- cross-posted to:
- europe@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- europe@lemmy.ml
Left Party MP Cansin Köktürk was thrown out of a German parliament plenary chamber on Wednesday for wearing a t-shirt with the word “Palestine” printed on it, a move deemed a political statement by the parliamentary leadership.
Bundestag President Julia Klöckner intervened during the session, reminding MPs that political messages on clothing are not permitted in the chamber.
While the Bundestag does not have a detailed dress code, its rules require MPs and visitors to dress “in keeping with the prestige” of the institution. Enforcement of this standard is left to the discretion of the session chair.
So you wouldnt want AfD representatives removed if they wore Ye shirts with “indian peace symbols”? This is simply enforcing the rules, theres no deep conspiracy or fascism behind it.
Oh, so now “Palestine” is the same level of offensive as a swastika?
Not to mention that a swastika is already banned in Germany, so your question is by definition pointless.
It is not the same, which I never claimed. Its just another example. Take whatever example you want. A russian flag, “Heil Kim Jong Un”, “free Israel”, whatever. They would all be treated like this because they break a rule thats been there forever. Its not arbitrary and definitely not anti-left. When youre robbing a bank, it doesnt matter if the bank is run by a Nazi or if you distribute the money among the poor. You will go to jail.
Are you seriously equating a swastika to the word “Palestine”???!
Also the whole “it’s the rules” justifying anti-Democratic actions is quite an old tradition in Germany that was used heavilly during a dark, dark part of German history, so one would expect extra alarm about “rules” there for things like silencing politicians in Parliament, rather than claiming “it’s the rules” - just like they did in the “good old days” - to justify anti-Democratic measures.
If you are German, your entire take on the whole subject of making an equivalence between the word “Palestine” and a swastika and an “appeal to the rules” to justify silencing politicians just like in Germany’s “good old days”, just emphasises my point about the alarming slide towards authoritarianism and authoritarian thinking in Germany.
Im definitely not equating it, I was giving an example. The rule is no political messages on clothing, this goes for the left and the right. Just because being left is morally better than being a fascist doesnt mean rules dont matter anymore.
What the fuck is anti-democratic about enforcing a rule thats been clear to everyone? Dont get riled up by ragebait, this is not what you seem to think it is.
The barrier for expelling an elected representative of voters from the actual Parliament in a Democracy should be far, far higher than their choice of clothing.
It’s not by chance that authoritarian regimes which try and simulate Democracy by having a Parliament will use such “arbitrarily enforced broad rules on irrelevant things” to selectively kick out elected representatives of voters, often as a means to exclude them from certain votes.
(Literally from the article: “its rules require MPs and visitors to dress ‘in keeping with the prestige’ of the institution” and “Enforcement of this standard is left to the discretion of the session chair”, so it’s exactly the kind of overbroad arbitrarily enforced rule that is perfect for the type of subversion of the political process that Authoritarian regimes so love).
So yeah, kicking out from Parliament an elected representative of voters for something which isn’t even breaking the Law (unlike your curiously chosen “swastika” example), is anti-Democratic - this is not a patron breaking the dress rules in some posh restaurant, it’s somebody who represents hundreds of thousands of Germans in the very Parliament were they have been tasked to represent them.
This together with other things such as forbidding the comparison of the actions of the nation state of Israel with those of Nazi Germany (outright Censorship) or the attempt by the authorities to kick out from Germany without a court order, much less a criminal conviction, non-German citizens for attending pro-Palestine demonstrations (avoidance of the Rule Of Law), adds up to a strong trend towards Authoritarianism.
Germany might not be Fascist yet, but by now it’s already less Democratic than most of Europe and, more alarming, keeps on moving away from Democratic practices and values.
Considering Germany’s past, one would expect a tendency to try and be as Democratic as possible, not using rules which are totally irrelevant for the political process (the wearing of a t-shirt with the word “Palestine” does not in any way form or shape impede the operation of the Parliament) to subvert the operation within the political process of those holding certain opinions, but not others
That then people come out claiming “it’s the rules” as a valid reason to remove an elected representative of voters from Parliament in a country were back in Nazi times “it’s the rules” was the most used excuse by Nazis and their supporters for the various actions against minorities, including some of the worst, is just mind boggling.
She knew she was going to be expelled beforehand and actively decided to wear the shirt anyway. It was her decision, not someone else making up some new arbitrary rule to expell her. You would definitely not defend a far-right politician with an “abortion is murder” shirt in the same situation. Youre simply biased. Not enforcing it after it becomes evident would be undemocratic period.
Im really glad the rule was enforced, otherwise tomorrow the whole AfD fraction would show up with far-right rhetoric shirts and either prove that rules in the parliament dont matter or get criticized and use it to position themselves as the victims like always. Whats the use in that?
You have literally no idea what youre talking about. Why am I even wasting my time.
It doesn’t matter that she knew: she brought to everybody’s attention that in Germany there’s an arbitrarily enforced rule to kick out from Parliament the representatives of voters and she showed how it gets used against those representatives that have certain opinions, but not others.
Of course you’re happy: you’ve been repeating “it’s the rules”, plus think it’s good because it can be used against people whose politics you don’t like, and it’s just as NAZI-supporters did back in the “good old days” and you probably don’t even realize that you’re using the same style of argument as they did.
I come from a country were our exit from Fascism was “only” 50 years ago, and really hope that in 25 years’ time we don’t end up like Germany, were Democracy is so degraded that people who think themselves “democrats” parrot the very same style of “arguments” as the Fascist did whilst thinking that it’s fine when they do it, just not when others do it.
Thats exactly not what she showed, because it is enforced against everyone equally. The others just decided to follow the rule. I dont even believe she would have wanted to stay, she was obviously provoking it. She probably wanted to get some attention on the topic, get people to talk about it even if it meant being thrown out. It was her decision and she knew the consequences and she obviously decided it was worth it. Maybe its a good thing overall. But pretending that enforcing the rule itself was wrong is just hypocrisy.
Look, I know its hard to accept that not everything is a conspiracy to keep the left small. Playing the victim is the far-rights tactic and we dont need to drop to their level, its pathetic.
Everything youve been saying is completely biased and I think you know that by now but are still grasping at hypocritical straws. Enforcing rules that were set in place for keeping order in the parliament is not “anti-democratic”, how the fuck do you even come up with this bs.
By the way, did you know Nazis drink water and breathe air? You should stop doing that, youre just repeating their behavior.
I get it: in your mind if it’s “a rule” it’s unchallengeable, always correct and must be followed.
It’s the kind of mindset the NAZIs leveraged to make German people comply with and even defend what the NAZIs did because they were “the rules” - “Jews have to wear a yellow David star on their clothes because it’s the rules”.
In my mind rules are just orders created by people, not brought down from the gods fully formed and perfect, so they’re subject to be analysed just like every other form by which people try and make other people do things - What does it achieve? What are its costs? Is it well defined and strictly enforced or it’s vague, open to interpretation and its enforcement is arbitrary and down to somebody’s choice?
So here’s a rule that per the article is broad and vague, with an interpretation left to the person that chooses or not to enforce it, arbitrarily. (If you are German and ever worked in anything which is complex enough that it has a process I expect you would share my distaste for vague rules that can be applied one day but not the next at the discretion of somebody: there really is no better way to fuck up the effective work of a team than having something important have no clear boundaries of acceptability and wholly depend on somebody’s arbitrary determination ).
The gain of it is, per what the rule itself says, to keep up appearances (yeah, really, it’s about the image of the German Parliament). Maybe it’s me, but that’s a very weak reason, with as shown here the exercising of the rule itself possibly causing damage to the image of the German Parliament: it’s a bit of a hard call whether expelling a Parliamentary member from Parliament for wearing a T-shirt with the word “Palestine” and that ending up in the news makes the German Parliament look better that letting somebody wearing such a t-shirt stay and treat it like any other t-shirt.
The cost of the rule being exercised is that for a day hundreds of thousands of Germans will not be represented in Parliament. How costly is that depends on what that days session was all about - were there important votes or was it only discussions? It also depend on how strong your Democratic values are - people who have little in the way of Democratic values are fine with hundreds of thousands of Germans being deprived of their representation in Parliament so long as those people have different political opinions, people with strong Democratic values think that the only acceptable reasons to expel a member of Parliament are those related to the proper working of the Democratic process, for example if those people were stopping other members of Parliaments from properly representing their constituents by not letting others talk (and one logical interpretation of Julia Klöckner’s chosing to to enforcing this rule is this time is “stopping other members of Parliaments from properly representing their constituents”)
Something that boils down to one person deciding all by themselves and arbitrarily what “damages the image of the German Parliament” and use that to deprive hundreds of thousands of Germans of their parliamentary representation for a day for no gain other than said vague “image” (when the exercise of the rule itself as we see here can actually cause damage to the image of the German Parliament) whilst doing nothing for the good operation of Parliament (like, say, kicking somebody out for not letting others speak would do) isn’t a good rule.
Just because that rule can be used against your political adversaries doesn’t make it a good rule, quite the contrary - in Democracy it’s the tools of Democracy that should win the political fight, not the exercise of force under the cover of a vaguely defined and arbitrarily enforced “rule” to deprive voters of their representation in lawmaking bodies and even the people whose opinions you profoundly disagree with are Democratically entitled to having their representatives in Parliament representing by them, not kicked on a vague rule that very overtly is about the image of Parliament not its good operation.
And yet here you are favoring the arbitrary expelling of representatives of hundreds of thousands of Germans from the place were laws are made using a vaguely defined rule whose enforcement is wholly arbitrary and which overtly is not about maintaining the good operation of Parliament (and hence of the Democratic process), and one of your reasons for suporting it is that it can be used against people you are against politically - as I said, the very opposite of Democracy.
She could’ve just not worn the shirt dude. She was told beforehand that it’s against the house rules of the Bundestag and she did it to create a scene, which worked. She was back the next day. It’s really not that deep, however I always enjoy Americans explaining European politics to locals, so I thank you wholeheartedly for the entertainment.
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