Left Party MP expelled from German parliament for wearing Palestine t-shirt
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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.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]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?
Germany might not be Fascist yet, but by now it's already less Democratic than most of Europe
You have literally no idea what youre talking about. Why am I even wasting my time.
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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?
Germany might not be Fascist yet, but by now it's already less Democratic than most of Europe
You have literally no idea what youre talking about. Why am I even wasting my time.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]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.
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If Die Linke had any sense of political theatrics, if they had just a bit of Melenchon in their blood, they would all show up with TShirts of random countries, see what the fuck happens.
see what the fuck happens
Spoiler: They would get kicked out all the same.
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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.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]and she showed how it gets used against those representatives that have certain opinions, but not others.
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.
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No political statements with clothing is established precedent and wearing a Palestine shirt today is a political statement. Greece? Currently, not really, no, don't see it. During the Greek debt crisis? Yes it would've been.
She's free to make a pro-Palestine speech, that's how political statements are supposed to be done in parliament. Occasionally there's stunts like these, and they always have the same outcome: A small amount of extra spotlight, then everyone forgets about it.
Ok... What if her shirt said "Israel?"
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Ok... What if her shirt said "Israel?"
Also political.
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Also political.
Yes, but will you be removed for wearing that shirt?
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see what the fuck happens
Spoiler: They would get kicked out all the same.
I highly doubt that. Is there a prior precedent for this? What if you wore a flag pin?
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I highly doubt that. Is there a prior precedent for this? What if you wore a flag pin?
wrote on last edited by [email protected]Flag pins have historically been accepted and I doubt it would've been an issue in this case. The rule is basically just there so you're not openly promoting anything, be it a political message, brand or any other type of statement.
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Yes, but will you be removed for wearing that shirt?
Probably not, because six million Jews that died at the hands of the nazis but did not have anything to do with nazi Israel are somehow related regardless so they are eternally guilt tripped into enabling anything Zionism related.
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and she showed how it gets used against those representatives that have certain opinions, but not others.
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.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]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.
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Just to say it, but both the far right AFD and tankie BSW got into trouble for holding up signs in the Bundestag. Allowing t-shirts with prints would be such an obvious loophole around that.
No prints allowed? Like, at all? Else, next time they should wear one with just a watermelon.
Or.. Even better, just go in and have a watermelon slice with you, in a tupper. Open it and have it there on the table
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you sure bet i assume a far right person is living there.
if you feel the need to setup a flagpole in front of your house you want to make a (political) statement.
if you feel the need to setup a flagpole in front of your house you want to make a (political) statement.
And that statement can only be a far right one?
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if you feel the need to setup a flagpole in front of your house you want to make a (political) statement.
And that statement can only be a far right one?
I repeat myself again: If you pull up a German flag: Yes, because there simply is no culture around the german flag outside of sport events, government buildings and far right contexts.
If you pull up a gay pride flag that would be an unusual way to display (normaly they are just fixed to windows), but that I would let that fly 8pun not intended) as not being far right.
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I repeat myself again: If you pull up a German flag: Yes, because there simply is no culture around the german flag outside of sport events, government buildings and far right contexts.
If you pull up a gay pride flag that would be an unusual way to display (normaly they are just fixed to windows), but that I would let that fly 8pun not intended) as not being far right.
Well I guess we won't agree.
If you don't want to pull up a German flag in front of your house or wherever, that's totally fine with me and I can understand why you wouldn't want to.
But to universally apply a label to whoever does something you don't want to and especially this label (far right) is sweeping judgement and simplifying the world into black and white. And I think we don't need any more of that today.
But that's just my opinion.
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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.
So, there is no actual rule that she actually broke, unless we interpret the word "Palestine" to be not in keeping with the prestige of the Budestag. Are other country names or geographical regions also not in keeping with the prestige of the Bundestag? Like, when I visit can I not wear a shirt that says "Greece" on it? Or that says "Quebec" or "Antarctica"? Or is this is a special rule for country names that butthurt Germany's "staatsraison"?
if you, a tourist, would wear written clothing, nothing happens. It is for members of parliament that they can be expelled. Although we often times see politians dressed in light blue and yellow, to show solidarity with Ukraine. So why not for Palestine? That would be aNtisEmiTiSm
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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.
Should have had a second person wearing an Israel shirt, and see who gets kicked out.
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Lmao, Jesus Christ. I can lead a horse to water, but I can't make it drink.
Got it. You actually don't have any better arguments to support your bigoted writings.
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Got it. You actually don't have any better arguments to support your bigoted writings.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]Yeah, I guess verbatim quotations from Palestinian leadership isn't enough to establish what they think. Too bad I don't have your standards of just applying feelings without regard for the facts; you're wise not to let logic or human decency stand in the way of your antisemitism, you might accidentally develop some self awareness
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Yeah, I guess verbatim quotations from Palestinian leadership isn't enough to establish what they think. Too bad I don't have your standards of just applying feelings without regard for the facts; you're wise not to let logic or human decency stand in the way of your antisemitism, you might accidentally develop some self awareness
wrote on last edited by [email protected]You are showing how Hamas are antisemitic. You are then elevating Hamas to all of Palestine. That's neither net logic or human decency, that's bait-and-switch.
But you know, we can play this game. Are you are ready to accept statements of Israeli top officials (from the freaking President, to the Prime Minister and his Ministers, to MKs and further down) as Israeli policy to exterminate Palestinians? Or is nuance only allowed for Israel and never allowed for Palestinians? Or is it that if we allow equal amounts of nuance to both sides, then that is antisemitism?
