In this first episode we talk with Lucas Febraro, Director of Comunication at @DiEM25official political movement founded by Yanis Varoufakis.
In this episode we discuss the current geopolitical panorama in Germany, the far-right, AfD, democracy, integration and more.
We discuss also the role or Germany in the conflict between Israel and Palestina and how the international powers are intervining in Gaza.
Also we re-cap on the secret meeting which took place in a Hotel in Potsdam where members of the parlament and some others from the far-right from germany and Austria gathered to come up with a Master Plan for Remigration (Deportations).
More about Lucas Febraro:
@DiEM25official
Instagram: lfebraro
SUBSCRIBE TO OUR SPANISH PODCAST @gutentagpodcast
Most of the anti-semitic acts perpetrated in this country are perpetrated by white Germans by by the far right today’s guest in our episode is Lucas feraro director of communications at dm25 a political movement that has an aim to democratize the EU before it dissolves we saw Jewish people stand together with Arabs with
Muslims with Palestinians talking about peace peace with Justice in other words it was exact exactly the sort of thing that we need so sorely in moments like these and the the Berlin Senate cut the funding of aun under the charges of hidden anti-Semitism we discuss a lot of the
Current things that are happening in Germany such as the rise of the farri right demonstrations against the party afd uh as a response to a plan by the far right to mass Deport Arabs and Muslims Here Comes this group of Arabs and Muslims to try to join the demonstration
Against the mass deportation of Arab and Muslims what happens to them they’re insulted they’re called terrorist they’re spat at by white Germans you ever asked yourself what is it that you would be doing um during the the Nazi period if you were living in Germany what you’re
Doing right now is exactly what you would have been doing then this is our first episode that we were doing in English normally we’re doing this podcast in Spanish but we have tried this time to expand to a new audience to talk different topics and to try to reach to different people living
In Berlin and in Germany so if you’re living in Germany or Berlin don’t forget to subscribe this podcast is going to become very interesting so you don’t want to miss any episodes so if you haven’t done it yet please click that button subscribe and now let’s start with the Podcast and welcome everyone to the Gooden Talk podcast this is the first podcast that we are doing in English my name is Lardo I’m a Mexican going living in Berlin like for 10 years and with me is as in all the Spanish episodes Benji hi I’m another Mexican that is living
Here for eight years already so yeah so this is a podcast where we will try to make you feel more like in Germany make you feel more uh comfortable with the stuff that are going on in the city and also we want to have conversations with people that are inspiring or they have
Interesting points of view of what’s going on today we have our first cast is Lucas Fe welcome to the show thank you thank you so much huge huge responsibility appr yeah yeah we can rise to the to the occasion yeah well thank you for accepting the the the
Invitation um I think that we have a lot of interesting topics that we can talk about today but first I would like you to describe yourself in one sentence what do you do and what’s your mission well I am uh communications director at dm25 a pane European uh political
Movement and DM’s Mission and I guess by extension my mission as well is to um Advance radically Progressive politics MH um in in the case of DM particularly in Europe it’s called the Democracy in Europe movement that’s the was the the ACC name DM stands for when
Did you start to work there and what uh was your motivation to join this movement um I started well I joined Yem in in uh January 2021 M um as a member and a volunteer I I was uh just working in Communications at an agency here in
Berlin at the time and I’ve always been very interested in politics my entire life basically and leftwing politics in particular um I I followed the the the depth crisis in Greece very closely um especially in 2015 after citizen came to power like many on the left in Europe
And around the world I was hugely disappointed at the how the governments um turn out um eventually um I admired yanes role in U trying to prevent what eventually did happen from happening um and so as a result I was aware of the M25 since its found since its founding basically mhm
But I for whatever reason I only joined officially in 2021 and uh I’ve been working with the movement uh on a full-time basis since November of that uh okay that same year how long have you been here in Germany um it’s going to be 10 years in in a few days oh really
February quite a while what brought you to this city um I was making music at the time okay so it’s the old cliche really just electronic music producer moves to Berlin I want to be a DJ yeah yeah yeah did it happen no I did I wouldn’t be here
If but maybe you had good the first three years and then you decided to do something I don’t know yeah I know that’s very kind of you but no it didn’t no it did not it did not go U but particularly well in in the particularly in the financial sense obviously
Everyone knows it’s it’s very hard to yeah be an artist full time um so uh but still I was active in a sense I was making music but slowly I kind of like just dropped all together I did some odd jobs uh I worked two years and a half
With fudora I don’t know if you remember them yeah delivering food on my bike okay um and then um just ended up working in Communications just through luck and you know someone knew someone who knew someone okay but that’s that’s a a great outcome um so you had the expectation to
Becoming a DJ and then you decided more to to join more like a cause about um with political impact at the end then uh yeah I mean there was a lot that happened in between those two things but that’s mostly the the starts and and
Where we at I guess and where end at we’re going to be uh we got you mentioned that you’re a very leftwing um oriented we get a lot of uh hate because they say that we are very Lefty they call us suro I don’t know if that word
Is um yeah suro how um the ones who write with the the last yeah and we don’t even talk about topics that are like extremely Progressive or um or very left-wing I think sometime we just talk things that I feel that are common sense like okay uh um some welfare I think
It’s fine some rights for some uh uh minorities are are a good thing but just for expressing sometimes those stuff or like why the Rich has so are accumulating so much and just by questioning those stuff yeah yeah we get a lot of hate of uh like with the
Apartment situation that companies are buying a lot of complexes so they question like why do you think like that like yeah you so what do she should they do just give it away to everyone you communist and like come on you’re about to get a lot of new
Haters yeah from Beyond the Spanish speaking Yeah but but it’s fine because we have now like some sort of like um how’s it called cou uh protection against experience about yeah it just it’s Lies We we don’t take it so serious anymore um then you decided to start doing uh
Content on Tik Tok and Instagram to spread out uh a lot of the message I think and the mission from dm25 or you did that more like as your own um conviction um well both there’s a lot of overlap I guess um I am I also you know
I I because of my role at the M25 I’m involved in the m25s um social media presence social media management so if you go to dm25 social media accounts um you you’ll see um my face there as well just like appearing on videos talking about DM talking about just things are
Happening in the world from the point of view of what the movement has to to to say on them what we have to offer on them um that was really my first experience in um I guess making content more on this sort of like with this with this personal involvement yeah um and
Especially after uh October 7th uh due to DM’s uh position on on this topic which is a rare position to see unfortunately these days in in European political organizations especially in places like Germany um that ended up uh connecting with a lot of people M um and I because
I saw that happening as well and I saw that you know the positive messages that we’re getting from from people which again sort of made us feel that we were having an important impact at an important moment M um I also on a personal level got more and more
Involved in this and with the M25 of course like I I am not the M25 I you know my my uh duty is to speak on behalf of the movement when when uh I serve essentially as a spokesperson on our social media on dm25 social media
Accounts but I wanted to go beyond that because I just had too much to say I guess and I wanted to have um also the freedom to just speak for for myself um through my own channels and so I started getting active in making content on my own personal social media accounts on
Instagram and on Tik Tok and once again it ended up connecting with a lot of people which I was really happy to see and it didn’t really expect at all um and yeah that to be the case and that’s uh yeah what I’ve been U doing this past
Few months I think it’s very interesting when you do that that you at least you know that you’re not alone that you’re not the only one having those those thoughts um yeah you were saying yeah because of the current pan Panorama currently in in Europe there’s a lot of
Uh xenophobic agendas everything going a bit more into the fascism what we seeing in some countries like Italy like with in France with lean in the Netherlands as well and in Germany um why do you think this is happening um well I think this uh the political situation in in Europe and
Particularly in places like Germany since October it’s been The Perfect Storm for the expression of um the sort of latent racist sentiment M that has always really been there beneath the surface it it didn’t just appear out of nowhere um the far right is always happy
To express it very freely so there never been an issue for them yeah uh what has changed though is that the the liberal sort of mainstream now feels very comfortable expressing these views which are in a lot of case is very difficult to differentiate from the views that the
Far right might have yeah like when we see that um that Germany is concerned about um anti-Semitism it seems that they tend to tolerate it a bit more when it comes from uh movements from the far right that when it BEC comes with from people that are um are identifying with
The people from Palestine then they tend to oppress more those than the ones that from the far right they even have their right to go in the streets every Monday with their Pega movement they have the police around uh them but they are not
Getting a how it call a ban on their uh on their how it call on the demonstration sometimes and that like exposes a little bit of hypocrisy right but that’s even that is assuming that all of these accusations of anti-Semitism are true to begin with
Okay they are not a lot of it is just an excuse to uh Express islamophobia and racism against Arabs and Muslims I’m not saying that anti-Semitism doesn’t exist of course it does exist and it’s a very it’s a very real and serious problem especially in places like Germany um but
Like you said if you look at the statistics most of the anti-semitic acts perpetrated in this country are perpetrated by white Germans by by the far right mhm um and so uh it’s it’s it’s a sad irony because for for instance German Germany has this uh huge bureaucracy to fight anti-Semitism right
Um most of it is run by white Germans and the people who are targeted by this bureaucracy as anti-semites are disproportionately Jewish people mhm so we have this perversion in Germany in in which we have white Germans yeah lecturing uh Jewish people on what’s anti-semitic and what isn’t uh also when
You get into things like the um definition of anti-semitism by the um International Holocaust remembrance Alliance this very controversial definition of anti-semitism which has been embraced by um you know governments including the the the German government um as a matter of fact the the Senate here in Berlin wanted to
Make uh adherence to this definition a condition to get uh Public Funding for the Arts if you’re artist if you’re a venue it’s a very perverse definition that is has been criticized by um you know academics the world over um it it’s uh it to to boil it down to the essence
Of it it basically equates criticism of the state of Israel with anti-Semitism also by the way earlier in the text they um say that it it is anti-Semitic to equate the Jewish people with the state of with the the state and the the government and the actions of the state
Of Israel which is absolutely right what does that mean you mean it means that um if the Israeli government commits a crime yeah uh it doesn’t mean that all you all Jews are responsible for it which is absolutely true and to say that uh that’s not the case to go against
That is anti-Semitic that’s pretty should be pretty uncontroversial yeah however in the same uh definition in another you know bullet point or whatever they called um they say that um uh criticizing the the state of Israel um and antagonizing it I don’t know exactly what the what words are
Used but basically to uh to be against the state of Israel is an anti-Semitism which is something that this other uh bullet point that we were talking about uh calls anti-semitic so the bottom line is according to their own definition their definition is anti-Semitic so it’s
It’s just it’s a it’s it’s a mind fog Excuse excuse the term it’s like when you say I’m against um American imperialism is not the same that I hate Americans like the indid yes it and it’s uh you know you just you just put it very very beautifully just how simple it
Should be you know but in the case of Israel it isn’t because um the state of Israel itself thrives on this notion that they speak for um the Jewish people as a whole and to attack them is to be anti-semitic so um they they they do their utmost their utmost to to
Perpetrate this notion um and it’s something that the bank rollers of of Israel the the people you know the the the governments who keep uh supporting Israel and arming it and enabling it to commit the crimes that it commits also Embrace these same um fictions okay essentially so that’s what we’re seeing
In Germany we’re seeing um charges of anti-Semitism being weaponized to silence criticism of the state of Israel and we’re seeing especially um Arab people Muslims and Jews um being uh victims of this of the silencing there was this um uh was it was an Art Collective that
Was um that was very Pro lgtbq that stopped receiving funding after they organized a event against hate and then because there was they call it hidden anti-Semitism right that’s uh that’s Yun a cultural center here in Berlin in in nikun yes o Yun is is a very is a very
Interesting story um that is is serves as a perfect example of the climate that we’re that we living through in Germany yes you’re right the the the basically the at the heart of the issue was these events that Yun hosted in November November 4th if I’m not mistaken which was um
The anniversary of uh Jewish voice for just peace in the Middle East which is a left-wing anti-zionist uh Progressive Jewish organization MH they the the Senate tried to pressure Yun uh into canceling this event because they said it was too politically charged or whatever um orun refused very bravely I
Might add refus to to do that uh the event went ahead I was there what happened at this event event you know this controversial you know scandalous event we saw uh Jewish people stand together with Arabs with Muslims with Palestinians talking about uh understanding talking about peace peace with
Justice um you know we saw uh artistic performances um we saw um political discussions about uh what does it mean for Palestine to truly be be free for Jews and for Palestinians um for Christians for everyone MH in other words it was exactly exactly the sort of thing that
We need so sorely in moments like these and for their troubles um the the Berlin Senate cut the funding of a Yun like you said under the pretext that uh charges of hidden anti-Semitism which is ludicrous because um it if it’s hidden means that you
Cannot see it and if you cannot see it how do you know that it’s there it’s like I don’t know how can exactly how can you how can you defend yourself from a charge of hidden anti-Semitism you know yeah how do you prove that you are not it’s hidden you cannot see it
Exactly yeah exactly um so yeah theun which is a is a huge space it’s a beautiful space for for people who don’t live in Berlin and had never been to um that uh you know again had this uh funding cut over 30 people uh most of them uh migrants or people with migrant
You know marginalized people lost their jobs as a result mhm um and a lot of them also had their uh residence permits being jeopardized because they lost their of income so uh just the other day I think yesterday as as of this this recording actually the the Berlin senate had this
Discussion in which um the the motion in which they wanted to that was presented to make this definition of anti-semitism that I just mentioned the IH definition to make it a condition to get Public Funding for the Arts that motion was withdrawn which was a very important in
These days rare uh small victory um for the you know the the prop Palestine movement the the movement for um for for you know Peace and Freedom um in in the Middle East uh here in Germany however that’s not enough because the the the funding for Yun has
To come back and that’s what we were chanting right in front of the the Berlin Senate um you know which was a beautiful thing to see everyone you know shouted and screamed and hugged each other when it was announced that the motion had been withdrawn but in in a
Matter of just seconds later everyone was was chanting what about o Yun and that’s a question that we need to ask now what about o Yun okay I would like to um jump a little bit on what happened a couple days ago in this big demonstration
Against um I or against hatred and there was the the the demonstration as far as understand was organized by frighter for future or they were there involved the one here in in Berlin it was called for by Fighters for future years and there was there the issue that people that
Were there with Palestinian flags were uh asked to leave leave or they didn’t allow them to participate in this demonstration was that was that is so first of all full disclosure I wasn’t there but I I uh I saw a lot of reports by people who were um there at the the
Palestinian block that as you mentioned tried to join the the demonstration and what they said and again you can see uh a ton of firstand reports on social media people like Salah s um who were there and talked about their experience essentially they arrived and you know Palestinian flags with keas they were
Immediately surrounded by police and prev from joining the demonstration not only that um they were also attacked by the the other participants in the demonstration they were insulted they were called terrorists they were spat at um and then eventually they they you know they they
They try to talk to the police and to the organizers I believe but um eventually they had to by the way they they people there also reported that uh is Israeli flags were visible in the demonstration no one prevented cuz that was the that that that’s the excuse
Right that this is this is about something else uh you can’t come here with uh with flags of the country I suppose they would say um so no you can’t join but again Israel Flags no problem apparently uh also I would like to add that um the uh reports seem to
Vary widely depending on the on the city in which these protest took place in Germany they it didn’t it wasn’t only in Berlin there were protests all over the country so I’m just talking about Berlin now I want to make that clear although there were uh very concerning um and
Very similar things happening in other places like like Munich as well but it was necessarily everywhere um anyway they uh they were escorted by police to the entrance of the of the uban MH and and they uh they had to leave again this is this this was a pro protest called
Why did this happen for people who are not aware so it was revealed uh I don’t know weeks ago uh that the the German F rights including members of the far rights uh afd party had a secret meeting in November in which a so-called master plan for quote unquote remigration yeah
Uh which is the euphemistic term for Mass deportations was discussed that involves the mass deportation of migrants which you know you would expect unfortunately to to hear from the far right but not only that also the a stripping of German citizenship of people who are not ethnically German
Essentially um and who have other passports uh so that they can also be deported um even people who are you know who grew up in Germany who even born in Germany which is an irony because they just passed the law to have the double nationality and uh well but they were
Fighting a lot against that I think right well here’s the thing according to the according to the reports that came out of this meeting there there was a member of parliament a member of the bundar from the AF present at this meeting and according to the re to the
To the report she said that um part of the reason um for which the the FD had dropped their opposition to this law was so that it would make it easier to strip people of German CI ship because if you have a second passport that means that
Your German passport can be taken away because you have another one smart exactly but if you only have a German passport and you’re someone they don’t like you know like a brown person an Arab a Muslim then they can’t do it because it’s unconstitutional because you can’t leave someone
Stateless true yeah what do you do with them yeah exactly so like in the terminal like the movie from Tom Hanks he would just around the airport or what so that’s that’s why those demonstrations were called where as a as a response to the um to to the to this uh the story
That broke and and on the news let’s go back to what happened to the Palestinian Block in the demonstration here in Berlin they tried to join a demonstration that was called for uh as a response to a plan by the far right to mass Deport Arabs and
Muslims Here Comes this group of Arabs and Muslims to try to join the demonstration against the mass deportation of Arab and Muslims what happens to them they’re insulted they’re called terrorists they’re spat at by white Germans yeah um I mean at the end it was a demonstration maybe from white people to
White people at the end because uh it who will understand more what is to be an oppressed minority rather than the oppressed minority even though they say we support you and we stand by you you because might be a lot of people who actually understand their position but
They cannot know exactly how it is so excluding the people who are actually the oppressed minority in these kind of things seems like very uh I don’t know stupid or or yeah I mean yeah or hypocrite absolutely right um and um you have to also remember that
You know the these were really huge demonstrations right in Berlin we’re talking like 350,000 people if I’m not mistaken yeah and the mainstream parties supported and in some cases even uh joined and were part of the you know the the the alliances that call for those demonstrations MH uh including the
Parties in power what are the parties in power doing here in Germany the the German Chancellor Olaf Schultz was on the cover of the spigel saying that we have to deport in had to start deporting large scale again just just a month ago um the vice Chancellor of the green
Party Robert habc um was basically you know gave this uh um this speech I think it was I I don’t know if it was televised but it was out on social media um this seventh or 9 minute long speech um in which he Bas he called on Arab and
Muslims in German in Germany to distance themselves from anti-Semitism and from um Hamas um or their presence in Germany might not be tolerated for for much longer just pure racism you know like to basically the Assumption being that um these people are anti-semites until it’s proven that they’re not the German
President did a very similar thing now these people are joining these demonstrations um against the you know due to the Revelation that the far right is it basically wants to do something very similar to what they already stating that they want to do Mass deportations you know know so um yeah
That so you mean like what’s the Scandal if the government already in power in the Coalition is already in favor of that so this other meeting they’re giving they’re giving a preview of what you can expect from uh from the the afd you know um yeah especially that’s
Without even getting into the specifics of the repression that we’ve been seeing from um you know that during protests for Propel sign the fight they were banned to begin with in places like Berlin for almost the entire month of October yeah uh the fact that you can’t
In some in some instances you told that you can’t chant stop the genocide um you know we had that there’s a case in Frankfurt uh you guys are Mexicans so you’re going to you’re going to like this one um there was a a case in Frankfurt at a protest um late last
Year where um a person holding up a sign saying this Mexican um stands with Palestine or something very similar to that was detained by police and uh booked um if if if memory doesn’t fail me the reason in the sign there was a little raised fist that he drew and the police deemed
That to be offensive it feels like they’re comparing everything that is saying in BR Palestine uh like if you were be uh I don’t know showing the swaso or doing the Hitler salute it feels like almost that point it’s it’s very interesting that you say that because that is
Exactly what uh Bavaria for example uh the the the prosecuting Bavaria wants to do they want to make um the phrase from The River To The Sea palestin will be free punishable on the same level as um display a swasa in Germany yeah um I see that the Arab world they’re having their
Issues with the Jewish Maybe um of territorial uh of the uh of the what some countries are calling out to be colonialism um or religious uh differences that they have but the movement of anti-Semitism of displacing Jewish people from each country or from each from every settlement where they
Were living came from Europe so Europe was moving expelling the Jewish from the areas from UK Ukraine from Russia from Germany from Czech Republic Italy Spain everywhere so it feels for me that it’s more like a European stuff of sending Jewish away rather than a for example um South
American person if they say I support Palestine you why should that be anti-semitic where your ancestors didn’t have anything to do with anti-Semitism if you if you have a negative perception of the Jewish people as as as as as a as a group of people yeah or if this compar
That they control the world for example exactly also yeah for example um and and unfortunately uh anti and anti-Semitism has a has a very long um and and uh uh Rich history in the in the worst possible sense of sense of the word so yeah these conspiracies abound if you
Espouse any of them I think you can no matter your you know your ancestry you can very rightly be called an anti-semite uh what we have to to draw the line though is that what even causes for the most part these discussions why why why we having this discussion right now right it’s
Because there’s a there’s a state that calls itself the Jewish State um that again claims to speak and act for the Jewish people as a people mhm uh systematically occupy ethn ethnically cleansed and right now Massacre um another population you know another marginalized population which is
A terrible irony that um this this state and this ideology Zionism has um Turned Jewish people into the perpetrators of these acts that have so scarred and hurt and even threaten the very existence of uh the Jewish people um due to uh acts that were committed in in
Europe of course D due to the Holocaust due to Nazism due to due to Fascism um but also you know long history of persecution of the Jewish people from before that as well um so to me that’s the important distinction that we need to make um obviously uh
Europeans in particular should be very attune to um their history of persecuting minorities in general the Jewish people being the most infamous case but let’s also remember that they systematically murdered uh Roman and cinti people uh during the Holocaust um it it’s to to me the question is what
What was the lesson that was learned in places like Germany right yeah to me the lesson is very obvious is uh never again let us let fascism and murderous ethn nationalism Rise um in our countries and never again let us support it anywhere else to me that should have been the lesson and
They’re failing miserably at learning this lesson do you think that they’re just maybe blind and they cannot see it or they just have a very strong feeling of guilt that even though they acknowledge that what is going on they cannot just accepted because of this sense of historic uh guilt or they are
Just being Germans and following the rules well it’s um it’s a complex thing um but I think that um there is an element of that what you just mentioned MH um but then again like they’re very right to feel guilty they should right it’s a horrible it’s a horrible Legacy
And and it wasn’t it wasn’t even that long ago MH so it’s it’s it’s it’s something that you must reckon it and and reckon with and you should let this guilt inform your actions um at all times essentially um the the the thing is you
Need to reckon with it in a in a truthful um honest way you cannot um sort of say that now you’re going to unconditionally support the state of Israel and anything that it might want and anything that that it might uh doh even if it includes the displacement even the extermination of a
Another minority uh in the Middle East um and have that sort of expiate your sins you know that’s it it is it’s is absurd it it doesn’t it doesn’t work like that Germany also was never truly Den nified right we have to remember that West
Germany um had a lot of uh Nazis in higher ranking positions uh after World War II um and that’s something that um also I think should be should make should be part of this guilt essentially um but again it isn’t and also the the as as time went by after World War
II the the far right in Europe started looking at um the the state of Israel with admiration as a lot of them do uh today uh still anti-Semitism is rampant among the far rights in uh in in Europe don’t get me wrong however from their perspective there’s much to be admired
In the state of Israel it’s an Aton nationalist state that uh makes no bones about it and now to the world that that’s exactly what it is that it’s it’s it’s a state in which only a certain ethnic group uh and religious group has right of self-determination MH um and
It’s a state that will uh basically Knows No Limits in um imposing the will of its people that it gives self-determination to over the rights of whoever else might inhabit that land uh even if if it involves their um their murder their uh ethnical cleansing mhm
Um so there’s much to be from the point of view of the far right in Europe and of the world in general there’s much to be admired um I’ve never thought about that that way but yeah sort of It kind of yeah it’s a yeah yeah and you can see
And you can hear it from the hores mouth if you start looking at um how German media for for instance and and politicians um talked about Israel in you know the 60s the 70s they talk about it in very racist terms but now in the sense of
Like like they just found out that the that the Jewish people are also whites or they can’t be whites you know so they they you know say that they went to Israel and they saw these beautiful blonde Bluey people um sort of like building something heroically so it’s it
Starts to sound very sort of uh fascist like you know like European fascist like sort of like where where the the source of this admiration that they have for I mean um for me I always thought that they were white but because For Me Maybe everyone that is whiter than me is white
The it’s important to remember that Israel is seen as part of the West right you hear all the time the only democracy in the Middle East m yeah it’s very it’s it’s important it’s been an important element to sort of like um bringing Israel into this Alliance of the West
Basically um which expresses itself in very uh militaristic uh terms of course it’s it’s very well known sort of the the the military um uh um binds that Israel has with the United States and the Strategic importance of of this um Alliance not only to Israel but also to
The United States and the because Israel is so strategically positioned in the in the Middle East um but yeah it’s important to remember first of all that um the Jewish people are very diverse group so not all Jews are light-skinned by any means um but I think it’s also a
Very complex topic like how the the perception of Jewish people and their inclusion or exclusion from um being uh um perceived as being wh um has sort of evolved and there there are people who are way more sort of like qualified to speak on this than I am but I do
Think that very broadly speaking um you know if you take it a few decades ago you know the time of World War II very obviously uh Jewish people even light-skinned Jewish people were not seen as white yeah um and they were persecuted they were exterminated they were the victims of a
Genocide um but it seems to me that in the post-war there’s been a bit of this shift in in perception um that um at least uh a certain part of uh you know certain members from U from from the The Wider group of Jewish people started to
Be perceived as um as white essentially mhm and it seems to me that sometimes in the minds of Europeans or in in the minds of Germans subconsciously they will never say that out loud but it seems it seems that the the the particularly horrifying thing about the
Holocaust wasn’t the scale of it wasn’t the the you know just the sheer uh brutality and um the the you know the the industrial proportions that it took place and you know all the horrors that we are so well acquainted with with Holocaust but really part of
What what’s shocking about it is that it was perpetrated against what are now considered you know to be white people like you know European Jews essentially um so there is this um I think if you look beneath the surface very often you find this uh racist elements um and and there’s a lot
Of them that we could talk about but there’s this particular one that occurs to me in what we call remembrance culture of the Holocaust especially in places like like Germany and his yeah interesting I yeah never thought about in that way because also there’s this um uh in Namibia also was
Caus a genocide by the Germans during the colony time right and I don’t know if there was or was the recognition or the repairings of that damage there hasn’t been any or has it been it wasn’t even acknowledged to be a genocide by by the German states up until very recently
2019 I think something like that yeah yeah um they paid basically but they did not pay to the um descendency of the people involved M they beta in general okay like to the state basically or something like that yeah the more that I see every time that I look at the news
The more countries are getting involved into this um conflict between Palestine and Israel well I think that it it’s a a very a very important um uh thing that South Africa has done in bringing this this case to the to the icj we need to be clear that
No matter what the ruling is it won’t stop Israel so if if if it’s if it’s ruled that can’t remember what the the the the actual um correct term in the icj is but if it’s basically ruled that uh there’s um enough evidence that uh for intention to commit genocide on on
The part of the state of Israel still that’s not going to stop them yeah and they they’ve announced that already that they don’t they don’t they don’t give a damn about what the the the the is going to be so I have to be real about this but nevertheless it’s important because
Um it’s it’s important to bring this sort of pressure uh to the table and it’s important also that it comes from place like South Africa that it comes from the global South in general um because you know I think you you guys I probably don’t need to
Tell you this but sometimes um Europeans and people in the in the North in general they have certain things that c beliefs that they take for granted uh and they think that the entire world world thinks the same and in fact that’s not the case at all you
Know if you look at the the global South if you look at uh Africa Latin America um you see that actually the vast majority of people in the world um does not agree with What’s called the International Community which is basically you know Europe the United States Australia Japan on a lot of
Issues um and I think it’s important to make that clear um because we need to take a stand as a global South I think in those International Arenas and do what the West refuses to do not only that but what the West even cheers on and actively supports so Palestine
Being a a very Vivid example um of that and I think also like what you say like about the global south I mean most of it has been colonialized in the past so there is some sort of sense of uh empathy of how it must feel that a
Country is invading you or killing your people and nobody’s going to do anything about it I was telling him in the previous episode of the podcast but in the Spanish version that um there’s always this um discourse or talks about United States wanting to intervene in Mexico militarily to combat the the
Cal and of course there is the always the pressure to them to not to do it because every time the United States intervenes it the places just get bombed if United States says okay we’re going to go to this region civil people may might die Mexico would say hey stop it
There are human lives over there we know maybe for a fact that the International Community will not intervene they might not care because they haven’t care when it’s very clear that a lot of human lives are dying in Gaza and nobody can do anything so if the United States
Does it nobody will do anything that’s that’s very you know that’s that’s that’s often the feeling and that’s very often also the truth but look at Yemen for example you know but yeah what we were saying before as well take a look at Sou Africa for example they you know
Suffered under apartheid yeah just like the Palestinian people do in uh in Israel and Palestine history is watching us it’s watching Germany it’s it’s it’s watching as an individual level what is it that we’re doing are we going out to the streets to Ill sensibly Pro protest against Fascism and spitting at the
People who you claim to be defending at these demonstrations preventing them from joining these demonstrations or are you out there uh truly speaking out against fascism against ethnonationalism and speaking for uh freedom for Palestinians for Israeli Jews for everyone in Palestine essentially why are you making that illegal you know are you arresting
People for uh making this very what should be a very uncontroversial event when you look back in history and everything was happened already in the 30s this oppression against the Jews and then they saw that they were putting them in trains and deporting them uh into east Europe and PE people nowadays
Say why people saw that and nobody did anything and then it comes now to the point that like yeah right now we’re seeing also some sort of oppressions and still a lot of people are not doing anything against it yeah there was this uh this quote that I saw on on Twitter
Rec L I wish I can’t remember I wish I could remember who it’s from so I so I could mention here but I can’t but it went something like um a Lio is someone who supports all of the causes of Liberation except the the current one the one that’s currently happening
Yeah um I think that’s basically what we’re seeing you know it’s a very it’s it’s it’s a very amusing statement but it’s a there’s a very deep truth and it I think people need to understand that um it rarely feels I think to you know to to to the to the direct
Perpetrators is another matter but like to the people who enable it it very rarely feels like a crime such as a genocide is taking place um and so we always need to be vigilant because it’s never going to come you know uh um in in well always might be a
Strong too strong a term but it it’s it can happen that it sneaks up on you MH you know especially when it’s being supported by your leaders your political leaders uh when mainstream media is supporting it and when the majority of the population much as a result of that
Also is either you know um uh does doesn’t have strong opinions on it or directly actively supports it as well um so it’s important to uh it requires vigilance I guess is what I’m trying to say and so people have made this point over and over again
In the in the last few months if you ever asked yourself what is it that you would be doing um during the the Nazi period if you were living in Germany um or in any other cases or places in which uh fascism rose up and crime such as
Genocides took place what you’re doing right now is exactly what you would have been doing then yeah good point as a normal citizen what can we do for that especially for for people like like us and many of the ones who might be hearing because this
Is um meant to be for auts and migrants or whatever you identify yourself um we don’t have a right to vote be on the streets join the demonstrations during the protest um especially on the on the on the topic of Palestine um I think it’s important
Especially for those of us who are in positions in which we don’t have to for example fear um you know being detained or maybe charged by the police for whatever buer charge during the demonstration uh have having to fear that um resulting in your loss of your residence permit or something like
That um and not to mention of course German people and white Germans in particular to show up in force um and to keep the pressure up on the streets also be vocal on social media um you know it’s a lot of people say that it it it
Has no impact it does uh I think it’s it’s a it’s a fairly you know crazy thing to say these days that social media has no impact it’s like saying that uh television the newspapers don’t have any impact mhm um it’s how a lot of people and I make this comparison for a
Reason because it’s a lot of way it’s it’s the way a lot of people consume news for example so for instance I’m very active on Tik Tok as you know and sometimes you just talk about the news and a lot of people in the comments will say that that’s the first that they’re
Hearing from this and it’s not you know like sort of obscure news sometimes is very big things so um that’s the only way that you can reach people sometimes uh and tell them about what’s going on is through uh social media so that’s also important um and even if you can
Vote yourself you can also influence um elections in other ways so for example if you take dm25 and our political parties um obviously we recognize that each country has voting laws that allows only a certain certain people to vote but uh you know we have uh people
Helping out the the the build the parties and and helping Reach people uh and canvas for the party who don’t have a EU passport at all when I joined dm25 I I did not have a u EU passport um so it’s important you know don’t let that um sort of
Like uh scary away or demotivate you from um from being active in uh in whatever space you choose to be active also since you gave me an opening to do that I like to give a little uh you know do a little plug here uh um we’re going
To run in in in Germany for the European elections with our political party Mar 25 and right now we need to collect signatures to even be on the ballot uh you need to collect 4,000 signatures and this being Germany it’s all paperwork none of it is digitalized okay so
There’s that an actual form that people need to uh print out and fill out and send it to us if you would like to see uh this International you Europe’s first International leftwing political party a party that Pro Palestine um that is for uh a lot of
What I just uh that we’ve been talking about in this episode um go to Mara 25. deu and you can find all the information there of what is that you need to fill out to um to contribute your your signature and those of your family and
Friends if you wish to do so this has been a quite intense first episode quite a very uh dense topic for the first episode Benji we’re going to be killed by the Libertarians if you’re yeah if you’re listening if you’re listening to this podcast for this for the first time you
Know let this be a sign that these guys are for real they’re not they uh they they want to they want to start with a bank yeah I have one more question so whenever like we receive a lot comments in our social media and most of them or
Some of them some of them they tell us that we are shouldn’t criticize the country because we are not Germans do you encounter that situation also and how do you react to that to that uh there was this I actually pinned this to my Instagram profile it was a
Comment that someone sent to me on Tik Tok on on the video can remember what the video I think I was talking about how Germans had reacted to great tbag um you know speaking out in defense of Palestine oh yeah and just being insane about it and so this person commented um
Because it wasn’t the first time that I did something like that and criticize Germans essentially she asked uh may I ask why do you still live in Germany and I answered to annoy people like you yeah so uh I don’t know if that answers your question but that’s kind of the the look
At the end of the day to on a more serious note we all live in this country you know we we contribute to to to German Society um especially when you talk about a place like Berlin uh what is known for it’s known for for people like you here for this this Cosmopolitan
Atmosphere that is is so rare and um it’s almost magical that the city has right so you have every rights and everyone who has their life here no matter where they come from um as long as this is their home they have every right to speak out doesn’t matter what
Passport they hold they have every every right to be active and to to speak out on the the the issues that we’re currently living through and shaping the present and the future of uh of this country and of the city that’s a firm conviction that I have I don’t give a
[Â __Â ] about borders I think as long as you as you want to live in in a place and contribute to to this Society in a positive way you should be allowed to do so and if you if you do that then you should have a say just like everyone
Else on the the issues of the of uh um of the place that you live in I know a lot of people disagree with that but these are the people that I will disagree about just about everything yeah all right so we agree to disagree I suppose all right perfect it was very
Nice to have you here in the podcast thanks for letting us dive into these very uh difficult uh topics and also for be our first guest in this English version of the guten podcast I hope we don’t get cancelled leave your comments if you have any idea of the topics that you
Want to uh see on this podcast please let us know also on Spotify five stars subscribe on on on on on YouTube and I will also link the English version of the podcast Instagram account in the comments we will see you in the next episode thanks again L pleasure thank
You so much I’ll see this soon I’ll see this soon