The German authorities have been coming down hard on expressions of Palestine solidarity, with scores of events being cancelled. We spoke with some of the cultural workers who are fighting back

• Text James Greig

Perhaps more than any other country in the West, Germany has responded to the resurgent Palestine solidarity movement with a campaign of censorship and repression. This has taken many forms, from a wave of police brutality directed – primarily – against its Arab communities, to the exercise of cultural power. The language of ‘cancellation’ has become tainted in recent years, bringing to mind right-wing celebrities complaining about people being mean to them on Twitter, but in the German context its meaning is entirely literal: hundreds of events – including talks, film screenings and exhibitions – have been cancelled in recent months, either because they concerned Palestine directly or because the artists involved had expressed pro-Palestinian views elsewhere (a new Instagram account – Archives of Silence – provides an exhaustive catalogue of these incidents).

These efforts have succeeded in creating a chilling effect, up to a point, but many of Germany’s artists are fighting back. We spoke with members of the new organisation Art and Culture Alliance Berlin (ACAB) and Louna Sbou – the director of the cultural centre Oyoun, which has recently had its funding cut – to discuss the importance of Palestine solidarity, why the authorities are taking such a hard line against it, and what this tells us about the deep divisions at the heart of German society.

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