AfD ban in Thalia: Milo Rau’s “trial against Germany” | EUROtoday

Shortly earlier than the “Trial against Germany” begins at Hamburg’s Thalia Theater, a number of folks cancel. The director Milo Rau needs to barter a doable AfD ban in 5 conferences this weekend and is bringing a staged course of with actual legal professionals, specialists and political actors to the stage. They are supposed to debate a celebration ban and quite a lot of different questions in 5 conferences, with no beforehand agreed script. In the top, seven jurors from civil society will ship a verdict. Germany, not the AfD, is accused, Rau mentioned in his opening speech, “because no state, no party, no system has power, only we, the people, have power.”

Active AfD politicians akin to Hans-Thomas Tillschneider and Maximilian Krah had been requested however declined. Positions near the AfD are nonetheless represented. That is why the thinker and AI knowledgeable Rainer Mühlhoff, who was invited as a witness, wrote on Bluesky on the day the trial started that he had not been knowledgeable in regards to the participation of actors “from the ultra-right and radicalized conservative spectrum” on the time of his acceptance. Their legitimization is “harmful to democracy and the rule of law”. He didn’t need to be concerned on this symbolic upgrading of extremist positions, so he additionally declined.

That’s somewhat shocking. Without an inventory of contributors, one may have assumed that Rau, who has usually staged trials of this high-profile nature previously, would invite such voices. At the 2024 Vienna Festival, for instance, he accused the FPÖ of “attacks on democracy” and recruited former AfD chairwoman Frauke Petry as protection lawyer. She will communicate as the ultimate speaker on the present trial.

The rejections are, even when not supposed as such, in a sure approach a part of Rau’s dramaturgy. At its core, it’s in regards to the query of what’s meant by democracy: Is it undemocratic to need to ban events just like the AfD, which has tens of millions of voters? Or are right-wing extremist actions exploiting exactly this doubt: is democracy abolishing itself by providing undemocratic actors the chance to take part democratically? And does this participation start with the inclusion of such voices in a play financed with state funds?

The prosecution, represented by the lawyer Gabriele Heinecke and the right-wing extremism knowledgeable Andreas Speit, quotes Joseph Goebbels of their opening assertion: “It will always remain one of the best jokes of democracy that it provided its mortal enemies with the means by which it was destroyed.” As anticipated, the protection, represented by the publicist and lawyer Liane Bednarz and the journalist and author Frédéric Schwilden, has a special perspective: It is necessary to not “think in emotions”. Legally, the necessities for a celebration ban are merely not met.

Whether that is the case or not can’t be clarified in a three-day trial by which legal professionals are represented – the previous Federal Justice Minister Herta Däubler-Gmelin is chairing the case – however lay folks determine. So what sort of information may be gained from evaluating politically opposing positions? A dialogue within the strict sense of the phrase isn’t doable just because the contributors are both invited as audio system or are heard as witnesses and don’t trade concepts straight with one another.

And even when it have been, they argue on completely different grounds. There are emotional, biographical statements like these of former AfD member Robert Farle alongside these of specialists just like the sociologist Andreas Kemper, who has lengthy been concerned with the New Right. The YouTube activist and self-confessed AfD voter Feroz Khan, who appears relatively taken abruptly by the occasion, is adopted by a historian like Volker Weiß, who, nicely ready, steps out of his function close to the Brechtian idea of the tutorial piece and provides a speech in regards to the AfD’s view of historical past. The self-described former right-wing extremist influencer Erik Ahrens, who performed a key function in designing the AfD’s social media technique, took half within the Potsdam assembly and now, with a purpose to break together with his previous, solely speaks English – interspersed with German phrases – and calls himself Andrew Y, makes an virtually weird look.

Because what is going on right here has not been rehearsed or agreed upon and there’s no fact-checking happening on stage, not solely arguments are exchanged, but additionally emotional speeches and generally nonsense. The journalist Harald Martenstein is likely one of the audio system who vehemently oppose a ban on the AfD. He intentionally needs to impress together with his look, however even by these requirements he oversteps the mark: when he suggests, for instance, {that a} ban on the Union can also be on the playing cards. No one which night had requested for this.

The focus usually slips: the second assembly on Saturday, by which a social media ban for under-16s is to be mentioned, misses the subject and contributes little. But regardless of these dramaturgical weaknesses – which Rau in all probability took into consideration – what occurs right here is partly attention-grabbing: not solely within the sense of an trade, but additionally to see how the completely different contributors cope with the scenario and react to one another. If you look ahead to an extended time, you discover how the protection lawyer Schwilden’s technique, which consists of utilizing left-wing quotes to guard freedom of expression for his personal functions, wears out and turns into predictable.

The viewers reacts now and again to what’s taking place, however there is no such thing as a actual commotion (like on the Bochum Schauspielhaus on the identical time). Not even when the fictional jury determined on the final assembly to not ban the AfD outright, however to look at the ban utility and withdraw monetary assist from the occasion. If you ask the viewers, you get the sense that the majority viewers see the entire thing as a type of service, a lesson by which they’re given compact details about the AfD, its positions and networks. Many folks don’t share the view that this provides too massive a stage for positions near the AfD: these concepts, says one viewer, are already on the market on this planet. In truth, one may argue that the AfD could quickly have a a lot larger stage anyway: the federal government financial institution in Saxony-Anhalt, for instance.