Hot Takes/My battles as Editor-in-chief of Exberliner magazine
[SNOWDEN] Berlin capital of the global digital rebellion against state surveillance. In our post-Snowden era, it's time to take a stance. [ISLAM/OPHOBIA] How to talk about Islam in ISIS times? A plea for getting back to facts and reassessing western society’s responsibility in the radicalisation of jihad youth – and the media’s foul role in antagonising the debate. [GERMANY’s FORGOTTEN AFRICANS] Time to reassess our mental relationship to Africa From exoticisation to downright racism, Berliners tend to display a staggering ignorance of Africans. Yet, although a tiny minority, their presence and their stories are integral to Berlin - and it starts with Germany's colonial past! [POLICE VIOLENCE] Everything you (did not) wanted to know about the Berlin Polizei For all the competent cops who presumably do a good job, there are the nasty, violent ones who abuse the power they’re conferred. No crime without punishment? This should apply to the police too! [ART LOOTING] Colonialism on display Berlin holds one of the best collections of African art in the world, but, truth is, it is all stolen property. The excuse? The education and protection of world culture. [REAL ESTATE CORRUPTION] Who owns Berlin? The world of Berlin real estate is dominated by anonymous billionaire landlords and so badly lacking transparency that it’s turned Germany into a hotbed of money laundering. [FAR RIGHT] The family fundamentalist, a chat with AFD Beatrix von Storch A successful career woman who swears by women as mothers, but has no kids? An aristocrat preaching working-class populism? An anti-abortion, pro-family feminist? Like Marion Le Pen in France – Von Storch doesn’t seem to be bothered by paradoxes. [REFUGEES] The new children from Golzow, A Brandenburg Syrian fairytale? In supposedly xenophobic land, a Syrian family saves a film-famous village school from imminent closure, winning over locals’ acceptance and affection. Are the new “Kinder von Golzow” a Merkel refugee integration dream come true. [SINTI AND ROMA] They get a Memorial but no end to ignorance, prejudice and ostracism. As 58 percent of Germans are against having “gypsies” as neighbours – and Germany is deporting 10,000 Sinti and Roma to the Kosovo they left over two decades ago, the fate of Europe’s most persecuted people doesn’t seem to be of much concern to the country which, 70 years ago, attempted to exterminate them. [GERMANY’s FIRST GENOCIDE] Don't Mention the G-word Death camps, mass executions and starvation: all part of the lexicon of horror that is sadly associated with Germany’s Holocaust past. Few know that this reign of terror dates back to German colonial rule in Namibia. Germany’s other genocide Time to ‘decolonise’ and take responsibility for colonial crimes. the Herero-Nama genocide, Germany is still repressing its colonial past. [PALESTINE] How We Honoured the Children of Gaza Who are the Berliners who dared break the silence and express empathy for the Palestinian children killed in Gaza [GERMAN MEDIA/GAZA] Why Can't My German Colleagues Criticise Israel?
OpEds/Opinion and strong stances on (press) freedoms
[ASSANGE] I took a public stance for Julian Assange, got accredited and organised an Assange-hearings-blog in cooperation with some of his Berlin closest supporters, and tirelessly gave whistleblowers and their supporters a tribune: Why I care about the Assange trial, and why you should too : You don’t like Assange? Who cares? This trial isn’t about a man anyway. It’s about the fundamental right for journalists to inform the public about what matters even if it means exposing embarrassing truths that our governments would rather keep secret. [COVID] Lockdown: Are we all Covid hypocrites? Why is it so hard to have a frank and open discussion about the lockdown? Critical voices are dismissed as dangerous conspiracy-theorists, and I’m being told that we, as responsible journalists, ought to support the pro-lockdown consensus. A democracy needs critical citizens, and a critical media. I don’t know about this pandemy, but one lasting casualty of our covid times shall remain the people’s freedom to disagree, and the media's mission to inform. [CHARLIE] Charlie Hebdo: Satire to die for: on January 7 2015, the Charlie Hebdo editorial team was falling victim to fanaticism: 12 dead, 11 injured. Their crime? Political satire. On that very night we spontaneously gathered on Berlin’s Pariser Platz, and I cried – out of sadness and frustration and also because of everything I knew would follow: islamophobia, and more political conformism in an already lazy and cowardly media. The following day I paid tribute to my brave colleagues in an OpEd for Exberliner magazine. We also reprinted the caricatures, in an act of defiance against (self)censorship.
