Book truthful opening in Leipzig: And then Wolfram Weimer explains the “Habermas process” | EUROtoday

I’m excited to see if he comes!” – “Why shouldn’t he come?” As quickly as they enter, the viewers solely is aware of one subject: How will Wolfram Weimer carry out? And how will he do? The Minister of State for Culture has had unhealthy press for weeks; with the affair surrounding the German Bookstore Prize, he has turned a complete business in opposition to him.

On Wednesday night, the Leipzig Book Fair opened with a ceremony within the Gewandhaus, and protests outdoors revealed the extent of anger within the business. Banners present slogans resembling “Protect culture – dismiss Weimer”. Flyers with pithy slogans are distributed: “Red card for snooping on attitudes!”

One speaker even tries to make use of world literature – alluding to Kafka’s “Trial”: “Someone must have slandered the Golden Shop, the Red Street and the Swaying Globe.” These are the names of the three bookstores that Wolfram Weimer, the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media (BKM), excluded from the German Bookstore Prize as a result of there have been “information relevant to the protection of the constitution”. The nature of those findings has not but been made clear. A constitutional black field process that prompted nice irritation and which Weimer couldn’t or didn’t need to clarify in the latest interview on the matter in “Zeit”.

The temper within the business is charged – a lot in order that Wolfram Weimer even canceled his deliberate tour of the ebook truthful. The solely factor he could not skip was the opening efficiency on the Gewandhaus. The anti-Weimer vibes within the corridor are noticeable. The different politicians and audio system of the night addressed the sore factors proactively and concurrently politely and critically. Leipzig’s mayor Burkhard Jung (SPD) and Saxony’s Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer (CDU) are making a intelligent, de-escalating framework. Sebastian Guggolz, head of the German Book Trade Association, stays clear on the matter: “We will not accept your autocratic gesture without complaint.” Thunderous applause.

“I am criticized for supposed interventions”

Enter Weimer: Boos. Of course he cannot do something proper that night. Even a mea culpa speech would not have helped. He desires to clarify himself, hopes for applause from Habermas, and emphasizes his “domination-free discourse”. Listening to one another is the “Habermas process” – right here the ex-journalist Weimer believes he’s making some extent by means of wording, a step away from the “Haber process”, the technical time period for querying intelligence data from the Ministry of the Interior.

Weimer explains his level: “I am criticized for supposed interventions.” He argues that there are two classes at stake: the class of freedom (from the state) and the class of assist (by the state), and within the latter case politics should have a hand in opposition to extremists. Applause within the corridor. But additionally hecklers: “Resign!”. A Weimer sentence from the speech, which is shortly forgotten, makes you sit up and take discover. He desires to relaunch the bookstore prize with the Börsenverein, the Kurt Wolff Foundation “and other stakeholders”. Ah, how?

Then discover a resolution, says Saxony’s Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer, who seems that night like a mediator employed to de-escalate: “It’s the book fair and something is going on here.” Kretschmer holds Weimer answerable for one factor: “We won’t stop archiving books as long as there are books. And we will now get the money for the National Library,” says Kretschmer. This alludes to Weimer’s second present affair: The BKM, which took workplace with the promise of strengthening the nationwide beacons of tradition, questioned the German National Library final week: whether or not the establishment, which collects each ebook revealed in Germany and in German for posterity, actually wants its long-planned growth in Leipzig. Weimer’s tenor: Do we nonetheless have to gather printed books – when digital copies have lengthy been accessible?

With this reference, one might argue that each one museums, objects and archives must be finished – digitized and abolished. The German National Library as a PDF database? The BKM press workplace is now making an attempt to restrict the harm.

Anything else in addition to the entire political circus? Yes, luckily additionally literature! One that went past the beforehand very German night. The Bosnian-Croatian author Miljenko Jergović acquired the Leipzig Book Prize for European Understanding and, because the protagonist of the night, gave a speech that might solely calm everybody’s heated minds and remind them of what Europe and what literature is. “A diversity of worlds that owes itself to the diversity of its languages.”

According to Jergović within the central picture of his speech, Europe is sort of a dozen old-school pairs that you’ve at house. Some of them had already actually taken off, stepped on their heels. And but you do not throw them away. Because you’ll be able to simply scurry to your neighbor in them. “The hope that the old becomes new is called tradition, European tradition.” And there must be a minimum of a dozen pairs of footwear, “even if there are only three people living in the house, because choice is important. Without the possibility of choice, there is neither human freedom nor democracy.” Previously, in her eulogy for Jergović, the Austrian creator Barbi Marković had maybe stated essentially the most lovely sentence of the night, which no politician would hear at a ebook truthful anyway: “And I just thought to myself, what a hero”.