PEN-Berlin: No boycott against anyone

“The Berlin PEN rejects BDS.” The chairman of the writers’ association Deniz Yücel repeated this sentence several times in his speech at the opening of a meeting of the capital’s PEN, which he co-founded, at the weekend in the Kreuzberg festival hall. This was no surprise to those present who are familiar with his political and journalistic work. The author himself, who was imprisoned in Turkey for almost a year, owes his release to an impressive solidarity movement. BDS stands for “Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions” and is directed against the purchase of Israeli products because of the Jewish state’s actions against Palestinians.

The association was not founded as a community of thought, said Yücel. He is committed to freedom of expression, freedom of the press and freedom of art as well as “support for colleagues from all over the world who are persecuted, arrested and tortured because they have made use of these very freedoms.” In his speech, which once again showed him to be a brilliant rhetorician, Yücel pointed out that years ago he had been involved in actions against anti-Semitism in Turkey, and not just in the journalistic field. He emphasized that an association like PEN, which fights for free speech, is also firmly against the boycott of Israeli artists.

Before the congress, PEN-Berlin came under criticism because it did not immediately come forward with a clear statement after the Hamas terrorist attack on October 7th. There were even isolated resignations from members who complained about a lack of solidarity with Israel. Other members, in turn, criticized the resignations as being generally pro-Israel.

Yücel was able to convincingly demonstrate that PEN-Berlin is not one of those organizations that make cheap statements that are then quickly forgotten. He also recalled that very soon after the Hamas massacre, more than two months ago, a clear signal was sent against anti-Semitism with an event.

The PEN Congress finally passed a resolution that expressed solidarity with Jews all over the world: “PEN-Berlin condemns the Islamist terrorist attack on Israel by Hamas and its allies. The attack was aimed at the state of Israel as a whole, which Hamas has declared its desire to destroy. PEN-Berlin condemns the Islamist terrorist attack on Israel by Hamas and its allies. The attack was aimed at the State of Israel as a whole, which Hamas has declared its desire to destroy.” The statement also expresses concern for the Palestinian civilians who are victims of Israel’s warfare and Hamas’s terror.

In another resolution with the somewhat unwieldy title “Against social polarization and illiberal tendencies in the cultural sector,” the writers’ association is against the cancellation of exhibitions or award ceremonies for artists who are suspected in Germany of supporting the BDS campaign or of themselves not to comment on the conflict in the Middle East in accordance with German reasons of state. Left-wing Jewish artists are often affected by this. The recent headlines were the cancellation of an exhibition by the Jewish artist Candice Breitz from South Africa and last week the dispute over the awarding of the Hannah Arendt Prize to the Jewish journalist Masha Gessen, who lives in Canada, from whom the Heinrich Böll Prize co-sponsor was named. Foundation had distanced itself. The stumbling block was a 20-page essay by Gessen about the Middle East conflict in a US magazine. Critics of the author had singled out some of the formulations and branded them as anti-Israel. Would Hannah Arendt receive a prize in Germany today, asked the Austrian writer Eva Menasse, who heads PEN-Berlin with Yücel, in this context, referring to the German-Jewish philosopher’s anti-Zionist positions.

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