The country\u2019s so-called political centre has licensed a new era of authoritarianism \u2013 to the AfD\u2019s delight<\/p>\n
A crackdown on political dissent is well under way in Germany. Over the past two years, institutions and authorities have cancelled events, exhibitions and awards over statements about Palestine or Israel. There are many examples: the Frankfurt book fair indefinitely postponing<\/a> an award ceremony for Adania Shibli; the Heinrich B\u00f6ll Foundation withdrawing the Hannah Arendt prize<\/a> from Masha Gessen; the University of Cologne rescinding a professorship<\/a> for Nancy Fraser; the No Other Land directors Basel Adra and Yuval Abraham being defamed<\/a> by German ministers. And, most recently, the philosopher Omri Boehm being disinvited<\/a> from speaking at this month\u2019s anniversary of the liberation of Buchenwald.<\/p>\n In nearly all of these cases, accusations of antisemitism loom large \u2013 even though Jews are often among those being targeted. More often than not, it is liberals driving or tacitly accepting these cancellations, while conservatives and the far right lean back and cheer them on. While vigilance against rising antisemitism is no doubt warranted \u2013 especially in Germany \u2013 that concern is increasingly weaponised as a political tool to silence the left.<\/p>\n Hanno Hauenstein is a Berlin-based journalist and author. He worked as a senior editor in Berliner Zeitung\u2019s culture department, specialising in contemporary art and politics<\/p>\n Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters<\/a> section, please click here<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Continue reading…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The country\u2019s so-called political centre has licensed a new era of authoritarianism \u2013 to the AfD\u2019s delight A crackdown on political dissent is well under way in Germany. Over the past two years, institutions and authorities have cancelled events, exhibitions and awards over statements about Palestine or Israel. There are many examples: the Frankfurt book … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37838"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37838\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}