugal and Ireland, that developed large budget deficits.</p>
<p>The European Union’s 27 member countries promise to be <a href="https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/main-elements-fiscal-reforms-agreed-by-eu-governments-2023-12-20/">fiscally responsible</a>. Otherwise, poor public management in one country could trigger an economic crisis throughout the entire European Union.</p>
<p>This is what happened during the Eurozone crisis. Poor public management in some member-states led to a European-wide crisis. </p>
<p>To mitigate the crisis, other European governments had to bail out other governments. The AfD’s founding members were <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/turning-back-clock-germanys-afd-economy-2024-02-01">outraged that Germany</a>, as a leading member of the European Union, would become in part responsible for financially rescuing them. </p>
<p>Over time, the AfD has not only become increasingly skeptical of the European Union, but it has also become very clearly <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37274201">anti-immigration</a>. Compared to other countries in Europe, Germany has a relatively large immigrant population. As of March 2023, about <a href="https://apnews.com/article/germany-migration-immigration-9948d6e87835242f9f7867d7ef817287">23% of the people</a> who live in Germany either are immigrants or their parents are or were. Germany is also the <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/us/countries/germany">largest host country</a> for refugees in Europe.</p>
<p>The true extent of AfD’s anti-immigration policies came to light in January 2024, when a German <a href="https://correctiv.org/en/top-stories/2024/01/15/secret-plan-against-germany/">investigative news report</a> revealed that high-ranking AfD members attended a secret meeting with neo-Nazi activists to discuss a “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/10/politicians-from-germany-afd-met-extremist-group-to-discuss-deportation-masterplan">master plan</a>.” </p>
<p>According to this plan, the German government would deport immigrants en masse to their countries of origin. This plan also included deporting <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/world/germany-afd-secret-meeting-deportation/">non-German-born citizens</a> of Germany. </p>
<p>The meeting was especially controversial because a few members of the Christian Democratic Union, one of Germany’s long-standing conservative parties, were also in attendance. </p>
<p>Once the investigative report became public, the AfD publicly <a href="https://apnews.com/article/germany-far-right-deportations-parliament-7a29129a6f50853791004d21ffea2a92">distanced itself</a> from the meeting and the plan. </p>
<p>Yet, it has been hard for the party leaders to convince the public that they do not support the supposed mass deportation policy, in part because high-ranking AfD members have suggested <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-67948861">such policies</a> in the past. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578974/original/file-20240229-24-3k65fj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A white, bald middle aged man points his finger and stands at a podium that has the words 'AfD' and German writing on it." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578974/original/file-20240229-24-3k65fj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578974/original/file-20240229-24-3k65fj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578974/original/file-20240229-24-3k65fj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578974/original/file-20240229-24-3k65fj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578974/original/file-20240229-24-3k65fj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578974/original/file-20240229-24-3k65fj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578974/original/file-20240229-24-3k65fj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Markus Frohmaier, a leader of the AfD political group in Germany, speaks to party members at a conference on Feb. 24, 2024.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/february-2024-baden-württemberg-rottweil-markus-frohnmaier-news-photo/2028779666?adppopup=true">Christoph Schmidt/picture alliance via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Germans’ response to the AfD</h2>
<p>Once news of the mass deportation meeting circulated in mid-January, hundreds of thousands of people throughout Germany <a href="https://www.npr.org/2024/01/21/1225882007/tens-of-thousands-protest-in-germany-against-the-rise-of-the-far-right">began to protest</a> against the AfD and its anti-immigration policies. </p>
<p>Many of the protesters are also protesting to defend democracy and human rights in Germany. </p>
<p>Protesters have compared the AfD’s growing prominence to that of the Nazi party. They have been carrying signs that say the “<a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/nazis-no-thank-you-germans-take-streets-call-afd-ban-2024-01-17/">AfD is so 1933</a>,” “<a href="https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/europe/2024-01-22/ty-article-magazine/.premium/will-germanys-far-right-party-be-banned-after-bombshell-fascist-mass-deportation-plan/0000018d-3112-d268-addd-3b7b21960000">No Nazis</a>” and “<a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/support-germanys-far-right-afd-reaches-six-month-low-after-protests-2024-01-30/">Deport the AfD</a> Now.” </p>
<p>They believe the only way to prevent the rise of a far-right party again in Germany is to protest the far-right movement before it becomes too popular.</p>
<p>Symbolically, the protesters are protesting under the slogan “<a href="https://apnews.com/article/germany-afd-far-right-protests-bundestag-berlin-90d8497434a424ded198ce3d6d5fabb9">We are the firewall</a>” to illustrate how they are protecting Germany from the rise of far-right nationalists once again.</p>
<p>Some are also pushing for the German government to ban the AfD. Yet, while Germany has <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/germanys-laws-antisemitic-hate-speech-nazi-propaganda-holocaust-denial/">laws against extremist groups</a> that were developed after World War II, it is unclear whether such laws should be used to ban the party, as some observers <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/feb/08/germany-ban-far-right-afd-panel">caution that banning</a> the AfD might backfire and make it more popular.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579046/original/file-20240229-26-b9o5ls.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A large crowd of people stand close together with umbrellas and hold signs. One of them says 'No tolerance for intolerance.'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579046/original/file-20240229-26-b9o5ls.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579046/original/file-20240229-26-b9o5ls.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579046/original/file-20240229-26-b9o5ls.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579046/original/file-20240229-26-b9o5ls.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579046/original/file-20240229-26-b9o5ls.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579046/original/file-20240229-26-b9o5ls.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579046/original/file-20240229-26-b9o5ls.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Demonstrators in Hamburg protest right-wing extremism and the AfD on Feb. 25, 2024.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/at-a-demonstration-against-right-wing-extremism-on-february-news-photo/2033875510?adppopup=true">Hami Roshan/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What the AfD can still accomplish</h2>
<p>While the AfD is currently posing an electoral threat to more mainstream parties in Germany, it is unlikely that it will take control over the German government any time soon. </p>
<p>Germany is a multiparty system; no single party can control German politics at any given time. Parties must share power when governing the country.</p>
<p>It is unlikely that any of the current establishment parties will work with the AfD to govern Germany, primarily because the AfD supports policies that are <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/german-election-what-do-the-terms-right-and-left-mean-if-both-cdu-and-spd-are-in-the-center/a-37601594">so far removed</a> from what typical German parties would find acceptable. </p>
<p>Additionally, the Christian Democratic Union is currently the most popular party, according to opinion polls. CDU members have previously emphasized that they <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/germany-cdu-leader-rules-out-cooperation-with-far-right-afd/a-66642647">will not cooperate</a> with the AfD in any circumstance. </p>
<p>And other <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/centrists-alarmed-as-poll-shows-growing-support-for-german-far-right-party">establishment parties</a> and <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/frank-walter-steinmeier/t-17345761">politicians have also</a> distanced themselves from the AfD.</p>
<p>Yet, while the AfD may not be able to make sweeping policy changes in the short run, it does pose an electoral threat to the establishment parties in Germany. As such, other German parties may start to alter their own policy platforms to appease some potential AfD voters. </p>
<p>The Christian Democratic Union is already proposing to send asylum seekers to other countries while their <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-conservatives-angela-merkel-migration/">applications are being processed</a>. However, their ability to make this policy change is unlikely, as it would require changes to European Union law.</p>
<p>In the long run, if the AfD is able to continue to grow in popularity at the local level, this may help it grow its voter base and become more successful in federal elections. </p>
<p>The AfD is more popular in states in <a href="https://theconversation.com/german-election-continuing-popularity-of-far-right-afd-has-roots-in-east-west-divide-167844">eastern Germany</a>, especially among voters who feel disenchanted with the reunification of communist East Germany and West Germany in 1990, and disenchanted with the drawbacks of Germany being a leading member of the European Union. </p>
<p>Some people fear that if the AfD continues to grow, it could undermine democracy in Germany, much like far-right populist parties have recently done in other <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/article/hungarys-democratic-backsliding-threatens-the-trans-atlantic-security-orde">democracies in Europe</a> and <a href="https://time.com/6245795/brazil-bolsonaro-lula-trump-insurrection/">in the rest of the world</a>.</p>
<p>And as democracy continues to decline in Europe and globally, protections for civil liberties and political rights will continue to <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/article/new-report-global-freedom-declines-17th-consecutive-year-may-be-approaching-turning-point">decline as well</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223151/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julie VanDusky does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Hundreds of thousands of people in Germany are taking to the streets to push back against the far-right, nationalist policies of the AfD, which currently holds 11% of the seats in parliament.Julie VanDusky, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Boise State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2212982024-02-15T13:33:03Z2024-02-15T13:33:03ZTurkey will stop sending imams to German mosques – here’s why this matters<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/575397/original/file-20240213-24-p2rrrc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=80%2C17%2C5867%2C3932&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The imam of the Khadija Mosque, in the Pankow district of Berlin, talks to visitors.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/october-2022-berlin-said-arif-imam-of-the-khadija-mosque-news-photo/1243697775?adppopup=true">Fabian Sommer/picture alliance via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For decades, the Turkish government has sent imams to work in mosques across Germany. But the German Ministry of the Interior <a href="https://www.br.de/nachrichten/kultur/tuerkische-imame-sollen-bald-nicht-mehr-in-deutschland-predigen,TyQ3ynX">recently announced</a> that it had reached an agreement with the Turkish government to put an end to the practice. </p>
<p>These imams, approximately 1,000 at present, are Turkish civil servants. Imams are sent to Germany on four- to six-year rotations, based on a long-standing agreement between the two governments. They work with Germany’s <a href="https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Gesellschaft-Umwelt/Bevoelkerung/Migration-Integration/Publikationen/Downloads-Migration/migrationshintergrund-2010220217004.pdf?__blob=publicationFile">more than 2.8 million</a> residents with Turkish citizenship or heritage.</p>
<p>The practice had come under intense criticism in Germany in recent years. German politicians have accused Turkish imams of <a href="https://theconversation.com/does-turkey-use-spying-imams-to-assert-its-powers-abroad-75643">spying on their flocks</a> or <a href="https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/oezdemir-warnt-vor-instrumentalisierung-junger-menschen-in-deutschland-durch-tuerkische-imame-100.html">abusing their positions</a> to promote support for Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party.</p>
<p>The German government described plans to replace “imported imams” with imams trained in Germany as an “<a href="https://www.bmi.bund.de/SharedDocs/pressemitteilungen/DE/2023/12/imam-ausbildung.html#:%7E:text=Das%20Bundesinnenministerium%2C%20die%20t%C3%BCrkische%20Religionsbeh%C3%B6rde,der%20T%C3%BCrkei%20nach%20Deutschland%20geeinigt">important milestone for integration</a>.” On the other hand, <a href="https://www1.wdr.de/nachrichten/imame-tuerkei-ditib-100.html">some observers</a> have questioned whether it will change anything for Germany’s <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2017/11/29/the-growth-of-germanys-muslim-population-2/">5 million Muslims</a>.</p>
<p>As part of my ongoing research into the <a href="https://history.umbc.edu/facultystaff/full-time/brian-van-wyck/">history of migration</a> between <a href="https://migrantknowledge.org/2020/08/14/turkish-teachers/">Turkey</a> and <a href="https://zeithistorische-forschungen.de/sites/default/files/medien/material/2005-3/Wyck_2017.pdf">Germany</a>, I have investigated the origins of this exchange and the goals both governments pursued by bringing Turkish imams to Germany. </p>
<p>Efforts by both states to intervene in the religious lives of Muslims by selecting which imams can preach in German mosques have a long history – although such efforts might not always achieve the goals of governments.</p>
<h2>The ‘strategy’ of sending imams</h2>
<p>A 1961 agreement led to Turkish “guest workers” being sent to Germany to meet the labor demands of its booming postwar economy. Many recruited workers and their families chose to settle permanently in Germany. By 1974, a year after labor recruitment ended, at least <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/443877/pdf">1 million</a> Turkish citizens were residing in Germany.</p>
<p>It was only in the 1980s that the Turkish government began sending cohorts of imams abroad, after it had become evident that a large Turkish population was in Germany to stay. </p>
<p>This step was motivated by several goals. One was to use state imams to create <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14683849.2014.926233">an alternative to Islamic groups</a> active in Germany who opposed the secular Turkish state. Another was to use imams to <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781315143842-16/governing-turkey-diaspora-limits-diaspora-diplomacy-1">foster continued ties to Turkey</a> among the Turkish diaspora in Germany, encouraging them to continue to invest in Turkey.</p>
<p>In the 1980s, conservative governments made increasing use of Islam to encourage national unity in Turkey by, for example, mandating religious education in schools and revising curricula to emphasize Turkey’s Islamic heritage. Sending imams abroad was <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/glob.12184">an example of this strategy being exported to Turkey’s overseas diaspora</a>.</p>
<h2>Only Turkish imams for Germany</h2>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/575398/original/file-20240213-20-2zhafm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An ivory-colored building with two tall minarets with a dome in their center, set against the backdrop of a clear, blue sky." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/575398/original/file-20240213-20-2zhafm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/575398/original/file-20240213-20-2zhafm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575398/original/file-20240213-20-2zhafm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575398/original/file-20240213-20-2zhafm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575398/original/file-20240213-20-2zhafm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575398/original/file-20240213-20-2zhafm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575398/original/file-20240213-20-2zhafm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Sehitlik Mosque in the Berlin district of Neukoelln.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-sehitlik-mosque-photographed-on-july-16-2009-in-the-news-photo/1513208364?adppopup=true">Kaveh Rostamkhani/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the early 1980s, German authorities, like their Turkish counterparts, had become concerned about Islamic institutions in the country. Historian <a href="https://dl.acm.org/profile/99659642849">Alexander Konrad</a> has demonstrated that <a href="https://www.wallstein-verlag.de/9783835352681-umdeutungen-des-islams.html">unsubstantiated reports about corporal punishment and political extremism</a> in courses devoted to learning the Quran achieved wide currency in Germany in the 1970s.</p>
<p>When German diplomats and Turkish officials began to discuss their shared concerns in meetings in Ankara in 1980, they quickly found common ground. As diplomatic cables in the archives of the German Federal Foreign Office reporting on these discussions reveal, Turkish and German officials agreed that having the right imams in German mosques would solve the social and political problems they believed were caused by extremist imams. And they believed that imams employed by the Turkish state were guaranteed to be well-trained and moderate.</p>
<p>Accordingly, as I learned from directives preserved in the State Archive of North Rhine-Westphalia, German policymakers had begun by 1982 to issue entry visas directly to the Turkish government to distribute to those imams it selected to serve in Germany. Already by the end of the 1980s, <a href="https://search.worldcat.org/title/muslim-identity-and-the-balkan-state/oclc/037261064">more than 500</a> Turkish state imams were active in Germany.</p>
<p>At the same time, entry visas for all other imams were more tightly controlled. This meant that imams from Turkey or anywhere else in the world who wanted to work in Germany but were not employed by the Turkish government faced new hurdles. I learned from legal judgments in the German Federal Archives that some imams who were already working in Germany were forced to leave the country as a result of the new policy.</p>
<h2>Limits to the influence of Turkish state imams</h2>
<p>Both governments assumed that Turkish state imams would be able to reshape German mosques, eliminate perceived extremism and ensure secular Islamic practice in Germany. However, this agreement did not achieve the results the Turkish or German government desired. </p>
<p>There were a few reasons for this. For one, imams often arrived with limited knowledge of German and Germany. Because of that, they relied on members of the local Turkish community, as the sociologist <a href="https://www.irp-cms.uni-osnabrueck.de/personal/professoren/prof_dr_dr_rauf_ceylan.html">Rauf Ceylan</a> has <a href="https://www.herder.de/geschichte-politik/shop/p4/58318-imame-in-deutschland-kartonierte-ausgabe/">argued</a>.</p>
<p>Contrary to what German and Turkish officials might have assumed, these imams could not simply assume control over the often long-established mosques to which they were assigned. And that meant that whatever control the Turkish government exercised over German mosques through them was partial and depended on local buy-in.</p>
<p>Furthermore, not all mosques in Germany received Turkish state imams. Turkish-origin migrants and their descendants created Islamic institutions and organized religious life for themselves for decades <a href="https://brill.com/display/book/edcoll/9783657782130/BP000007.xml">without Turkish state intervention</a>. Those institutions did not disappear when competition in the form of Turkish state imams arrived. Both now and then, many Muslims with Turkish roots choose to attend mosques with Turkish state imams, but many do not. </p>
<h2>Imams trained in Germany?</h2>
<p>Over the course of the more than 40 years in which Turkish state imams have been sent to Germany, the German and Turkish governments invested their work with high expectations. And now, as the end of these imam exchanges comes into sight, German officials continue to assume that changing who preaches in mosques will dramatically alter religious life for German Muslims.</p>
<p>In the coming years, imams trained in academies in Germany will replace more and more Turkish state imams as they end their rotations in Germany and return home. According to this plan, the eventual result will be that only domestically trained, German-speaking imams will work in German mosques at some point in the near future. German officials <a href="https://www.bmi.bund.de/SharedDocs/pressemitteilungen/DE/2023/12/imam-ausbildung.html#:%7E:text=Das%20Bundesinnenministerium%2C%20die%20t%C3%BCrkische%20Religionsbeh%C3%B6rde,der%20T%C3%BCrkei%20nach%20Deutschland%20geeinigt">described the new model</a> as “an important milestone for the integration and participation of Muslim communities in Germany.”</p>
<p>Ultimately, as history demonstrates, it is German Muslims themselves, and not the imams who lead them in prayer, who will determine if this is the case.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221298/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brian Van Wyck does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Turkish government started sending imams to Germany in the 1980s, but under a new agreement, imams will be trained in Germany instead.Brian Van Wyck, Assistant Professor of History, University of Maryland, Baltimore CountyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2233292024-02-13T03:06:14Z2024-02-13T03:06:14ZAs the war in Gaza continues, Germany’s unstinting defence of Israel has unleashed a culture war that has just reached Australia<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574913/original/file-20240212-24-s96z2v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C26%2C5982%2C3763&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Ghassan Hage</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sweatshop Literary Movement</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Globally renowned Australian intellectual Ghassan Hage has devoted his career to unpicking the nature of racism in multicultural Australia and elsewhere – with the kind of bravura and theoretical flair that either attracts or repels readers, according to type. </p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/ghassan-hage-is-one-of-australias-most-significant-intellectuals-hes-still-on-a-quest-for-a-multicultural-society-that-hopes-and-cares-206753">His work</a> led him to being offered a stint at Germany’s prestigious <a href="https://www.mpg.de/153644/social-anthropology">Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology</a>. </p>
<p>On February 7 2024, however, after an article in the German newspaper <em>Welt am Sonntag</em> accused him of “<a href="https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/plus249881966/Max-Planck-Gesellschaft-Antisemitismus-Skandal-erschuettert-deutsche-Nobelpreis-Schmiede.html">hatred of Israel</a>”, the Max Planck Society issued a terse <a href="https://www.mpg.de/21510445/statement-ghassan-hage">statement</a> ending its “working relationship” with Hage. </p>
<p>This came less than two months after the Max Planck Foundation, with war in Gaza raging, had <a href="https://www.mpg.de/max-planck-israel-programme">announced</a> “additional funding for German-Israeli collaborations”.</p>
<p>The Melbourne-based academic was accused by the Institute of having “abused his civil liberties” and his “fundamental right to freedom of opinion”. The organisation insisted that “racism, Islamophobia, antisemitism, discrimination, hatred and agitation have no place in the Max Planck Society”. </p>
<p>The implication was clear – Hage’s trenchant criticism of Israel’s war, particularly on <a href="https://twitter.com/anthroprofhage">social media</a>, had seen him fired. As he wrote in his <a href="https://hageba2a.blogspot.com/2024/02/statement-regarding-my-sacking-from-max.html">statement</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>What to me is a fair, intellectual critique of Israel, for them is “antisemitism according to the law in Germany”.</p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ghassan-hage-is-one-of-australias-most-significant-intellectuals-hes-still-on-a-quest-for-a-multicultural-society-that-hopes-and-cares-206753">Ghassan Hage is one of Australia's most significant intellectuals. He's still on a quest for a multicultural society that hopes and cares</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>A political ideal</h2>
<p>So what is Hage’s position on Israel? As he succinctly writes: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I have a political ideal that I have always struggled for regarding Israel/Palestine. It is the ideal of a multi-religious society made from
Christians, Muslims and Jews living together on that land.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>His criticism of current Israeli policy, he insists, stems from the Netanyahu government’s determination to “work against such a goal”. But it is also a critique he extends to Palestinian organisations that similarly rule out co-existence.</p>
<p>In this, Hage’s position is not unlike other anti-racist visions of a multicultural Israel/Palestine, either as a <a href="https://arabcenterdc.org/resource/shifting-the-paradigm-the-one-state-solution-as-a-path-to-peace/">single state</a> or as a <a href="https://www.analystnews.org/posts/genocide-scholar-omer-bartov-says-only-a-political-solution-can-bring-peace-to-israel-palestine-and-he-has-one-in-mind">confederation</a> of two states with freedom of movement between them. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-the-two-state-solution-to-the-israeli-palestinian-conflict-221872">Explainer: what is the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>This is not the first time a prestigious German organisation has severed ties with a respected intellectual for asking serious questions about Israel’s conduct in the war or its broader track record of relations with the Palestinians. </p>
<p>Masha Gessen’s evocative New Yorker essay <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-weekend-essay/in-the-shadow-of-the-holocaust">In the Shadow of the Holocaust</a> caused a newspaper scandal in Germany for comparing the war in Gaza to the Nazi liquidation of a Jewish ghetto. The Russian-American (and Jewish) writer was to be honoured at an award ceremony that was subsequently <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/14/award-ceremony-suspended-after-writer-masha-gessen-compares-gaza-to-nazi-era-jewish-ghettos">suspended</a>, after an initial withdrawal of support by the Green Party affiliated think tank that sponsors the prize.</p>
<p>The suspended award was, ironically, named after <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-book-that-changed-me-hannah-arendts-eichmann-in-jerusalem-and-the-problem-of-terrifying-moral-complacency-187600">Hannah Arendt</a>, whose caustic comments on Israel, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/dec/18/hannah-arendt-prize-masha-gessen-israel-gaza-essay">many appreciated</a>, would probably have seen her deemed ineligible too. </p>
<p>Elsewhere in Germany, the musician and artist <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/feb/01/laurie-anderson-ends-german-professorship-pro-palestine-letter">Laurie Anderson</a> withdrew from a guest professorship in Essen after her signature on a 2021 “Letter Against Apartheid” targeting Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians was unearthed and the university “engaged in talks” with her as a result. </p>
<p>Before that, in the immediate aftermath of the Hamas attacks on October 7, the Frankfurt Book Fair <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/frankfurt-book-fair-hit-by-furor-after-postponing-prize-for-palestinian-author/">postponed the ceremony for its literary award</a> for Palestinian writer Adania Shibli. If this had been an attempt to avoid controversy, it failed. Not only did it cause an <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/20/germany-israel-palestinian-author-frankfurt-adania-shibli">international furore</a>, another of the book fair’s honoured guests, Slavoj Žižek, used the occasion to offer a <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/israel-hamas-war-impacts-frankfurt-book-fair/a-67126160">blistering assessment</a> of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-palestinian-authors-award-ceremony-has-been-cancelled-at-frankfurt-book-fair-this-sends-the-wrong-signals-at-the-wrong-time-215712">A Palestinian author's award ceremony has been cancelled at Frankfurt Book Fair. This sends the wrong signals at the wrong time</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Perhaps most famously, well before the October 7 attacks, Germany’s first Commissioner for Jewish Life in Germany and the Fight against Anti-Semitism (a position created in 2018) demanded the African thinker <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/why-achille-mbembe-was-accused-of-anti-semitism/a-53293797">Achille Mbembe</a> be barred from giving the opening speech at a major cultural festival in Bochum in 2020 (ultimately cancelled due to COVID). Mbembe was accused of antisemitism and relativising the Holocaust for comparing the state of Israel with the apartheid system in South Africa. </p>
<p>These are just the most prominent examples. Other smaller incidents have slipped past the notice of many. Anti-Zionist Jews in Germany, such as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/nov/13/germany-jewish-criticise-israel-tv-debate">Deborah Feldman</a>, have faced condemnation for their refusal to fall into line.</p>
<p>There have been a number of <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/9/5/german-court-rules-palestinian-ex-dw-journalist-sacking-unlawful">unlawful dismissals</a> of Arab journalists, such as Maram Salem and Farah Maraqa, on false charges of antisemitism. Dismissals for criticism of Israel are <a href="https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/germany-axel-springer-fires-employee-for-allegedly-questioning-pro-israel-stance-amid-concerns-of-alleged-intensified-german-suppression-of-palestinian-voices-incl-co-comment/">not isolated incidents</a>.</p>
<h2>Self-imposed red lines</h2>
<p>Why is this happening in Germany? </p>
<p>It is worth pointing out that it is not just happening in Germany. Versions of this are playing out elsewhere. Universities in the <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/department-education-investigates-6-schools-discrimination-amid-tensions/story?id=105494396">United States</a> are under siege from students and community groups variously accusing them of both antisemitism and Islamophobia. </p>
<p>Largely, however, what’s happening in Germany is a result of some self-imposed red lines the German press, the German courts and the German parliament have imposed on public debate. </p>
<p>Comparing Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians to South African <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/germany-rejects-amnestys-apartheid-label-for-israel/a-60637149">apartheid</a> will not be tolerated. Calling for <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN1SN1Z2/">sanctions</a> against Israel will not be tolerated. (The German parliament officially condemned the international Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions, or BDS, movement as antisemitic in 2019.) Comparing Israel’s violence to <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/new-yorker-writer-masha-gessens-prize-in-jeopardy-after-comparing-palestinians-to-jews-under-nazi-occupation">Nazi violence</a> will not be tolerated. </p>
<p>Anti-Zionism will be <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/north-africa-west-asia/why-germany-gets-it-wrong-about-antisemitism-and-palestine/">interpreted as antisemitism</a>. Pro-Palestinian migrants may be <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2024/1/7/why-is-germany-so-viciously-anti-palestinian">rejected for citizenship</a>. (In the German state of Saxony-Anhalt, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/12/06/germany-israel-citizenship-requirement/">prospective citizens must commit in writing</a> to “the right of the State of Israel to exist”.)</p>
<p>Importantly, this is not necessarily an automatic result of Germany’s genocidal, antisemitic Nazi past. Rather, it is a result of Germany’s current belief that its genocidal, antisemitic Nazi past implies future unwavering support for Israel. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/israel-and-germanys-reason-of-state-its-complicated/a-67094861">Chancellor Olaf Scholz</a> told the Bundestag:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>At this moment, there is only one place for Germany. That is the side of Israel. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is not merely moral support. German arms shipments to Israel have <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/german-military-exports-israel-up-nearly-10-fold-berlin-fast-tracks-permits-2023-11-08/">increased tenfold</a> to support the current war.</p>
<p>It is worth noting, however, that a different understanding of the moral burden of the Holocaust is possible. It might equally be said that Germany has a special responsibility to stridently oppose ethnic cleansing, war crimes and genocide wherever they occur.</p>
<p>Relatedly, when Germany supported the NATO war against Serbia in the late 1990s, the German Green leader <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1999/04/11/pacifist-german-turns-hawkish-on-serbs/266dea1b-43fd-409d-ba09-d0aeab0ffe6b/">Joschka Fischer cited</a> his generation’s lessons from World War II to explain why it was important to stand against Milosevic’s willingness “to fight a war against the existence of a whole people”.</p>
<h2>Enough?</h2>
<p>If Germany continues to use the Gaza war as an opportunity for a domestic <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/12/22/germany-antisemitism-israel-gaza-arts-censorship/">culture war</a> against academics and artists who cross the self-imposed red lines of German debate, unwarranted sackings like that of Ghassan Hage will continue. </p>
<p>If, however, Germany takes the view it is obliged to denounce ethnic cleansing and genocidal violence without fear or favour, it might find cause to listen and learn from <a href="https://taz.de/Genozidforscher-ueber-Gaza/!5984116/">those who have warned</a> Israel’s war against the Palestinians of Gaza bears the hallmarks of previous crimes against humanity.</p>
<p>Sharp words from German government officials about the renewed Israeli campaign in Rafah suggest this might be possible. The German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock <a href="https://twitter.com/GermanyDiplo/status/1756283599785988470">warned</a> recently “the people of Gaza cannot vanish into thin air”.</p>
<p>After, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/gaza-death-toll-climbs-28064-palestinians-killed-67611-injured-since-oct-7-gaza-2024-02-10/">at last count</a>, “at least” 28,000 dead in the streets of Gaza, perhaps some in Germany might be starting to think enough is enough.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223329/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matt Fitzpatrick receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p>Ghassan Hage has been sacked by Germany’s prestigious Max Planck Foundation due to his trenchant criticism of Israel’s war. It’s just the latest in an ongoing culture war in Germany.Matt Fitzpatrick, Professor in International History, Flinders UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2209122024-01-31T18:29:04Z2024-01-31T18:29:04ZSome EU countries use the eurozone as a credit card, with Germany picking up the tab – new research<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572293/original/file-20240130-25-mfonz6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=98%2C73%2C5365%2C3563&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Mapped out.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/euro-banknotes-on-europe-map-concept-1924905488">Oleg Elkov/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Europe is home to many languages, varied geography and different cultures. And until fairly recently, it was also a place where almost every country had its own currency.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/5038955_The_Launch_of_the_Euro">arrival of a common currency</a> in 1999 changed all that. Now <a href="https://european-union.europa.eu/institutions-law-budget/euro/countries-using-euro_uk">344 million citizens</a> in 20 of the 27 EU member states use the euro, making it the world’s second most used international currency after the US dollar. </p>
<p>One purpose of the euro is to simplify cross-border payment transfers between eurozone member states. This is achieved <a href="https://www.ecb.europa.eu/paym/target/target2/html/index.en.html">using a system</a> called “Target 2” (T2) which settles private sector bank-to-bank and commercial transactions between EU countries. </p>
<p>However, <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/jrfm16120506">my research</a> shows that this apparently innocuous settlement system is effectively being used to save the eurozone from imploding. </p>
<p>The problem is that some eurozone members – Italy and Spain, for example – import much more from other members than they export, particularly from Germany, the economic engine that has kept the eurozone economies going since 1999. </p>
<p>This results in a trade deficit, also known as a negative balance of trade. And this in turn creates a debt owed by Italy and Spain to Germany. </p>
<p>Luckily for them though, T2 converts this potentially risky debt into an apparently risk-free loan owed by the central banks of Italy and Spain to the central bank of Germany. The trouble is that there is no legal requirement in T2 to ever pay ot back. </p>
<h2>United in debt?</h2>
<p>Part of the reason for this imbalance is that the eurozone <a href="https://www.eurrec.org/ijoes-article-117074">does not satisfy</a> the economic conditions for being an “optimal currency area” (OCA) – that is, a geographical area over which a single currency and monetary policy can operate on a long term basis (in contrast to the UK and US, for example).</p>
<p>The different business cycles within the eurozone (with some countries booming economically, while others are in a slump) mean that trade surpluses and deficits will build up because inter-regional exchange rates can no longer be changed. </p>
<p>The normal way for a country to deal with a trade deficit is to devalue its currency, but this is not possible in the eurozone, since exchange rates between members were fixed in perpetuity in 1999. The most economically efficient countries, like Germany, accrue surpluses, while the more inefficient countries, like Italy and Spain, build up deficits. </p>
<p>To rectify this, surplus regions would have to recycle their surpluses back into deficit regions via transfers to keep the eurozone economies in balance. This is what happens in OCAs like the UK when the national government transfers tax revenues collected in England to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to correct regional imbalances. </p>
<p>But the largest surplus country in the eurozone, Germany, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07036337.2021.1877690">refuses to accept</a> that the EU is a “transfer union”. This is because the eurozone was set up on the explicit basis that market forces, not fiscal transfers, would be used to remove productivity differences between member states – and Germany was determined that it would not cross-subsidise inefficient members. </p>
<p>Yet deficit countries, including Italy and Spain, are using T2 for this very purpose. For them, T2 has effectively become a giant credit card. But unlike a regular credit card, neither the debt nor the interest that accrues on the debt ever needs to be repaid. </p>
<h2>Silent European debt mountain</h2>
<p>My research also shows that the size of the deficits being built up is causing citizens in those countries to lose confidence in their banking systems, leading them to transfer their funds to banks in surplus countries. T2 is being used to <a href="https://www.bis.org/publ/work393.pdf">facilitate this capital flight</a> to Germany, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Large blue euro sign in front of skyscraper." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572301/original/file-20240130-19-vbdy3h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572301/original/file-20240130-19-vbdy3h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572301/original/file-20240130-19-vbdy3h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572301/original/file-20240130-19-vbdy3h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572301/original/file-20240130-19-vbdy3h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572301/original/file-20240130-19-vbdy3h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572301/original/file-20240130-19-vbdy3h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">European Central Bank HQ is in Frankfurt, Germany.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/european-central-bank-euro-administers-monetary-1269309565">Yavuz Meyveci/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Then there is the fact that no member state individually controls the European Central Bank. This implies that they do not (and cannot) stand behind their government debts or currency in the way genuine sovereign nations do – by printing more money to repay their debts when their tax base proves to be insufficient. Eurozone member states are therefore “sub-sovereign” states, since they are effectively using a “foreign currency”. </p>
<p>The present situation is not viable in the long term. And my research suggests only two realistic outcomes. </p>
<p>The first is a full fiscal and political union, with Brussels determining the levels of tax and public spending in each member state. The second is that the eurozone breaks up. Either way, it will cost German taxpayers well over €1 trillion (£854 billion). </p>
<p>The current <a href="https://theconversation.com/germanys-economy-must-be-fixed-here-are-three-top-priorities-221464">faltering of the German economy</a> – in part, due to the massive increase in energy costs following the Russian invasion of Ukraine and, in part, due to China <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/german-engineers-under-pressure-from-china/a-48173351">no longer needing</a> German machine tools for its factories – could mean that Germany does eventually capitulate to <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/s41253-022-00203-y">French demands</a> for fiscal and political union. </p>
<p>But if it does, it will be a union based on the protectionist model favoured by France, with much greater state intervention and regulation in the economy and with large state subsidies for favoured sectors and firms. </p>
<p>This is very different from the “ordoliberal” (or “ordered liberal”) model preferred by Germany which supports free markets but seeks to prevent powerful private interests from undermining competition. </p>
<p>However, there are no examples in history where a country – let alone a continent – has regulated its way to economic success. For now, T2 is the silent bailout system that people rarely talk about – but upon which the very survival of the euro depends.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220912/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Blake does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>German economic power is propping up the euro. But this cannot continue indefinitely.David Blake, Professor of Finance & Director of Pensions Institute, City, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2189872024-01-24T13:31:17Z2024-01-24T13:31:17ZIn an ancient church in Germany, a 639-year organ performance of a John Cage composition is about to have its next note change<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570984/original/file-20240123-17-5avr9h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=13%2C13%2C3914%2C2640&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A crowd gathers around the organ at St. Burchardi Church in Halberstadt, Germany, to witness an October 2013 note change.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/american-organist-ray-kass-austrian-artist-sabine-groschup-news-photo/1042391974?adppopup=true">Peter Förster/Picture Alliance via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Composers count themselves lucky when musicians continue to perform their music after their death. </p>
<p>But the American avant-garde composer John Cage, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1992/08/13/us/john-cage-79-a-minimalist-enchanted-with-sound-dies.html">who died in 1992</a>, never would have guessed that a single performance of his music would begin in 2001 and still be playing. In fact, it isn’t due to conclude for another 616 years. </p>
<p>In a marathon performance like this, any little change becomes big news. On Feb. 5, 2011, for instance, one of the first three notes stopped sounding – after being sustained for eight years.</p>
<p>On Feb. 5, 2023, another note is going to begin playing – the first since Feb. 5, 2022. This one will be relatively short; it will hang around for only the next two years. </p>
<p>The piece is called “Organ<sup>2</sup> /ASLSP.”</p>
<p>“ASLSP” refers to the phrase “as slowly and softly as possible,” a reference to a quotation that appears near the end of James Joyce’s novel “<a href="https://archive.org/stream/finneganswake00joycuoft/finneganswake00joycuoft_djvu.txt">Finnegans Wake</a>” – “Soft morning city! Lsp!” </p>
<p>Originally written for piano in 1985, Cage made an arrangement for organ. Like the piano score, Cage never specified how long the piece should be played. Most of its performances have lasted between 20 and 70 minutes. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Image of sheet music." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570981/original/file-20240123-29-avxn3j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570981/original/file-20240123-29-avxn3j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570981/original/file-20240123-29-avxn3j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570981/original/file-20240123-29-avxn3j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570981/original/file-20240123-29-avxn3j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570981/original/file-20240123-29-avxn3j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570981/original/file-20240123-29-avxn3j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cage never specified how long the piece should be played.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-music-book-at-the-organ-in-the-church-st-burchardi-in-news-photo/1042346606?adppopup=true">Jens Wolf/Picture Alliance via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At a talk prior to the work’s German premiere in 1987, the musicologist Heinz-Klaus Metzger wondered aloud – half jokingly – how long a performance should last, since an organ <a href="https://www.academymusic.ca/piano-vs-organ/">can sustain sound indefinitely</a>. A group of organists, artists, scholars and theologians took Metzger’s question and considered how a very long performance might become a reality.</p>
<p>The performance is taking place at the St. Burchardi Church in <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Halberstadt">Halberstadt</a>, a small town in central Germany some 133 miles (214 kilometers) southwest of Berlin. The church dates from 1208, and in 1361 a large organ was installed, one of the first to have a keyboard of the type that is now universally used for pianos and other such instruments. </p>
<p>That organ is long gone, but this history inspired the organizers to choose the site for the event. Builders constructed a much smaller instrument and installed it in the church, one just large enough to accommodate the sparse number of musical notes in the piece.</p>
<p>Is this strange piece of music a joke? A grand artistic utterance? An everyday event? Sometimes I’m not sure myself, and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=lxh75FEAAAAJ&hl=en">I’ve been studying Cage and his music</a> for the past 25 years.</p>
<h2>A provocative composer</h2>
<p>During his lifetime, John Cage was no stranger to controversy. He was one of the first classical composers to write music for percussion instruments only, because he felt that any sound could be used in music.</p>
<p>But his most famous – maybe notorious – composition is “4ʹ33,ʺ” a piece with no sounds at all.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570973/original/file-20240123-29-bplye0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Expressionless elderly man with long gray hair holding a pair of eyeglasses." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570973/original/file-20240123-29-bplye0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570973/original/file-20240123-29-bplye0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=749&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570973/original/file-20240123-29-bplye0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=749&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570973/original/file-20240123-29-bplye0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=749&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570973/original/file-20240123-29-bplye0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=942&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570973/original/file-20240123-29-bplye0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=942&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570973/original/file-20240123-29-bplye0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=942&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cage took a highly experimental approach to composition.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/amerikanischer-künstler-und-komponist-der-neuen-musik-news-photo/1344131108?adppopup=true">United Archives/Hulton Archive via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There are countless explorations of what the piece means; one of the best is by musicologist <a href="https://rosewhitemusic.com/piano/writings/silence-taught-john-cage/#body_ftn7">James Pritchett</a>, who traced Cage’s interest in silence to his studies of Eastern spiritual traditions and a growing dislike for the materialism of the West. </p>
<p>For me, it’s a great illustration of Cage’s interest in <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/zen/hd_zen.htm">Zen Buddhism</a>. </p>
<p>Zen has to do with <a href="https://theconversation.com/this-course-asks-what-is-mindfulness-but-dont-expect-a-clear-cut-answer-201850">becoming aware of everything in life</a>. The ugliest thing is just as important as the most beautiful. Another important concept is that it’s far better to enjoy things while they last, precisely because they won’t last.</p>
<p>When you listen to “4ʹ33ʺ,” you’re hearing whatever sounds happen to be around you during a performance. You’re always going to hear something different, and you always get the chance to hear something that you might have ignored otherwise. </p>
<p>Eventually Cage began to feel that composers should just let sounds be sounds. They shouldn’t try to string them together to make people feel a certain way or think about a particular topic. </p>
<p>He did this through the use of what he called “chance operations.” Cage thought of musical composition as a process involving a series of numbered possibilities for every aspect of the music. For instance, in a piece for two pianos, Cage numbered all of the possible notes. He then used <a href="https://anarchicharmony.org/IChing/index.html">specially designed software</a> to select which ones would appear in the piece. Another chance operation would answer the question of whether that note would be part of a chord and, if so, what the additional notes were. It’s <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/25602281">a very time-consuming procedure</a>.</p>
<p>Cage accepted whatever sounds the chance operations identified, since the sounds were pleasurable on their own. Late in life, <a href="https://youtu.be/pcHnL7aS64Y?si=GvvKpmi7DcEZ80V7&t=157">he elaborated on this idea</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“I love sounds – just as they are. And I have no need for them to be anything more than what they are. I don’t want them to be psychological. I don’t want a sound to pretend that it’s a bucket, or that it’s president, or that it’s in love with another sound. I just want it to be a sound.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>That sometimes leads people to think they should have no feelings at all listening to Cage’s music. But Cage loved sounds, and love is certainly a feeling.</p>
<h2>Would Cage have approved?</h2>
<p>Naturally, a composer who took such a radical approach to music runs the risk of performances that reduce his ideas to absurdity. </p>
<p>I remember preparing a performance of his “Song Books” in Amsterdam where one of the musicians decided to interpret Cage’s instruction for an “auxiliary sound” as an invitation to produce an imitation of flatulence. I gently advised the musician that Cage had always tried to make musical compositions that sounded unlike anything he had heard before; as he wrote in his second book, “<a href="https://www.weslpress.org/9780819560025/a-year-from-monday/">A Year from Monday</a>,” he wanted the freedoms that he composed in his music to be taken seriously by performers, to make them nobler people. </p>
<p>I thought about this when I first began learning about the Halberstadt organ project. </p>
<p>No performers are sitting at the organ, day in, day out, in the cathedral where the piece is being performed. Instead, an electronic bellows pumps air into the organ; the individual-sounding notes are made from inserting or removing pipes of various lengths into the organ as they’re needed.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/LBZ-3Ob9-7k?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A chord change takes place in September 2020.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A 639-year performance of a piece of music, it seemed to me, was a poor use of human and environmental resources – and more of a gimmick than it was a real piece of music. I said as much in <a href="https://reaktionbooks.co.uk/work/john-cage">my book on Cage</a> published in 2012, noting with dismay that Germany’s public broadcasting system, Deutsche Welle, erroneously reported that Cage himself planned the extraordinary duration of the work.</p>
<p>It was only last year, <a href="https://wavefarm.org/wf/archive/c6g1ek">during a podcast</a> conversation with Laura Kuhn, the executive director of the <a href="https://www.johncage.org/">John Cage Trust</a>, that I was able to see the “Organ<sup>2</sup> /ASLSP” performance in a new light. </p>
<p>Thinking aloud about the various ways that Kuhn has brought others in touch with Cage’s ideas, I realized that Cage was, above all, a composer who sought out new ways of making music. The organ performance certainly demonstrates that artistic impulse.</p>
<p>In a way, it’s also another great illustration of Zen: The sounds last so long that they simply become a presence, like wind in the air or clouds in the sky.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218987/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rob Haskins does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The new note will be sustained for a relatively ‘brief’ two years.Rob Haskins, Professor of Music, University of New HampshireLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2214642024-01-19T16:54:17Z2024-01-19T16:54:17ZGermany’s economy must be fixed – here are three top priorities<p>The <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/792a1a09-701c-4c9d-aa77-0d9575d5bda9">latest figures</a> on German gross domestic product (GDP) are far from reassuring. Output was 0.3% lower in 2023 than the year before, turning Germany into the worst-performing large economy in the world.</p>
<p>By comparison, the International Monetary Fund (IMF)‘s <a href="https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/NGDP_RPCH@WEO/OEMDC/ADVEC/WEOWORLD">latest calculations</a> show the US economy growing 2.1% in 2023 and China 5%. The European Union as a whole achieved 0.7%, dragged down by Germany, its largest contributor. </p>
<p>Germany has been hit hard by the rise in energy costs, especially having relied almost entirely on cheap Russian energy until Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Sizeable inflationary pressures have put pressure on German companies’ production processes, which are optimised for efficiency.</p>
<p>Rising interest rates have made it harder for German companies to secure financing, as well as increasing their operating costs and weakening domestic and foreign demand. </p>
<p>And China has slowed down and also started to invest in self-sufficiency, reducing its dependence on foreign technology and the import of foreign products and services. This is clearly a problem for German companies that have <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/06/world/europe/germany-china-business-economy.html">relied massively</a> on the Chinese market over the past two decades.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.unido.org/news/germany-worlds-leading-manufacturer-according-unidos-cip-index">According to</a> the UNIDO Competitive Industrial Performance (CIP) Index, Germany remains the world’s leading manufacturer, having maintained the top rank since 2001. Yet China has entirely filled the gap over the past years, as illustrated below. </p>
<p><strong>German vs Chinese manufacturing</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570323/original/file-20240119-25-vrg2ix.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Chart comparing German and Chinese manufacturing" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570323/original/file-20240119-25-vrg2ix.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570323/original/file-20240119-25-vrg2ix.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570323/original/file-20240119-25-vrg2ix.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570323/original/file-20240119-25-vrg2ix.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570323/original/file-20240119-25-vrg2ix.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570323/original/file-20240119-25-vrg2ix.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570323/original/file-20240119-25-vrg2ix.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The UNIDO index measures countries’ capacity to produce/export manufactured goods, technological progress and global influence on manufacturing.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The results of the <a href="https://www.imd.org/centers/wcc/world-competitiveness-center/rankings/world-competitiveness-ranking/">IMD World Competitiveness Ranking</a> confirm that Germany has been losing ground among top economies. Ranked 15th overall in 2022, it dropped seven positions in 2023, deteriorating across all the dimensions considered in the ranking: economic performance, business efficiency, government efficiency and infrastructure.</p>
<p>So what can be done for Germany, at a time of huge geopolitical friction and with many countries <a href="https://www.fdiintelligence.com/content/news/industrial-policies-are-mostly-motivated-by-protectionism-not-geopolitics-83358">adopting industrial policies</a> to distort and limit trade to protect local industries? Three strategic priorities stand out:</p>
<h2>1. Diversify, diversify, diversify</h2>
<p>Germany must fix its over-reliance on China as its biggest trading partner. <a href="https://www.reuters.com/markets/china-remains-germanys-main-trading-partner-seventh-year-2023-02-08/">China has been</a> Germany’s most important trading partner since 2015, and trade between the two countries rose to a record level in 2022. </p>
<p>Berlin has recognised its excessive dependence on China for some time, but manufacturing footprints take time to change, and it can’t be done without a fallout in terms of economic performance.</p>
<p>Take Volkswagen. <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/17/volkswagen-nissan-and-hyundai-on-track-for-worst-china-sales-in-years.html">It remains</a> a major player in China with around 3 million vehicles sold a year, but it was selling over 4 million units as recently as 2018. This is because China’s swift transition to electric cars has benefited local players like BYD. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/1386906c-5dd1-4167-bc96-72940fc473bf">market share</a> of foreign cars in China has fallen from 64% in 2020 to 44% in 2023. The challenge for German companies like Volkswagen is to transform this into an opportunity for greater diversification.</p>
<p>Diversifying while maintaining existing trade and investments in China will be difficult, however, as we should expect the Asian country to charge a higher price to foreign companies for the access to its domestic market. Yet at such a time of geopolitical uncertainty, diversification must be the first strategic priority. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.ifw-kiel.de/publications/news/cost-of-decoupling-from-china-for-german-economy-severe-but-not-devastating/">recent study</a> from the German-based Kiel Institute for the World Economy suggests that if there was an abrupt halt to trade with China, it would cause Germany’s economy to shrink by 5% – a slump comparable to the global financial crisis or the COVID-19 pandemic. </p>
<h2>2. Borrow to invest</h2>
<p>In 2009, Germany added a “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt_brake_(Germany)">debt brake</a>” to its constitution. <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/what-is-germanys-debt-brake/a-67587332">The rule</a>, which severely restricts Germany’s ability to borrow and run deficits, was seen as incentivising sensible spending and ensuring that the public finances would remain healthy.</p>
<p>This became the mantra used by Angela Merkel and the so-called <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troika_(European_group)">Troika</a> of the European Commission, European Central Bank and IMF in the years following the global financial crisis as Greece and other countries struggled with their debts. </p>
<p>The landscape has now fundamentally changed, however. Germany’s constitutional court <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/german-court-make-key-ruling-budget-manoeuvre-2023-11-15/#:%7E:text=BERLIN%2C%20Nov%2015%20(Reuters),billion)%20hole%20in%20its%20finances.">recently blocked</a> the transfer of €60 billion (£51 billion) from a pandemic budget to a climate fund precisely because of the “debt brake” clause. This has led to a <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/60674329-5be3-4802-a05a-851ee2990efd">budget crisis</a> that is yet to be resolved. </p>
<p>More generally the debt brake has become a major challenge because Germany, and the EU as a whole, are competing against other countries that are subsidising their companies. For instance, <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_23_4752">Brussels recently launched</a> an investigation on the likely presence of major market distortions resulting from Chinese state subsidies in the automotive sector. </p>
<p>The only way forward for Germany is to invest heavily in infrastructure, research & development (R&D), and more efficient state operations to help companies transform themselves and stay competitive globally. To finance this, greater reliance on debt is unavoidable. </p>
<h2>3. Attract investments from abroad, bet on Europe to innovate</h2>
<p>Recent <a href="https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/foreign-direct-investment-germany-dives-35-bln-euros-h1-2023-09-12/">Bundesbank figures</a> show that foreign direct investment in Germany decreased to €3.5 billion in the first half of 2023 from €34.1 billion in the same period in 2022. This is a dramatic fall and the lowest inflow figure in almost 20 years. It calls for careful reflection on Germany’s loss of competitiveness and its ability to attract foreign investment.</p>
<p>The only way to fix this downtrend is to bet on innovation driven by EU-led R&D investments. Innovation has long been the engine of German (and EU) economic performance. Germany is <a href="https://sciencebusiness.net/news-byte/horizon-europe/eu-rd-intensity-falls-2022-despite-increased-spending">one of the</a> highest spenders on R&D in the bloc, at slightly over 3% of GDP per year. </p>
<p>Yet this is in the same ballpark as a decade ago, while the US and Japan now invest close to 3.5% of GDP. Stepping up R&D and keeping pace with the latest technological developments is a must for Germany (and the EU).</p>
<p>In a world where countries from China to the US are increasingly subsidising their corporations, and enacting policies to protect their local economies, Germany must make long-term investments in infrastructure, government efficiency and stimulating corporate ecosystems. This will attract greater investment from abroad, which will be crucial for Germany and its EU counterparts to innovate and thus stay competitive in the global arena.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221464/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Niccolò Pisani does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The EU’s biggest economy is on its uppers. Turning it around may involve additional pain in the short term.Niccolò Pisani, Professor of Strategy and International Business, International Institute for Management Development (IMD)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2200442023-12-18T16:17:12Z2023-12-18T16:17:12ZA new supercomputer aims to closely mimic the human brain — it could help unlock the secrets of the mind and advance AI<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566252/original/file-20231218-15-hajmbj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=19%2C9%2C6470%2C3940&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/businessman-touching-digital-human-brain-cell-582507070">Sdecoret / Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A supercomputer scheduled to go online in April 2024 will rival the estimated rate of operations in the human brain, <a href="https://www.westernsydney.edu.au/newscentre/news_centre/more_news_stories/world_first_supercomputer_capable_of_brain-scale_simulation_being_built_at_western_sydney_university">according to researchers in Australia</a>. The machine, called DeepSouth, is capable of performing 228 trillion operations per second. </p>
<p>It’s the world’s first supercomputer capable of simulating networks of neurons and synapses (key biological structures that make up our nervous system) at the scale of the human brain.</p>
<p>DeepSouth belongs to an approach <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s43588-021-00184-y">known as neuromorphic computing</a>, which aims to mimic the biological processes of the human brain. It will be run from the International Centre for Neuromorphic Systems at Western Sydney University.</p>
<p>Our brain is the most amazing computing machine we know. By distributing its
computing power to billions of small units (neurons) that interact through trillions of connections (synapses), the brain can rival the most powerful supercomputers in the world, while requiring only the same power used by a fridge lamp bulb.</p>
<p>Supercomputers, meanwhile, generally take up lots of space and need large amounts of electrical power to run. The world’s most powerful supercomputer, the <a href="https://www.hpe.com/uk/en/compute/hpc/cray/oak-ridge-national-laboratory.html">Hewlett Packard Enterprise Frontier</a>, can perform just over one quintillion operations per second. It covers 680 square metres (7,300 sq ft) and requires 22.7 megawatts (MW) to run. </p>
<p>Our brains can perform the same number of operations per second with just 20 watts of power, while weighing just 1.3kg-1.4kg. Among other things, neuromorphic computing aims to unlock the secrets of this amazing efficiency.</p>
<h2>Transistors at the limits</h2>
<p>On June 30 1945, the mathematician and physicist <a href="https://www.ias.edu/von-neumann">John von Neumann</a> described the design of a new machine, the <a href="https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/194089">Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer (Edvac)</a>. This effectively defined the modern electronic computer as we know it. </p>
<p>My smartphone, the laptop I am using to write this article and the most powerful supercomputer in the world all share the same fundamental structure introduced by von Neumann almost 80 years ago. <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/computer-science/von-neumann-architecture">These all have distinct processing and memory units</a>, where data and instructions are stored in the memory and computed by a processor.</p>
<p>For decades, the number of transistors on a microchip doubled approximately every two years, <a href="https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/591665">an observation known as Moore’s Law</a>. This allowed us to have smaller and cheaper computers. </p>
<p>However, transistor sizes are now approaching the atomic scale. At these tiny sizes, excessive heat generation is a problem, as is a phenomenon called quantum tunnelling, which interferes with the functioning of the transistors. <a href="https://qz.com/852770/theres-a-limit-to-how-small-we-can-make-transistors-but-the-solution-is-photonic-chips#:%7E:text=They're%20made%20of%20silicon,we%20can%20make%20a%20transistor.">This is slowing down</a> and will eventually halt transistor miniaturisation.</p>
<p>To overcome this issue, scientists are exploring new approaches to
computing, starting from the powerful computer we all have hidden in our heads, the human brain. Our brains do not work according to John von Neumann’s model of the computer. They don’t have separate computing and memory areas. </p>
<p>They instead work by connecting billions of nerve cells that communicate information in the form of electrical impulses. Information can be passed from <a href="https://qbi.uq.edu.au/brain-basics/brain/brain-physiology/action-potentials-and-synapses">one neuron to the next through a junction called a synapse</a>. The organisation of neurons and synapses in the brain is flexible, scalable and efficient. </p>
<p>So in the brain – and unlike in a computer – memory and computation are governed by the same neurons and synapses. Since the late 1980s, scientists have been studying this model with the intention of importing it to computing.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Microchip." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566265/original/file-20231218-25-yjbwxy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566265/original/file-20231218-25-yjbwxy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566265/original/file-20231218-25-yjbwxy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566265/original/file-20231218-25-yjbwxy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566265/original/file-20231218-25-yjbwxy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566265/original/file-20231218-25-yjbwxy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566265/original/file-20231218-25-yjbwxy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The continuing miniaturisation of transistors on microchips is limited by the laws of physics.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/close-presentation-new-generation-microchip-gloved-691548583">Gorodenkoff / Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Imitation of life</h2>
<p>Neuromorphic computers are based on intricate networks of simple, elementary processors (which act like the brain’s neurons and synapses). The main advantage of this is that these machines <a href="https://www.electronicsworld.co.uk/advances-in-parallel-processing-with-neuromorphic-analogue-chip-implementations/34337/">are inherently “parallel”</a>. </p>
<p>This means that, <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.95.3.933">as with neurons and synapses</a>, virtually all the processors in a computer can potentially be operating simultaneously, communicating in tandem.</p>
<p>In addition, because the computations performed by individual neurons and synapses are very simple compared with traditional computers, the energy consumption is orders of magnitude smaller. Although neurons are sometimes thought of as processing units, and synapses as memory units, they contribute to both processing and storage. In other words, data is already located where the computation requires it.</p>
<p>This speeds up the brain’s computing in general because there is no separation between memory and processor, which in classical (von Neumann) machines causes a slowdown. But it also avoids the need to perform a specific task of accessing data from a main memory component, as happens in conventional computing systems and consumes a considerable amount of energy. </p>
<p>The principles we have just described are the main inspiration for DeepSouth. This is not the only neuromorphic system currently active. It is worth mentioning the <a href="https://www.humanbrainproject.eu">Human Brain Project (HBP)</a>, funded under an <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/futurium/en/content/fet-flagships.html">EU initiative</a>. The HBP was operational from 2013 to 2023, and led to BrainScaleS, a machine located in Heidelberg, in Germany, that emulates the way that neurons and synapses work. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.humanbrainproject.eu/en/science-development/focus-areas/neuromorphic-computing/hardware/">BrainScaleS</a> can simulate the way that neurons “spike”, the way that an electrical impulse travels along a neuron in our brains. This would make BrainScaleS an ideal candidate to investigate the mechanics of cognitive processes and, in future, mechanisms underlying serious neurological and neurodegenerative diseases.</p>
<p>Because they are engineered to mimic actual brains, neuromorphic computers could be the beginning of a turning point. Offering sustainable and affordable computing power and allowing researchers to evaluate models of neurological systems, they are an ideal platform for a range of applications. They have the potential to both advance our understanding of the brain and offer new approaches to artificial intelligence.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220044/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Domenico Vicinanza does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Neuromorphic computers aim to one day replicate the amazing efficiency of the brain.Domenico Vicinanza, Associate Professor of Intelligent Systems and Data Science, Anglia Ruskin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2189382023-12-05T12:39:07Z2023-12-05T12:39:07ZUkraine war: Russia’s hard line at European security meeting ratchets up tensions another notch<p>After many months of <a href="https://www.shrmonitor.org/exclusive-malta-under-consideration-to-become-osce-chair-in-2024/">diplomatic wrangling</a>, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) was granted another lease of life at the annual ministerial council meeting last week in a <a href="https://www.osce.org/chairpersonship/559671">messy compromise</a> between Russia and the west. But rather than ushering in a period of renewed efforts to mend Europe’s broken security order, existing faultlines have deepened and new ones have emerged.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.osce.org/whatistheosce">OSCE</a> traces its roots back to a period of serious attempts at detente between the US and the USSR during the 1970s. It’s now the world’s largest regional security organisation with 57 participating states encompassing three continents – North America, Europe and Asia. Yet its ability to fulfil its mandate of providing security has been severely compromised in recent years. </p>
<p>While the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 was the latest and most egregious violation of the OSCE’s fundamental principles, it was not the first. Russia’s invasion of Georgia in 2008 and the subsequent recognition of the independence of the Kremlin-supported breakaway states of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in August was followed, in 2014, by the annexation of Crimea and occupation of parts of Donbas. </p>
<p>Russia has also deliberately undermined the OSCE’s existing missions in Ukraine. The “<a href="https://www.osce.org/observer-mission-at-russian-checkpoints-gukovo-and-donetsk-discontinued">Observer Mission </a>”, which was set up in July 2014 to monitor activity at key Russian-Ukrainian border checkpoints in eastern Ukraine was discontinued in September 2021. </p>
<p>Meanwhile the “<a href="https://www.osce.org/special-monitoring-mission-to-ukraine-closed">Special Monitoring Mission</a>”, set up in March 2014 to observe and report in an impartial and objective manner on the security situation in Ukraine was closed in March 2022, weeks after Russia launched its all-out invasion. </p>
<p>The office of the <a href="https://www.osce.org/project-coordinator-in-ukraine-closed">project coordinator</a> in Ukraine, which was set up at Kyiv’s request in 1999 to help it meet a range of security challenges and assist and advise on reforms, was closed in June 2022. All of these initiatives ended after Russia vetoed their continuation.</p>
<p>Yet, none of this stopped the Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, from <a href="https://mid.ru/en/press_service/video/view/1918477/">declaring</a> at the latest meeting that the OSCE was becoming “an appendage of Nato and the EU” and finds itself “on the brink of the abyss”.</p>
<p>At least on this latter point, there is little disagreement. The OSCE is experiencing the <a href="https://fpc.org.uk/is-a-russian-veto-on-leadership-about-to-provoke-the-downfall-of-the-osce/">deepest crisis</a> in its history. Because of Russia’s veto, the organisation has not had an approved budget since 2021. It has only survived on the basis of “<a href="https://www.shrmonitor.org/how-creative-diplomacy-has-averted-a-collapse-of-the-osce-until-now/">creative diplomacy</a>”, with individual member states finding money to fund its missions.</p>
<h2>Sense of instability</h2>
<p>The compromises <a href="https://www.osce.org/chairpersonship/559671">achieved</a> at the ministerial council in Skopje last week do little to put the OSCE back onto a more sustainable footing. While <a href="https://www.shrmonitor.org/exclusive-osce-permanent-council-paves-the-way-for-malta-to-assume-the-osce-chair-in-2024/">appointing Malta</a> as chair of the organisation for 2024 averts complete dysfunctionality, the mandates of the organisation’s other top officials, including the secretary general, were extended by only nine months, rather than the customary three-year period. </p>
<p>This merely prolongs the existing agony by putting off a decision on who is to lead the organisation and its institutions. The pervasive sense of instability that now surrounds the OSCE fits neatly with the Kremlin’s narrative of the need for a fundamentally new and different European security order. </p>
<p>While Russia managed to block Estonia’s candidacy for the chair and secured a non-Nato member for the role with Malta, this is <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/osce-limps-through-another-year-russia-relents-veto-2023-12-01/">hardly</a> a triumph of Russian diplomacy, given that the Kremlin had to drop its opposition to the renewal of the other leadership positions.</p>
<p>Nor is the compromise a win for the west. Crucially, the west was far from united in its approach. Ukraine, Poland and the Baltic states <a href="https://www.euronews.com/2023/11/28/baltic-countries-boycott-osce-meeting-over-russian-invitation">refused</a> to send their foreign ministers to the meeting in protest over Lavrov’s attendance. Their US and UK counterparts, Antony Blinken and David Cameron, attended the pre-meeting dinner but avoided any contact with Lavrov. </p>
<p>By contrast, the German foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, attended in person and launched a scathing condemnation of Russia and Lavrov in her <a href="https://www.osce.org/files/f/documents/1/9/559131.pdf">statement</a>, underscoring that the Kremlin’s illegal war of aggression against Ukraine is also a war against the OSCE. </p>
<p>Several, including non-western, delegates emphasised the importance of respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all participating states. But only nine of them aligned themselves with the <a href="https://www.osce.org/files/f/documents/d/f/559590.pdf">EU statement</a>, which called on “Russia to immediately stop its war of aggression against Ukraine, and completely and unconditionally withdraw … from the entire territory of Ukraine”.</p>
<p>This does not mean that the remainder of the OSCE’s participating states support the Kremlin’s war of aggression. But it indicates the likely difficulties which Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky’s <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/what-is-zelenskiys-10-point-peace-plan-2022-12-28/">peace formula</a> will face in the future. A wider pro-western line was adopted by more than 40 participating states that issued joint statements on <a href="https://www.osce.org/files/f/documents/e/c/559713.pdf">human rights and fundamental freedoms</a> and on the <a href="https://www.osce.org/files/f/documents/b/b/559707.pdf">90th anniversary of the Holodomor</a> genocide in Ukraine in 1932-1933.</p>
<h2>Deep divisions</h2>
<p>Yet this cannot gloss over the fundamental divide that persists in the OSCE between the collective west and Russia and its remaining allies. A <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/nato-allies-joint-statement-to-the-osce-ministerial-council-2023">joint statement</a> by Nato members (and Sweden) squarely pointed the finger of blame for all that is wrong with the OSCE and European security at the Kremlin. </p>
<p>Russia and Belarus, in turn, received support from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan in their <a href="https://www.osce.org/files/f/documents/8/3/559662.pdf">attempt</a> to deflect that blame and portray themselves as champions of peace, security and human rights.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1730339121820791140"}"></div></p>
<p>Much was made at the ministerial council of the OSCE as an important platform for dialogue, especially in light of the many security challenges that the region faces. But, as Liechtenstein’s representative <a href="https://www.osce.org/files/f/documents/7/1/559251.pdf">aptly put it</a>, for this to work, participating states need to recognise, and remind themselves of, the added value that the OSCE brings to each of them individually and the region as a whole. </p>
<p>There is little evidence that this message will be heard. And so the danger persists that an ongoing “dialogue of the deaf” will eventually push the OSCE into oblivion.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218938/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stefan Wolff is a past recipient of grant funding from the Natural Environment Research Council of the UK, the United States Institute of Peace, the Economic and Social Research Council of the UK, the British Academy, the NATO Science for Peace Programme, the EU Framework Programmes 6 and 7 and Horizon 2020, as well as the EU's Jean Monnet Programme. He is a Trustee and Honorary Treasurer of the Political Studies Association of the UK, a Senior Research Fellow at the Foreign Policy Centre in London and Co-Coordinator of the OSCE Network of Think Tanks and Academic Institutions.</span></em></p>The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe appears to be on its last legs.Stefan Wolff, Professor of International Security, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2146262023-12-01T13:38:17Z2023-12-01T13:38:17ZColonized countries rarely ask for redress over past wrongs − the reasons can be complex<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562470/original/file-20231129-20-sljkib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=29%2C17%2C3901%2C2404&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Indian visitors look at a painting depicting the Amritsar Massacre at Jallianwala Bagh.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/indian-visitors-look-at-a-painting-depicting-the-amritsar-news-photo/120271580?adppopup=true">Narinder Nanu/AFP via Getty Images)</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The king of the Netherlands, Willem-Alexander, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/07/01/1185647423/dutch-king-apologizes-for-the-monarchys-role-in-global-slave-trade">apologized in July 2023</a> for his ancestors’ role in the colonial slave trade. </p>
<p>He is not alone in expressing remorse for past wrongs. In 2021, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/style/article/benin-art-returned-scli-intl/index.html#:%7E:text=Twenty%2Dsix%20works%20of%20art,countries%20to%20recover%20looted%20artifacts.">France returned 26 works of art seized by French colonial soldiers</a> in Africa – the largest restitution France has ever made to a former colony. In the same year, Germany officially apologized for its 1904-08 genocide of the Herero and Nama people of Namibia <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/germany-officially-calls-colonial-era-killings-namibia-genocide-2021-05-28/">and agreed to fund reconstruction and development projects in Namibia.</a>.</p>
<p>This is, some political scientists have observed, the “<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=pPXpiXQ45osC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false">age of apology</a>” for past wrongs. Reams of articles, particularly in Western media, are devoted to former colonizer countries and whether they have enacted redress – <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/16/learning/should-museums-return-looted-artifacts-to-their-countries-of-origin.html">returned museum artifacts</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/27/world/americas/colonial-reparations.html">paid reparations</a> or <a href="https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2022/12/20/some-european-countries-have-apologised-for-their-colonial-past-is-it-enough">apologized for past wrongs</a>. </p>
<p>Yet this is rarely the result of official requests. In fact, very few former colonies have officially – that is, government to government – pressed perpetrators to redress past injustices. </p>
<p>My analysis found that governments <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiad118">in 78% of such cases</a> have not asked to be compensated for historical acts of injustice against them. As a <a href="https://www.bu.edu/pardeeschool/profile/manjari-chatterjee-miller/">scholar of international relations</a> who has studied the effect of <a href="https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=22642">colonialism on the present-day foreign policy of countries affected</a>, I found this puzzling. Why don’t more victim states press for intercountry redress? </p>
<p>The answer lies in the fact that colonial pasts and atoning for injustices are controversial – not just in what were perpetrator countries, but also in their victims. What to ask redress for, from whom and for whom are complicated questions with no easy answers. And there are often divergent narratives within victim countries about how to view past colonial history, further hampering redress. </p>
<h2>Focus on perpetrator country</h2>
<p>There is a disproportionate amount of attention paid to whether perpetrator countries – that is, former colonizers who established extractive and exploitative governments in colony states – offer redress. They are <a href="https://hub.jhu.edu/magazine/2015/summer/germany-japan-reconciliation/">lauded when they enact redress</a> and <a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/japans-apologies-on-comfort-women-not-enough/">shamed when they do not</a>.</p>
<p>The processes pertaining to redress within victim countries – the former colonies – gets less attention. This, I believe, has the effect of making these countries peripheral to a conversation in which they should be central.</p>
<p>This matters – success or failure of redress can <a href="https://academic.oup.com/ia/article-abstract/99/4/1693/7198184">depend on whether victim countries officially push for it</a>.</p>
<p>Take the experiences of two formerly colonized countries that I studied in depth in relation to the question of redress: India and Namibia. </p>
<h2>The Indian experience: Different narratives</h2>
<p>It’s <a href="https://globalchallenges.ch/issue/10/decolonisation-and-international-law/">difficult for a country</a>, particularly a poor developing nation, to take a former colonizer, usually a much richer country, to the International Court of Justice to ask for redress for the entire experience of colonialism. </p>
<p>But most former colonies have never officially asked for some form of redress – be it apology, reparations or restitution, even for specific acts of injustice. </p>
<p>India is an example of the difficulty in building consensus for official redress. Take the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/13/opinion/1919-amrtisar-british-empire-india.html">Jallianwala Bagh massacre of 1919</a>, in which British troops killed hundreds of peaceful protesters, including women and children.</p>
<p>The Indian government has never officially <a href="https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/india-should-not-ask-britain-to-apologise-for-the-amritsar-massacre/">asked for an apology</a> from the United Kingdom over the incident. </p>
<p>Part of the problem is different groups within India have different narratives about <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/29/british-empire-india-amartya-sen">the 200 years of British colonial rule</a>. No one disputes that the Raj was exploitative and violent. But which acts of violence to emphasize? How much responsibility should be assigned to the British? And should any positive attributes of the Raj be highlighted? These are all debated.</p>
<p>Such points of divergence are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiad118">reflected in India’s federal and state-issued history textbooks</a>, according to my analysis.</p>
<p>The bloody <a href="https://theconversation.com/global/topics/india-pakistan-75-125381">Partition of India in 1947</a> and the subsequent creation of Pakistan, for example, are blamed on the British in federal and many state textbooks. But it merits just a small paragraph in Gujarati textbooks, where it is blamed entirely on the Muslim League, the founding party of Pakistan. In the state of Tamil Nadu, Partition is mentioned without any description of either the horrors that followed or where responsibility lay.</p>
<p>Different narratives also appear in the Indian Parliament. When the issue of redress came up in 1997 – the 50th year of Indian independence and just before <a href="https://www.indiatoday.in/interactive/immersive/queen_elizabeth_70_years_on_throne/">Queen Elizabeth II visited India</a> – politicians agreed that India’s emergence from what politician Somnath Chatterjee described as “<a href="https://eparlib.nic.in/handle/123456789/430">a strangulating and dehumanizing slavery under a colonial imperialist power</a>” was worth celebrating. But on the issue of whether Elizabeth should apologize for the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, there was little agreement. Calls from some politicians for an apology were drowned out by others who jabbed at the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, pointing out its allies had <a href="https://eparlib.nic.in/handle/123456789/479">never apologized for assassinating Mahatma Gandhi</a>.</p>
<p>As of this writing, the U.K. has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/apr/10/theresa-may-expresses-regret-for-1919-amritsar-massacre">expressed regret for the massacre</a> but never apologized, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/13/world/asia/jallianwala-bagh-massacre-india-britain.html">infuriating many Indians</a>.</p>
<h2>The long journey for Namibian redress</h2>
<p>Namibia is an uncommon case of redress where the government has officially pushed for an apology and reparations from its former colonizer, Germany. But even then it was a painful, complex and <a href="https://theconversation.com/genocide-negotiations-between-germany-and-namibia-hit-stumbling-blocks-89697">time-consuming process</a> dogged by many of the themes that have prevented India and others from seeking formal redress.</p>
<p>Between 1884 and 1919, <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/namibia-a-timeline-of-germanys-brutal-colonial-history/a-57729985">Namibia was a German colony</a>, with some communities systematically dispossessed of their traditional lands. In 1904, one of these communities, <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/herero-revolt-1904-1907">the Herero</a>, rebelled, followed in 1905 by the Nama. In response, German troops slaughtered thousands in a bloodbath that is today <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/features/longform/2022/11/6/reckoning-with-genocide-in-namibia">widely acknowledged to be a genocide</a>. Survivors, including women and children, were herded into horrific concentration camps and subjected to forced labor and medical experiments. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A group of men stand with chains around their necks" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562474/original/file-20231129-17-m04tz6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562474/original/file-20231129-17-m04tz6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562474/original/file-20231129-17-m04tz6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562474/original/file-20231129-17-m04tz6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562474/original/file-20231129-17-m04tz6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562474/original/file-20231129-17-m04tz6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562474/original/file-20231129-17-m04tz6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Captured Herero fighters in 1904.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/gefangene-hereros-1904-05identisch-mit-nr-in-lz-8-news-photo/545965213?adppopup=true">Ullstein Bild via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The struggle to hold Germany accountable began decades ago, with individuals from the Herero and Nama communities calling for accountability and reparations. Germany rebuffed them repeatedly, precisely because the Namibian government did not take up their call. Only in 2015, after the Namibian government officially requested redress, did Germany acquiesce.</p>
<p>In May 2021, Germany <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/germany-officially-calls-colonial-era-killings-namibia-genocide-2021-05-28/">finally agreed to recognize the genocide</a>, apologize and establish a fund of US$1.35 billion toward reconstruction and development projects in Herero- and Nama-dominated areas. </p>
<p>Why did it take so long? For the Herero and Nama, the genocide and loss of traditional lands were always forefront. But for others in Namibia – notably, the dominant political party, the South West Africa People’s Organization, or SWAPO, which consists largely of members of the Ovambo ethnic community – uniting Namibians to come together in a national, anti-colonial struggle for independence was <a href="https://academic.oup.com/hgs/article-abstract/26/3/394/575370?redirectedFrom=fulltext">deemed more important</a> than focusing on the wrongs suffered by any one community.</p>
<p>After independence, the ruling SWAPO <a href="https://frw.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/762/1/05029.pdf">prioritized nation-building and unity</a> and cultivated ties with the German government, hoping for foreign aid and economic development. Complicating matters, the Ovambo had not lost their own traditional lands to colonialism in the same way as the Herero and Nama.</p>
<p>For years, government-approved school history textbooks used in Namibian schools reflected the SWAPO narrative. One Ovambo former school history teacher told me that Namibian children learned about the “war of national resistance” and how exploitative colonialism had necessitated that war. But the word “genocide” was never used, and there were no mentions of the suffering of affected communities.</p>
<p>Around 2010, Namibian activists, NGO workers and government officials from all communities began to search for common ground to reconcile the different narratives. Some attempts failed. A 2014 museum exhibition on the genocide collapsed after its financier, the Finnish embassy, withdrew funding – allegedly under pressure, one Namibian expert told me, from the German government. But others succeeded. The <a href="https://nan.gov.na/home">National Archives of Namibia</a> launched a project to collect academic papers on divergent narratives of the liberation struggle and colonial history. </p>
<p>As reconciling narratives progressed, history textbooks were revised to honor not just SWAPO’s version of history, but also highlight the brutalities suffered by the Herero and Nama. They included frank discussions of genocide and colonial atrocities. Against this backdrop, the Namibian government officially initiated a request for redress from Germany. Both governments appointed teams to find a resolution, resulting in the 2021 reparation fund.</p>
<p>Redress between countries is rare. Successful redress even more so. But the example of Namibia shows that it can be done when the governments of victim countries initiate redress. By focusing only on perpetrator states, we miss an opportunity to examine their victims as agents of change, and thereby perpetuate redress as an unusual phenomenon.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214626/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Manjari Chatterjee Miller is affiliated with the Council on Foreign Relations.</span></em></p>Fewer than a quarter of once-colonized countries make official government-to-government requests for an apology or reparations.Manjari Chatterjee Miller, Senior Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations/Associate Professor of International Relations, Boston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2140452023-11-30T10:21:07Z2023-11-30T10:21:07ZKindertransport’s complex legacy: saving children from the Nazis while leaving their families behind<p>When 200 unaccompanied child refugees arrived in Harwich, Essex, in early December 1938, they did so through a new visa-waiver scheme. These children from Berlin were escaping Nazi persecution, and eventually more than 10,000 children – mostly from Jewish families – would arrive in Britain via the same process. </p>
<p>December 2 marks the 85th commemoration of the <a href="https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/kindertransport-1938-40">Kindertransport</a>. And compared to some of today’s anti-refugee rhetoric, the scheme looks like a successful official rescue mission. But is that true?</p>
<p>November 9 and 10 1938 saw state-sponsored <a href="https://www.pogromnovember1938.co.uk/viewer/">violence</a> perpetrated against Jewish citizens across the German Reich. The British government was subsequently put under <a href="https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/6-stories-of-the-kindertransport">pressure</a> from the public to help continental Jewish citizens.</p>
<p>But prime minister Neville Chamberlain’s government was <a href="https://www.sussex.ac.uk/library/speccoll/collection_catalogues/tclists/tc62.html">reluctant</a> to offer refuge to Jews, fearing for the UK’s security, the cost and the anti-foreign and antisemitic sentiments of some of the electorate. So, it came up with the compromise of only admitting unaccompanied children rather than whole families. Chamberlain also <a href="https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1938/nov/21/refugees-government-proposals">refused</a> to commit governmental financial or organisational help, saying: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The number of refugees which Great Britain can agree to admit … is limited by the capacity of the voluntary organisations dealing with the refugee problem to undertake the responsibility for selecting, receiving and maintaining a further number of refugees. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>To only admit the children but not their families, is clearly one of the most controversial aspects of the Kindertransport. Some experts have <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/42943756">suggested</a> that parting from your own children was seen as more normal in the 1930s. However, home secretary Samuel Hoare that year <a href="https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1938/nov/21/racial-religious-and-political-minorities">discussed</a> the pain that the parents were likely to experience when parting from their children: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I could not help thinking what a terrible dilemma it was to the Jewish parents in Germany to have to choose between sending their children to a foreign country, into the unknown, and continuing to live in the terrible conditions to which they are now reduced in Germany.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Without a doubt, it would have been better for all if the UK had admitted parents as well as children. My own <a href="https://issuu.com/acesupporthub/docs/aberystwyth_aces_and_child_refugees_report_eng__fi">research</a> has shown that child refugees were adversely affected by this separation. </p>
<p>Kindertransport refugee <a href="http://www.kindertransport.eu/">Eva Mosbacher</a> was a well-adjusted 12-year-old from Nuremberg who settled in successfully with her carers in Cambridge. Nevertheless, she continuously expressed her longing to be reunited with her birth parents in her letters. In 1942, her parents were deported with 1000 other Jews and murdered in the Belzyce ghetto in Poland. After the war, Eva stayed in the UK and worked as a nurse, but sadly took her own life in 1963. </p>
<p>The fact that the UK government did not financially and organisationally support the Kindertransport had undesirable consequences. Some MPs <a href="https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1938/nov/21/racial-religious-and-political-minorities">expressed</a> the view that only those children who would be of benefit to the UK should be admitted. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A statue showing a group of children carrying suitcases." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556867/original/file-20231031-27-v509p2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556867/original/file-20231031-27-v509p2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556867/original/file-20231031-27-v509p2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556867/original/file-20231031-27-v509p2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556867/original/file-20231031-27-v509p2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556867/original/file-20231031-27-v509p2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556867/original/file-20231031-27-v509p2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The bronze Kindertransport statue by sculptors Frank Meisler and Arie Oviada at Liverpool Street Railway Station in central London.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/london-uk-october-11-2014-bronze-263419583">Philip Willcocks/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This was <a href="https://uclpress.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.14324/111.444.jhs.2020v51.005">reflected</a> in the selection criteria of the refugee children’s committee, an interdenominational umbrella organisation based in the UK and tasked with overseeing the Kindertransport. Largely staffed by volunteers, it tried to only admit children who did not have any special needs or health issues. This seems especially cruel as by 1938, many of youngsters had lived under the stressful conditions of discrimination and persecution for years. </p>
<p>The refugee children’s committee also <a href="https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10100969/">rejected</a> applications if any illnesses or additional needs were mentioned. Even children whose parents had mental health problems were rejected. Born on April 26 1926, <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9546261/">Herta Baumfeld</a> was not accepted for the Kindertransport because her mother was in a psychiatric institution. Herta was subsequently murdered at the Maly Trostinec concentration camp in Belarus on September 18 1942.</p>
<p>Financing the escape of the child refugees and their resettlement in the UK was especially difficult without the help of the UK government. In fact, the government <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Kindertransport/ztrfEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0">demanded</a> that a “guarantee” of £50 per child was raised by volunteers to indemnify against any expense. This rule limited the number of children that could be given refuge.</p>
<h2>What made the Kindertransport possible?</h2>
<p>The Kindertransport happened because of the generosity and commitment of private citizens, charities and voluntary organisations in the UK. The majority of refugees were fostered by individual families who volunteered for the task. </p>
<p>Furthermore, the financial burden was shouldered by private sources. Former Prime minister Lord Baldwin had launched a <a href="https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/lords/1939/jul/05/refugee-problem">public appeal</a> raising more than £500,000 and the Anglo-Jewish community raised more than £5 million for refugees. </p>
<p>Some foster carers also managed to raise the £50 guarantee themselves. As my <a href="https://www.honno.co.uk/books/finding-refuge">research</a> shows, Lia Blum from Czechoslovakia was fostered by a teacher from Ynys Mȏn, north Wales, who put up the guarantee. </p>
<p>Others helped within their means. For example, the guarantee for <a href="https://www.nicholaswinton.com/the-list">Anneliese Adler</a> was raised by the Woodcraft Folk, a youth-led organisation for children and young people in Tooting, London. Anneliese was fostered by a woman near Bristol. However, the limited funds restricted the number of children that could be rescued.</p>
<h2>Reliance on volunteers</h2>
<p>In recent years, the UK government has once again relied on the support of volunteers to look after refugees. Following the <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/uk/news/stories/2015-year-europes-refugee-crisis">refugee crisis of 2015</a>, it launched the <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/694051/Community_Sponsorship_LA_guidance.pdf">community sponsorship scheme</a>, which relied on volunteers to raise £4500 per adult they wished to sponsor. </p>
<p>And after the invasion of Ukraine by Russia in 2022, the UK government once again looked for volunteer hosts via the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/register-interest-homes-ukraine">homes for Ukraine</a> scheme. </p>
<p>Given what happened 85 years ago, it’s time we learned the lessons of the past and created a stable government scheme to assist refugees of all ages.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214045/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrea Hammel received funding from the National Heritage Lottery Fund via the Second World War Partnership Programme led by the IWM. She has also received funding from the Adverse Childhood Experiences Support Hub and receives funding from the Association of Jewish Refugees (AJR). She is affiliated with Aberaid, a charity that assists refugees in Ceredigion, and internationally.. </span></em></p>10,000 children, from mostly Jewish families, were saved from the Nazis by the Kindertransport visa-waiver scheme, which started in 1938.Andrea Hammel, Professor of German, Aberystwyth UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2184082023-11-27T17:01:47Z2023-11-27T17:01:47ZA Peruvian farmer is trying to hold energy giant RWE responsible for climate change – the inside story of his groundbreaking court case<p>On a crisp, sunny day high in the Peruvian Andes, two German judges gaze across a mountain lake to the towering white glaciers in the distance. Dark spots are visible on the pristine ice and, in quiet moments, the cold wind carries the sounds of creaking and cracking.</p>
<p>The judges, from the German city of Hamm, have flown more than 6,500 miles to witness the melting glaciers for themselves. It is May 2022 and their visit has taken more than three years to organise – and some intensive diplomatic negotiations between Peru and Germany. Also here, more than 4,500 metres above sea level, are five German and Austrian scientific experts flying drones to assess whether Lake Palcacocha poses a significant risk of flooding to the thousands of people in the valley below.</p>
<p>A throng of local Peruvian officials have tagged along too, to share their concerns about <a href="https://glacierlab.uoregon.edu/glacier-hazards-and-disasters/">glacier hazards</a> with the judges. Around two-dozen international journalists and four documentary film teams are in the area to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/interactive/2022/peru-climate-lawsuit-melting-glacier/">cover the event</a>. But the judges have requested they stay away from the lake so the court can do its work.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561132/original/file-20231122-15-2fn2tp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A high-altitude blue lake surrounded by snow-capped mountains." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561132/original/file-20231122-15-2fn2tp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561132/original/file-20231122-15-2fn2tp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561132/original/file-20231122-15-2fn2tp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561132/original/file-20231122-15-2fn2tp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561132/original/file-20231122-15-2fn2tp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561132/original/file-20231122-15-2fn2tp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561132/original/file-20231122-15-2fn2tp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lake Palcacocha is fed by the region’s accelerating glacial melt.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.germanwatch.org/de/medienservice">Alexander Luna/Germanwatch</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The deep-blue water glistens ominously in the sunshine. The lake is fed by the region’s accelerating <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/srocc/chapter/chapter-2/">glacial melt</a>, powered by warming temperatures that were long ago shown to be the <a href="https://par.nsf.gov/servlets/purl/10299146">result of human climate emissions</a>.</p>
<p>Lake Palcacocha is the subject of an <a href="https://climatecasechart.com/non-us-case/lliuya-v-rwe-ag/">unprecedented climate justice lawsuit</a>. On one side, a German energy giant that is said to be responsible for 0.47% of the world’s industrial greenhouse gas emissions. On the other, a Quechua-speaking farmer who had never travelled outside Peru until he joined this <a href="https://climatecase.org/en">groundbreaking legal challenge</a>.</p>
<h2>The unlikely plaintiff</h2>
<p>The Cordillera Blanca mountain range in the northern Peruvian Andes is a region shaped by disaster. In 1941, Lake Palcacocha’s banks broke, probably due to an avalanche, devastating the city of Huaraz downstream and killing around 2,000 people.</p>
<p>The region’s most devastating disaster occurred three decades later in 1970, when an earthquake caused another massive avalanche that <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1970_Huascar%C3%A1n_debris_avalanche">destroyed the town of Yungay</a> and nearby villages, burying 30,000 people (although many of the town’s children survived because they were attending a nearby circus show). The disaster left a deep impact on the area’s social and cultural fabric. Yungay was permanently relocated and authorities stepped up their efforts to monitor glacial hazards.</p>
<p>As well as being a farmer, Saúl Luciano Lliuya works here as a mountain guide, leading tourists up the icy peaks year after year. Now in his early 40s, he came of age at a time of unprecedented environmental change in his homeland. Avalanches and glacial floods <a href="https://www.preventionweb.net/news/peru-dangers-glacial-lake-floods-pioneering-and-capitulation#:%7E:text=Climate%20change%20is%20creating%20new,Cordillera%20Blanca%20to%20expand%20rapidly.">happen more and more often</a>, and he has lost a number of colleagues and friends. <a href="https://hess.copernicus.org/articles/20/2519/2016/">Flood modelling studies</a> show that Luciano Lliuya’s family home is in the danger zone if another large avalanche was to fall into Lake Palcacocha, causing its banks to burst.</p>
<p>As in many parts of the world, climate change has intensified existing vulnerabilities in the rural Andes while creating new dimensions of risk. Luciano Lliuya comes from an Indigenous population subjugated by Spanish colonisers that still faces marginalisation today. He grew up speaking Quechua at home and faced discrimination at school in Huaraz. Teachers only used Spanish and beat children for speaking their Indigenous language.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
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<p><strong><em>This article is part of Conversation Insights</em></strong>
<br><em>The Insights team generates <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/insights-series-71218">long-form journalism</a> derived from interdisciplinary research. The team is working with academics from different backgrounds who have been engaged in projects aimed at tackling societal and scientific challenges.</em></p>
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<p>In recent decades, an upsurge in mountain climbing tourism has created new opportunities for villagers such as Luciano Lliuya, who have traversed high altitudes since an early age. To them, mountains are more than just boulders and ice. “A mountain is a geological formation,” he says, “but another perspective is that the mountains nurture us. They are powerful beings of some sort … For me, the mountain is someone who gives you everything.”</p>
<p>Many of the local people make tribute payments to these mountains, hoping to avoid their wrath and guarantee plentiful harvests. Up at Lake Palcacocha, the villagers who oversee an early-warning flooding system installed by the Ancash region’s government also present ritual offerings to the mountains every month. They say that when they missed one in 2017, an avalanche crashed into the lake causing waves of several metres – but that time, the old safety dams held steady.</p>
<p>Luciano Lliuya too feels a deep responsibility for the mountains that are suffering as they <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/9/7610">lose their white covers</a>. Before summiting a peak on a climbing tour, he pays respect by laying coca leaves on the glacial ice. If he fails to show respect, he fears the mountain will show its anger.</p>
<p>Almost ten years ago, Luciano Lliuya was introduced via his father to a group of climate activists from the environmental NGO <a href="https://www.germanwatch.org/en/about">Germanwatch</a>. They discussed the chance to ask one of the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitters, German energy giant RWE, to make a tribute payment to these mountains too.</p>
<p>If the case succeeds, it could set a global precedent to hold major polluters responsible for the effects of climate change, even on the other side of the world. Already, it has had a significant impact. After the case was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/nov/30/german-court-to-hear-peruvian-farmers-climate-case-against-rwe">declared admissible by the German judges</a> in November 2017 – meaning that Luciano Lliuya had won a key legal argument, if not yet the scientific ones – RWE’s stock value <a href="https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/working-paper-397_-Sato-Gostlow-Higham-Setzer-Venmans.pdf">took a hit</a>. This reflects a broader trend: international companies and their investors are waking up to the <a href="https://greencentralbanking.com/research/impacts-of-climate-litigation-on-firm-value/">financial risks posed by climate litigation</a>.</p>
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<h2>Taking on a German energy giant</h2>
<p>Meeting Luciano Lliuya in his tiny village of Llupa, you’d hardly think he’d become something of a climate justice celebrity. The case has taken him to German courts and international UN summits. Having once been nervous about speaking at his local village assemblies, he has now addressed thousands of people at major climate marches and given countless interviews to the world’s press.</p>
<p>At home, his quiet life is periodically disturbed by <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAcJile4Idk">visiting film teams</a>. He says he doesn’t care much for stardom, but appreciates the interest in his legal case:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I want people to know what we’re facing here in Peru. The people in wealthy countries like Germany should understand how climate change is making our lives more dangerous. Perhaps that will motivate them to stop polluting so much.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I first visited his two-storey family home in December 2014, when I was asked to interpret for three representatives from Germanwatch (I’ve since worked with Luciano Lliuya as a legal strategist, scientific adviser and academic researcher). We were treated to a special meal of guinea pig and potatoes with red chilli sauce. Half-way through, he smiled and glanced around the table at his fellow diners including his father, Julio. Then he told us all quietly: “I’ll do it. I’ll do the claim.”</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561128/original/file-20231122-29-c8epap.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Peruvian man standing amid mountains." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561128/original/file-20231122-29-c8epap.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561128/original/file-20231122-29-c8epap.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561128/original/file-20231122-29-c8epap.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561128/original/file-20231122-29-c8epap.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561128/original/file-20231122-29-c8epap.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561128/original/file-20231122-29-c8epap.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561128/original/file-20231122-29-c8epap.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Saúl Luciano Lliuya in his mountain home.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.germanwatch.org/de/medienservice">Alexander Luna/Germanwatch</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<p>That moment marked a transformation of Luciano Lliuya’s life – and mine. In the run-up to the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_United_Nations_Climate_Change_Conference">2014 UN Climate Summit</a> (COP20) in Peru’s capital, Lima, Germanwatch employees had been taking an interest in the Cordillera Blanca mountain range – a region of particular concern for its vulnerability to climate change. Having recently lived in Peru, I joined the team as they looked for local people in the Andes to help voice this concern.</p>
<p>A Peruvian friend who was working with local farmers in the region suggested Julio Luciano Lliuya, who had recently told him how badly climate change was affecting their community’s livelihood. Following two weeks of intense UN negotiations at the COP20 summit, I embarked on an eight-hour bus ride to Huaraz with three Germanwatch representatives.</p>
<p>Father and son met us in the city with their rickety old Toyota van. Navigating uneven dirt-track roads, they took us on a tour of the mountains and told us about their climate-related concerns: in the short term, glacial retreat causing disastrous avalanches and floods; in the longer term, water scarcity threatening their very way of being.</p>
<p>Keen to show us the glaciers up close, Julio’s only son Saúl took us on a six-hour trek up to Lake Palcacocha. The hike was so strenuous that two of my colleagues had to turn around halfway, struggling with altitude sickness. Whatever breath I had left was taken away when I first glimpsed the lake, with those shiny white glaciers framing its deep blue water.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561156/original/file-20231122-19-goicyt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A mountain lake and the glaciers that feed it." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561156/original/file-20231122-19-goicyt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561156/original/file-20231122-19-goicyt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561156/original/file-20231122-19-goicyt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561156/original/file-20231122-19-goicyt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561156/original/file-20231122-19-goicyt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561156/original/file-20231122-19-goicyt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561156/original/file-20231122-19-goicyt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lake Palcacocha has previously flooded the valley below with catastrophic results.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.germanwatch.org/de/medienservice">Germanwatch</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<p>Walking along the lake’s edge, a distant crash broke the silence. “It’s just a small avalanche – that happens all the time,” explained one of the villagers working for the local government who are present here around the clock to watch over the lake. Far away on the glacier, I spotted a flurry of falling snow. “You see? This one didn’t even reach the lake.” I wondered about the consequences of a bigger avalanche on the residents of the valley below, including the Luciano Lliuya family.</p>
<p>Back down in the village over our guinea pig lunch, Julio (who was in his seventies) explained he had transferred his property in the flood danger zone to his seven children. To our surprise, the youngest of them, Saúl, offered to make the claim against RWE.</p>
<p>“All right then,” said Christoph Bals, Germanwatch’s policy director. “We’re going to court!”</p>
<h2>An outlandish idea</h2>
<p>When I began working on this project nearly a decade ago, holding a major emitter responsible for climate change occurring across the world seemed an outlandish idea. <a href="https://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=3351365">German lawyers</a> had come up with the idea of bringing a claim under the country’s <a href="https://jur-law.de/en/2022/04/neighborhood-right-federation-state-berlin-2/">neighbourhood law</a> (part of the extensive <a href="https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_bgb/englisch_bgb.html#p3704">German Civil Code</a>) – but this idea had yet to be tested in court.</p>
<p>When Saúl Luciano Lliuya first heard about this option, he said his preferred option was to confront a major polluter, so we settled on a claim against the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RWE">German multinational RWE</a>. Based some 6,500 miles away in the industrial city of Essen, RWE has produced coal-fired energy since it was founded in the 19th century. Much more recently, its plans for the huge new Garzweiler open-cast coalmine in western Germany have been met with <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/jan/24/eviction-lutzerath-village-destroyed-coalmine-a-photo-essay">sustained protests</a> and some controversy about <a href="https://theconversation.com/german-police-have-long-collaborated-with-energy-giant-rwe-to-enforce-ecological-catastrophe-198095">RWE’s relationship with the regional police</a>.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/german-police-have-long-collaborated-with-energy-giant-rwe-to-enforce-ecological-catastrophe-198095">German police have long collaborated with energy giant RWE to enforce ecological catastrophe</a>
</strong>
</em>
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<p>Over the past 25 years, the energy company has diversified into renewable energy, and states that it will be “<a href="https://www.rwe.com/en/responsibility-and-sustainability/environmental-protection/climate-protection/#:%7E:text=RWE%20will%20be%20climate%20neutral,with%20the%20Paris%20Climate%20Agreement.">climate neutral by 2040</a>”. A <a href="https://climateaccountability.org/pdf/MRR%209.1%20Apr14R.pdf">2014 study</a>, commissioned by the <a href="https://climatejustice.org.au/about-us">Climate Justice Programme</a> in Australia, estimated that RWE had produced 0.47% of all the world’s industrial greenhouse gas emissions between 1854 and 2010. </p>
<p>In Luciano Lliuya’s homeland, the local government plans to build a new dam and drainage system at Lake Palcacocha to reduce the risk of flooding, at a projected cost of about US$4 million. Luciano Lliuya, via the lawsuit, wants RWE to cover 0.47% of that sum, or around US$20,000.</p>
<p>The case’s central argument is simple: that climate change makes <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/14634996221138338">everyone in the world potential neighbours</a> – so, RWE should be a good neighbour and accept its responsibility for contributing to climate change impacts in Peru.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561149/original/file-20231122-25-nqchrr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Judges and photographers in a German courtroom" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561149/original/file-20231122-25-nqchrr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561149/original/file-20231122-25-nqchrr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561149/original/file-20231122-25-nqchrr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561149/original/file-20231122-25-nqchrr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561149/original/file-20231122-25-nqchrr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561149/original/file-20231122-25-nqchrr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561149/original/file-20231122-25-nqchrr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Judges hear the climate lawsuit against RWE in Hamm’s higher regional court, November 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.germanwatch.org/de/medienservice">Alexander Luna/Germanwatch</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Initially, a lower court in Essen <a href="https://www.germanwatch.org/en/13887">ruled</a> (in December 2016) that the lawsuit against the energy giant was <a href="https://rwe.climatecase.org/en/material/district-court-essen-decision">unfounded</a>. However, the following November, this was <a href="https://rwe.climatecase.org/en/material/higher-regional-court-hamm-indicative-court-order-and-order-hearing-evidence">overruled</a> by the Higher Regional Court in Hamm, which declared the case admissible and began examining the evidence.</p>
<p>The requested sum of US$20,000 is a symbolic amount of money, of course – RWE’s legal costs are likely to go much higher. Yet, when the judges suggested an out-of-court settlement at a hearing in 2017, the company’s lawyer refused, stating: “This is a matter of precedent.”</p>
<p>The estimated cost of future climate-related claims extends <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/055ef9f4-5fb7-4746-bebd-7bfa00b20c82">into the billions</a>.</p>
<h2>The legal strategy</h2>
<p>“This feels like we’re at 5,000 metres in the Andes,” remarks Saúl Luciano Lliuya as, fighting a biting wind, we walk to the Essen courthouse. It is November 2015 and this is his first trip outside Peru – accompanied by his father. Acting as guide and interpreter, I freeze alongside them in my thick winter coat while these two hardy Peruvians sport only light jackets.</p>
<p>A TV crew is filming as Luciano Lliuya enters the courthouse with his lawyer to submit the claim against RWE. They emerge a few minutes later, and he gives a statement to the awaiting journalists and TV cameras:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I’m making this claim because the mountains in Peru are suffering. The glaciers are melting. We haven’t caused this problem – it’s big companies like RWE. Now they must take responsibility.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Speaking to the press is a new and nerve-wracking experience for him. But when he thinks about the mountains and why he is taking this action, a fire seems to light up inside.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561146/original/file-20231122-25-uj4iya.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two Peruvian men outside a courthouse, one holding a large envelope." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561146/original/file-20231122-25-uj4iya.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561146/original/file-20231122-25-uj4iya.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561146/original/file-20231122-25-uj4iya.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561146/original/file-20231122-25-uj4iya.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561146/original/file-20231122-25-uj4iya.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561146/original/file-20231122-25-uj4iya.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561146/original/file-20231122-25-uj4iya.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Saúl Luciano Lliuya and his father Julio file the lawsuit at Essen courthouse, November 2015.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.germanwatch.org/de/medienservice">Hubert Perschke/Germanwatch</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<p>Later that day, after we escape the cameras, I ask what his neighbours back in Peru think about the lawsuit. His only aim, after all, is to benefit his community in the face of dramatic changes to their Andean environment. He seeks no personal gain; only that RWE covers part of the costs of a public infrastructure project to reduce the risk of flooding from Lake Palcacocha.</p>
<p>“I don’t know what [my fellow villagers] think,” Luciano Lliuya replies. “I haven’t told anyone.” Acknowledging my surprise, he says he isn’t sure how to explain it to them:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>They live with climate change in their own way, but they don’t all have the scientific facts. I’m afraid that some people might not understand how me going to Germany helps us in Peru.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It turns out that his fear is well-founded. When his neighbours find out about his legal claim – whether from news reports, social media or word of mouth – some are confused by it. Rumours begin to spread: that he is making lots of money from the claim, or selling the lake to the Germans. Upon his return home, he explains to his neighbours that nobody is paying him to make the claim, and that success would ultimately help them all. Still, many remain suspicious.</p>
<p>The irony that this case, revolving around <a href="https://www.everestate.com/blog/neighbourhood-law">neighbourhood law</a>, risks upsetting his own neighbours in Peru is not lost on Luciano Lliuya. The lawsuit applies <a href="https://southerncalifornialawreview.com/2019/05/01/from-nuisance-to-environmental-protection-in-continental-europe-article-by-vanessa-casado-perez-carlos-gomez-liguerre/">nuisance law</a>, which is typically applied in neighbourhood disputes, to climate change impacts.</p>
<p>Imagine this: your neighbour has a wall that borders on your property. The wall is old and crumbling, and you’re afraid it could fall over and damage your house. If that happens, you can sue your neighbour for damages. But you’d rather not wait – you don’t want to live with the uncertainty. So instead, you sue your neighbour using the nuisance law. If you win, the court will order them to fix the wall – or in Luciano Lliuya’s case, get rid of the flood hazard.</p>
<p>Around the world, others have attempted similar lawsuits before, to no avail. In 2008, for example, the Native Alaskan community of Kivalina <a href="https://climatecasechart.com/case/native-village-of-kivalina-v-exxonmobil-corp/">filed a claim</a> against ExxonMobil and other oil majors in the US. Their village is threatened by rising sea levels, so the complainants demanded support for adaptation costs – but that case was dismissed on the grounds that climate change is a political issue that should not be resolved in the courts.</p>
<p>Since then, political progress has proved largely inadequate in mobilising support for those who are most vulnerable to climate change. At the same time, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-021-01086-7">climate science has evolved rapidly</a>, drawing ever more precise links between major emitters and impacts around the world.</p>
<p>Since 2017, around 40 US states and cities have <a href="https://theconversation.com/more-than-two-dozen-cities-and-states-are-suing-big-oil-over-climate-change-they-just-got-a-boost-from-the-us-supreme-court-205009">filed lawsuits</a> against the fossil fuel industry, arguing that companies such as ExxonMobil <a href="https://theconversation.com/exxon-scientists-accurately-forecast-climate-change-back-in-the-1970s-what-if-we-had-listened-to-them-and-acted-then-197944">knew about the dangers of climate change decades ago</a> but hid this knowledge from consumers. The plaintiffs have included cities such as New York and San Francisco that are threatened by sea level rise and have demanded billions of dollars to cover their adaptation costs. Their actions have received support from US president Joe Biden’s administration, and earlier in 2023, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/apr/25/experts-hail-decision-us-climate-lawsuits-advance">the Supreme Court ruled</a> the cases should be heard in state rather than federal courts. Many legal analysts believe these cases have a better chance of success in state courts, and they are likely to go to trial soon.</p>
<p>After Dutch NGO <a href="https://en.milieudefensie.nl/about-us">Milieudefensie</a> filed a lawsuit against the oil and gas multinational Shell, in 2021 a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/may/26/court-orders-royal-dutch-shell-to-cut-carbon-emissions-by-45-by-2030">Dutch court ordered</a> that the company should reduce its emissions by 45% by 2030. (There are, though, enforcement challenges with multinational corporations, and since the verdict Shell has moved its corporate headquarters from the Netherlands to the UK.) Lawsuits in numerous countries have forced governments to increase climate action. But, almost eight years after he delivered the complaint to the snowy Essen courthouse in November 2015, Luciano Lliuya’s case has made it furthest of all.</p>
<p>Most fossil fuel companies are no longer engaging in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2019/oct/09/half-century-dither-denial-climate-crisis-timeline">climate denial</a>. RWE acknowledges the dangers of global warming and claims to be <a href="https://www.rwe.com/-/media/RWE/documents/09-verantwortung-nachhaltigkeit/cr-berichte/sustainability-strategy-report-2022.pdf">“at the leading edge of the shift to sustainable energy.”</a> Yet the company is still making massive profits with fossil fuels, and refuses to pay up for damage caused by past emissions.</p>
<h2>A battle over the science</h2>
<blockquote>
<p>I know of no other case where attribution science is so important. This is a real battle of science. (Roda Verheyen, Luciano Lliuya’s lead lawyer)</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In early 2021, Luciano Lliuya’s legal team submitted a new piece of impartial evidence: a <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-021-00686-4">scientific study</a> linking flood risk in the Peruvian Andes to global warming. It found that around 95% of the glacier’s retreat at Lake Palcacocha is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/feb/04/global-heating-to-blame-for-threat-of-deadly-flood-in-peru-study-says">due to human-made climate change</a>. One media article called it a “<a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/04022021/for-a-city-staring-down-the-barrel-of-a-climate-driven-flood-a-new-study-could-be-the-smoking-gun/">smoking gun</a>”.</p>
<p>After RWE’s lawyers challenged the legal validity of the study, in July 2021 the court <a href="https://climatecase.org/en/material/higher-regional-court-hamm-order-and-reference-order">acknowledged it</a> as a piece of independently produced evidence, meaning it is “of higher value than private expert opinions commissioned by the parties”.</p>
<p>In response, RWE’s legal team presented a <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/13/14/2694">study in the scientific journal Remote Sensing</a>, which analysed satellite data for the glacier above Lake Palcacocha and found there was “no evidence of significant glacial instability” within a three-year observation period. RWE’s lawyers used this study to argue that a large avalanche is unlikely – a position that has been strongly contested by Luciano Lliuya’s legal team.</p>
<p>RWE states that as well as modernising its coal-fired power plants to reduce CO₂ emissions, it has invested billions in renewable energy, reflecting <a href="https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-en/issues/climate-action/government-climate-policy-1779414">Germany’s policy to phase out fossil fuels</a>. Within an article about the case on the <a href="https://www.source-material.org/battle-of-science-rages-over-peru-glacier/">climate investigations website SourceMaterial</a>, RWE spokesperson Guido Steffen commented:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Individual emitters are not liable for universally rooted and globally effective processes like climate change. It is judicially impossible to relate specific or individual consequences of climate change to a single person.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>‘This close to winning’</h2>
<p>In the years since I first met Luciano Lliuya in 2014, as well as working with him as a legal adviser and strategist, I’ve also <a href="https://www.escholar.manchester.ac.uk/uk-ac-man-scw:327995">completed a PhD</a> on how climate change affects people in the Peruvian Andes, linking their concerns with legal and political discussions across the world. But the case is still far from over: legal proceedings move slowly, and the next hearing is due to be held in the first half of 2024.</p>
<p>But the case has already inspired other claims: in July 2022, Indonesian islanders threatened by sea-level rise filed a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/20/indonesian-islanders-sue-cement-holcim-climate-damages">similar lawsuit</a> against the Swiss cement producer Holcim. A <a href="https://climatecasechart.com/non-us-case/greenpeace-italy-et-al-v-eni-spa-the-italian-ministry-of-economy-and-finance-and-cassa-depositi-e-prestiti-spa/">recent case</a> in Italy asks for a declaration of responsibility for climate damage from ENI, an Italian oil company. And in September 2023, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/portuguese-youths-sue-33-european-governments-at-eu-court-in-largest-climate-case-ever-214092">European Court of Human Rights heard a legal action</a> posed by Portuguese young people aged 11-24 against 33 European governments over what they claim is a failure to adequately tackle global heating.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the plight of Luciano Lliuya’s community has been covered by <a href="https://rwe.climatecase.org/en/press-review">media outlets across the planet</a>. When his lawsuit began, it felt to all involved that victory was nearly impossible – we might get past a few legal hurdles, then move on to the next case. Almost a decade on, we never imagined we’d get this far, and be this close to winning the case.</p>
<p>Back in Luciano Lliuya’s village, the criticism of his motives has slowly subsided. “A big step was when the court came to visit us [in 2022],” Luciano Lliuya explains. “People saw that this is something serious. It wasn’t just me.”</p>
<p>Community leaders joined the court’s inspection at Lake Palcacocha and shook the judges’ hands. At the same time, Luciano Lliuya has helped establish a local NGO that supports farmers in adapting to climate change through sustainable agriculture. The organisation is called <a href="https://www.wayintsikperu.org/en">Wayintsik</a> – Quechua for “our house”.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561158/original/file-20231122-29-l0o584.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Peruvian man with grassy mountains behind." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561158/original/file-20231122-29-l0o584.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561158/original/file-20231122-29-l0o584.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561158/original/file-20231122-29-l0o584.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561158/original/file-20231122-29-l0o584.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561158/original/file-20231122-29-l0o584.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561158/original/file-20231122-29-l0o584.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561158/original/file-20231122-29-l0o584.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Luciano Lliuya says he feels responsibility for the mountains that are suffering as they lose their white covers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.germanwatch.org/de/medienservice">Germanwatch</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While the legal process moves slowly on, they have no choice but to adapt – and not just to the threat posed by the lake. Weather patterns are becoming less reliable. The Peruvian Andes usually have a dry season from May to August, and farmers rely on the first rains in September to plant their crops. Now, the rains sometimes begin too early, or not until November. New pests are also harming their potato harvests – the warming climate has brought rats to higher altitudes, for example.</p>
<p>In the long term, climate change could have even more devastating impacts on Luciano Lliuya’s community. Glaciers are natural water storage devices so, as they disappear, the people here will face <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214581822000763">water scarcity</a>. “If there’s no more water,” he says, “we’ll lose our livelihoods. There will be nothing left.” No water for the fields, no glaciers to climb.</p>
<p>But Luciano Lliuya is stubborn. In the face of malicious rumours and unwanted attention, others might have given up. He just climbed more mountains.</p>
<p>After attending COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh in November 2022, he went on an all-night trek which included climbing Mount Sinai, following in the steps of Moses. The sandy landscape was a sharp contrast to the glaciers and green pastures he is used to in Peru. Squinting into the rising sun, he reflected on the perils of life on a warming planet.</p>
<p>He said it made him imagine a bleak future in which the whole world resembles these surroundings: “That’s why I’ll continue fighting – so that our mountains back home don’t turn to desert too one day.”</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
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<p><em>To hear about new Insights articles, join the hundreds of thousands of people who value The Conversation’s evidence-based news. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/the-daily-newsletter-2?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK"><strong>Subscribe to our newsletter</strong></a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218408/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Noah Walker-Crawford receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council of the United Kingdom and the Foundation for International Law for the Environment. He is a member of the Board of Trustees at Stiftung Zukunftsfähigkeit (Foundation for Sustainability). He was previously employed by and has acted as a consultant for Germanwatch. </span></em></p>If this case succeeds, it could set a precedent to hold major polluters responsible for the effects of climate change – even on the other side of the world.Noah Walker-Crawford, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Political Science, UCLLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2160282023-10-26T10:39:21Z2023-10-26T10:39:21ZFive witchcraft myths debunked by an expert<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555782/original/file-20231025-29-zmv3lv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=22%2C0%2C3000%2C1706&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Three women executed as witches in Derneburg Germany in October 1555</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/three-women-executed-witches-derneburg-germany-237235090">Everett Collection</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>About 400 years ago, the European witch hunts were at their peak. Between the 15th and 18th centuries, an estimated <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9780810872455/Historical-Dictionary-of-Witchcraft-Second-Edition">50,000 people</a>, mostly women, were executed for witchcraft across Europe. They were accused of devil-worship, heresy and harming their neighbours by using witchcraft.
The 1620s was the most intense phase of persecution in places like <a href="https://brill.com/display/title/12801?language=en">Eichstätt</a> in Germany, where almost 300 witches were executed between 1617 and 1631. </p>
<p>The witchcraft trials have endured as a matter of curiosity, entertainment and debate. But despite this interest, popular understandings of the European witch-hunts are riddled with error and misconceptions. So, given it’s the season of the witch, it’s time to dispel some myths.</p>
<h2>1. Witchcraft is a medieval idea</h2>
<p>It isn’t – it’s modern. The Christian church was <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/witchcraft-and-magic-in-europe-volume-3-9780485891034/">sceptical</a> about the reality of witchcraft until the 15th century. Even then, many theologians and clergymen did not believe that witchcraft was a threat. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/56/article/263689">first trials</a> of people who were believed to be malevolent worshippers of the Devil who actively caused harm happened in the 15th century. The most intense period of witch hunting ran from about 1560 to about 1630. </p>
<p>Before that there were very few witchcraft trials, because acts of witchcraft were believed to be an <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/witchcraft-and-magic-in-europe-volume-3-9780485891034/">illusion</a> caused by the Devil with the permission of God.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A woodcut of witches on broomsticks cavorting with the Devil." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555779/original/file-20231025-21-gw57iy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C4%2C1507%2C1264&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555779/original/file-20231025-21-gw57iy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555779/original/file-20231025-21-gw57iy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555779/original/file-20231025-21-gw57iy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555779/original/file-20231025-21-gw57iy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=633&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555779/original/file-20231025-21-gw57iy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=633&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555779/original/file-20231025-21-gw57iy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=633&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Witches on broomsticks, featured in The History of Witches and Wizards (1720)</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://wellcomecollection.org/works/abkab8tq/images?id=hbe9wc8m">The Wellcome Library</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>2. Witchcraft trials occurred everywhere</h2>
<p>Most witchcraft trials happened in central, western, or northern Europe. These were the areas which were the cradle of the Protestant and Catholic <a href="https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article/115/2/351/10371?searchresult=1">Reformations</a>, which saw the transformation of the religious geography of Europe. And the <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/renaissance-quarterly/article/abs/witches-of-durer-and-hans-baldung-grien/5839650C1787984F1CAA1A9CD1B4B06E">northern Renaissance</a> and the <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300260953/the-decline-of-magic/">scientific revolution</a> had transformed how the world was understood. </p>
<p>More than 50% of all trials in Europe happened in Germany. But even there, witch persecution was limited to a few of the very many autonomous and semi-autonomous territories of which it was comprised. </p>
<p>In places like <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/early-modern-european-witchcraft-9780198203889?q=Early%20Modern%20European%20Witchcraft%20Centres&lang=en&cc=gb">Iceland</a> and <a href="https://www.thehistorypress.co.uk/publication/a-history-of-magic-and-witchcraft-in-wales/9780752428260/">Wales</a>, there were very few witchcraft trials at all. It seems that local beliefs about magic and witchcraft, alongside the attitudes of clergymen and judges, may be the reasons for this. </p>
<h2>3. The Inquisition tried and executed most witches</h2>
<p>The Roman, Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions, established in the 16th century, were responsible for dealing with matters of heresy. They have become notorious for their rigour in rooting out opposition to Catholic orthodoxy. Yet, they burned very few witch suspects. Across the whole of the <a href="https://brill.com/edcollbook/title/8436?language=en">Iberian</a> and <a href="https://www.upress.virginia.edu/title/3515/">Italian</a> peninsulas, the inquisitions executed fewer suspects than were hanged in England.</p>
<p>The Spanish Inquisition put a stop to the witchcraft trials that had spilled over from France in the early 17th century by assuming jurisdiction over witchcraft accusations.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="An illustration of witches being burned while a man stokes the fire." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555777/original/file-20231025-21-87mzxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555777/original/file-20231025-21-87mzxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555777/original/file-20231025-21-87mzxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555777/original/file-20231025-21-87mzxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555777/original/file-20231025-21-87mzxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1041&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555777/original/file-20231025-21-87mzxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1041&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555777/original/file-20231025-21-87mzxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1041&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The execution of alleged witches in central Europe, 1587.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7b/Wickiana3.jpg">Zurich Central Library/Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>4. Only women were tried for witchcraft</h2>
<p>It’s true that 80% of those tried and executed for witchcraft were women. Many witch hunters, like those in <a href="https://brill.com/display/title/12801?language=en">Eichstätt</a>, also selected female suspects over male ones, even though the evidence could be very similar. </p>
<p>However, in some places, like <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/comparative-studies-in-society-and-history/article/male-witches-and-gendered-categories-in-seventeenthcentury-russia/F9FA9F79E0576D4F0AC5EA29E3EFF59A">Russia</a>, it was men who formed the majority of witch suspects. This was primarily because Russians conceptualised gender very differently to people in western Europe.</p>
<p>Regardless of whether the witch suspects were accused before magistrates or denounced under torture, their female neighbours were the ones most likely to accuse them. </p>
<p>In England, women on the margins of society were more vulnerable to accusations of witchcraft when things went wrong for their neighbours, such as inexplicable deaths or harm. This was the case with Ursley Kemp, one of the two witch suspects of <a href="https://academic.oup.com/ehr/article/136/578/26/6121677">St Osyth</a>, Essex, who were hanged in 1582. Kemp was a marginal figure in the town, a woman with an illegitimate son making ends meet through her healing skills. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://brill.com/display/title/12801?language=en">Eichstatt</a>, it was a product of the processes of torture. When the suspects (more than 90% of whom were women) had to name names under torture, they gave those of their neighbours. The suspects’ networks were founded on their sex; women named women and the few male suspects named men. </p>
<h2>5. Witches were really the followers of a pagan fertility cult</h2>
<p>This myth was promoted by the Egyptologist <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0015587X.1994.9715877">Margaret Murray</a> in the early 20th century and was then <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Witchcraft_and_Demonism/Tm12ngEACAAJ?hl=en">debunked</a> by the historian C. L'Estrange Ewen almost as soon as it appeared. It was founded on a partial reading of the available witchcraft evidence. </p>
<p>It persisted because Murray wrote the Encyclopaedia Britannica article on witchcraft that remained in print for 40 years, until 1969, and actively supported the new <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-triumph-of-the-moon-9780198870371?q=triumph%20of%20the%20moon&lang=en&cc=gb">Wiccan religion</a> in print in the 1950s. This new religion was founded by <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-27782244">Gerald Gardner</a> who revived what he believed to be ancient pagan witchcraft in the 1930s. But it has no material connection to any form of historic witchcraft.</p>
<p>Most witches were ordinary Christian women who found themselves accused of witchcraft by their neighbours, or denounced by other suspects under torture.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathan Durrant does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Witchcraft is an enduring source of fascination but also prone to popular misconceptions.Jonathan Durrant, Principal Lecturer in History, University of South WalesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2156472023-10-18T15:54:56Z2023-10-18T15:54:56ZFar-right AfD makes unprecedented election gains in west Germany, worrying national government<p>Germany’s governing three-party coalition under Olaf Scholz has <a href="https://theconversation.com/germanys-far-right-afd-makes-key-political-gains-as-olaf-scholzs-governing-coalition-wobbles-209544">already had a difficult time this year</a>. But things just got significantly worse with recent state elections in Hesse and Bavaria, two of the country’s most prosperous states. </p>
<p>These elections really do matter. State governments control significant areas of policy and are represented in the upper house of Germany’s parliament (the Bundesrat), which has a <a href="https://www.bundesrat.de/DE/dokumente/statistik/statistik-node.html">veto on nearly 40% of legislation</a>. </p>
<p>They are also a test of the political mood. It’s not uncommon for mid-term elections to go badly for incumbent governments, but these ones were especially noteworthy because of the sheer scale of the losses for Germany’s ruling parties. </p>
<p>The gains made by the far right are also a marker of troubling instability in a country to which many would look for clear leadership, at a time of such substantial challenges in Europe and globally, including conflict and a cost of living crisis.</p>
<p>The defeat for the coalition parties was comprehensive. Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD) achieved the worst results in post-war German history in both states. </p>
<p>In Hesse, a state which historically had been one of its strongest, the SPD took just <a href="https://europeanconservative.com/articles/news/weidel-after-election-afd-is-an-all-german-peoples-party/">15.1% of the vote</a>. In Bavaria, it won just 8.4%. Scholz’ Green coalition partners lost ground in both states, and the third party, the liberal FDP, lost support in both. </p>
<p>This unpopularity is also reflected in dire national poll ratings. The most recent national <a href="https://www.infratest-dimap.de/fileadmin/user_upload/DT2310_Report.pdf">Deutschlandtrend</a> survey showed 79% of Germans were dissatisfied with their government.</p>
<p>The AfD took 14.67% of the vote in Bavaria and 18.4% in Hesse. This is significant because support for the AfD has historically been <a href="https://www.berghahnjournals.com/view/journals/gps/40/2/gps400206.xml">far weaker on average</a> in these and other western states. It is more commonly known as an east German phenomenon so these latest gains are a blow to anyone who hoped the AfD was being contained there. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, elections will be held in the <a href="https://www.wahlrecht.de/umfragen/landtage/">eastern states</a> of Brandenburg, Saxony and Thuringia in September 2024, with polls suggesting impressive vote shares for the AfD. </p>
<p>It is unlikely to win a majority of seats, but “anyone but the AfD” coalitions encompassing all parties from far left to Christian Democrat would be hard to form, hard to keep together and risk <a href="https://www.bpb.de/themen/parteien/rechtspopulismus/284482/dialog-oder-ausgrenzung-ist-die-afd-eine-rechtsextreme-partei/">reinforcing the view the AfD puts about</a> that mainstream parties will stop at nothing to keep it out of government.</p>
<h2>No longer just a protest vote</h2>
<p>As in previous state elections, the AfD made gains in Bavaria and Hesse by mobilising people who don’t usually vote. It also gained new supporters mostly from the centre right, taking votes from the Christian democratic incumbents CDU in <a href="https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/waehlerwanderung-hessen-106.html">Hesse</a> and CSU in <a href="https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/waehlerwanderung-bayern-104.html">Bavaria</a>, as well as from the liberal FDP.</p>
<p>Dissatisfaction with other parties does not entirely explain the successes of the AfD, which now draws an increasing number of voters who back the party out of “conviction”. Its supporters perceive the party as competent in the area of asylum and refugee policy in particular. In Hesse, <a href="https://www.forschungsgruppe.de/Aktuelles/Wahlanalyse_Hessen/Newsl_Hess_231009.pdf">17%</a> of all voters took this view. </p>
<p>The success of the AfD is also evidence of a further “normalisation” of the German far right. In Bavaria, <a href="https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/germansplaining-germanys-lurch-to-the-right/">85%</a> of AfD supporters state they do not mind that the party is considered “extreme” in parts as long as it focuses on issues that matter to them. The post-war West German taboo against voting for the far right is an increasingly distant memory.</p>
<p>With its electoral successes, the AfD leadership does not appear to have felt the need to give the party a more “moderate” image, in contrast to manoeuvres (however tactical or insincere) by far-right parties in Italy and France.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/italys-election-is-a-case-study-in-a-new-phase-for-the-radical-right-92198">Italy's election is a case study in a new phase for the radical right</a>
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<p>In fact, since being founded in 2013, it has steadily moved from its origins as a liberal-conservative “anti-Euro” party to the radical right. Some AfD candidates for next year’s European elections have <a href="https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/europawahl-2025-afd-spitzenkandidaten-krah-verfassungsschutz-1.6083761">publicly defended</a> the extreme-right “identitarian movement” and some members spread tropes associated with <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/germany-afd-far-right-conspiracy-theories/a-66396943">conspiracy theories</a> such as the “great replacement”. Certain party representatives are even monitored by the German internal intelligence services.</p>
<h2>Scholz shaken</h2>
<p>The relative strength of eastern state parties in the AfD’s national organisation (notably the Thuringian branch, led by the outlandish Björn Höcke) makes any course of moderation even less likely. This may keep the AfD from national or state government, but the strong showing in Hesse and Bavaria is evidence of a further entrenchment of the far right in German politics.</p>
<p>The immediate consequences of these recent state elections are already in evidence. Scholz and his government are looking to <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/scholz-calls-for-cross-party-cooperation-on-german-migration-policy/ar-AA1i3GlZ">tighten</a> immigration policy, currently <a href="https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/deutschlandtrend/deutschlandtrend-moma-102.html">considered</a> by 44% of German voters to be the country’s “biggest political problem”, way ahead of environmental and climate issues (18%) and the cost of living (13%). This has the <a href="https://www.tagesspiegel.de/politik/partei-vor-der-zerreissprobe-wie-die-asyldebatte-die-grunen-spaltet-10633984.html">potential to be a political headache</a> for Green party government ministers, going against the instincts of many party members.</p>
<p>And with European elections coming next June, the prospect of another mauling will only heighten the sense of chaos and bickering amongst the national government’s coalition parties. Members of each will demand leaderships differentiate themselves from their coalition allies even more clearly in the hope of fending off the challengers. </p>
<p>This vicious circle could lead the AfD to even stronger results in the European election (they took 11% of the vote last time) – and future elections beyond.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215647/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ed Turner receives funding from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julian Hoerner receives funding from the British Academy (BA) and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)</span></em></p>Gains in Bavaria and Hesse mark new territory for a radical-right party that once only really enjoyed support in one region.Ed Turner, Reader in Politics, Co-Director, Aston Centre for Europe, Aston UniversityJulian Hoerner, Lecturer, Department of Political Science and International Studies, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2147092023-10-04T19:05:43Z2023-10-04T19:05:43ZMade in America: how Biden’s climate package is fuelling the global drive to net zero<p>Just over a year since US President Joe Biden signed the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation_Reduction_Act">Inflation Reduction Act</a> (IRA) into law, it’s becoming clear this strangely named piece of legislation could have a powerful impact in spurring the global transition to net zero emissions by 2050.</p>
<p>But the vast amount of investment unleashed by the IRA has raised tensions with some of the United States’ closest allies, and creates risks, as well as opportunities, for Australia’s transition to clean energy sources.</p>
<p>In his 2020 presidential campaign, Biden promised <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/08/biden-signs-order-government-net-zero-emissions-2050">to commit the US to net zero</a> by 2050, and to spend US$2 trillion to get there – the biggest investment in manufacturing since World War II. Biden is delivering on those promises.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/11/06/fact-sheet-the-bipartisan-infrastructure-deal/">The 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act</a> included about $100 billion for electric vehicles and for speeding the electricity grid’s transition to clean energy sources.</p>
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<h2>The IRA changes the landscape</h2>
<p>Passage of the IRA, in August 2022, ensured a swathe of green technologies would benefit from tax credits, loans, customer rebates and other incentives.</p>
<p>The original announcement estimated that uncapped subsidies over ten years would be US$369 billion, but <a href="https://www.goldmansachs.com/intelligence/pages/the-us-is-poised-for-an-energy-revolution.html">Goldman Sachs Research now estimates that total subsidies</a> could reach US$1.2 trillion and attract US$3 trillion investment by industry. That’s trillion, not billion.</p>
<p>Already, <a href="https://climatepower.us/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2023/07/Clean-Energy-Boom-Anniversary-Report-1.pdf">272 new or expanded clean energy manufacturing projects</a> in the US, including 91 in batteries, 65 in electric vehicles and 84 in wind and solar power, have been announced. These projects are estimated to <a href="https://climatepower.us/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2023/07/Clean-Energy-Boom-Anniversary-Report-1.pdf">create 170,000 jobs</a>, predominantly in Republican-led states.</p>
<p>The IRA is all carrot, no stick. It contains no carbon taxes or emissions trading schemes. Instead, tax credits for capital expenditure and production costs encourage companies to invest in solar, wind, hydrogen, batteries, electric vehicles and other zero emissions technologies.</p>
<p>This approach is shifting the debate on the best way to reach net zero emissions. To free-market economists who ask why government should invest in private sector industries, the answer is that the green energy transition is not natural. Renewable energy would never have advanced without Germany subsidising solar and Denmark subsidising wind.</p>
<p>Subsidies and mandates are also crucial in explaining why, last year, Chinese vehicle manufacturers produced 64% of the global total of 10.5 million electric vehicle sales, and deployed about half of the global capacity additions in solar and wind power.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/too-hard-basket-why-climate-change-is-defeating-our-political-system-214382">Too hard basket: why climate change is defeating our political system</a>
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<h2>Industrial policy to protect the climate</h2>
<p>The IRA is America’s response. More than climate policy, it is industrial policy, replete with made-in-America provisions. Companies are more likely to obtain tax credits if they employ unionised labour, train apprentices and set up shop in states that are transitioning out of fossil fuels.</p>
<p>Consumers will earn a $7,500 federal tax credit on an electric car only if that car is assembled and at least half the battery made in America. Similarly, wind and solar projects will earn tax credits only if half of their manufactured components are made in America.</p>
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<p>These policies were made with China in mind. Both main US parties agree the US must reduce its dependence on sourcing minerals and products from China, and move towards a new form of “<a href="https://ecfr.eu/article/a-united-front-how-the-us-and-the-eu-can-move-beyond-trade-tensions-to-counter-china/">strategic economic nationalism</a>”.</p>
<p>Yet while America’s strongest allies are also alarmed by the challenge from China, they are disturbed by aspects of the IRA. They fear that to benefit from its subsidies, their own clean energy companies might pack up shop and establish plants in the US.</p>
<p>The European Union, for example, has praised the IRA’s overall approach, but <a href="https://energywatch.com/EnergyNews/Policy___Trading/article14567471.ece">fiercely criticised</a> its made-in-America provisions. French President Emmanuel Macron called the Act “<a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/macron-visits-nasa-talks-space-cooperation-us-visit-begins-2022-11-30/">super aggressive</a>” toward European companies. European leaders say the IRA violates trade rules by discriminating against imported products, and could “<a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/automakers-foreign-governments-seek-changes-us-ev-tax-rules-2022-11-08/">trigger a harmful global subsidy race to the bottom</a> on key technologies and inputs for the green transition.”</p>
<p>Yet even as it criticises the US, the EU <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-united-states-inflation-reduction-act-subsidies-investment-threat-data/">has responded to the IRA</a> by relaxing its rules and allowing individual states to provide direct support to clean energy companies to stop them taking their projects to the US.</p>
<p><a href="https://financialpost.com/commodities/mining/how-inflation-reduction-act-changed-canada">Canada</a>, worried about investment flowing south to benefit from the IRA even though its free trade agreement with the US should give its companies access to the subsidies, has also announced tax credits and programs to boost clean energy production. <a href="https://japannews.yomiuri.co.jp/politics/politics-government/20230513-109457/">Japan</a> and <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-15/samsung-drives-400-billion-south-korea-plan-to-propel-key-tech?sref=wpjMCURG">South Korea</a> have announced similar programs.</p>
<h2>Why the IRA challenges Australia</h2>
<p>In Australia, before the IRA was legislated, the Morrison government <a href="https://www.exportfinance.gov.au/newsroom/transforming-australia-s-critical-minerals-sector/">provided a A$1.25 billion loan</a> to Iluka Resources to fund construction of an integrated rare-earths refinery in Western Australia. The refinery will produce separated rare earth oxide products that are used in permanent magnets in electric vehicles, clean energy generation and defence.</p>
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<p>But Australia risks being left behind in the race to build clean energy industries. The US could so heavily subsidise <a href="https://www.dcceew.gov.au/energy/hydrogen">green hydrogen production</a> that our own planned industry – seen as a foundation of our aspiration to be <a href="https://www.csiro.au/en/news/all/articles/2023/july/australia-energy-future#:%7E:text=Australia%20has%20vast%20amounts%20of,change%20from%20challenge%20to%20opportunity.">a clean energy superpower</a> – will be uncompetitive, leading our aspiring manufacturers to set up shop in the US.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/green-steel-is-hailed-as-the-next-big-thing-in-australian-industry-heres-what-the-hype-is-all-about-160282">'Green steel' is hailed as the next big thing in Australian industry. Here's what the hype is all about</a>
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<p>The IRA, however, brings Australia many potential benefits. The US wants to source the raw and refined materials it needs from countries, such as Australia, with which it has a free trade agreement. To respond to this interest, Australian industry, transport and mining must have access to low-emissions electricity.</p>
<p>The US will be an essential market for our <a href="https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2023/04/05/the-energy-transition-will-need-more-rare-earth-elements-can-we-secure-them-sustainably/">rare earths</a> such as neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium and terbium, used to make the powerful permanent magnets in wind turbines and electric car motors. Australia can also build new industrial processes and supply chains so that we earn more from decarbonised metallic iron, aluminium and nitrogenous fertiliser. We can ship our renewable energy in the form of hydrogen and ammonia.</p>
<p>In this race, Australia’s friendship with the US and volatile relationship with China could be decisive. The IRA does not spell out the concept of <a href="https://www.csis.org/analysis/onshoring-and-friend-shoring-us-ev-supply-chains-what-are-boundaries">friend-shoring</a> but nevertheless it seeks “to onshore and friend-shore the electric vehicle supply chain, to capture the benefits of a new supply chain and reduce entanglement with China,” according to the US Centre for Strategic and International Studies.</p>
<p>The IRA denies electric vehicle tax credits when any component or critical mineral in the vehicle is sourced from China or any “foreign entity of concern.” </p>
<p>A clean energy trade war is just one of the potential obstacles that could prevent the full benefits of the IRA being realised. Many communities in the US and Australia are resisting the installation of new transmission lines, wind farms and other clean energy infrastructure, and these objections are often on environmental grounds – the so-called <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4443474">Greens’ Dilemma</a>. And a win for Donald Trump in next year’s presidential election could reverse American climate policy.</p>
<p>Yet on balance, the IRA can only be good for getting to net zero. It brings the US in from the climate wilderness to be a leader in emissions reduction, helping to drive new technologies and lower costs that will benefit not only America but the world.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214709/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alan Finkel is chair of the Hysata Advisory Council and an investor in the company. He is a member of the Rio Tinto Innovation Advisory Council. </span></em></p>The Biden Administration’s signature climate legislation is unleashing a wave of clean energy investment, along with some opportunities and risks for countries like Australia.Alan Finkel, Chair of ARC Centre of Excellence for Quantum Biotechnology, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2112542023-09-27T21:58:37Z2023-09-27T21:58:37ZThe enduring appeal of a century-old German film about queer love<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550710/original/file-20230927-29-62tio7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C17%2C1440%2C1060&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In one of the earliest queer films, protagonist Paul Körner embraces his lover after a blackmailer harasses them.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.edition-filmmuseum.com/shop_content.php/coID/40/product/Press-photos">(Edition Filmmuseum)</a></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/the-enduring-appeal-of-a-century-old-german-film-about-queer-love" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>When the silent German movie <em>Anders als die Andern</em> (<em>Different from the Others</em>) <a href="https://jhiblog.org/2019/05/28/projecting-fears-and-hopes-the-1919-anders-als-die-andern-controversy/">premiered on May 28, 1919, in Berlin</a>, it was an instant audience success.</p>
<p>On the basis of a fictional romance between two men, the film hoped to inform its viewers about the innateness of homosexuality in order to dispel public conceptions of same-sex relations as aberrations of nature. </p>
<p>Through its public enlightenment campaign, the film made a case to abolish <a href="https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/paragraph-175-and-the-nazi-campaign-against-homosexuality">Paragraph 175 of the German Penal Code</a>, which criminalized male homosexuality.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Scenes from the German queer cinema classic ‘Anders als die Andern.’</span></figcaption>
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<h2>Box office hit</h2>
<p>Following its premiere, <em>Anders als die Andern</em> could be seen in dozens of theatres in Berlin and Vienna and throughout German-speaking Europe, often with multiple screenings per day. The film’s box office success pleased its Austrian director, <a href="https://www.filmportal.de/en/person/richard-oswald_efc0caa3ebb603c1e03053d50b372d46">Richard Oswald</a>. His production company was premised on the model that his films had to appeal to mass audiences in order to secure him enough money through ticket sales to make another film.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550099/original/file-20230925-19-xm6vpr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="a pale olive green book cover QUEER FILM: ANDERS ALS DIE ANDERN" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550099/original/file-20230925-19-xm6vpr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550099/original/file-20230925-19-xm6vpr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=801&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550099/original/file-20230925-19-xm6vpr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=801&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550099/original/file-20230925-19-xm6vpr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=801&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550099/original/file-20230925-19-xm6vpr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1007&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550099/original/file-20230925-19-xm6vpr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1007&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550099/original/file-20230925-19-xm6vpr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1007&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A book on the German queer film classic, ‘Anders als die Andern.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.mqup.ca/anders-als-die-andern-products-9780228018681.php">(McGill-Queen’s University Press)</a></span>
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<p><em>Anders als die Andern’s</em> gripping story about the innocent romance between two men succumbing to anti-queer hostility served Oswald’s business model. The sentimental story featuring the suffering of homosexual men appealed <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17411548.2017.1376857">to contemporary viewers</a>. </p>
<p>And, as I detail in <a href="https://www.mqup.ca/anders-als-die-andern-products-9780228018681.php">my book on the film</a>, the melodramatic story helped generations of viewers recognize queer people’s long struggle to live under less than ideal circumstances.</p>
<h2>Queer rights and film censorship</h2>
<p>The proclamation of Germany’s <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/z9y64j6/revision/1">Weimar Republic in 1918</a> ushered in a wave of progressive cultural practices associated with various gender emancipation and homosexual rights discourses. </p>
<p>For instance, the prominent <a href="https://mh-stiftung.de/biographies/magnus-hirschfeld/">sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld</a>, whose research pertained to variety in gender embodiment and sexual practice, opened the <a href="https://magnus-hirschfeld.de/ausstellungen/institute/">Institute for Sexual Science in 1919</a>. The institution, which was the first of its kind, became the headquarters for major scholarship on and advocacy for homosexual and trans rights.</p>
<p>In the same year that he opened the institute, Hirschfeld collaborated with Oswald on the making of <em>Anders als die Andern</em>. While progressive audiences lauded the film’s affirmative representation of same-sex love, conservatives complained that it made same-sex love appear alluring. </p>
<p>The latter concerns about the film indeed fed into a longstanding anti-queer trope about the <a href="https://utorontopress.com/blog/2020/06/19/vendrell-pride-month-2020/">threat of queer people seducing the youth</a> into homosexuality.</p>
<h2>Conservative pushback</h2>
<p>Public debates about <em>Anders als die Andern</em> coincided with ongoing conservative pushback against Hirschfeld’s broader work, <a href="https://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/HalesRethinking">his background as homosexual Jew</a>, and <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/many-faces-of-weimar-cinema/richard-oswald-and-the-social-hygiene-film-promoting-public-health-or-promiscuity/753078319E71A0BB5F5DC9CBFBEA4B23">debates about film censorship in the aftermath of World War I</a>. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-early-20th-century-german-trans-rights-activist-who-transformed-the-worlds-view-of-gender-and-sexuality-106278">The early 20th-century German trans-rights activist who transformed the world's view of gender and sexuality</a>
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<p>For a brief period after the war, censorship had been abolished. But the ongoing moral panics about the possible harm that sexualized images could inflict onto public life in Germany led to the <a href="https://www.filmportal.de/en/topic/banning-censoring-and-rating">reintroduction of film censorship in 1920</a>. Public screenings of <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3815322"><em>Anders als die Andern</em> would be banned</a> in the same year.</p>
<h2>Mourning with fictional characters</h2>
<p><em>Anders als die Andern</em> drew on existing <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17411548.2017.1376857">public familiarity with the scandalous abolitionist discourse around Paragraph 175</a> and the novelty of featuring same-sex romance on screen to appeal to audiences. However, most important for the audience appeal was the gripping melodramatic story.</p>
<p>A loving relationship between two men succumbs to the effects of a blackmail campaign involving Paragraph 175. Viewers of the film would witness the protagonist, Paul Körner (played by <a href="https://www.filmportal.de/en/person/conrad-veidt_efc121b060fd6c3fe03053d50b3736f2">Conrad Veidt</a>), find happiness in a relationship with a younger man — only for that happiness to come undone over the course of the film. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="a black and white film still of two men in suits" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550694/original/file-20230927-15-wmy9sc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550694/original/file-20230927-15-wmy9sc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550694/original/file-20230927-15-wmy9sc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550694/original/file-20230927-15-wmy9sc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550694/original/file-20230927-15-wmy9sc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550694/original/file-20230927-15-wmy9sc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550694/original/file-20230927-15-wmy9sc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The protagonist Paul Körner, played by Conrad Veidt, speaks with the Doctor, played by Magnus Hirschfeld, a reknowned sexologist at the time.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Edition Filmmuseum)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A blackmailer threatens to report Körner to the police for breaching Paragraph 175. Körner refuses to submit to the blackmailer, and the resulting public scandal about his homosexuality costs Körner his livelihood, his relationship and his life, ultimately.</p>
<p>Based on my analyses of historical material about the reception of the film, I make a case that the film facilitates for viewers a type of mourning for the protagonist’s fate. Feeling bad with and for the protagonist also means that viewers establish connections between the conditions that give rise to Körner’s suffering and to those that suppress queer life in the historical moments of each generation of viewers. </p>
<p>By positioning viewers to mourn with Körner, the film reminds them of the long struggle for queer liberation and how much more work there lies ahead.</p>
<h2>105th Anniversary</h2>
<p>In the end, <em>Anders als die Andern</em> did not help abolish Paragraph 175. The legal code would take different forms throughout the 20th century, but would <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/germanys-gay-paragraph-175-abolished-25-years-ago/a-49124549">not disappear from Germany’s basic law until the 1990s</a>.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, the film’s melodramatic queer story continues to have a big impact on audiences. For its 105th anniversary in 2024, viewers will be able to watch <a href="https://www.edition-filmmuseum.com/product_info.php/info/p4_Anders-als-die-Andern---Gesetze-der-Liebe---Geschlecht-in-Fesseln.html">a new restoration available on DVD</a> through the film museum in Munich, Germany.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211254/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ervin Malakaj does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A silent German film from 1918 was one of cinema’s first dramatic presentations of queer love. Over a century later, and the story of love in a hostile social environment still resounds.Ervin Malakaj, Associate Professor of German Studies, University of British ColumbiaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1980952023-09-21T10:18:35Z2023-09-21T10:18:35ZGerman police have long collaborated with energy giant RWE to enforce ecological catastrophe<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505893/original/file-20230123-10231-u5ynf8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C144%2C2048%2C1143&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Eviction aftermath in Lutzerath, early 2023.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/luetzibleibt/52640346606/">Lützi Lebt / flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In early 2023, the German village of Lützerath was the site of violent clashes between thousands of protesters and police who wanted to clear the village so it could be swallowed up by Garzweiler II, a huge opencast coal mine. In small groups, police forces charged into groups of protesters, beating people, kicking and pushing them to the ground. Police dogs attacked protesters, just metres away from the steep edge of the Garweiler II opencast coal mine. Dozens of people were injured.</p>
<p>The protests made world headlines when Greta Thunberg joined in and was <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/german-police-detain-greta-thunberg-german-coal-village-protests-2023-01-17/">detained by police</a>. </p>
<p>The police would eventually drive the protesters out of the village, using batons, pepper spray and dogs (the local police point out these were “legally permitted means of physical violence” and “were only used to avert dangers to public safety and order”). The bulldozers then moved in. Today, as <a href="https://september.media/en/articles/luetzerath-fight-for-democracy">one activist put it</a>, “the place where Lützerath used to be looks just like the rest of the post-mining wasteland around it”.</p>
<p>Lützerath was particularly high-profile, but other villages in the region have suffered the same fate. In my <a href="https://sussex.figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/Normalising_corporate_counterinsurgency_engineering_consent_managing_resistance_and_greening_destruction_around_the_Hambach_coal_mine_and_beyond/23451161">academic research</a> I have tracked how the regional police have long collaborated with energy firm RWE to ensure the expansion of coal mines isn’t held up by local objections. </p>
<p>Protests in Lützerath began after almost all of its residents were forced to sell and leave a few years ago. Expropriation of land for mining is a touchpoint in Germany as the modern Federal Mining Act that enables it <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0962629817300835">came out of old Nazi legislation</a> which allowed the eviction of communities for coal excavation in Germany’s quest to strengthen its wartime capabilities. </p>
<p>In close allyship with surrounding communities and the last remaining farmer, Eckardt Heukamp, activists built barricades, tree houses, tunnels, and tripods, and moved into empty homes to stop the destruction of the village and <a href="https://www.thecanary.co/opinion/2021/10/12/people-are-preparing-for-a-final-showdown-to-stop-coal-extraction-in-the-german-rhineland/">prepare for a final confrontation</a> with police and the mine’s operator, energy giant RWE. (In a statement provided to The Conversation, the local police said it is obliged to prosecute “anyone who stays [in the mining area] against the will of the owner”).</p>
<p>Heukamp lost his court case against RWE in 2022 and had to leave and see his family farm destroyed. This is the second time he was dispossessed for coal.</p>
<p>The demonstrations in early 2023 were protesting the eviction of those activists to allow RWE to extract and burn a thick layer of lignite coal underneath the village. Sometimes known as brown coal, lignite is the dirtiest form of coal, and a further <a href="https://www.bund-nrw.de/meldungen/detail/news/kohle-unter-luetzerath-wird-nicht-benoetigt/">280 million tonnes</a> of it will be extracted from Garzweiler mine alone. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505894/original/file-20230123-5967-jn9l65.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Protesters by large hole with industrial machinery" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505894/original/file-20230123-5967-jn9l65.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505894/original/file-20230123-5967-jn9l65.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505894/original/file-20230123-5967-jn9l65.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505894/original/file-20230123-5967-jn9l65.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505894/original/file-20230123-5967-jn9l65.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505894/original/file-20230123-5967-jn9l65.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505894/original/file-20230123-5967-jn9l65.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Garzweiler II is an opencast, or open-pit, coal mine.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/luetzibleibt/52628066855/">Lützi Lebt/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.diw.de/de/diw_01.c.839636.de/publikationen/diw_aktuell/2022_0084/stromversorgung_auch_ohne_russische_energielieferungen_und_t___z_atomausstiegs_sicher_____kohleausstieg_2030_bleibt_machbar.html">Studies show</a> that this coal is not necessary for <a href="https://www.bund-nrw.de/fileadmin/nrw/dokumente/braunkohle/221128_EBC_Aurora_Kohleausstiegspfad_und_Emissionen_as_sent.pdf">Germany’s energy supply</a>. But it is part of a controversial deal between RWE and the Green-Conservative coalition government which brings forward the end date of lignite coal mining in Germany from 2038 to 2030, “saving” five similar villages, but sacrificing Lützerath. But by reconnecting two generating units and increasing annual extraction, the amount of total coal burnt is hardly reduced at all.</p>
<h2>A history of resistance</h2>
<p>The fight to protect Lützerath was part of a decades-long history of direct actions and combative resistance in the Rhineland. For instance the nearby <a href="https://www.redpepper.org.uk/the-battle-of-hambacher-forest/">Hambacher Forest</a> occupation, set up in 2012, protected ancient woodland from the expansion of another RWE coal mine. The occupation became a symbol for resistance – “love, live, resist” – inspiring <a href="https://newint.org/features/2020/11/19/enforcing-ecological-catastrophe-all-costs">people across Germany</a> and beyond. </p>
<p>For ten years, evictions were followed by reoccupations, as people risked their lives to stop ecological destruction. The last eviction, in <a href="https://www.redpepper.org.uk/the-battle-of-hambacher-forest/">2018</a>, took over four weeks until stopped by the courts, and was later declared illegal. A young film maker, <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/stillness-and-shock-in-hambach-forest-after-journalist-dies/a-45579629">Steffen Meyn</a>, died when he fell around 20 meters from a tree bridge during the eviction.</p>
<p>While the eviction and destruction of the forest were eventually stopped, only a small percentage of the original woodland remains. Heat from the nearby mine means the forest is reported to be <a href="https://www.greenpeace.de/klimaschutz/klimakrise/hambi-braucht-schutzzone">slowly drying out</a>.</p>
<p>RWE has often been able to count on the support of police and politicians to combat resistance. In 2015, it emerged that the then-district administrator responsible for policing anti-coal protest was himself a <a href="https://taz.de/Nach-der-Besetzung-in-Garzweiler/!5224546/">member of RWE Power’s supervisory board</a>, while Greenpeace research found that <a href="https://epub.sub.uni-hamburg.de/epub/volltexte/2021/126759/pdf/20130409_schwarzbuch_kohle.pdf/">at least 17 politicians</a> from all political parties – from mayors to parliamentarians – have had side jobs at the company. (In response, the local police said they are “committed to political neutrality [and] are not guided by private or economic interests. We act exclusively on a legal basis.”)</p>
<p>For decades, RWE has fostered its image as a “responsible neighbour”, thanks to the firm’s PR and <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2514848620924597">corporate social responsibility (CSR) work</a> and the support of regional media and government. Police have long collaborated, <a href="https://twitter.com/DanniPilger/status/1614990114178105344">retweeting RWE press messages</a>, using its vehicles to transport protesters, and effectively outsourcing the most difficult (tunnel) eviction work to <a href="https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article243218445/Luetzerath-Raeumung-laut-Polizei-bis-auf-Tunnel-abgeschlossen.html">RWE’s own private fire brigade</a> by declaring it a “rescue”. (The police say this did happen but deny it was an example of collaboration. “Rather”, a spokesperson told The Conversation, “it is a matter of clear, legally-assigned responsibilities”). </p>
<p>Revolving door relationships lubricate the political manoeuvring to defend coal at all costs. In late 2022, for instance, a close aide of Germany’s minister for foreign affairs and former leader of the Green Party left to <a href="https://www1.wdr.de/nachrichten/ruhrgebiet/ehemaliger-baerbock-mitarbeiter-lobbyist-rwe-100.html">become RWE’s chief lobbyist</a>. (The Conversation contacted RWE for comment on whether this was an example of a “revolving door” situation but received no response). </p>
<p>For decades, RWE has paid communities in shares, not cash, which means that many become financially dependent on the company. Nearly a quarter of RWE’s shares are <a href="https://www.rwe.com/-/media/RWE/documents/05-investor-relations/finanzkalendar-und-veroeffentlichungen/hv2022/countermotions-german-association-of-critical-shareholders.pdf">owned by communities, cities and towns</a>. Local authorities are thus shareholders, licensers, clients, constituencies, employees and tax collectors at the same time.</p>
<h2>Blurry boundaries between corporation and state</h2>
<p>The boundaries between RWE and the federal state of North Rhine Westphalia (NRW) are so blurry the state is sometimes termed “NRWE”. When I studied RWE’s <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0962629817300835?via=ihub">counterinsurgency strategies in the region</a> I found the firm’s interests were represented everywhere, from church choirs and town councils, to school boards and universities. </p>
<p>RWE has financed police barbecues and fire trucks, I was told, sponsored football clubs and festivals, concerts and exhibitions, viewing platforms and historic castles, regularly organises lectures and restoration conferences. It puts up baking carts and public bookshelves, pays for school buildings, organises volunteering activities and tours through the mine. Employees go into schools and hand out lunch boxes to first graders. They create teaching materials, role-playing games, and girls’ days in their training centres, offer school trips into power stations, zoo schools, and environmental education initiatives. (RWE did not respond to a question on whether it has bought support among local communities).</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506103/original/file-20230124-366-ipfzvb.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="House, tree and digger" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506103/original/file-20230124-366-ipfzvb.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506103/original/file-20230124-366-ipfzvb.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506103/original/file-20230124-366-ipfzvb.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506103/original/file-20230124-366-ipfzvb.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506103/original/file-20230124-366-ipfzvb.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506103/original/file-20230124-366-ipfzvb.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506103/original/file-20230124-366-ipfzvb.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Trees – and treehouses – are removed to expand the coal mine.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Barbara Schnell</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Back in the 1980s, a scientific report highlighted the ecological destruction caused by mining in the region – but publication was <a href="https://www.spiegel.de/politik/das-groesste-loch-a-8a3b00b7-0002-0001-0000-000014356858?context=issue">blocked by the state government</a>. More recently, RWE has been able to influence legislation – <a href="https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/garzweiler-ii-rwe-gutachten-dienten-als-grundlage-fuer-gesetz-a-125e9fbb-85f9-404a-b96c-51c7b33c750c">Der Spiegel</a> reported in 2022 that parts of Germany’s coal phase-out laws, which ensured the Garzweiler mine would stay open, were based on studies paid for by the company. RWE has previously confirmed it funded the studies but said everyone had “<a href="https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/garzweiler-ii-rwe-gutachten-dienten-als-grundlage-fuer-gesetz-a-125e9fbb-85f9-404a-b96c-51c7b33c750c">free access to the documents</a>”.</p>
<p>RWE has also paid for research on how to <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0962629817300835?via=ihub#bib101">understand resistance</a> to its own actions. All of these are classic <a href="https://coaltransitions.org/publications/normalising-corporate-counterinsurgency/">counterinsurgency strategies</a> to repress, pacify and co-opt dissent, smoothed over by a well-oiled propaganda machine.</p>
<p>The eviction of Lützerath is over. But criminalisation and policing continue in the coal mining <a href="https://www.amnesty.de/informieren/positionspapiere/deutschland-uebersicht-ueber-die-aenderungen-der-polizeigesetze-den">Rhineland</a>. As police continue to protect fossil capital, <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-99646-8">enforcing ecological destruction</a>, and being perceived to serve not just RWE but the many individuals and institutions that benefit financially from coal mine expansion, the fight goes on.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>The Conversation approached RWE for comment but did not receive a response.</em></p>
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<img alt="Imagine weekly climate newsletter" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrea Brock has in the past received funding from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and Deutsche Studienstiftung.</span></em></p>Clashes at a huge coal mine were the latest episode in a long struggle.Andrea Brock, Lecturer in International Relations, University of SussexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2098392023-09-08T12:25:38Z2023-09-08T12:25:38ZUkraine’s push for NATO membership is rooted in its European past – and its future<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546025/original/file-20230901-29-8ullut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C19%2C6391%2C4280&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Ukrainians celebrate on Nov. 12, 2022, in Kherson, Ukraine, after Ukraine regained control of the city.
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/woman-with-ukrainian-flag-sitting-on-atop-a-car-during-the-news-photo/1441633237?adppopup=true">Yevhenii Zavhorodnii/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>During a recent meeting with the nation’s diplomatic corps, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy gave Ukraine’s ambassadors their marching orders for the rest of the year: <a href="https://www.president.gov.ua/en/news/glava-derzhavi-proviv-ekstrenu-naradu-z-kerivnikami-zakordon-84669">Work to help secure Ukraine’s membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization</a> and the European Union. Zelenskyy also told the ambassadors to focus on helping Ukraine secure bilateral agreements for security guarantees <a href="https://www.state.gov/joint-declaration-of-support-for-ukraine">between Ukraine and individual G7 countries</a>, including the <a href="https://www.president.gov.ua/en/news/chlenstvo-ukrayini-v-yes-i-nato-bezpekovi-garantiyi-ta-polit-84677">United States</a>.</p>
<p>“<a href="https://www.president.gov.ua/en/news/chlenstvo-ukrayini-v-yes-i-nato-bezpekovi-garantiyi-ta-polit-84677">The task of ambassadors to NATO countries</a> is to work to consolidate all the capitals of the Alliance around common security priorities,” he said. “It is in Ukraine that security for our continent and for the rules-based international order as a whole is being gained, and this deserves political and legal recognition by all our allies.”</p>
<p>Zelenskyy held the August 2023 meeting with ambassadors three weeks after leaving the NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, <a href="https://www.axios.com/2023/07/10/nato-members-divided-ukraine-summit">without the timetable for Ukraine to join the alliance</a> that he wanted.</p>
<p>In some ways, Zelenskyy is steering Ukraine through a war on two fronts. There is the hot <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/28/world/europe/ukraine-robotyne-russia-counteroffensive.html">counteroffensive the country is waging against Russia</a> in its own cities, villages and towns. And there is its long fight to be a formal part of the West through inclusion in NATO and the EU. The latter fight is not just about Ukraine’s <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep50626">desire for long-term security</a>. It is also about its geopolitical identity.</p>
<p>NATO members promised in a July 11, 2023, <a href="https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_217320.htm">communiqué during</a> the alliance’s two-day summit in Vilnius that Ukraine could join NATO “when Allies agree and conditions are met.” Although the communiqué acknowledged Ukraine did not need to follow the alliance’s <a href="https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_37356.htm#">membership action plan</a>, it lacked specific steps Ukraine must take to receive an invitation for membership. </p>
<p>The lack of specifics caught Zelenskyy’s attention and he <a href="https://twitter.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/1678707674811187200?s=20">tweeted</a>, “It’s unprecedented and absurd when [a] time frame is not set neither for the invitation nor for Ukraine’s membership. While at the same time vague wording about ‘conditions’ is added even for inviting Ukraine.”</p>
<p>Some leaders <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/07/13/zelensky-ukraine-nato-invitation/">were reportedly stunned</a> by Zelenskyy’s public criticism.</p>
<p>As a scholar of international relations, Ukrainian politics and European security, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Tb7GJmwAAAAJ&hl=en/">I have studied and taught about how Ukraine’s geopolitical and ideological moves</a> away from Russia have developed since the fall of the Soviet Union and how its policy decisions have often depended on the status of its <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPtxZCks1jc">relationship with Russia</a>, the EU and the U.S. I have also studied how Ukraine might <a href="http://neweurope.org.ua/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Swiss-model_eng-1.pdf">follow the examples of other countries</a> to gain membership in Western alliances.</p>
<p>Zelenskyy, like a majority of Ukrainians, views Ukraine as ideologically and geopolitically <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/ukrainian-unity-identity-poll-russian-invasion/32001348.html">separate from Russia</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Five men in dark suits and a woman in a white suit stand with a man in shirt and pants before standing flags of various nations." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546027/original/file-20230901-19-8yuqla.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546027/original/file-20230901-19-8yuqla.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546027/original/file-20230901-19-8yuqla.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546027/original/file-20230901-19-8yuqla.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546027/original/file-20230901-19-8yuqla.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546027/original/file-20230901-19-8yuqla.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546027/original/file-20230901-19-8yuqla.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Leaders of NATO member stand with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during the NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, on July 12, 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/british-prime-minister-rishi-sunak-german-chancellor-olaf-news-photo/1572212824?adppopup=true">Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Ukraine’s movement to the West</h2>
<p>Before the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukraine was its <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieKfeOwYlwE">second-most populous</a> <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/republic-government">republic</a>, after Russia. And Ukraine had the USSR’s third-largest nuclear arsenal. But since the collapse, Ukraine has worked to separate from Russia and move toward the West, seeking national security and economic growth <a href="https://theconversation.com/understanding-ukraines-symbolic-fight-to-return-to-europe-as-the-eu-marks-18-years-since-its-big-bang-enlargement-181146">by realigning itself ideologically and politically with Europe</a>.</p>
<p>Over the years, there have been many steps toward the West and some away from it.</p>
<p>In 1994, Ukraine joined the <a href="https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_37750.htm">NATO Partnership for Peace program</a> and through it <a href="https://nato.mfa.gov.ua/en/ukraine-and-nato/nato-ukraine-cooperation-within-partnership-peace">worked with the</a> alliance to fight corruption in Ukraine’s military, improve its military training and get other countries to take its excess and obsolete weapons. This showed that a post-Soviet Ukraine was willing to work with NATO even when membership was not an option.</p>
<p>During the 1990s and 2000s, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-business-world-war-ii-sweden-finland-240d97572cc783b2c7ff6e7122dd72d2">NATO and the EU admitted </a> some of Ukraine’s neighbors from post-communist Europe and post-Soviet Baltic, leaving Russian President Vladimir Putin to view the few countries that were left outside of these alliances – Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova – as without protection from the West.</p>
<p>The 2004 presidential contest between then Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych and Viktor Yushchenko, a former prime minister, was marred by such widespread allegations of election tampering by the Yanukovych campaign that it <a href="https://kyivindependent.com/viktor-yanukovych-ukraines-scandal-ridden-ex-president/">sparked a series of peaceful protests</a>. Known as <a href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/orange-revolution-ukraine-votes-for-change">the Orange Revolution</a>, these protests against electoral fraud were followed by a December 2004 election rerun. <a href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/orange-revolution-ukraine-votes-for-change">Ukrainians elected pro-Western Yushchenko president</a>. </p>
<h2>Ukraine’s transition is not smooth</h2>
<p>At the April 2008 NATO summit in Bucharest, Romania, member nations agreed that <a href="https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_8443.htm">Ukraine and Georgia would become members</a> of NATO. But the alliance suggested conditions, including democratic reforms in both countries, with no clear <a href="https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_37356.htm">plan for achieving those reforms</a>. </p>
<p>In 2010, Yanukovych, who campaigned on a promise <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ukraine-election-yanukovich/yanukovich-vows-to-keep-ukraine-out-of-nato-idUSTRE6062P320100107">to keep Ukraine out of NATO</a>, was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/feb/08/viktor-yanukovych-ukraine-president-election">elected president</a>. Once in office, he abolished a commission that had been established <a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2010/0406/Yanukovich-kills-Ukraine-s-bid-to-join-NATO">to help Ukraine integrate with NATO</a>. In 2013, Yanukovych <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-protests-eu-yanukovych/25180413.html">ended discussions between Ukraine and the EU</a> for a political and trade deal known as an association agreement. That decision <a href="https://kyivindependent.com/euro-maidan-revolution/">sparked protests in Kyiv and around the country</a>.</p>
<p>That protest, the <a href="https://kyivindependent.com/euro-maidan-revolution/">Euromaidan Revolution</a>, also known as the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.euras.2015.10.007">Revolution of Dignity</a>, lasted until February 2014 and forced the Kremlin-aligned Yanukovych to flee to Russia. By March 2014, <a href="https://www.vox.com/2014/9/3/18088560/ukraine-everything-you-need-to-know">Russia had annexed Crimea and invaded</a> the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine in April <a href="https://www.crisisgroup.org/content/conflict-ukraines-donbas-visual-explainer">with help from Russian-backed separatists</a>.</p>
<p>Following these aggressions by Russia, a November 2015 nationwide poll <a href="https://www.iri.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/2015_11_national_oversample_en_combined_natl_and_donbas_v3.pdf">showed 57% of the Ukrainian citizens queried favored joining the EU</a>, and 48% favored joining NATO. </p>
<p>In 2014, Ukraine eventually <a href="https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX%3A22014A0529%2801%29">signed a deal</a> with the EU that included a new comprehensive free trade agreement. That was followed in 2017 by a <a href="https://home-affairs.ec.europa.eu/policies/international-affairs/collaboration-countries/visa-liberalisation-moldova-ukraine-and-georgia_en">visa agreement</a> that allowed Ukrainians visa-free travel to the EU for 90 days every six months.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Five men stand in an outside green space, behind individual lecterns." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546029/original/file-20230901-23-4x3yki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546029/original/file-20230901-23-4x3yki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546029/original/file-20230901-23-4x3yki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546029/original/file-20230901-23-4x3yki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546029/original/file-20230901-23-4x3yki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546029/original/file-20230901-23-4x3yki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546029/original/file-20230901-23-4x3yki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, center, stands with four leaders of the European Union.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/romanian-president-romanian-president-klaus-iohannis-prime-news-photo/1241345616?adppopup=true">Sergei Supinsky/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Ukraine’s geopolitical identity</h2>
<p>Putin, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna7632057">still angry about the collapse of the Soviet Union</a>, ordered an <a href="https://theconversation.com/russian-invasion-of-ukraine-and-resulting-us-sanctions-threaten-the-future-of-the-international-space-station-177891">invasion of Ukraine</a> in February 2022. He claimed Russia needed to “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/02/24/putin-denazify-ukraine/">demilitarize and denazify</a>” the country.</p>
<p>Regardless of what Putin says were his motives, many security analysts maintain the invasion was possible because Ukraine and <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/27066348">Georgia, which Russia attacked</a> in 2008, <a href="https://hir.harvard.edu/how-to-make-eastern-europes-gray-zone-less-gray/">had no protection</a>. The two nations were not part of a Western alliance such as NATO or the EU.</p>
<p>When Russia invaded Ukraine, Zelenskyy looked to the West for help. On the third day of the invasion, he applied for Ukraine’s <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukrainian-president-signs-formal-request-join-european-union-2022-02-28/">EU membership</a>. And on Sept. 30, 2022, he applied for Ukraine’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/30/world/europe/ukraine-nato-zelensky.html">membership in NATO</a>. Ukrainians overwhelmingly support that decision. A February 2023 poll showed 83% of the people surveyed said <a href="https://www.kyivpost.com/post/15062">Ukraine should join NATO</a>.</p>
<p>By June 2023, the EU’s leaders had determined that <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-meets-2-7-conditions-launch-eu-membership-talks-sources-2023-06-19/">Ukraine had met two of seven conditions</a> required for the country to begin membership talks. <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-meets-2-7-conditions-launch-eu-membership-talks-sources-2023-06-19/">One condition concerns judicial reform, and the other is about its standards</a> in media law. The country is making “<a href="https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2023/06/22/ukraine-has-fully-met-two-of-the-seven-conditions-needed-to-start-eu-accession-talks">good progress</a>” on the third and “some progress” on the remaining four conditions, <a href="https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:52022DC0407">including the fight against corruption</a>, said Olivér Várhelyi, the EU’s commissioner for enlargement. </p>
<p>Although Ukraine hasn’t joined NATO yet, Zelenskyy’s push for membership is part of a long-term goal for Ukraine to gain security from Russia. The country has never attacked a member of NATO or the EU.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/209839/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kateryna Shynkaruk is affiliated as a nonresident scholar with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.</span></em></p>For President Zelenskyy and Ukraine’s citizens, the country’s quest for NATO and EU membership is about security – and identity.Kateryna Shynkaruk, Senior Lecturer of International Relations, Texas A&M UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2096412023-07-19T16:33:12Z2023-07-19T16:33:12ZFrance and Germany clash in race for energy transition<p>The relationship between France and Germany is often described as the “motor of Europe” but there is one area in which it can be described as dysfunctional: the energy sector.</p>
<p>The situation becomes ever more alarming as each country’s energy strategies grapples with difficulties; this persistent dispute regularly destabilises <a href="https://www.cairn.info/revue-l-economie-politique-2023-1-page-8.htm">the entire structure of <em>Fit for 55</em></a>, the <a href="https://www.ecologie.gouv.fr/fit-55-nouveau-cycle-politiques-europeennes-climat">EU’s “climate package”</a>.</p>
<p>How did such patterns arise? An extensive paper <a href="https://confrontations.org/geopolitique-de-lenergie-en-europe-comment-reconcilier-une-union-desunie/">published in <em>Confrontations Europe</em></a> will be our starting point to answer this historical question.</p>
<h2>From the 1950s to the coal and petrol crises</h2>
<p>In Germany, after the Second World War, the vital resources of coal and lignite played an important role in the country’s reconstruction as nuclear weapons were banned. </p>
<p>The energy sector is at the heart of Germany’s version of corporatism, relying on the role of unions and the <em>Stadtwerke</em>, the regional energy and infrastructure companies. The coal crises of the 1950s and 60s, then the petrol crises in the 1970s, led to more intervention by the federal state with a plan to support the national coal industry and the launch of a nuclear programme. </p>
<p>At the end of the 1970s, coal contributed to 30% of the primary energy supply while nuclear made up 40% of the electricity supply. But these transformations took place in a context of regional geopolitics; in the north-west, regions are historically coal powered and bastions of the SDP (Social-Democrat Party) while in the south-east, conservative provinces dominated by the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) and the Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU), support nuclear development on their territory. This split in the public policy community would be leveraged by anti-nuclear campaigners.</p>
<p>Conversely, in France, the defining feature of the energy sector is probably its extreme centralisation, set out in 1946’s Nationalisation Act, that left power to local management and companies only in exceptional circumstances. In this matter, the interests of the EDF and of the state are seen by state technocrats as one.</p>
<figure>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">1974, France launched its civil nuclear programme. (Ina Sciences).</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As was the case in Germany, the petrol crisis of 1973 inspired policies aiming toward energy independence. In practice, the vision of “All electric, all nuclear” would become an ambitious programme, the Messmer Plan, formulated to respond to abundant demand and based on the capacity of the industry to produce a series of nuclear power stations. This was done in service of energy independence and “the greatness of France.”</p>
<h2>After the petrol crises and with the climate crisis, two tales of transition</h2>
<p>In Germany, the tale of the energy transition, <em>Energiewende</em>, starts in the 1980s, based on the analysis of public intellectuals (Robert Jungk, Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker) of the environmental crisis, on anti-nuclear campaigns promoted by the green party <em>Die Grünen</em>, and on the work of energy experts, such as those of the <a href="https://www.oeko.de/en/up-to-date/final-storage-the-search-gathers-pace">Öko-Institut</a>. </p>
<p>Over time, this critique of the growth model would be replaced by a more consensual vision that promotes the idea of “growth and prosperity without petrol or uranium.” This attitude was slowly taken up by the SPD in the “red-green” alliances at the local level, then at the federal level in the coalitions of 1998 and 2002. </p>
<p>While conservative parties long wavered, the coalition that brought Angela Merkel to power in 2005 argued for the maintenance of nuclear as the “energy of transition”. But the accident at Fukushima rocked public opinion, prompting Germany to abandon nuclear in 2022. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">After the Fukushima catastrophe, Angela Merkel announces Germany will abandon nuclear power from 2022 onwards (Euronews, 2011).</span></figcaption>
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<p>In France, political elites’ support for nuclear remains strong and stable. Neither the Chernobyl catastrophe of 1986, nor the return to power of the “left-wing coalition” has impacted the status quo. On the other hand, after the signing of the Kyoto Agreement in the same year, there was a revival of interest in energy issues: since 2006 the think-tank, <a href="https://negawatt.org/">the négaWatt association</a>, has regularly called for prudent energy use and a significant role for renewable energy. </p>
<p>After the election of President François Hollande, the national debate in 2013 around the energy transition was an important time for building narratives and helped identify four paths for transition. </p>
<p>The four pathways – ranging from the very cautious with nuclear phaseout to the maintenance of the current model with huge nuclear capacity – is an accurate reflection of <a href="https://theconversation.com/quatre-scenarios-pour-comprendre-les-programmes-des-candidats-en-matiere-denergie-72308">current political trends</a> in France.</p>
<p>Since then, as election considerations have halted decision-making, the main documents detailing France’s energy policy (<a href="https://outil2amenagement.cerema.fr/la-programmation-pluriannuelle-de-l-energie-ppe-r1625.html">PPE</a>, <a href="https://www.ecologie.gouv.fr/strategie-nationale-bas-carbone-snbc">SNBC</a>) have pushed the issue of nuclear into the long grass.</p>
<p>Or this was the situation when Emmanuel Macron decided to <a href="https://www.actu-environnement.com/ae/news/nucleaire-macron-relance-EPR-39086.php4">redevelop new reactors</a> just before the presidential elections of 2022.</p>
<p>Fifty years after the first petrol crisis and thirty years after the signing of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, France today has an energy mix twice as decarbonised as Germany’s (52% compared to 26%), even if the proportion that renewable energy makes up is slightly smaller (18% compared to 22%). But the two systems are in crisis. </p>
<h2>Today, two models in crisis</h2>
<p>In the months following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the French, largely nuclear-based energy system plunged into crisis, with nuclear production falling by 30% <a href="https://www.rte-france.com/actualites/bilan-electrique-2022">compared to the average of the last twenty years</a>.</p>
<p>The sector has responded with a renovation programme for existing nuclear power stations and construction plans of at least six supplementary units. Such initiatives could help atomic power to recover to stable production levels – and yet, this is not a guarantee, particularly in light of France’s increasing use of renewables.</p>
<p>When it comes to Germany, the <em>Energiewende</em> must face up to current new challenges in a dangerous and uncertain context. The original decarbonisation strategy was set out in three stages, consisting of the development of renewals, the stopping of nuclear and then of coal.</p>
<p>One might judge that at the start of the 2020s, the two first phases had been completed. However, in 2022, the country was still heavily reliant on coal, then accounting for 31% of electricity production – <a href="https://www.agora-energiewende.de/veroeffentlichungen/bilanz-des-energiejahres-2022-und-ausblick-auf-2023/">up by 11% compared to the previous year</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140719/original/image-20161006-14719-pwlonq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140719/original/image-20161006-14719-pwlonq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140719/original/image-20161006-14719-pwlonq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140719/original/image-20161006-14719-pwlonq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140719/original/image-20161006-14719-pwlonq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140719/original/image-20161006-14719-pwlonq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140719/original/image-20161006-14719-pwlonq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The German nuclear power station of Jänschwalde, which is one of the largest in Europe and also one of the most polluting.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/uncloned/5700491446/in/photolist-9FFwEr-9FJvvh-9FFyFn-63EQ6S-aj7sc9-9G7s3E-9G4xcT-9G4wPa-9G4wmv-8LsHPo-5mm2Vj-5mgGEP-5mkXYh-5mgHiR-5mkYrW-5mm27j-8Losf8-5mgGnH-5mm2cu-5mgJTv-5mm111-5mgHwa-5mgKSg-5mgHqV-5mgGgP-5mm2v1-5mkYKC-5mgGcM-5mm16o-8LrvDW-5mgGzz-5mm1ru-5mgFX4-5mgJr4-5mgJHD-5zRjc3-5mm2i3-5zRjc7-5mm2ou-8LrvpY-5mm1hb-5mm1H5-5mkY4y-5mgJYi-5mm1Zf-5mgHe2-5mm1x9-8LosVK-5mkZHu-5mkZ7f/">Tobias Scheck/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In line with a long political tradition of trade with Russia, the country had set out for Russian gas to act as a bridge fuel from coal to green hydrogen. But the flaws of this strategy were exposed by the invasion of Ukraine. Weaned from Russian fossil fuels, Germany now has to contend with developing renewables at a rate never achieved in the past, while considering intermittency issues.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536653/original/file-20230710-36093-bkplhu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536653/original/file-20230710-36093-bkplhu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536653/original/file-20230710-36093-bkplhu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536653/original/file-20230710-36093-bkplhu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536653/original/file-20230710-36093-bkplhu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536653/original/file-20230710-36093-bkplhu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=655&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536653/original/file-20230710-36093-bkplhu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=655&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536653/original/file-20230710-36093-bkplhu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=655&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Agora Energiewende</span>, <span class="license">Fourni par l'auteur</span></span>
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</figure>
<h2>An imperative for Europe: reconciling energy policy, while respecting national choices</h2>
<p>Although countries in the EU are capable of initiating collaborative actions – notable examples being the <em>Green Deal</em> or even the <a href="https://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2023/03/24/l-economie-politique-quatre-scenarios-pour-la-transition-energetique_6166765_3232.html"><em>Repower EU</em></a> plan – a crack is opening up between the nations with very different decarbonisation strategies.</p>
<p>These conflicts broadly pit two blocs against one another: on the one hand, a “nuclear alliance” led by France and followed by the Netherlands, Finland, Poland, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia; and on the other, a <a href="https://www.euractiv.fr/section/energie/news/nucleaire-contre-renouvelables-deux-camps-saffrontent-a-bruxelles/">group of “friends of renewables”</a> driven by Austria, and backed by Germany, Spain, Denmark, Ireland, Luxembourg, Portugal, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/m4-r0y6t83w?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Emmanuel Macron announces six new EPR reactors in France. (Euronews, February 2022).</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These two coalitions are tearing each other apart over nearly all the big issues in energy transition, including the European taxonomy, the reform of the electricity market and the definition of green hydrogen.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
À lire aussi :
<a href="https://theconversation.com/nucleaire-retour-sur-le-debat-autour-de-la-nouvelle-taxonomie-europeenne-176733">Nucléaire : retour sur le débat autour de la nouvelle taxonomie européenne</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Toward European energy principles</h2>
<p>If it is impossible to come up with a one-size-fits-all, “European” model for the low-carbon transition, one can nevertheless try to identify principles which, all while respecting national strategies, would enable Europe to move toward carbon neutrality by 2050 in a coordinated manner.</p>
<p>With this in mind, we believe three principles must hold:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>The priority must be placed on the fight against climate change, and thus on the decarbonisation of energy systems.</p></li>
<li><p>The range of decarbonisation policies likely to be adopted in Europe must be recognised and accepted.</p></li>
<li><p>The actions or the policy of the member states in the elaboration of communal actions must not end up stopping projects by other member states in the trajectory toward decarbonisation. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>Priority must be placed on climate, subsidiarity in politics and the principle of “do no harm”. The phrasing at this stage is a little general, but one can hope that an effort will be made for both for mutual understanding between the representatives of member states and for a legal-administrative definition at the level of the Commission. This could allow for rapid progress toward a coherent European policy for the energy transition.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/209641/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Les auteurs ne travaillent pas, ne conseillent pas, ne possèdent pas de parts, ne reçoivent pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'ont déclaré aucune autre affiliation que leur organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>While EU countries are capable of initiating strong joint actions, a divide is emerging between countries with very different, even antagonistic, decarbonisation strategies.Patrick Criqui, Directeur de recherche émérite au CNRS, économiste de l’énergie, Université Grenoble Alpes (UGA)Carine Sebi, Professeure associée et coordinatrice de la chaire « Energy for Society », Grenoble École de Management (GEM)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2095442023-07-12T15:32:09Z2023-07-12T15:32:09ZGermany’s far-right AfD makes key political gains as Olaf Scholz’s governing coalition wobbles<p>Opinion polls and local election results currently make unhappy reading for Germany’s government. In fact, the consistently strong performance of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) in Europe’s largest member state (and arguably the member state with the best reasons to ward off a far-right challenge) is worrying for everyone.</p>
<p>The anti-immigration, climate sceptic AfD recently celebrated two significant <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/afd-far-right-robert-sesselmann-triumph-in-germany-district-election-rings-alarm-bells/">local election</a> wins and has been polling ahead of the government in national voter intention polls. This happened despite the fact that the German <a href="https://www.zdf.de/nachrichten/politik/afd-verdachtsfall-verfassungsschutz-urteil-100.html">courts</a> have the whole party being monitored by the secret service on grounds of suspected extremism. </p>
<p>AfD representatives have been tangled up with <a href="https://apnews.com/article/germany-berlin-the-holocaust-government-and-politics-4ee8a8e8a84b7b0e7f1d75d81e678bad">arguments about memorialising the Holocaust</a> on plenty of occasions and one former <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/terror-suspected-ex-lawmaker-employed-fortune-teller-in-german-parliament/">AfD lawmaker</a> is currently in custody on suspicion of taking part in a violent attempted coup. </p>
<p>Germany’s three-party government, made up of the SPD (social democrats, the party of Chancellor Olaf Scholz), Greens and the FDP (a centre-right liberal party) is undoubtedly unpopular. The most recent <a href="https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/deutschlandtrend/deutschlandtrend-3372.html">Deutschlandtrend</a> poll (which is based on fieldwork completed at the start of July) found that 77% of respondents were “dissatisfied” with the government’s performance. Meanwhile, <a href="https://www.wahlrecht.de/umfragen/">national polls</a> have, in recent weeks, consistently put the AfD in second place.</p>
<p>The opposition CDU/CSU (Christian Democrats), led by Friedrich Merz, is out in front but with support from an underwhelming 27% of voters in national opinion polls, while the AfD is at around 19%, ahead of the SPD (18%), Greens (14%), FDP (7%) and Left Party (5%).</p>
<p>It is clear that the AfD is particularly strong in eastern Germany, which displays strikingly distinct patterns of voting behaviour and political values compared to the rest of the country, even though it’s well over 30 years since the Berlin Wall fell.</p>
<p>Both the recent electoral successes unfolded in the east. In June, Robert Sesselmann was elected the first <a href="https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/regional/thueringen/landrat-stichwahl-sonneberg-100.html">AfD county mayor</a> after defeating his CDU opponent in Sonneberg, a rural area in the state of Thuringia. In the first week of July, Hannes Loth won the AfD <a href="https://www.mdr.de/nachrichten/sachsen-anhalt/dessau/bitterfeld/afd-buergermeister-raguhn-jessnitz-108.html">its first</a> full-time mayoral post in Raguhn-Jeßnitz, in the neighbouring state Saxony-Anhalt.</p>
<p>A recent <a href="https://www.wahlrecht.de/umfragen/landtage/thueringen.htm">poll</a> Thuringia put the AfD on 34% if a state election were held tomorrow, well ahead of the CDU (21%) and Left Party (20%).</p>
<p>There will be elections to the regional parliaments of three eastern states in September 2024. The prospect of the AfD topping the poll is a major risk.</p>
<h2>Gaining ground</h2>
<p>There is no denying that Scholz’s coalition government, formed in December 2021, has been dealt an exceptionally difficult hand. The Ukraine war and energy price crisis pose major challenges to Germany, a country whose economic model was substantially predicated on access to cheap (Russian) energy, and whose foreign policy was founded on dialogue rather than conflict with Russia.</p>
<p>It also just so happens that the issues coming to the fore are the same issues that aggravate the differences between the governing coalition partners. Energy and climate policy are sources of particular disagreement between the Greens (and to a lesser extent the SPD) and the pro-car, climate-cautious FDP. On fiscal policy, too, the partners are poles apart. The Greens and SPD are focused on investment while the FDP is all about balanced budgets and lower taxes. </p>
<p>But there is also a significant proportion of German voters who disagree with some of the key tenets on which all mainstream parties (whether government or opposition) broadly agree. That 23% of Germans <a href="https://www.zdf.de/nachrichten/politik/politbarometer-bundestagswahl-afd-ampel-cdu-csu-kanzlerkandidat-mindestlohn-100.html">want to see less support for Ukraine</a> is a problem for the establishment and that figure rises to 37% in the east, where there are stronger historical ties to Russia and where there has been far greater scepticism of German troops serving abroad, whether in Iraq, Kosovo or Afghanistan. Meanwhile, 37% of Germans (and a massive 87% of AfD voters) say climate protection measures are going too far, while 52% felt that Germany could not cope with the number of refugees it was receiving.</p>
<p>The AfD’s support is not about the party becoming more mainstream. It remains fractious and polemical on a level that is still unpalatable for many. German voters recognise the party has become more extreme, with a <a href="https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/deutschlandtrend/deutschlandtrend-3372.html">lower proportion</a> open to any form of co-operation between the AfD and other parties than back in 2017.</p>
<p>What is has done, however, is skip rather effectively from issue to issue. For instance, at the 2021 federal election, it <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09644008.2022.2087871">successfully emphasised</a> its opposition to the government’s COVID restrictions after the issue of refugees had declined in importance. And the AfD should not be characterised as a party for the “losers of globalisation”, as is often the case for extreme right parties. Notably in the east, its support cuts across different income and age groups.</p>
<h2>Elections ahead</h2>
<p>Scholz continues to <a href="https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/innenpolitik/sommerinterview-scholz-108.html">strike a calm, optimistic tone in public</a>. In a recent interview, he strained to emphasise just how friendly dealings between coalition partners have been. But with no end to the Ukraine conflict and associated economic challenges in sight, governing will continue to be difficult. A series of nearly back-to-back elections (two major state polls this autumn, followed by European elections in May 2024) will give a substantial incentive for coalition parties to seek to advance their own profiles at the expense of their partners. The FDP has already been doing precisely this following a <a href="http://www.election.de/ltw_wahl.html">rotten set of results</a> in four state elections in 2022. </p>
<p>Perhaps most concerning is the presence of a significant minority of Germans, notably in the east, at odds with key tenets of mainstream politics and happy to support a party led by politicians who have variously <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-38661621">criticised the Holocaust memorial</a> in Berlin as a sign that Germany expends too much energy atoning for the past, <a href="https://www.focus.de/politik/deutschland/bjoern-hoecke-sieben-zitate-zeigen-wie-gefaehrlich-der-afd-rechtsaussen-wirklich-ist_id_6536746.html">dubbed</a> Germany’s armed forces a “genderised, multiculturalised troop serving the USA”, and which <a href="https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/how-germanys-far-right-politicians-became-the-kremlins-voice/">questions</a> Germany’s democratic credentials while sharing Kremlin propaganda.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/209544/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ed Turner receives funding from the German Academic Exchange Service and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation. </span></em></p>Far-right party Alternative for Germany is leading opinion polls in parts of the country and could pose a major threat in regional contests that lie ahead.Ed Turner, Reader in Politics, Co-Director, Aston Centre for Europe, Aston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2094902023-07-11T09:34:24Z2023-07-11T09:34:24ZWhat’s behind Australia’s $1 billion defence deal with Germany?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536741/original/file-20230711-25-sl30n6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=53%2C26%2C5685%2C3961&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kay Nietfeld/DPA/AP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Early last year, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz declared Russia’s invasion of Ukraine a major historical turning point – a <a href="https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/zeiten-when-scholz-needs-to-stop-standing-in-the-way-of-germanys-foreign-policy-turning-point/"><em>zeitenwende</em></a>. </p>
<p>That turning point continues to play out. On the eve of this week’s NATO summit in Lithuania, Berlin and Canberra announced a deal that will send <a href="https://www.pm.gov.au/media/press-conference-berlin-germany">more than 100 Boxer</a> armoured fighting vehicles from Australia to Germany – not the other way around, as had been the case when Australia bought <a href="http://anzacsteel.hobbyvista.com/Armoured%20Vehicles/leopardph_1.htm">about 100 Leopard tanks in the mid-1970s</a>. </p>
<p>This unique deal, worth more than A$1 billion, is driven by the demands for a <a href="https://www.afr.com/policy/foreign-affairs/helmets-to-jets-germany-beefs-up-dire-military-to-counter-russia-20230214-p5ckfz">rapid German rearmament</a> after the strategic shock of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Germany doesn’t have adequate military production capacity to meet its suddenly pressing new defence needs. </p>
<p>Prime Minister Anthony Albanese then added to the German deal by declaring an Australian Air Force <a href="https://www.airforce.gov.au/aircraft/e-7a-wedgetail">Boeing E-7A Wedgetail</a> surveillance aircraft would be based at Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany for six months, starting in October. </p>
<p>This aircraft will be part of NATO surveillance of the alliance’s <a href="https://ac.nato.int/archive/2022/nato_eAV_air">eastern flank</a>, in particular <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/defence/nato-summit-australian-eyes-inthe-sky-join-fightfor-ukraine/news-story/f89eccf95253a138d1978ae6fcdb9b69">European logistical hubs</a> supporting Ukraine. These could be threatened by air incursions from Russia or Belarus if the war escalates. </p>
<p>The Wedgetail will be able to detect aircraft approaching the Baltic states or Poland in the east. It can then determine their likely intent and whether they are friendly or not. Then, if necessary, an airborne air defence fighter aircraft could be vectored to intercept the intruder. </p>
<p>This task has been carried out by NATO’s E-3 AWACS aircraft, but these planes were bought in the 1980s and have very low reliability. The Wedgetail is only a decade or so old and is much easier to maintain and keep in the air. </p>
<p>With this move, Australia will now share the burden of continual air patrols in Eastern Europe made necessary by the Russian invasion. </p>
<h2>Bringing Germany and Australia closer together</h2>
<p>The Boxer is an <a href="https://www.defence.gov.au/project/combat-reconnaissance-vehicle">eight-wheeled armoured vehicle</a> fitted with a 30-millimetre automatic cannon. It is operated by a crew of three and able to carry eight solders in its rear cabin. </p>
<p>The Boxers are built at a facility just outside <a href="https://statements.qld.gov.au/statements/97407">Brisbane</a>. In late 2018, the German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall won a <a href="https://www.anao.gov.au/work/performance-audit/defence-procurement-combat-reconnaissance-vehicles-land400-phase2">$4.28 billion contract</a> to build 211 Boxer Combat Reconnaissance Vehicles for the Australian Army. As part of the contract, the Australian government mandated Rheinmetall build the majority of the vehicles in Australia. </p>
<p>The new Boxers being built for Germany will be based on the Australian Army’s reconnaissance vehicle design, but <a href="https://www.rheinmetall.com/en/media/news-watch/news/2023/apr/2023-04-03-boxer-combat-vehicles-from-australia-for-bundeswehr">given a different name</a>: “heavy weapon carrier infantry”. The first deliveries will be made in 2025. </p>
<p>The Boxer deal helps to bring Germany and Australia closer at a time when Berlin is increasingly interested in <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/germany-sends-troops-australia-first-berlin-shifts-focus-indo-pacific-2023-07-10/#:%7E:text=Mais%20said%20up%20to%20240,U.S.%2C%20held%20bi%2Dannually.">Indo-Pacific defence matters</a>. </p>
<p>In 2021, a German warship <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/germany-sends-troops-australia-first-berlin-shifts-focus-indo-pacific-2023-07-10/">visited</a> the northern Indian Ocean and western Pacific in a long deployment, and the following year, the German air force joined in an air defence exercise in Darwin. </p>
<p>In late June, Germany released its first National Security Strategy, which <a href="https://www.iiss.org/online-analysis/online-analysis/2023/06/germanys-first-ever-national-security-strategy/">called China</a> a “partner, competitor and systemic rival” and observed that competition with China has “increased in the past years”.</p>
<p>And later this month, Germany will <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/germany-sends-troops-australia-first-berlin-shifts-focus-indo-pacific-2023-07-10/">send more than 200 soldiers</a> to participate in the
Talisman Sabre, a large, multinational, military exercise in eastern Australia. It will be the first time Germany participates in the drills. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-is-nato-expanding-its-reach-to-the-asia-pacific-region-209140">Why is NATO expanding its reach to the Asia-Pacific region?</a>
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<h2>Why the deal matters to both countries</h2>
<p>The Boxer deal is also appealing domestically to both leaders. </p>
<p>For Scholz, buying vehicles from the factory of a German arms manufacturer in Australia is more attractive than buying US-made arms. Moreover, the deal would seem pivotal in ensuring Rheinmetall Defence Australia is <a href="https://www.defence.gov.au/project/land-combat-vehicle-system-infantry-fighting-vehicle">now chosen</a> over South Korea’s Hanwha to build <a href="https://www.australiandefence.com.au/defence/budget-policy/unpacking-the-defence-strategic-review">129 new Infantry Fighting Vehicles</a> for the Australian Defence Force (ADF). </p>
<p>For Albanese, the Boxer deal is one of Australia’s <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/australia-agrees-to-near-record-german-defense-deal-/7174076.html">largest defence export orders ever</a>, which will create hundreds of jobs. </p>
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<p>It will also ameliorate some <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/dsr-slow-unfunded-vague-australias-defence-industry-warns/news-story/24580aa376cc63912fbb1008126c0946">dissatisfaction</a> in the defence industry over the recent <a href="https://www.defence.gov.au/about/reviews-inquiries/defence-strategic-review">Defence Strategic Review</a>. Of note, the review saw no place for vehicles like the Boxer in the Australian Defence Force of the future, and certainly not in local production. </p>
<p>However, the deal will have some direct effects on the defence force in the short term. Fulfilling the German order will probably delay Boxer deliveries to the ADF at a time when quickly increasing its capabilities is considered important. </p>
<p>Moreover, sending a surveillance aircraft to Europe will take it away from Australia’s area of principal strategic interest. However, the Ramstein air base is a very large American facility, so this move will also help support the burgeoning Australia-US military alliance. </p>
<p>Australia was Boeing’s first customer for the Wedgetail aircraft in the early 2000s. Some will hope NATO will <a href="https://breakingdefense.com/2023/02/nato-begins-assessment-of-e-3a-replacement-wedgetail-globaleye-in-the-running/">now look favourably</a> at also buying them from the US. This could help lower the overall operating costs of the fleet. Larger fleets gain economies of scale and reduce individual maintenance costs. </p>
<h2>Could more deals be forthcoming?</h2>
<p>These deals were announced even before the NATO summit, so could there be more to come? </p>
<p>Australia is <a href="https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/retired-raaf-fighter-jets-could-be-sent-to-ukraine-20230605-p5de0h">reportedly in negotiations</a> to potentially give up to 41 old Hornet fighter jets to Ukraine. Ukraine is <a href="https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/ukraines-ambassador-confirms-interest-in-australias-f-a-18-hornets">apparently interested</a> in the retired jets, if perhaps only to spur others into gifting it a much larger number of F-16s. </p>
<p>This is all somewhat missing the forest for the trees, however. Russia’s war has now dragged on past the 500-day mark. It is reasonable to assume Ukraine will need more support from NATO and its allies. And as the war drags on, it is diverting attention away from the Indo-Pacific, where Australia’s core geostrategic focus lies. </p>
<p>But Australia will remain on the hook for more aid until the war ends. Boxers and Wedgetails are fine in their own way, but the main game remains defeating Russia and driving it out of Ukraine. With that, the historical turning point would be complete. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australia-is-not-giving-ukraine-the-military-support-it-needs-sending-our-retired-jets-would-be-a-start-208570">Australia is not giving Ukraine the military support it needs – sending our retired jets would be a start</a>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Layton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The major deal for Boxer armored fighting vehicles matters to both Australia and Germany individually – and also to the countries’ growing relationship.Peter Layton, Visiting Fellow, Griffith Asia Institute, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2080532023-06-28T16:56:12Z2023-06-28T16:56:12ZPoliticians believe voters to be more conservative than they really are<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534112/original/file-20230626-19-k2azps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C11%2C7360%2C4891&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Could this be what politicians have in mind when they invoke the "hardworking family"? </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/fr/image-photo/happy-parents-sitting-on-sofa-looking-1056238637">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In Germany, the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) won a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/26/far-right-afd-wins-local-election-watershed-moment-german-politics">district council election for the first time</a> on Monday. Robert Sesselmann’s victory as district administrator – the equivalent of a mayor – in the Eastern town of Sonneberg comes only a day after Greece’s conservatives clinched an outright majority in the country’s parliamentary polls, topping left-wing parties Syriza and Pasok. Meanwhile, the Spanish left is also bracing for an early general election on 23 July, after losing to the Spanish conservative Partido Popular (PP) and far-right Vox parties in May.</p>
<p>Such developments might send a signal to European politicians to lean further to the right in a scramble to save votes. Yet our latest research, <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-political-science-review/article/do-politicians-outside-the-united-states-also-think-voters-are-more-conservative-than-they-really-are/D21A9077EE2435F2B910394378E96450">published this month</a>, shows that politicians’ perceptions may not actually reflect voters’ true interests and opinions. Worse still: it appears to be an error that many other politicians have already made.</p>
<h2>866 officials surveyed</h2>
<p>In an influential 2018 study, David Broockman and Christopher Skovron <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-political-science-review/article/bias-in-perceptions-of-public-opinion-among-political-elites/2EF080E04D3AAE6AC1C894F52642E706">showed</a> that US politicians overestimated the share of citizens who held conservative views. On questions related to state intervention in the economy, gun control, immigration, or abortion, the majority of both Republicans and Democratic representatives surveyed believed that a greater share of citizens supported right-wing policies than what public-opinion data revealed.</p>
<p>We were curious whether conservative bias in politicians’ perceptions of public opinion was limited to American politics or was a broader phenomenon. To explore this, we interviewed 866 politicians in four democracies that whose political systems differ from each other and from that of the United States: Belgium, Canada, Germany and Switzerland. The politicians interviewed spanned the full political spectrum, including politicians from the radical right (Vlaams Belang, SVP/UDC), moderate centre-right (CDU/CSU, Conservative Party of Canada), centre-left parties (SPD, PS, SP.a-Vooruit) and radical left (PTB, Die Linke).</p>
<p>Participating officials, who included members of national and subnational (provinces, cantons, regions, Länders) legislative bodies, were asked to evaluate where general public opinion (but also that of their party voters) stood on a range of issues: pension age, redistribution, workers’ rights, euthanasia, child adoption by same-sex couples and immigration. We then compared their answers with public opinion data that we evaluated using large-scale representative surveys that we fielded in the four countries at the same time.</p>
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<p>Our findings are clear and straightforward. In all four countries, and on a majority of issues, politicians consistently overestimate the share of citizens who hold right-wing views. Figure 1 reports the average gap between politicians’ perceptions of general public opinion and citizens’ actual opinions (circles), and the gap between their estimation of their party’s electorate opinion and the observed opinion within that electorate (triangles). These estimates are reported for each issue domain and each country we studied. Both measures reveal a substantial and largely consistent conservative bias in politicians’ perceptions – both for the overall public and party electorates. Importantly, politicians’ overestimation of how many citizens hold right-wing views is consistent across the ideological spectrum. Politicians hold a conservative bias regardless of whether they represent left- or right-wing parties.</p>
<p>While the overall pattern is remarkably stable, we also uncovered important variation across issue domains. For example, citizens are much less in favour of raising the pension age than politicians think. There were also differences between countries, such as a smaller conservative bias in Wallonia (Belgium). But the global picture is clear: the overwhelming majority of politicians we studied (81%) believe that the public holds more conservative views than is the case. </p>
<p>The only exception appears to be when politicians estimate public opinion on immigration-related policies. When asked about issues such as family reunion, asylum or border control, there is also a misperception of public opinion among politicians but not always in the conservative direction. Politicians in Belgium (both Flanders and Wallonia) and in Switzerland have a conservative bias on such issues, but in Canada and Germany, there is a large <em>liberal</em> bias in politicians’ perception of public opinion regarding immigration.</p>
<h2>The result of lobbying?</h2>
<p>The big question is <em>why</em> politicians perceive public opinion to be more right-wing than it truly is. One explanation provided by Broockman and Skovron for the United States was that right-wing activists are more visible and tend to contact their politicians more often, skewing representatives’ information environment to the right. We tested this explanation in our studied countries, but could not find evidence to support it. The right-wing citizens in our sample are not more politically active, and therefore visible, than their left-wing counterparts. Yet the idea that politicians’ information environment might be skewed to the right can find support in other work.</p>
<p><a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/spsr.12224">Earlier research</a> has shown that politicians tend to receive disproportionally right-skewed information from business interest groups. Social media, which politicians use more and more, also tends to be dominated <a href="https://pure.rug.nl/ws/portalfiles/portal/148014700/review_Schradie.pdf">by conservative views</a>, and as politicians spend more time online, and their news media diet is growingly filtered through social media feeds that create interactions and feedback skewed to the right, their views may be accordingly distorted. It has also <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S000305542100037X">been shown</a> that politicians tend to pay more attention to the policy preferences of more affluent and educated citizens, and those citizens vote more often and hold more often right-wing views, at least on economic issues.</p>
<p>The observed conservative bias might also be associated with what social psychologist call “pluralistic ignorance” (i.e., misperceptions of others’ opinions). When it comes to liberals, for example, social psychologists have shown that they tend to exaggerate the uniqueness of their own opinion (<a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24247730/">“false uniqueness”</a>. Conservatives, by contrast, perceive their opinions as more common than they are (<a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0146167214537834">“false consensus”</a>). These processes could explain why we find a conservative bias found among both liberal and conservative politicians. Finally, recent election results such the Presidential elections in France, or the recent parliamentary elections in Greece and Finland, with the growth of the radical right and the victories of right-wing conservative parties, might also have sent a signal to politicians about the conservativeness of citizens that is not necessarily in step with their actual opinions.</p>
<h2>A threat to representative democracy</h2>
<p>Irrespective of the sources of the conservative bias, the fact that it is persistently present in a variety of different democratic systems has major implications for the well-functioning of representative democracy. Representative democracy builds upon the idea that elected politicians are responsive to citizens, meaning that they by and large attempt to promote policy initiatives that are in line with people’s preferences. If politicians’ ideas of what the public thinks – let alone their own party’s voters – are systematically biased toward one ideological side, then the political representation chain is weakened. Politicians may erroneously pursue right-wing policies that do not in fact have the popular support, and may refrain from working to advance (incorrectly perceived) progressive goals. But if citizens are less conservative than what politicians perceive them to be, the supply side of policy is at risk of being consistently suboptimal and may have broader, system-wide implications such as growing disaffection with democracy and democratic institutions.The recent social unrest in France regarding raising legal pension age might be an example of a policy debate in which governments perceive public opinion leaning more to the right than it actually is.</p>
<p>The situation is not without hope, however, and access to accurate information seems to play an important role. A <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1111/spsr.12495">2020 study</a> in Switzerland has shown that a sustained use of direct democracy might help politicians better understand public opinion. In the same logic, a recent study of US elected officials show that they tend to misperceive support for politically motivated violence among their supporters. But when exposed to reliable and accurate information, <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2116851119">they update and correct their (mis) perceptions</a>. Building on such studies, we believe that more work needs to be done both to understand the sources and prevalence of conservative bias, and to identify additional ways of offsetting it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208053/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jean-Benoit Pilet has received research grants from the European Research Council (ERC) and the Belgian National Fondation for Scientific Research (FNRS) </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lior Sheffer has received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).</span></em></p>A survey of nearly 900 politicians in Germany, Switzerland, Belgium and Canada reveals that they systematically overestimate their electorate’s conservatism on a range of issues.Jean-Benoit Pilet, Professeur de Science Politique, Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB)Lior Sheffer, Assistant professor in political science, Tel Aviv UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.