LGBTAfD

00:00:00: The group that the IFD is most threatening other than immigrants as trans people.

00:00:07: We know what the far right does when it gets into power regarding trans people, Right?

00:00:28: Welcome to the Heist Podcast!

00:00:30: I'm Ben Schumann-Stohler.

00:00:32: This one of three episodes we're dropping really kick off this podcast.

00:00:36: This episode features Ben Miller but were also publishing conversations with Habit Jamal about life a Palestinian in Berlin and Yossi Bartel about a faked murder on Uban.

00:00:45: So do check those out in the Heist podcast feed.

00:00:48: Anyway, Ben Miller is a historian and also the host of Bad Gaze, a podcast about what it sounds like bad gays in history.

00:00:55: we highly recommend.

00:00:56: it's really great.

00:00:57: he also wrote one of the first features for Heist back in March which was commissioned by founding editor Peter Matthews who you'll hear interview been In this episode.

00:01:06: Their conversation starts as a discussion about political billboard in Brandenburg that was put up by an AFD candidate there, so a far-right candidate.

00:01:15: And it featured rather prominently a homophobic Nazi symbol.

00:01:19: but from their Ben and Peter talk about how the AFD takes actually what can look like very moderate position when it comes to queer politics?

00:01:26: How that position legitimizes the AFT also attracts liberals into interesting kind of move.

00:01:32: You'll also hear what happened with the shots fired at The Chvullis Museum a couple years ago and how violence against pro-Palestinian protesters, at Pride marches really just plays into the AFD's hands these days.

00:01:43: All right let's get in to the interview.

00:01:45: you can read Ben Miller's entire feature about What This Episode Is About At HeistBerlin.com.

00:01:49: I'll link it on show notes but for now here is Peter Matthews & Ben Miller.

00:01:54: We're Here With Ben Miller the Historian And Writer

00:01:58: Who And Gay Wrongs Activist

00:02:03: who wrote a feature for Heist, one of our early features which we want to discuss here.

00:02:08: And so we reached out to you when saw some campaigning in the Uckermark Which had kind problematic historical connection and AFD candidate was seen using pink triangle reference to his lesbian rival.

00:02:23: Can just explain why that considered problem?

00:02:29: So yeah, what happened was in the Uckermark and Brandenburg which is this very kind of hip vacation from Berlin destination.

00:02:37: If you have a friend who has a summer house at Brandenberg it's probably in The Uckermanke.

00:02:41: there was an election for this Landrat position or Landreden position Which is basically like elected mayor of rural area large rural area And It came down to the incumbent CDU A woman named Karina Dörrk and a challenger From the IFD named Felix Teichner.

00:02:58: And when I wrote the feature, the election results weren't in yet.

00:03:02: We now know that Doc has won reelection rather handily, sixty to forty although last time six years ago she won re-election against The SPD and now he's one reelection against the AfD.

00:03:13: But yeah on the posters his slogan was a real change.

00:03:18: instead of more of the same He used AI.

00:03:22: this is like an Ouroboros of stupid fascist crap.

00:03:27: used AI to make Karina Duck, make the Angola Miracle hand rhombus thing.

00:03:33: And then he put her doing that inside an Upside Down Pink Triangle which He Then Claimed was just created by The Party's general like corporate design where there is all these Xs and crossing lines?

00:03:49: Um...and his answer when asked wasn't this sort of homophobic?

00:03:54: because the upside down pink triangle symbol or rather the right side up pink triangle is a symbol from concentration camps for gay inmates?

00:04:04: He said no, no.

00:04:04: No and by the way It's actually really ridiculous that you ask me that question because our party Is the only one that has a lesbian leader at a national level alice vital?

00:04:13: And then weird thing as he's right Yeah about that if nothing

00:04:18: else yeah.

00:04:18: Why do you think that they AFD would use this symbol?

00:04:22: why Do you think they would think that was a winning slogan for them.

00:04:24: well I think it's Like many things with the AfD part of a very And I think people who aren't maybe in Germany and are necessarily familiar with the FDA will recognize this from their local far, right?

00:04:36: Part of a strategy Provocation, chosen provocation with plausible deniability.

00:04:43: Right?

00:04:44: So on the one hand for that core group of really homophobic neo-Nazis who I think are a small minority even in rural Brandenburg but those people you are signaling to them we see you We believe you can vote for us.

00:04:57: You're on our side.

00:04:59: and One of the scariest things about The I've Day is how successful they Are at mobilizing non voters.

00:05:03: And what other reasons.

00:05:04: because there just Is a group of Germans Who have like neo-fascist beliefs who have not had a political home for a long time.

00:05:11: Some of them found their place on the kind of right wing, or of the FTP and there were these different other small far-right parties in the nineties early two thousands.

00:05:20: but they now have this very successful chosen political.

00:05:27: It's plausibly deniable just enough for everyone else, right?

00:05:31: You know you form the shape out of this swoosh that you already use on your posters.

00:05:37: The pink is one of the colors they're using and then have an answer like oh well are leaders a lesbian?

00:05:44: so how could it possibly be homophobic?

00:05:47: So than those people who want to vote for IFTAY but don't see it.

00:05:53: explaining why its fucked up makes almost sound like a conspiracy theorist because suddenly you're having a fifteen-minute conversation about the design of a campaign poster and people are, what?

00:06:04: It doesn't make any sense.

00:06:05: And even Vidal herself—the queer woman is not immune to this.

00:06:08: There's this moment when for people who don't know Berlin's I think say in The Peace almost alarmingly heterosexual mayor Kai Wegner was caught with his pants down.

00:06:20: he went and played tennis during while these people were without power in the freezing cold.

00:06:26: And he said, He was on the job and talking to everybody.

00:06:29: It turns out that it was off playing tennis and light about it.

00:06:33: When this came out, Vital posted a picture of Kai Wagner playing tennis where AI was used to make his tennis outfit rainbow right?

00:06:45: This had nothing to do with... None of this has anything to do But it was just, Kai Wegner is someone who in the CDU because he leads The Berlin CDU comparatively within the CDU quite in favor of gay and lesbian.

00:07:05: And even I think trans civil equality like Kai Wegners one culture wars.

00:07:15: But, and so like here's Vidal herself... Like she is the one who was married to a woman right?

00:07:20: Just kind of using The Rainbow as- Yeah he doesn't make tennis

00:07:23: with his girlfriend.

00:07:24: Right!

00:07:25: With this girl friend who yeah which Ba Hu by the way Is also a CDU senator in this government.

00:07:30: And when this government came together their relationship Was made public.

00:07:35: In fact that I was forced To imagine two fifty year old people in the CDU having sex is.

00:07:41: I would like to file a lawsuit against somebody for having to think about that.

00:07:47: God!

00:07:49: That's true, but one of the things your article did really well was unpacking a bit...

00:07:55: ...the

00:07:56: odd relationship between German far-right and European far right more generally with LGBT politics.

00:08:03: And even they have Alice Weidel who explicitly doesn't want to be called queer.

00:08:10: Can you unpack that for us?

00:08:11: What is the relationship within AFD to their sort of queer politics.

00:08:18: Sure, well The AFD as a structurally extremely homophobic party even more so it's a structurally deeply transphobic Party and It's a party That has really invested in Gender relations As an expression Of the need For A particular kind of German Racial flourishing.

00:08:40: And if is scary to you, it should be.

00:08:43: The misapprehension I think that always gets made about the Nazis and this is something that Dagmar Herzog writes really well about in some of her more recent work... Is that the Nazi era?

00:08:57: was this kind of wet blanket of sexual conservatism thrown on top of the Weimar interwar years?

00:09:06: And in fact sexual pleasure in even a certain kind of liberty nage as long is that Enforced proper eugenic breeding and the reproduction Of an imagined Aryan race then itself imagines to be superior to other races.

00:09:30: All

00:09:30: right, lots of the leaders had sort of orgy houses

00:09:33: Yeah There's a lot of you know it's- And so there's.

00:09:37: You know, the Nazi crackdown on homosexuality was because it was thought to be a degenerate condition that prevented proper racial reproduction.

00:09:48: There were also—and this is difficult talk about —because for a long time kind of small-sea conservatives spread this idea to try to discredit The idea there where queer victims of the Nazis like gay and queer people were writ large victims of national socialist persecution.

00:10:10: But some were also survivors and somewhere else collaborators, where people like Ernst Wehm who was one of the founders homosexual, he understood his homosexuality as part of a kind of coherent masculine political identity.

00:10:33: And its homosexuality was if not accepted then at least tolerated by other party leaders so long as he was useful to their project of advancement and of course as soon as he no longer used full to the project of advancement um...he was disposed of murdered using that.

00:10:50: homosexuality is an excuse although it's something they had of course known about all along.

00:10:56: So how do you think that kind of deep right-wing queer past, embodied by someone like Ruhm.

00:11:02: How does that relate to the German far right today?

00:11:05: Well so you have this fascinating figure Alice Vidal who says You know I'm married to a woman but iI'm not queer.

00:11:15: She's actually married To A Sri Lankan Woman Who rumor has it Has Been Seen At Bearkind Now And Again and That Is A Person Who I Really Want To Talk To.

00:11:24: Alice Vitals Immigrant lesbian wife.

00:11:27: Whoo, that would be a conversation.

00:11:29: But anyway she's made her bed and she's lying in it as we speak.

00:11:33: vitals position of being able to say that And then simultaneously being able To advocate a Structurally queer phobic politics That like Nazi structurally queerphobic politics imagines gender nonconformity As a kind of racial degeneracy and imagines any threat to racial reproduction as being extremely scary and suspect, that she is then also able herself be in this interracial lesbian relationship where she's raising two children.

00:12:14: It's evidence of both the degree to which denial is not just a river in Egypt and also, paradoxically... ...the success of certain kind of depoliticized liberal gay-and-lesbian rights policy framework that enables people to feel so secure in their own integration into the majority.

00:12:36: That they are then able turn around an advocate for harsh anti-minoritarian politics of attack and persecution?

00:12:46: Yeah, I think it's interesting to unpack that.

00:12:49: And your piece does a good job.

00:12:51: but exactly how the AFD or some far-right LGBT position across Europe uses their own position as shield to deflect criticism when they say we can't be being homophobic because lesbian leader.

00:13:14: But then they also use the implied threat, which they themselves like bring up of immigrants.

00:13:24: and how immigrants are the intolerant ones you know?

00:13:26: Like there's Muslims coming who have a bad position on LGBT politics or homophobic whatever... And so them can use their position at once to sort-of deflect criticism.

00:13:42: Yeah, that's exactly right.

00:13:44: I mean this all goes back to one of the fathers-of-the European New Far Right a Dutch man named Pim Fortown who was kind of openly gay in way that Vital isn't.

00:13:59: Vital will say he'll marry me but i'm not queer and we can talk later about what distinction means.

00:14:07: give TV interviews during the election campaign where he talked about dark rooms and what Seaman tasted like.

00:14:12: I mean, he was

00:14:14: gay.".

00:14:15: And that was a big part of his presentation right?

00:14:20: He had entered into politics through The Dutch Labor Party but then founded his own kind-of far-right anti-immigrant list and one of the big arguments that he made in order to convince Dutch people who thought that the most liberal thing to do, the way to defend Dutch liberalism was to vote for someone who referred too and I'm sorry if it's a word about how you use but Moroccan culture is retarded.

00:14:46: Was by convincing them that the immigrants presented threat of this liberalism in as some one could impersonate that liberalism.

00:14:54: he couldn't credibly make that claim.

00:14:57: He can say In country like Netherlands i get be politician despite fact talk about going to cruising bars and there are people coming into this country who want to change that, I wanna save our country.

00:15:12: And it was extremely

00:15:15: effective.".

00:15:16: Had he not been assassinated by an animal rights activist?

00:15:19: He likely would have become prime minister of the Netherlands in two thousand One thing that's kind of interesting and terrifying about the IAF Day is that, The pattern in many places like France for example has been.

00:15:35: these parties moderate some ways.

00:15:38: Like Marine Le Pen rejects her father's anti-Semitism and holocaust nihilism kicks him out from party for it then seems to be rewarded by having eliminated sort of some evil right?

00:15:55: But still, I think there is an element of appeal to a certain kind of voter who sees the gay and lesbian civil rights consensus as an emblem of the parts of liberalism they don't really mind.

00:16:08: Right?

00:16:09: Like I don't think that there is a vast backlash with people even if you went out in most i've day voting areas instead interviewing for whom.

00:16:20: voting for the IFD is part of a project of extremely committed neo-nazism and neo-fascism.

00:16:25: But I think that will be small group people, but you'll find many more who vote for theIFD are racist, have racist beliefs or believe this party's going to do something for them... ...who feel left behind in all sorts of ways.

00:16:39: And i don't think majority those people actually say That the most important political issue was overturning gay marriage Right?

00:16:48: I don't think they want to.

00:16:50: And you know, some of them do but some of the don't right.

00:16:53: and having someone like Vital at The Head allows a party to give off certain air of having accepted certain things about their way that world is...and then have somebody who's careful to distinguish the fact she married into woman from her queer which i think it really interesting era back when Ben Ruhm is around and you have all of these men who love men, in some cases boys.

00:17:24: Who call themselves masculinists as opposed to homosexuals because to be homosexual was sort of Jewish and effeminate and racially compromised.

00:17:33: And to be a masculinist it's just being an superior Aryan guy with other Aryan guys' being dudes right?

00:17:44: you know, without wanting to ascribe that exact complex to vital I think the word queer is doing something quite similar there.

00:17:51: I think Queer here for her signifying a kind of identitarian subject position way organizing your life and politics around some thing, gender fluidity, departure from ordinary gender roles she's very much not engaging in right?

00:18:11: It is actually kind of true in a way.

00:18:13: There need not be anything queer about two women raising children if the structure of that family, if it's like everything was working and that family... ...is very hyper-traditional or neotraditional or trad.

00:18:31: at the same time what none ever grapples with what happened to Reim after the Nazis came into power, right?

00:18:41: Like you know he was discarded as soon it was useful.

00:18:44: And I sort of suspect that same thing would happen with Ali's vital or Tien Spahn The Gay Not Queer CDU Hancho who has been apparently allegedly behind-the-scenes doing a lot thinking about what CDU AFD cooperation in the future might look like.

00:19:01: and Spahn is also allegedly breathtakingly corrupt.

00:19:08: But anyway, my basic position is that Span and Vital should be forced to Google Anstrame every day.

00:19:16: You know?

00:19:17: And see what happened to him... ...and think honestly about they.

00:19:20: thing's gonna happen with them.

00:19:22: I wanna go back to PymFortown for a moment because I recommend everybody listen your episode on Bad Gays About Him Because it really is quite amazing.

00:19:31: It does a good job.

00:19:32: also the time span is so crazy there, it's such a short time.

00:19:39: He joins politics in... I can't remember the exact date but like within year he has gone from getting into politics to setting up his own party on The Verge of Being the Biggest Party and then being assassinated as you say by an animal rights activist.

00:19:56: And i think that its exactly this sort of strategic perhaps or just ambiguity of the position, kind of height of liberalism being at the same time the height of anti-migrant politics.

00:20:10: Do you think that he sets the template for The Modern Right?

00:20:14: I do!

00:20:16: His politics are more liberal than the politics of the ife day... He's not operating at a time when ...I'm actually not familiar with anything about trans people, I'm not sure.

00:20:31: He certainly was not operating at a time when the kind of anti-trans politics were as mobilizing for the right as they are now.

00:20:40: but he's certainly someone who is mobilizing anti-immigrant sentiment in very similar ways and who kind of debuts this line that to protect the achievements of European gay liberation and women's liberation, immigration has to be restricted.

00:21:00: And this kind of homonationalist or female nationalist attitude becomes more and more popular at that time right?

00:21:06: Fortown shoots to popularity Right after nine eleven.

00:21:09: it is not an accident.

00:21:10: We start seeing all these discourse even among liberals about The West as a kind of guarantor Of women's rights because we all know the track record of achieving Women's Rights with bunker busting bombs is unmatched and that basically, the west Is now in a civilizational mission or engaged In a civilization conflict With a Middle East imagined As backwards partially Because of the status of women And LGBT people.

00:21:43: A political figure like Hillary Clinton who is not on the far right brings this idea into her work at the U.S.

00:21:51: State Department, adding that kind of gay rights or human rights corollary to her women's rights and human rights speech from nineteen ninety-five... And it's not.

00:22:01: I'm against the idea of having LGBT rights be a goal international diplomacy ...and i'd much rather have than whatever state department doing now.

00:22:10: but thinking about and critiquing the extent to which those narratives can become very quickly racialized, And... To which you know extremely illiberal migration restriction Can become The outcome of those politics or can be what those politics end up arguing for.

00:22:31: Again in a bizarre way this is an effect Of the success-the kind of historically and historical comparison unbelievably rapid success of gay and lesbian civil rights organizing in the nineteen nineties into thousands.

00:22:45: I mean, it really goes unbelievably quickly from legal discrimination in very few protections to strong legal protections and much less discrimination And public attitudes shift with It's-it happens really, REALLY fast!

00:23:01: One thing that doesn't happen is the goals of a politics of gay liberation or queer liberation, which are to think about who this sex gender system makes strange and try to escape from some those categories.

00:23:21: That is not what succeeds.

00:23:23: What succeeds as something different than something more limited?

00:23:27: And that thing that succeeds has enabled my life right like.

00:23:30: I'm aware that i am standing on top it but its limitations set us up for where we are now.

00:23:37: Where a poll on the German gay dating website, Gay Romeo and again this is men only.

00:23:44: it's like mostly german man.

00:23:45: It's like most little older Like.

00:23:47: it's not necessarily The most representative sample but they always do a poll of their members who They're voting For in the after day was in first.

00:23:53: In last election And similar things have been seen in France were even Representative polling found that gay and lesbian voters voted Disproportionately from Marine Le Pen.

00:24:03: And it doesn't actually surprise me that when a group has learned, that is now kind of national minority.

00:24:11: That its protected and then it's told repeatedly the greatest danger to it are these hordes immigrants will act accordingly.

00:24:20: try defend itself against them not excusing anyone who votes for this party.

00:24:25: I'm just saying in weird way natural outcome you know, it's profoundly frustrating to me when people in the German Green Party which read... The German Greens are kind of the natural political home of the German liberal gay rights establishment have sudden aneurysms about people essentially taking the things that they've said so seriously.

00:24:52: That they stop voting for their greens and start voting for the IFD right?

00:24:55: Whether You know, the need to strictly integrate them into a German culture which as we all know is one that has always been based on the impeccable equal treatment of all minorities and people who are visibly different.

00:25:19: He

00:25:20: says joking!

00:25:22: I'd like you stay here on that thought because i think it's interesting.

00:25:27: Survey which had a I think like nearly thirty percent of users saying that they would vote for the AFD and there's something about this.

00:25:36: Like what do you think are the kind of mechanisms, which?

00:25:40: There seems to be like a project in a way too caught like conservative gay voters And sort of make them vote according to other areas where they might align with the more conservative sections of society, like class or race.

00:25:56: So instead of foregrounding their sort-of sexual position... Yeah!

00:26:02: How do you think that plays out?

00:26:04: I mean it exactly as you said right when a kind of liberal rights consensus is achieved one of things happens people are free to vote there class and social positions opposed to sexuality And then they do.

00:26:17: It's just simple as that.

00:26:19: One thing i thought was really interesting though Comments that came in when we first published that article.

00:26:24: I had a couple of like German gays get really angry with me about using That gay Romeo pole.

00:26:32: and were these complicated explanations of why it was bullshit, And again i don't argue that that poll is A scientific representation Of what was going on at the same time?

00:26:46: I think The denialism around the fact that this Is happening isn't helpful.

00:26:52: You have these German, gay and lesbian political institutions which on the one hand are unbelievably in many cases racist.

00:26:59: And extremely depoliticized... ...and everyone gets together every year and has a big CSD.

00:27:06: In Germany we call Pride Christopher Street Day or Christophas Trittdei!

00:27:10: The theme of Christopher street day is something like Love Is Courage colon standing up for people together exclamation point, and anyone who wears a kafia or brings a Palestinian flag is beaten bloody and senseless by the police with the organizer's tacit agreement or encouragement.

00:27:33: And then everyone acts surprised... Or wants to deny the idea that some people at this event have kind of taken it all away on our voting for a far-right political party!

00:27:46: It isn't that surprising?

00:27:51: I share the, i think very real and deeply felt horror of these German Liberals at that a party like this could be in power.

00:28:00: And if they idea it would appeal to gay and lesbian voters... ...I don't approve anyone voting for this party obviously!

00:28:15: sometimes common kind of pop-leftist trope, of wanting to say well everything now is so bad that if these people get into power it wouldn't be any worse.

00:28:23: No!

00:28:24: It would be worse...it can always be worse..It's worth stopping from getting worse.

00:28:28: Worse is worse right?

00:28:30: But I do think a lot of this institutions are going have too.

00:28:36: If we're gonna have any hope Think about what they have promoted, and how their politics has directly led us to where we are now.

00:29:09: plowed the fields and strewn the seeds for something

00:29:33: like Do you think those two things kind of go together in some way?

00:29:42: I Think they're both reactions to the same historical events, which is to say nine eleven and the reformatting Of The Middle East conflict as being civilizational And between a kind of pro-gay West Which includes Israel and this backwards middle east.

00:30:00: That Framing i think ends up bringing Both along and i think it's entirely opportunistic.

00:30:07: like You know, one of the strongest... speakers in favor of what these Bundestag anti-Semitism resolutions has been Beatrix von Storch, who is the granddaughter of Hitler's finance minister.

00:30:20: I do not believe that Beatrix Von Storche is engaging in this debates out a good faith attempt to protect the rights of Jewish people or fight against anti-semitism.

00:30:29: but i think Beatrix from Storches granddaughter of Hitlers Finance Minister actually specifically thanked The Greens for finally recognizing the migrant anti semitism problem.

00:30:39: so congratulations Green.

00:30:40: You now have the anti-Semitism fighting endorsement of The Grand Daughter Of Hitler's Finance Minister.

00:30:46: But I think she is engaging in this because she sees a way, again similar as with gay stuff to try and mobilize people's general sense of wanting do the right thing against minority group?

00:30:59: Right you know...I Think that the Anti-Semitism Taboo In Germany exists for really good reason.

00:31:09: The fact that it is abused in the way, not least as a Jewish person just profoundly degrading and insulting.

00:31:19: And terrifying... So yeah I think they're related projects these projects but i don't think its somehow the same But both of them are issues where again because this broader civilizational narrative which liberalism has enthusiastically participated The far right has this very easy path to present these ideas to people who find them intuitively appealing.

00:31:48: I mean, there was...I had a conversation couple months ago in a gay bar- I'm not gonna name but it's in Schoneberg where i live as anyone who sees my sneakers can tell you and I was talking with this very sweet sort of like fem leopard print shirt frosted tips, mid-sixties guy who's always the bartender there and it is this very sweet neighborhood bar with these tables in chairs like a little cabaret stage.

00:32:13: And its all just so you know.

00:32:14: happy good feelings!

00:32:15: The guy was saying oh god yeah the neighborhoods really changing...and I said yeah..you're right rents are going up....the guy at the bar said to me no i don't mean that ,i'm sick of Romania coming and dumping problems on my doorstep into dump truck.

00:32:31: And he was referring to this hotel that has been used for, uh-to use to house some um asylum seekers.

00:32:37: and you know yeah if you put a bunch of desperately poor people in a hotel with no social services.

00:32:44: And throw the key away Yeah!

00:32:45: The neighbors are gonna notice something like... You're going to hear some things and see some things.

00:32:50: Again.

00:32:50: it's not those peoples fault It is the fault of completely inadequate service provision or whatever.

00:32:55: but I was like, oh shit.

00:32:57: Like that conversation was really scary and i really tried to kind of stay with him in engage And it wasn't.

00:33:03: he was unwilling to engage right?

00:33:05: But this is someone who had That.

00:33:09: you could just see exactly happening in front of how an appeal To someones racism Is succeeding at eroding their solidarity.

00:33:21: You know the idea The way that change in the neighborhood is being framed has to do with security and immigration, rather than with tremendous rises in rents.

00:33:31: Even though this someone whose bar is directly threatened by those tremendous raises in rent I mean if- If uh...the landlord ever decides something about that space i'm sure there's like little cabaret bar that sells three euro beer.

00:33:45: it not gonna be competing for paying high rent a lap coffee or fucking shbarkasa.

00:33:53: You end your piece for Heist, it's kind of with an appeal for solidarity across different groups and I want to stress how much the threat in Berlin over the last years has been real.

00:34:06: I mean CSD.

00:34:07: last year there was like far-right groups gathering alongside to threaten that were picked up by police, like in an organized way came to target the event.

00:34:22: And also The Shrulles Museum where you're on board was shot at a couple of years ago now I think?

00:34:32: How much do feel these threats and how worried are about political future in

00:34:35: Berlin?".

00:34:36: Well

00:34:36: i want talk about few things... The group that the IFD is most threatening other than immigrants.

00:34:46: as trans people We know what the far right does when it gets into power regarding trans people, right?

00:34:53: When The Far Right comes in to Power Trans People start having their identity documents revoked They Start Having Their Access To Medical Care Be revoked.

00:34:59: There is there are insin the worst Cases Things Like Forced Detransition Right.

00:35:04: This Is Really really Really Deadly Serious and we need to have that kind of first And Foremost In Our Mines.

00:35:13: as We Think About this There's been certainly in the past several years, in Berlin a tremendous increase and the kind of diffuse threat.

00:35:21: And I think it's been... You mentioned this instance where police protect CSD from these far-right people.

00:35:32: Also The Police beat queer protesters bloody and senseless at the Internationalist Queer Pride March and have done so repeatedly every year.

00:35:43: Because that's a more political model?

00:35:45: Yes, and because it is pro-Palestine.

00:35:47: And not single German queer institution in this city... Not a single one put out statement or expressed word of solidarity with the people who were beaten by cops.

00:36:03: Those are institutions then want to say its time come together against the far right.

00:36:13: I just find that outrageous.

00:36:17: So if we want to take the threat seriously from The Far Right, We also have to think about... ...the fact that we know from journalism That the far right infiltrated police and we have to know that Berlin's Police President said without evidence that Neukölln is a place where basically half of my gay friends live in.

00:36:35: Hangout was an unsafe for gay people.

00:36:42: go to one of the many gay bars and gay clubs in that neighborhood, right?

00:36:48: And when the St.

00:36:50: Louis Museum was shot at there's a lot talk about how it must have come from not people outside the institution who I won't name but a lot talking on this refugee housing center over here like Of course we know what these threats are And yet, there is just a refusal to engage with any of this and people would much rather believe I think that the threat is external rather than internal because then it can be controlled.

00:37:24: If you offer people way too give their racism in moral high ground many will take it cause its easier.

00:37:32: do that as if they are thinking about what stand on to be really challenged.

00:37:41: So given that, at the moment in Berlin what do you think people can do?

00:37:49: I mean... ...I think we are a really decisive moment and lot of ways And i find myself in odd position on one hand believing it is absolutely time for everyone get together far-right threat.

00:38:10: And at the same time, getting together behind the banner of people who have delivered us here is not going to be effective and it's also insulting to people that are regularly themselves hurt by this German liberalism... ...to tell them now stand behind as they attempt to fight off something even worse.

00:38:32: So I think key For those of us who are able, for those of have the kinds that carry with them skin color and German skills to engage in certain spaces without being hate-crimbed.

00:38:54: To try to bring people towards the urgent necessity create coalitions capable organizing fighting.

00:39:04: You know, the thing that I think is often misunderstood about Germany is there's a real disconnect here between institutions and people.

00:39:14: Right?

00:39:14: Polling about a lot of things is not that different in Germany than it is other countries but then institutions maintain certain positions.

00:39:23: so i think its engaging with people The time and the energy in the ability, as I said to do it without getting hate crimes should be trying to do every day.

00:39:40: No for sure...I mean i think its absolutely true that there's something about a lot of the sort center left parties here which almost seem to use their right As the only real explanation or justification For why you should vote them.

00:39:55: Look how bad they are Without really offering something positive.

00:39:58: There is also rich an important history migrant and post-migrant queer organizing.

00:40:08: There's an organization called GLADT.

00:40:10: GLADT which has been particularly central to that work.

00:40:15: German speakers can buy a book called Nicht die Ersten, not the first ones about queer of color histories and actually for English-speakers there's going be show based on this book called Discontinuities.

00:40:38: Canon should learn a lot from, because I think that those skills are going to be extremely necessary and useful to all of us.

00:40:47: And if we're going to unite behind something it should be uniting behind something that has a chance of winning and I think

00:41:03: that's right, quite right.

00:41:05: How can people follow you and your stuff?

00:41:07: What?

00:41:07: what can they subscribe to or... Well

00:41:10: if you're hearing the sound of my voice then like it.

00:41:13: i make a podcast with Hugh Lemme called Bad Gays which can be found wherever.

00:41:17: fine podcasts are sold badgazepod.com and people should especially check out our recent five-part mini series on Peter Mandelson called, Mandelson Homosexual History.

00:41:30: I'm really happy about how that one turned up

00:41:32: And I

00:41:33: am on Instagram at Ben writes things and i'm on blues guy.

00:41:37: it been rights thing.

00:41:37: stop blue sky dot social and People can follow me there in and following my work.

00:41:43: their

00:41:44: okay then minute thank you very much.

00:41:46: thanks for coming.

00:41:46: Thanks so much for having me.

00:41:49: Thanks for listening to the Heist Podcast.

00:41:51: We want to say thanks again to Ben Miller, for his time today and we wanna remind you that you can check out his entire article The Feature on heistberlin.com.

00:42:00: There you sign up!

00:42:01: You could become a donor which would greatly appreciate.

00:42:03: but in the meantime listen to other couple episodes.

00:42:07: just drop to launch the podcast properly otherwise will be back two weeks.

00:42:11: see ya then bye.