Freedom of expression in Germany: opening the limits

[This report from the weekly Der Spiegel accompanies the interview with Mathias Döpfner. It has been published in paper: Der Spiegel 45/ 2.11.2019, pp. 10-19. We reproduce it, translated into Spanish, with the corresponding permissions. We add some clarifications in italics, before terms or connotations perhaps not known by all of the situation in Germany. Headlines before paragraphs and bold are not in the German original. The photos are also ours. The rest, that is, the text, without cuts, is a version as faithful as possible to the original.]

Below is the article:

opening of the limits

Der Spiegel

Debates: students violently break into classrooms, politicians from the AfD [Alternative für Deutschland, a eurosceptic political party, between the right and extreme right] pillory the political creed of the state, the Greens they describe their enemies as fascists and the majority thinks that you have to be careful with what you say. The discussions are vehement in this polarized country. It's not beautiful, but it's correct.

It seems that someone has thought of all this. It's too perfect. It can't just happen like that. Somehow there has to be a writer behind who has written this comedy.

Wednesday, October 30, 2019. Halloween, the day on which evil spirits are expelled annually, even if you have to stop tying them up first. The sun shines. The Faculty of Physics of the University of Hamburg hides away from the campus, in the shadow of the fair halls and the remand prison of the Hamburg Justice. Nearby are Karoviertel and Schanze, the Hamburg neighborhoods of the leftist rebellion. Two years ago, the fence of the area passed through here approximately for the G-20 summit. The police know every corner of this place. But this time it is not about protecting powerful heads of state. This time it is about politician and professor Bernd Lucke finally being able to teach his class: Microeconomics II.

In the past few weeks he has twice failed because students and local Antifa activists ["Antifascistische Aktie": Anti-Fascist Action: Far Left Network] prevented him from doing so. On the first occasion they booed him calling him a "Nazi pig". In the second, some of them assaulted him in the manner of guerrilla attacks, when the auditorium was barely guarded by law enforcement officers.

That students prevent the classes of frowned upon teachers is a fact that has been repeated from time to time; in hindsight it never seemed bad. Young people have a kind of right to protest and push boundaries that is sometimes seen as clever and other times as silly. Perhaps parsimony was the best answer.

But how to continue? Tranquility in an exasperated society? To the two classes that Lucke has not been able to give, we must add that former Minister of the Interior Thomas de Maizière was prevented from presenting his book in the city of Göttingen, and the rejection by the University of Hamburg of a meeting of a group of liberal students of that university with the head of the FDP [Free Democratic Party; in German: Freie Demokratische Partei, a classical liberal political party in Germany], Christian Lindner. This, in combination with a couple of unfortunate statements by politicians in Hamburg, and already leads to the Bundestag (Congress of Deputies), in a markedly lively quote from the deputies about "Defending freedom of opinion in Germany".

To this is added a flood of articles, many with the indication that almost two thirds of citizens are afraid to say what they think. “The limits of what can be said”, “the terror of virtue” are concepts that come and go. Sometimes the last straw is reached: as if National Socialism and Stalinism had together revoked fundamental rights. What this debate shows above all is that freedom of opinion is quite alive. And it's very tiring.

Freedom of opinion is also quite alive because the debate, paradoxically, has led to a situation in which in Hamburg, in a completely real way, not in the anonymity of Twitter but in a classroom with real students inside and real police outside, Freedom of opinion must be enforced without fundamentally threatening it. Bernd Lucke, professor of Political Economy in Hamburg, founder of the AfD party, whatever it takes, will be able to give his class this Wednesday, October 30, 2019.

The day before, the university sent a note to the press. It is a document that reflects a subtle nervousness. The class is held as scheduled, after the university's proposal to go online had been rejected by Professor Lucke. The university aspired to a progressive decrease in violence. He also asked that the classes be secured by state law enforcement. It seems that the worst had to be expected, even the university's psychotherapeutic outpatient clinic was prepared for the "ad hoc" treatment of possible post-traumatic disorders of students and other staff.

And? Nothing happened. 300 students come, it is a compulsory class, Wednesday at 12 noon. About a hundred policemen keep watch. There are between 30 or 40 policemen and more or less the same number of demonstrators or maybe just interested, it's not so clear. Lucke manages to enter through a side corridor, without being noticed, to the classroom, which is called "Otto Stern", according to the German physicist who had to leave Germany in 1933 and who received the Nobel Prize in 1943. According to a tweet from a student, during class Lucke jokes that the choice of location, compared to a prison, is quite acceptable, in case there are protests.

This is also the good news: freedom of opinion remains intact from now on. Fundamental rights have been secured and they do not even have to be defended from possible attacks. The other news: Bernd Lucke has won. You could almost get the idea that he's the mastermind behind all this German comedy, but that's too much honor. Lucke himself must be quite surprised at his political revival. He would have Antifa and the students to thank.

Perhaps the debate on freedom of opinion is more about concepts: the atmosphere around opinion or the domain of opinion, how we speak and discuss, what fights we engage in and what political consequences they have. The best intentions sometimes have the opposite effect. Whoever wants to silence Lucke gets him to speak louder than before.

Politics is always also an interpretation of reality. The idea of ​​a democratic public opinion consists in obtaining through the struggle of opinions what was previously called the sovereignty of opinion. You have to win the battle of which interpretation is relevant and which is not.

The debate on freedom of opinion, its scope and its effect show quite exactly how the public is constituted: from the political struggle to the world of citizens' feelings, insecure and politically unstable. The debate shows the power of social networks and online platforms, but also the chaos that digital times have brought to the sphere of the fourth estate. Our public space, it seems, is a madhouse of opinions and disqualifications, ideologies and assumptions.

And really something has changed: right-wing populists are at the top of governments in almost all regions of the world, they have the ability to adapt reality to what suits them. Donald Trump and Boris Johnson are the best known. In Poland, in Brazil, but also in the Philippines things are not very different. And in Germany the strengthening of the AfD has massively influenced the public debate.

There are a number of surveys and studies showing how the climate of opinion has changed, and hinting at the consequences this could have. Two-thirds of citizens, according to a May survey by the Allensbach Institute for Public Opinion Research, are convinced that one must be careful today about what issues to discuss and how one speaks about them. They refer to issues such as refugees, Islam, the time of National Socialism and the Jews, right-wing extremism and the AfD. Certainly 76 percent value as unacceptable the statement by Alexander Gauland [MP and founder of the AfD] that Hitler and the Nazis are "a bird shit in more than a thousand years of successful German history". More than half also answered at the same time that "it drives them crazy that they are always prescribed what they have to say, how they have to behave."

Shell's now published study of the imaginations and thoughts of more than 2,500 young people between the ages of 12 and 25 finds something similar. Two-thirds of those surveyed believe that you can't say anything bad about foreigners in Germany without being insulted as a racist at the same time. More than half find that “the Government silences the truth from the population”. At least a third fear that society is "infiltrated by Islam."

They are not hits by chance. The empirical result is robust. The demoscopic company Infratest Dimap, before the regional elections in Saxony and Brandenburg, put a question to the citizens for consideration. 64 percent of Saxons and 69 percent of Brandenburgers agreed that on some issues "you have to limit who you give your opinion to." According to a study by the "Friedrich Ebert" foundation, there is a dictation of opinion in Germany for 55 percent of respondents. In a PEN (Central Germany) survey among authors and journalists, 75 percent expressed concern about the state of free expression of opinion in Germany.

In the seventies this was called spirals of silence. At that time it was said that many conservatives did not dare to openly express their points of view: they were greatly distorted by the passage of the media into the climate of opinion. Meanwhile, it has been the rhetoricians of indignation, the provocateurs of digital lynchings, who give the impression that they cannot speak freely. This is called today the “chilling effect” (discouraging effect; paralyzing effect).

“Every person has the right to freely express their opinion orally, in writing or in images, to disclose it, and to be informed without being impeded in general accessible sources. Freedom of the press and freedom of news coverage through radio and cinema are guaranteed. There is no censorship."

That is article 5, paragraph 1 of the German Constitution. Three sentences, 44 words (in the German original). No more was needed in 1949 to postulate in Germany one of the most important fundamental rights.

Garton Ash and free speech

The historian Timothy Garton Ash, who teaches at Oxford and Stanford, needs, seven decades later, 700 pages to analyze all the problems of freedom of opinion in a global, media world, connected by the Internet. Freedom of speech is called his book. Three years after it was put up for sale, it had become a classic of the subject.

Never could so many men as now express so many opinions and spread them across all kinds of borders. This has to do with the internet, with global migrations and with the opening of Western societies, in which minorities can be heard more and more. Garton Ash speaks of a new era of freedom of expression.

At the same time, the risks of that freedom of opinion arise as manifestly as ever, including authentic barrages of insults and offenses.

How free should the speech be? What conventions would those who argue have to keep? The discussion about this is a tough fight, not only in Germany. The world, says Garton Ash, has not become a global village, as was said in the 1960s, but a great capital, a "great virtual world city."

Villages are small, truly homogeneous places. In big cities many human beings live around you, but they are completely different from you. They meet one rarely or never, and when such an encounter does occur, it is usually short. They remain strangers to one. That is why freedom of opinion is more important. That is one of Garton Ash's theses. Freedom of expression makes it easier to live with multiplicity, he trains us in the art of tolerance. "Only if freedom of expression is guaranteed can I understand what it means to be 'you'."

Garton Ash is an Anglo-Saxon liberal. He lists ten principles that guarantee freedom of expression in the future as well as the dignity of those who think otherwise. "We take every opportunity to spread knowledge, and we do not allow any taboos in this regard," says one of those principles. Garton Ash opposes the political boycott of unpopular teachers or speakers. Universities, Garton Ash demands, should "provide a broad spectrum platform for influential and controversial views, while confronting them with friendly, robust and well-informed criticism." The student protest against a speaker sees it as legitimate, as long as the speakers can speak.

Garton Ash is against even banning hate speech. “If we wanted to declare inviolable everything that can hurt human beings, and summarize all the taboos of all the cultures of this world, there would hardly be anything left for us to talk about.” A minimum measure of civility is inescapable, Ash also says.

But where are the limits? There has to be. But where exactly, in a country like Germany, with its National Socialist past and right-wing terrorist present? [An armed man dressed in military clothing killed two people next to the synagogue in the German city of Halle on October 10]. A country, in which an anti-Semite attacks the synagogue in Halle and kills two people, a country in which the CDU politician Walter Lübcke is the victim of another attack. Both assailants had radicalized themselves online, armed with unscrupulous rhetoric.

The British Garton Ash says that we should be careful with the limits we set, even if it is difficult. More freedom of opinion leads to more diversity of opinion, and more diversity of opinion leads to more disputes. That's tiring, of course, but he advocates not walking away too quickly feeling hurt, but either ignoring hate speech or consciously contradicting it. “In a world of increasing and visible diversity, with which we are familiar, we should encourage people not to have such thin skin but rather thicker skin, so that differences can be lived with and overcome,” says Garton Ash.

A society that is very sensitive to sensitivities creates new problems. In Germany, says Garton Ash, for many years intellectuals, politicians and journalists have not talked enough about fears over Muslim immigration. "As fewer people talked about the problem publicly," writes Garton Ash, who speaks German and knows our circumstances very well, "the more they thought about it and probably talked about it in private, in taverns or at home." The pressure of what is not said publicly is like "like a pressure cooker" that rises and finally vents in Thilo Sarrazin's 2010 book entitled Deutschland schafft sich ab ("Germany is suppressed"), with a million copies sold. “So it came to pass that a really important problem for Germany was brought up not in public discussion on the basis of reliable information, but through a foul-smelling use of eugenics and cultural pessimism,” writes Garton Ash.

The case of Jörg Baberowski

As in the United States, the real-life struggles over what is sayable are fought in the universities. It is no accident that one of the most prominent cases revolves around Jörg Baberowski, a historian and researcher of power from the Humboldt University of Berlin. Baberowski dared in 2015 to criticize Angela Merkel's refugee policy and German culture's emphasis on welcoming refugees. When the students of the Christian-Democratic circle of the University of Bremen and the Konrad Adenauer Foundation invited him, the event had to be held at the foundation's headquarters, and the building had to be protected by the police. The student committee of the university (Asta) of Bremen distributed leaflets with the title: “Take back the podium from the right-wing radicals”.

Baberowski reported Asta. Meanwhile the Cologne High Court decided that Asta can claim that Baberowski spreads theses that exalt force, minimizes the burning of shelters for refugees, is at the disposition of racism and represents positions of the radical right. The high court has not established that Baberowki does all of that, only that he falls under Asta's freedom of opinion to maintain all of that.

Hans-Thomas Tillschneider and Islam

Relatively mild were the protests in May this year against the specialist in Islam Hans-Thomas Tillschneider, from the University of Bayreuth, director of the seminar "Compact Introduction to Islamic Law". Tillschneider is an AfD MP in the Saxony-Anhalt regional parliament, the party's spokesman there for science issues; his office in Halle he has had for some time at the same AfD headquarters. He happens to be the right of the right, even within his party.

The university, it seemed, had the upper hand. Security and police prevented the protesters from entering the building. Tillschneider, on Twitter, called those demonstrating "totalitarian destructive spirits." The university declared: “We live in a rule of law, with clear rules that guide us. Therefore, a university must also support controversial points of view and counter incorrect statements with arguments”.

Susanne Schröter and the veil

A special notoriety has been achieved by Susanne Schröter, Professor of Ethnology at the University of Frankfurt, because she has been caught twice. She investigates "normative orders", that is, she deals with the question of what should and should not be said.

The first slip-up happened in 2017. The police unionist Rainer Wendt had to speak, within the series of conferences organized by Schröter, on “The daily life of the police in the immigration society”. Wendt enjoyed a certain fame. During the refugee crisis he had proposed fencing the German border and had argued that there was no racial bias in the police, that is, that the agents did not control dark-skinned men in preference.

Schröter received emails and insults from social networks, because she had dared to invite a racist to the university. After her, some 60 scientists from the university sent her an open letter indicating that Wendt was in favor of an offensive form of racist policing. "We hope that Rainer Wendt will not be offered a stage at the Goethe University in Frankfurt," they said.

Schröter gave up. Not because her arguments had convinced him, but because he didn't want to be responsible for any injuries caused by a possible police intervention if his conference took place.

In May of this year the problem repeated itself. It was an act over the veil. Schröter had invited various specialists with different points of view. This time the attacks came from both the right and the left. The activists demanded that Schröter be fired. The university management supported her, about 700 interested people signed up for her session. In the end there were hardly any protests.

In all these cases it is less about the exchange of arguments, rather than defaming the other for the exaggerated extremes that are used. You no longer have to be aware of the hard work of following the reasoning, because the other, depending on what you choose, is racist, fascist or from the extreme left.

The AfD tries to make its followers believe that such actions are only on the left (apparently the mainstream opinion police), who care to silence the AfD and others on the right. But in reality the right has similar instruments in its repertoire.

Eric Wallis and brainwashing

In November 2018, a group of men broke into a classroom at the University of Greifswald, during a class by linguist Eric Wallis, then director of the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania Regional Center for Democratic Culture. Wallis says that he had started talking about “brainwashing” – “framing” or stratagems against foreign hatred – when a group burst into the classroom with a banner that read: “Let everyone express their opinion of the".

The flag carried the symbol of the right-wing identity movement. Those who protested appealed to "tradition, the final stage of multiculturalism," says Wallis. He assumes that they were interested in being kicked out of the classroom to demonstrate that they were oppressed, that they were not allowed to express their opinion. "But I didn't want that to happen," says Wallis.

Wallis invited them to debate at the end of his lecture. He would have been glad to exchange views with them. But the men left the place, as can be seen in the available recording.

Presenting themselves as victims of bullying

Apparently, for many it is attractive to be able to present themselves as victims of intimidation and intolerance. Perhaps Garton Ash's call to conscience will help here. And the knowledge that there are many who participate in the debate, that it is about determining one's own position, in a society that is polarizing and experiencing a reinforcement of the already surpassed – so it was believed – categories of "left" and "right" . It's about self-assurance that you belong to the right party. In order to follow that mechanism well, it helps to carefully examine the genesis of the Lucke case.

The Bernd Lucke case

Asta from Hamburg, at the end of July, when it was clear that Lucke was going back to university, he published a very high-sounding statement. "Such a man should not work at a university, and especially the University of Hamburg can calmly refuse his return." But now the student representatives are of the opinion that this was not smart at all. Despite his "reprehensible past", Lucke has "every right to go back to university", can be read in Asta's last statement.

On October 16, Bernd Lucke had to give his first class. Asta had called a demonstration in front of the classroom well in advance. Students, interested citizens, the “grandmothers against the right” and representatives of Antifa came.

Various videos have circulated on the internet about what happened in there. Bernd Lucke is seen with a wry smile sitting in the auditorium, Antifa flags protruding. On the platform, Asta's representatives try, through a megaphone, to reassure the crowd. In another video, the students sing and clap their hands, just like in a holiday camp. "The atmosphere was friendly," says an Asta boss, Leo Schneider, "even if another image was shown outside, so that Lucke could present himself as a victim." The police did not intervene.

There was much discussion on the internet about whether the action in Hamburg was an attack on freedom of expression in Germany. There were two fronts: “No one has to like what Bernd Lucke says. But similarly the National Socialist students kicked out the Jewish professors from the university at the time,” tweeted local politician Thomas Ney, who represents the Pirates party in the Oranienburg municipal assembly. "I don't know if Antifa is aware of that methodical resemblance."

How the opposing side argues is illustrated by a tweet from Robin Mesarosch, head of media, in the Congressional office, of Foreign Minister Heiko Maas. Says Mesarosh: “Bernd Lucke is the founder of the most successful German Nazi party since the NSDAP [the National Socialist German Workers' Party (in German, «Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiter Partei», Hitler's party]. He has no business in a university classroom. This is not a labor law issue but a social issue. The students in Hamburg have saved the honor of this society."

There's no more.

The rector of the University of Hamburg is called Dieter Lenzen. This year he celebrates the centenary of the institution, which has just now risen to the league of ten excellent German universities. It couldn't have gone better for Lenzen, but suddenly it's about Lucke.

In order for the third Lucke to be able to teach his class, costs arose for the city of Hamburg and the university “like we never had before,” says Lenzen. The students stated that they were afraid to sit in the classroom to follow the class and the technical staff refused to work around Lucke's class. “Only the person in question can decide without a certain event that is compromising for them,” says Lenzen, adding: “We are facing a highly sensitized generation, which, based on their self-perception, positions themselves very much against force.”

Leo Schneider and Niklas Stephan, responsible for social and anti-discrimination affairs, work at the Asta of the University of Hamburg. They both study Political Science. Both of them look tired and a little depressed because of how everything turned out, differently from what they wanted. Especially the harassment on the internet, with the common denominator that the left is the new Nazis, and the hour-long discussion round after the first altercation, Lucke in front of three Asta representatives, moderated by Lenzen.

Stephan, a 22-year-old in a sweatshirt, recalls uncomfortably: “Lucke is a professional politician, he is a university professor, he frequently participates in media talk shows. He set rhetorical tricks, ”says the student. Because of this, Asta no longer wants to talk to Lucke anymore. "Has no sense". Also, he doesn't want to talk to racists. Until Lucke distances himself from racist demonstrations, "we see no basis for conversation."

Most of all he laments Stephan “how the speech drifts”. There was only talk of "if the left, which expressed its opinion on a legitimate protest, limited freedom of opinion." "It's absurd," says the student, adding: "Morally we are right."

Really? In reality, the question of how society should behave with a strong right is more difficult to answer than many suppose. Sociologist Armin Nassehi of the University of Munich has done a lot of this in recent years. He published his correspondence with the right-wing publisher Götz Kubitschek, which led to his being criticized for encouraging gossip in bourgeois society.

Against a “strong” right

The argument that AfD politicians or, in general, people who are presumed to have right-wing thinking should not be given space to speak, is something very widespread in the left-wing environment. Dialogue with the right is frowned upon because apparently that dialogue makes the right presentable in society. "I would be the last to say that right-wing thinking is not dangerous," says Nassehi, "but it is very naive to believe that you can limit the power of false ideas by keeping someone at arm's length."

The new right's claim that they are the only ones talking about taboos attracts voters, although in Germany no one is prevented from speaking their minds, according to Nassehi. But the problem is the internet, which produces two contradictory things: “The free possibility of saying everything. And the unlimited possibility of getting a fight for everything. Also for sensible demonstrations.” Hence the feeling of lack of freedom.

Stefan Kruecken and the internet lynching

The case of publisher Stefan Kruecken perhaps illustrates how this feeling is arrived at. Kruecken runs, with his wife, a small publishing house for literature in northern Germany. Three weeks ago, when asked by the Allensbach Institute for Public Opinion Research, whether in Germany one should be careful with what one says, he would have answered “no”. But a Facebook entry on the occasion of the Bernd Lucke case, which he had put on the website of his publisher (Ankerherz), has shaken his security.

After Lucke had been unable to teach his class, Kruecken wrote: “What is happening today at the University of Hamburg should concern everyone who lives in our democracy. Insulting Bernd Lucke as a “Nazi pig”, banning him from speaking, booing him under the Antifa banner, is profoundly undemocratic.”

Ankerherz is not a publisher close to the AfD. Unlike. His most successful book to date, "Sturmwarnung" (Storm Warning), is the biography of a captain from Hamburg, who grew up as a convinced Nazi as a child among the ruins of war and who today sees tolerance and openness to the world in danger. world. For years Ankerherz has published comments against the AfD and against Pegida [European Patriots against the Islamization of the West, in German, "Patriotische Europäer gegen die Islamisierung des Abendlandes", a German nationalist political movement], which had caused death threats to the publisher . Now, however, with that Facebook entry, according to Kruecken, he garnered more than 5,000 comments in 72 hours on his warning that democracy was in danger.

A Kruecken se le insultó como “acogedor de nazis”, o como “follador de Lucke”, que se compra un uniforme negro [el uniforme nazi] y se cuelga relámpagos en la solapa. “No me pongas en el centro” o “Tú, extremista del centro”, eran otros dos de los insultos que con frecuencia recibió Kruecken, como si fuera el enemigo más peligroso que se pudiera encontrar ya desde hacía tiempo en el espacio político del centro.

Lo que intranquilizó de forma particular a Kruecken no era tanto el “rugido de odio desde la selva de Facebook”, como los comentarios de gente que le apoyaba, que lo lamentaban, que veían las protestas contra las clases de Lucke de forma tan crítica como él, pero que no se atrevían a decirlo públicamente.

La discusión política siempre ha sido bronca

Es posible que no haya cambiado tanto el tono. Quizá sea solo el anhelo de armonía y de seguridad lo que ha crecido. La discusión política siempre fue bronca, siempre se he metido caña. Franz Josef Strauß, durante muchos años presidente de la CSU, por ejemplo, hacía fabulaciones en 1974 con las “ratas rojas”, a las que había que cazar “en el lugar que les corresponde”, en sus agujeros. Joschka Fischer le soltó en 1984 a Richard Stücklen (CSU), vicepresidente del Congreso de los Diputados alemán (Bundestag), que era, con la venia, un “cabrón”.

Desde siempre hay especial querencia por las comparaciones con los nazis. El premio Nobel de la Paz Willy Brandt calificó en 1985 al político de la CDU Heiner Geißler como el “más perverso agitador” desde Joseph Goebbels; Helmut Kohl atizó en 2002 a Wolfgang Thierse, entonces presidente del Congreso, con que era “el peor presidente desde Hemann Göring”.

En los años cincuenta hubo asaltos contra las tribunas de los oradores y contra asambleas, se arrancaban pancartas, incluso con la protección de arriba. El canciller de la CDU Konrad Adenauer agradeció a la juventud del partido, tras su victoria en 1953, porque “a menudo con el uso de los puños», habían llevado a cabo «la guerra de las pancartas”. En la atmósfera tan politizada de finales de los sesenta el uso de la fuerza escaló y llegó a los dos frentes. En la campaña electoral de 1969 hubo más de 200 heridos.

¿Qué entendemos ahora por política?

Y sin embargo, ha cambiado lo que entendemos ahora por política. Los grandes conflictos, según Marc Saxer, autor berlinés y colaborador de la Fundación Friedrich Ebert, ya no son de tipo material, sino de cuño cultural. En lugar de distribución de conflictos se tratan cuestiones de comportamiento. Por ejemplo,justicia para los sexos. En el núcleoel conflicto consiste en que las mujeres quieren más influencia, más poder, más dinero. Y que los hombres tienen que entregarlo. Por ejemplo, y especialmente, las cuestiones de moral sexual. Sobre el cambio climático: en realidad, es un conflicto sobre las grandes cuestiones materiales –cómo se limita el crecimiento y cuánto cuesta–, pero se debaten preguntas personales de comportamiento como la renuncia a la carne y la vergüenza por volar. Lo privado se ha hecho tan político como hace mucho tiempo que no sucedía.

Los conflictos clásicos de distribución material, son, al menos en teoría, más fáciles de solucionar. Uno quiere tener más, el otro menos: de forma ideal se ponen de acuerdo en el medio. Pero con conflictos culturales, sin embargo, no hay compromisos. Aún menos cuando los polos de estos conflictos políticos-culturales, de los libertarios y de los autoritarios, están dominados por posiciones extremas.

Sentirse amenazados

Los dos polos se parecen más de lo que quisieran los que se enfrentan, lo que es a su vez un motivo para la dureza de la discusión. Los dos tienen el sentimiento de la amenaza, de que algo fundamental va mal en la sociedad, de que los otros son unos bárbaros. Y de que la otra parte es más fuerte y con una mejor red de relaciones, superior en la dirección del discurso y por supuesto siempre avanzando. Así ambos polos han desarrollado una mentalidad de acosados y amenazados. En consecuencia, se aíslan del mundo exterior. Dependiendo de donde uno se sitúe, allí está por supuesto lo bueno, lo moral; allí donde los otros levantan sus barricadas, lo malo y lo amoral.

En los tiempos de formación de tales bloques, los peores enemigos son los traidores. Los que se desvían o buscan compromisos como Baberowski, o Schröter o Kruecken, o también apóstatas como Steffi Unsleber, redactora del periódico berlinés “taz”, que ha sabido en propia carne lo que quiere decir que se le dispare desde las propias filas.

Steffi Unsleber y la izquierda intolerante

Unsleber se atrevió a criticar el plan de tope de alquiler previsto por el senado de Berlín, primero con un tuit y luego con un artículo en el periódico “taz”. La crítica: los inquilinos berlineses ganarían, pero eso complicaría el traslado de los que vinieran a vivir a Berlín y desde luego no era ventajoso para los pequeños dueños de casas, que habían invertido lo ahorrado en una vivienda propia. Los planes eran “demasiado insolidarios”.

Cuando hace dos semanas se presentó de hecho ese proyecto de ley sobre límites al precio del alquiler, añadió Unsleber más tuits. Fueron retuiteados y tachados miles de veces como “cagalera neoliberal”, “basura alejada de la vida”, “mierda privilegiada”.

Es muy posible que la irritación fuera especialmente grande porque alguien al parecer de la izquierda criticara un proyecto muy querido por esa misma izquierda. En tiempos calientes como estos las filas permanecen generalmente cerradas.

Unsleber había ocultado sus datos en el registro de inscripciones, porque informaba con frecuencia sobre la derecha y los neonazis. Ahora ha sido afortunada también con que los extremistas de la izquierda no pudieran tan fácilmente hallar su dirección. En Twitter ha cancelado su cuenta.

Límites a la libertad de expresión

¿Se debe decir todo lo que se quiera? Naturalmente que no. La libertad de expresión es un bien alto, importante, pero no el mayor en nuestra Constitución. “La dignidad de los hombres es inviolable”, dice el artículo 1 de la Constitución alemana. No se debe insultar a nadie, llamarlo “cabrón”, aunque lo sea. Al contrario que casi por todas partes en el mundo, se prohíbe por ley en Alemania negar el Holocausto.

La libertad de opinión es un derecho fundamental, pero incluso los derechos fundamentales no valen de forma ilimitada, aunque solo sea porque algunos compiten con otros. Sobre todo la libertad de opinión no protege de la opinión de otros, es decir, de que critiquen nuestra opinión. El que habla debe contar con el discurso en contra.

El clima de opinión se ha hecho más bruto. Lo que tiene que ver mucho con la AfD, la cual ha desplazado hacia la derecha el discurso. Los políticos de la AfD dicen cosas que desde hacía tiempo ya no se decían en voz alta. Se podría argumentar que con ello han ampliado la libertad de opinión y que por otra parte utilizan los debates para presentar las limitaciones de la libertad de expresión, lo que resulta en una profecía autocumplida.

Björn Höcke

En la víspera de las últimas elecciones en Turingia, Björn Höcke, mascarón de proa del ala nacional-patriótica de la AfD, se subió a una tribuna en Erfurt, especialmente diseñada para él, en un lugar prominente de la ciudad. A la derecha ya la izquierda del podio se colocaron dos jóvenes sobre unos vehículos con enormes banderas de Alemania. Cuando Höcke decía una gracia, los jóvenes movían las banderas.

La libertad de opinión es uno de los temas preferidos de Höcke. Viene muy bien a su estrategia. Él quiere debilitar la fe en la democracia, en los partidos establecidos, en los medios. Y dice: “Vemos cómo la única fuerza relevante de la oposición -y esa es la AfD— es combatida por el establishment político y mediático”. El derecho central en una democracia, la libertad de opinión, se oprime por medio de la corrección política. Y entonces suelta su agudeza: “El establishment poli-mediático de este país ha transformado nuestra democracia en un Estado de credo”. Batieron los jóveneslas banderas, el público abucheó y aplaudió.

El mismo Höcke fue materia de un caso legal sobre libertad de opinión, que se tramitaba en el tribunal contencioso-administrativo de Meiningen (Turingia). Se trataba de la cuestión de si a Höcke en una manifestación se le puede llamar fascista. El ayuntamiento de Eisenach lo había prohibido, pero el caso se llevó a los tribunales.

En la sentencia, los jueces subrayan que llamarle fascista no era una calificación inventada, sino que había hechos para fundamentarla. Y aludían a un libro de entrevistas de Höcke de junio del año pasado. En él se hablaba de que era necesario un nuevo Führer, de que parte de la población tenía que ser excluida, en especial los inmigrantes. Höcke era partidario de “la limpieza de Alemania”. Con una escoba fuerte, una “mano robusta”, y un “maestro de la disciplina” había que limpiar la pocilga. Sobre Hitler afirmaba que “se le presenta como el mal absoluto” y que no es tan “o blanco o negro”.

Se puede llamar, pues, a Höcke, fascista. Viva la libertad de opinión. Sobre todo si se basa en hechos.

La víspera de la elección en Turingia la frase “Höcke, el fascita” se convirtió en eslogan. Annalena Baerbock, presidente de los Verdes, como primera, lo insultó así. Muchos la siguen. Höcke, el fascista. Decir eso aquella tarde tenía algo de aterrador, pero también de satisfacción. En la sesión en directo de los principales candidatos en la MDR [radio de Turingia] se lo dice incluso a la cara Anja Siegesmund, de los Verdes.

¿Y Höcke? Tiene una mirada llameante. Pero no muestra irritación, ni miedo. En lugar de eso, exhibe algo así como una sonrisa, como si se alegrara de que lo insulten.

A Höcke ya Lucke les separa algo más que unas cuantas letras en el nombre. Tienen poco en común. Uno es un fascista, el otro, no. Pero una lección han aprendido en esta pieza teatral que se llama libertad de expresión: cuanto más alto se le insulta a uno como lo malo, más le aprovecha.

© Tobias Becker, Anna Clauß, Silke Fokker, Lothar Gorris, Armin Himmeltrath, Peter Maxwell, Ann-Katrin Müller, Miriam Ulbrich, Klaus Wiegrefe. 2019 Der Spiegel/ The New York Times.

© de la traducción: José Manuel Grau Navarro.