Re: <nettime> the silence on the rising fascism

[Brian Holmes via nettime-l <nettime-l@lists.nettime.org>]

Hey nettimers,

This is the perfect time to be silent! After all, we are all about freedom
of expression and debate. So let's seize the opportunity to say nothing
while our societies take a decisive turn toward the repression of
conflicting views. We could all go back to talking about ChatGPT, heck, we
all could just chat with ChatGPT.

The benefits of self-canceling are many:
--No little irritations or disagreements during spectacular genocides.
--No inquiry about that depressing climate change.
--Good practice getting ready for the shift from a liberal police state to
authoritarian fascism.
--Above all, no disruptive arguments breaking the technological flow.

Seriously, how to live in this time? And how to talk about it? What's
happening to the Oyoun space in Berlin is one of the many closures that
public silence permits. When Andrew Ross launched the first "Silence"
thread on nettime, he insisted on the difference that public discussion
makes, even though every opinion is partial, no one is fully informed, and
many mistakes are made.

Ross was right, and in the US, according to polls published this morning,
that very loud and chaotic thing called public opinion has turned against
the continuing US military support for the genocide in Gaza, despite
powerful threats to shut up or lose your job, get gassed in the street, be
doxxed on billboard trucks cruising around the city, etc. It is not clear
what concrete effects this change in public opinion will have, either on
the resupply of arms for mass murder, or on the continuing pressure both
moral and legal that weighs on opponents of the war. But at least there is
still space for reasoned and impassioned differences of opinion.

It's worth reading all the links in Podinski's last post. For everyone
involved with art and culture, the sudden sea-change in Germany is a very
big deal. In just over a year, the institutions that offered the most
support and brought the largest publics to challenging artists and thinkers
from around the world have either radically changed their policies or come
under opprobrium and official attack. This situation will hopefully evolve
as the new version of Berufsverbot (shall we call it Sprachsverbot?) is
contested by the large numbers of people, especially cultural
professionals, who just yesterday supported all that challenging art and
thinking. However I doubt there will be any restoration of the old
consensus. We really need new ideas and new expressions that match the
urgent complexity of the present moment.

What's happening under the deadly shadow of climate change is a revolt
against the Western hegemony that took form in the post-WWII period.
Something similar was tried in the 1960s-70s, but at that point, there were
no economies on the scale of BRICS. Now, the unipolar moment is over and
even within the Western countries, the consensus has broken down. A
willingness to fight has arisen in its place. That's provoking tremendous
fear, understandably so by the way (just try and be entirely calm as you
read about the possible consequences of the Houthi missile attacks in the
Red Sea). Fear is very dangerous for democracies, as you can see in the
current frenzy of liberal thought-policing and in the new crop of
neo-fascist leaders kicking up seemingly everywhere. It will take, not just
loud dissent, but also much public argumentation, to strike a course that
leads neither to wider war, nor to authoritarianism.

The question of how to live in this time is real. How to pay attention,
what to express, what stances to take, how to avoid overwhelming anger
and/or despair. Although downplaying the value of posts that break a very
real silence seems to me frankly ridiculous, still on the other hand, yes,
I agree with Ted about the need to go beyond existing political rhetoric in
an attempt to see commonalities between diverse groups of people and
diverse geographical situations. I do not think the ideals of the 1960s-70s
hold good in the present, much less the communisms and left fronts of the
1930s. And yet letting the old aspirations to equality and justice just
disappear would be the worst outcome. I for one would be very glad to hear
more from people on the list about what difficulties they are facing in
public life, and what ideas they have about how to overcome them.

best to all, Brian

On Tue, Dec 19, 2023 at 10:05 AM podinski via nettime-l <
nettime-l@lists.nettime.org> wrote:

> Liebe Nettimers,
>
> to cont. thoughts on this thread... We will retain the original frame/
> title...
>
> We just had the odd and extraordinary fortune of being able to see Masha
> Gessen in person make the Heinrich Boll Stiftung look like utter
> muddling political f/tools and morally bankrot, as was already apparent
> to so many of us... especially to all the diverse migrant communities...
> and all those who have ever had the lovely experiences of the
> Ausländerbehörde ( immigration office ) who get to decide your fate, and
> if you have permission to stay, live and work in De. ... and/Or all
> those other migrants who are in detention Lagers, awaiting asylum
> applications to be accepted, or have already been rejected.  The latter
> of course highly are unlikely have time to investigate all the
> intricacies of this Middle East furor, because they are tucked away in
> remote isolated fucked up detention facilities, w/ very restricted
> access to normal lives.
>
> Gessen's latest visit to DE almost didn't happen... her Hannah Arendt
> prize was almost rescinded, and the ceremony that should have been at
> the Bremen City Hall with hundreds of seats, was instead moved to a
> private dinner... w/ room for about a dozen guests ( if we heard that
> number correctly ). She had to correct the Boll Stiftung
> hosts/politicians, who said they honored to have here her and are very
> interested to create open dialogue on the issues. This was extremely
> disingenous, i.e. Total Bullshit ! Gessen was in excellent diplomatic /
> ninja form !
>
> And it may never have occurred, had it not been for bold solidarity
> actions from other writers like Sanaz Azimipour:
>
>
> https://www.theleftberlin.com/my-statement-on-the-heinrich-boll-foundations-decision-to-withdraw-from-awarding-the-hannah-arendt-prize/
>
> ...
>
> This is part of the "Silence on The Rising Fascism" that we wished to
> alert the Nettime list to. It was a slight rhetorical trick to perhaps
> get more readers engaged by referencing previous posts. The orig post
> was pointing to very real and urgent situations that require informing
> the public and mobilizing community responses !
>
> Because if the wide variety of voices cannot find public spaces to speak
> out then we cannot put proper pressures on the actors and supporters of
> fascist war crimes and racist ideologies and neo-colonial structures !
>
> Btw Oyoun, which we put in our original post as a local pragmatic story,
> which requires urgent solidarity. It would be fantastic to see cultural
> venues and cultural workers from all over over Europe and elsewhere
> spread this news and show that they will not accept this kind of censur.
> And btw, NINE WORKERS at Oyoun face losing their visas to live and work
> in DE, if their job contracts are not upheld at Oyoun. They are not
> ALLOWED to look for employment elsewhere That is how the thick notorious
> DE bureaucracy fucks with peoples lives and their freedoms of
> expression. And this will continue to get worse in situations like
> having to fight off false accustaions of anti-semitism.
>
> Again a link to Oyoun ( this one is the Open Letter ), which no one here
> on Nettime seems to have read and give any attention to :
>
> https://oyoun.de/en/news/offener-brief-oyoun-muss-bleiben/
>
> ...
>
> Dont have time to go further on Gessen's extraordinary visit, but here
> is a very quick XLT encapsulation:
>
> Many more things to say about Masha being hosted at Heinrich Boll. It
> was very unsettling just to see her placed on the Hot Seat being more or
> less interrogated about her writing by three Germans who tried to
> dissect her, with very visiable uniformed and armed COPS sitting in
> corner the room ( presumably for protection, but also like guardians of
> the German political stance on the State of Israel ) ! It's not Masha
> who should be on trial, it's fascists in state power perpetrating war
> crimes that need to be challenged and taken apart ! The whole evening
> was spent mostly having to defend the Ghetto comparisons to her idiot
> low level inquisitors, rather than taking the discussions into a more
> radical direction of actual political interventions to STOP THE GENOCIDE
> ! ... if we have time, we'll try and take it further in a Subslack form.
>
> ...
>
> We hope the conversation on Nettime gets a little more inspired !
>
> All the best
>
> The XLterrestrials
>
>
> p.s. For those who want to watch Gessen's talk at Boll:
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vb4yypPG-OE
> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vb4yypPG-OE>
>
> And Samantha Hill on Arendt prize situations ( pretty feirce for a
> Guardian analysis )
>
>
> https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/dec/18/hannah-arendt-prize-masha-gessen-israel-gaza-essay
> <
> https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/dec/18/hannah-arendt-prize-masha-gessen-israel-gaza-essay
> >
>
>
>
>
>
> On 18/12/23 18:52, nettime-l-request@lists.nettime.org wrote:
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> > Today's Topics:
> >
> >    1. Re: the silence on the rising fascism / non-violence
> >       (Christian Swertz)
> >    2. silence on the lam(bs) (Ted Byfield)
> >    3. Re: the silence on the rising fascism / non-violence
> >       (Andreas Broeckmann)
> >
> >
> > ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > Message: 1
> > Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2023 13:27:41 +0100
> > From: Christian Swertz <christian@swertz.org>
> > To: nettime l <nettime-l@lists.nettime.org>
> > Subject: Re: <nettime> the silence on the rising fascism /
> >       non-violence
> > Message-ID: <6d571bf0-2e33-4337-8e82-123b02f7a44f@swertz.org>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
> >
> > Hello,
> >
> > Am 18.12.23 um 10:59 schrieb Fr?d?ric Neyrat via nettime-l:
> >>
> https://www.trans-planet.org/abolishing-the-world-order-in-a-radical-ceasefire
> > Thank you for this hint - I actually wasn't aware of it and enjoyed
> > reading it. I have one question about the text, considerably about this
> > statement: "There is no Call that is not a call to organization". As far
> > as I see, organisation is only possible if you make a distinction
> > between organised and non organised people - at least in a political
> > context. But than you continue with an invitation to contribute
> > artworks, which is obviously located in an artistic context. Thus my
> > question is: Do you consider art as politics or politics as art?
> >
> > BTW: It is great that it is emphasised that (nearly) all people suffer
> > from wars - we are all people (even if there are certainly better ways
> > than war to draw attention to this).
> >
> --
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