Nobel winner joins push to boycott German cultural institutions over Gaza
Al Jazeera
Author Annie Ernaux, Palestinian poet and activist Mohammed El-Kurd and actress Indya Moore call on artists to strike against German institutions.
Berlin, Germany – More than 500 global artists, filmmakers, writers and culture workers have announced a push against Germany’s stance on Israel’s war on Gaza, calling on creatives to step back from collaborating with German state-funded associations.
Launched this week, the campaign, backed by French author and Nobel Prize for literature winner Annie Ernaux, and Palestinian poet and activist Mohammed El-Kurd, alleges Germany has adopted “McCarthyist policies that suppress freedom of expression, specifically expressions of solidarity with Palestine”.
Other artists involved are the American actress, Indya Moore, British Turner Prize winner Tai Shani, and Lebanese alternative rock singer Hamed Sinno of the popular disbanded group Mashrou’ Leila.
The German authorities’ actions over the past 97 days of war, the signatories say, have had a chilling effect throughout the nation, especially in the arts.
“At a time when Palestinians are being slaughtered by a Germany-backed army at an unprecedented rate, and at a time of rising totalitarianism in German institutions, it is more important now than ever that good people reject anti-Palestinian racism assertively and publicly, and boycott the organisations that spread or give cover to that racism,” El-Kurd told Al Jazeera.
