The dark side of Italian hazelnut farming

As Italian hazelnut plantations expand to cater to our love of chocolate and nougat, they are leaving a bitter aftertaste on local soil, water and air.


As the early morning mist clears to reveal the turrets of San Quirico Castle in central Italy, the greenery surrounding local farmhouses comes alive with sound: Red-bellied woodpeckers chirp and bright-green tree frogs call to each other among the cypress and beech trees.

But walk a little further towards the fields of young hazelnut plantations and there is suddenly silence: the birds and insects have been driven away by the monoculture. Seemingly never-ending lines of saplings are now the defining feature of Alfina plateau which lies a few hundred meters above sea level. Until recently, much of this area was composed of wildflower fields and a patchwork of different crops.

"Six or seven years ago this place looked completely different," Gabriele Antoniella said. He works as a researcher and activist with Comitato Quattro Strade, a conservation organization in Alfina. Antoniella estimates there are around 300 hectares (741 acres) of new plantations in the area, mostly owned by a few large investors.

The plateau sits in the northern section of Tuscia, a historical region in Viterbo province and the heart of Italy's hazelnut production. Around 43% of the agricultural land in Viterbo is reserved for hazelnut orchards, the bulk of which goes to the confectionary industry for use in products such as nougat and chocolate.


Local environmentalists say once many of the saplings grow, beloved views will also be obscured


Monocultures are believed to be damaging the air, soil and water

The nuts have been grown for thousands of years in the southern part of Tuscia and have largely sustained its economy since production ramped up in the 1960s. But the intensification of monoculture practices and their expansion into new areas such as the Alfina plateau is an increasing concern for environmentalists.

Impact of monoculture on water, soil and air

Several diverse cropshave been replaced by hazelnut plantations, and hedgerows have been cleared to minimize the presence of insects. As the nuts are harvested once they fall, the ground beneath the trees is also usually kept completely free of vegetation.

"For us the hazelnut represents a great resource, but it's cultivated in an unsustainable way," said Famiano Cruciarelli, president of the Biodistretto della Via Amerina e delle Forre, an environmental organization in southern Tuscia. "Hazelnut monoculture has caused problems with water, soil, and air."

The use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides treatments, he says, is making the soil increasingly arid, which in turn has led to its erosion in some places. And during harvest season, clouds of dust are kicked up into the air by the heavy machinery. "That dust is full of chemicals, which are a big problem for people's health," he said.

One of the most glaring examples of environmental degradation can be seen in a nearby volcanic lake encircled by decades-old hazelnut plantations.

"Large quantities of fertilizers have been used in the intensive hazelnut cultivation, and they have ended up in Lake Vico," explains Giuseppe Nascetti, a professor at the Tuscia University who has been studying the lake for over 25 years. This has caused the proliferation of so-called "red-algae," which produce carcinogenic chemicals harmful to environmental and human health.


Famiano Crucianelli says monoculture has made the soil increasingly arid


High-levels of fertilizers have been found in Vico Lake, a body of water surrounded by decades-old hazelnut plantations
Expansion of the industry

While the transformation towards monoculture has been underway for decades, environmentalists say the growing demand for hazelnuts from big companies and investors has further fueled this shift.

Italian manufacturer Ferrero Group, which makes the chocolate and hazelnut spread Nutella, doesn't own or run any farms in the region but is one of the biggest consumers of the nuts produced in Tuscia.

In 2018, the company launched its Progetto Nocciola Italia plan which aims — in cooperation with farming associations — to increase hazelnut plantations across Italy by 20,000 hectares by 2026. In Lazio — a region that includes Alfina plateau — the company is also working with local producers through a farming association in Lazio to develop 500 hectares for the crop over a five-year period. According to Ferrero's figures, 17,708 hectares are currently devoted to hazelnut cultivation in Viterbo, and 80,000 across Italy.

A Ferrero spokesperson said it was a company objective to integrate hazelnut shrubs with existing crops — and that organic production is neither an obligation nor prohibited.

They add the company is also working in collaboration with researchers including those at Tuscia University to "gain a better understanding of its environmental impact" and "enhance sustainability in hazelnut cultivation."

A large amount of the hazelnuts grown in the region end up in chocolate bars and spread

Sustainable, organic agriculture

Yet as local farmer Anselmo Filesi has discovered, choosing a sustainable path isn't without its challenges.

In 2002, concerned about the environmental and health impacts of using pesticides, he converted his small 20-hectare hazelnut plantation in southern Tuscia to organic methods.

But it came at a cost. Filesi says he was no longer able to sell his products to the world's biggest buyers: Most confectionary multinationals require hazelnuts with little damage from shield bugs — a common pest which can cause shriveled kernels and a slightly bitter taste.

"This is very difficult to achieve with organic methods," Filesi said. "If the hazelnuts are not perfect the market will not accept them.

Watch video 05:18 Permalink https://p.dw.com/p/3lOsj
Italy: The struggle between conventional and organic farming

Filesi shells, toasts and packages his own produce before selling it directly to local shops and supermarkets. But he says it's harder for bigger farmers — which usually sell pre-processed nuts in bulk – to make the switch as they fear losing their biggest buyers.

The rush to invest in hazelnut plantations in the area is also increasing land prices, says Filesi, making it harder for small farmers like him to buy or rent land.

"Converting all hazelnut plantations to organic ones could be one way forward, but there is no incentive to do so," said Professor Nascetti, citing a lack of commitment from big companies to pay good prices for organic produce. "Until sustainability is put before profit ... it's unlikely this will happen."

"People do not imagine that behind a jar of hazelnut [spread] there is an environmental and social economic catastrophe," Antoniella said. By staging protests against intensive agriculture, encouraging smallholder farmers to turn to organic farming and not to sell their land, activists hope to foster a new relationship between locals and the land.

"We are not against hazelnuts, but against these agro-industrial methods that don't respect our land," Antoniella said. "We want to show that things can be done differently, that agriculture can be based on respect for the environment."

He glances at the endless lines of saplings and explains that once the trees grow, the striking view of San Quirico castle perched on a hill in the background will be obscured. "The landscape will change forever."

POLITICAL PERSECUTION

Russia opens new criminal probe into Jehovah's Witnesses

Investigators have opened a criminal case into the US-based Jehovah's Witnesses for extremist activities, conducting raids in regions across Russia. Rights groups say hundreds of believers are in prison or facing trial.


Authorities have opened a new criminal case into the Jehovah's Witnesses after the Russian Investigative Committee said the religion's management center had illegally resumed its work.

Investigators said Tuesday that searches were underway in more than 20 different regions across the country.

Russia's Supreme Court banned the Jehovah's Witnesses in 2017 and declared the religious group an extremist organization.

Judges ordered it to disband and authorities launched a crackdown on the religion's adherents.

Hundreds of Jehovah's Witnesses facing criminal cases

According to human rights groups, hundreds of followers are facing criminal cases in Russia, with dozens either imprisonedor awaiting trial.

Among them, Danish citizen Dennis Christensen has remained behind bars following his detention in May 2017. A court in central Russia convicted him almost two years later.

Dennis Christensen, a Danish Jehovah's Witness, was sentenced in a Russian court in February 2019

In July, Human Rights Watch said Russia "has absolutely nothing to gain from the pointless, cruel, and abusive persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses," and urged the authorities to "immediately free Christensen and stop wasting time and resources on these prosecutions."

In September 2019, the US banned two high-ranking regional officers from Russia's Investigative Committee from entering the United States over the alleged torture of seven detainees who identify as followers of the Jehovah's Witnesses.

Jehovah's Witnesses identify as Christians. They believe the Bible, of which they have their own translation, was inspired by God and is historically accurate. Observant members of the religion also say Jesus is his firstborn son and inferior to God.

jf/rt (AP, Reuters)

UN: Greenhouse gas levels hit record high despite lockdowns

Many scientists hoped for the biggest annual fall in human-caused emissions this year due to COVID measures which have grounded plans and kept commuters at home. But the UN described such a forecast as a "tiny blip.



Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere hit a new record in 2019 and have continued climbing this year, despite lockdowns and other measures to curb the pandemic, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Monday, citing preliminary data.

Levels of carbon dioxide, a product of burning fossil fuels that contribute to global warming, peaked at 410.5 parts per million in 2019, according to the WMO. The annual increase is larger than the previous year and surpasses the average over the last decade.

"Such a rate of increase has never been seen in the history of our records," said WMO Secretary-General Professor Petteri Taalas, referring to increases since 2015 and urging for a "sustained flattening of the (emissions) curve."

Lockdown drops just a 'blip'

The Geneva-based UN agency noted that shutdowns, border closures, flight groundings and other restrictions had cut emissions of many pollutants and greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide.

As pandemic measures peaked earlier this year, daily CO2 output dropped 17% below last year's mean level, preliminary results of the WMO's main annual Greenhouse Gas Bulletin found.

But the WMO warned against complacency and said the global plunge in industrial activities due to the pandemic had not restricted record concentrations of the greenhouse gases that are trapping heat in the atmosphere, increasing temperatures, triggering sea levels to rise and prompting extreme weather.

"The lockdown-related fall in emissions is just a tiny blip on the long-term graph," WMO chief Petteri Taalas said.

The annual impact was expected to be a drop of between 4.2% and 7.5%. But according to the WMO, this will not cause concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere to decrease and warned the impact on concentrations was "no bigger than the normal year to year fluctuations."

Worldwide data is not yet available for 2020 but the trend of surging concentrations appears to be intact, the group said, citing initial readings from its Tasmania and Hawaii stations.

mvb/rt (Reuters, AFP, dpa)

Berlin landlords forced to reduce rents

The second stage of the German capital's rent cap law has come into effect, meaning that thousands of Berlin landlords could be forced to reduce their rents. But the legal battle over the law is not yet over.



From November 23, landlords in the German capital must lower excessively high rents — that is, if they exceed a standardized limit by more than 20% — or face heavy fines. The German constitutional court dismissed the landlord associations' attempts to halt the imminent reductions at the end of October.

Read more: How Berlin's rent freeze compares globally

Some 85% of all Berliners rent their apartments, and according to the Berlin Tenants' Association (BMV), some 365,000 apartments in the city are eligible for the imminent rent reduction. But that figure is disputed: A study by the F+B real estate consultancy estimates that over half a million apartments are eligible.

"It's a lucky break for Berlin tenants that we have a rent cap here, in light of the economic crisis caused by COVID-19 pandemic," the head of the BMV Reiner Wild said in a statement, before adding that the rent reduction was "appropriate, justifiable, and sensible."

The rent reductions are likely to mainly apply to rental contracts that have been signed in the last five or six years, as Berlin's rents have risen sharply in that time: From 2014 to 2019, rents on new contracts rose by an average of 30% — especially if the apartments were renovated, the BMV said. The rent cap does not apply to buildings completed after 2014. The rent for an average 60sqm apartment is around 850€, around a third of the average household income.

Burden on tenants

But many landlords in the city appear to be hoping their tenants might not notice the new rules. A survey released on Monday by the consumer rights platform CONNY found that three-quarters of its customers eligible for a rent reduction had not been informed by the landlords.

Read more: Last orders for Berlin bar at the center of a rent war

That means it's up to the tenants to check their rents themselves, which they can do through a Berlin government website, the BMV, or one of several consultancy services that have sprung up this year. They then have to sue their landlords and claim money back if they have paid too much.

"It's very probably that not all landlords will stick to the law," CONNY CEO Daniel Halmer said in a statement."We are afraid that private providers, in particular, won't lower the rent of their own accord," added Reiner Wild of the BMV, before urging tenants in Berlin to check their rents.=

Burden on landlords

The initial stage of the new cap, introduced in February this year, saw rents frozen for five years on 1.5 million apartments in the city.

Meanwhile, landlords have been busy counting the potential loss to their incomes: According to the F+B consultancy index published on Monday, landlords could lose a total of €250 million per year or €40 per apartment per month.

Read more: Berlin and Dublin — A tale of two cities' housing crisis

Landlords also have their other tools to counter the measures. Local public broadcaster RBB reported last week that a few hundred landlords had applied to a local state investment bank to be allowed to charge higher rents in order to avert economic difficulties — a state instrument for "needy cases" implemented to protect people who depend on rents for their livelihoods. That is a small minority of landlords: The Berlin government says the total number of people who draw income from Berlin rents is around 200,000.

Nevertheless, a crucial constitutional court decision is still outstanding, and due next year: It remains an open legal question whether the Berlin government, as a state government, has the right to impose a blanket rent cap. As a result, many landlords are now including "shadow rents" in their ads for new apartments – with a warning they will demand the extra back-rents if the constitutional court decides in their favor.

DW RECOMMENDS


Gentrification battle: Berlin tenants fight to save their homes from new buyers

Renters in Berlin are appealing to the local council to stop the sale of their homes. But if buyers offer no guarantees, and the building is too expensive, there isn't much the authorities can do to protect them.

Berlin gentrification debate flares over Norwegian billionaire's investment

Berlin residents are worried that billionaire property developer Ivar Tollefsen is buying up thousands of apartments. His company Heimstaden claims it will work with the community, but won't sign a pledge saying so.

USA

Janet Yellen to be nominated as first female treasury secretary

NOVEMBER 23, 2020

Janet Yellen speaks during her last news conference as Federal Reserve chair, in Washington, D.C., Dec. 13, 2017. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Joe Biden is set to nominate Janet Yellen as secretary of the treasury, according to multiple reports on Monday. She would be the first woman in the role and the third Jewish treasury secretary in a row, after President Trump’s choice Steven Mnuchin and President Obama’s second term pick Jack Lew.

Yellen, 74, has already made history as the first woman chair of the Federal Reserve, appointed by Obama in 2013. She assumed the job in early 2014. Read our guide to Yellen’s career and Jewish background here.

Yellen, who attended a Reform synagogue in Berkeley, California, featured in an ad Trump ran during his 2016 presidential campaign that featured Yellen and Jewish investor and philanthropist George Soros. Jewish groups denounced the video for juxtaposing them with the “levers of power in Washington” and “global special interests.”

Yellen lasted one term as Federal Reserve chairwoman before Trump replaced her in 2018.

She believes in an activist role for government in combating market volatility, and sees unemployment as more destabilizing than inflation.

There have also been three short-term interim Treasury secretaries over the last 12 years — all, as it happens, Jewish: Stuart Levey in 2009, Neal Wolin in 2013 and Adam Szubin in 2017.

RELATED: What to know about Janet Yellen

BY RON KAMPEAS

Biden nominates Alejandro Mayorkas, Latino Jew who has said Jews face heightened threat, as Homeland Security secretary

NOVEMBER 23, 2020 


Alejandro Mayorkas, then deputy secretary of Homeland Security, addresses the Orthodox Union at a conference in Washington, Sept. 21, 2016. (Orthodox Union)


WASHINGTON (JTA) — President-elect Joe Biden announced the nomination of Alejandro Mayorkas, a Latino Jew who has emphasized the heightened threat facing American Jews, as his Homeland Security secretary on Monday.

Mayorkas, 60, the deputy secretary of Homeland Security under President Barack Obama, was born in Cuba to a Cuban Jewish father and Romanian Jewish mother. His mother survived the Holocaust.

As deputy secretary, Mayorkas worked closely with Jewish groups and spoke often about the specific threats facing American Jews.

Speaking in 2016 to the annual Washington conference of the Orthodox Union about nonprofit security grants, Mayorkas said, “The need is most acute in the Jewish community because of the ascension of anti-Semitism and hate crimes we see.”

Mayorkas grounded his concern in his background and his upbringing. Among the things that “keep me up at night,” he said at the time, was the threat to “my community,” the Jewish community.

“I come from a tradition of a lack of security instilled in me as a very young person,” said Mayorkas, whose parents had moved to Cuba after marrying, then the United States following the revolution there.

Mayorkas is a board member of HIAS, the Jewish immigration advocacy group.

“Ali has consistently demonstrated that he is not only a strong and highly respected leader, but an empathetic one who knows the heart of the stranger, as the child of a Holocaust survivor, as a Latino, and as a refugee and immigrant himself,” said Mark Hetfield, the president of HIAS, in a statement.

The Biden transition team in its news release naming Mayorkas emphasized the precedent he will set.

“Alejandro Mayorkas is the first Latino and immigrant nominated to serve as Secretary of Homeland Security,” it said. “He has led a distinguished 30-year career as a law enforcement official and a nationally-recognized lawyer in the private sector.”

BY RON KAMPEAS

Dutch right-wing politician resigns following party’s anti-Semitism scandal
NOVEMBER 23, 2020 5:26 PM

Dutch right-wing leader Thierry Baudet speaks to reporters at the Dutch Senate in the Hague, Feb. 5, 2020. (Sem Van Der Wal/ANP/AFP via Getty Images)


AMSTERDAM (JTA) — The leader of the Dutch right-wing Forum for Democracy party resigned Monday following reports that members of its youth movement had engaged in anti-Semitic behavior.

Thierry Baudet, a colorful politician who in 2018 published a nude self-portrait on Instagram, said that assuming responsibility for the anti-Semitism scandal was not the immediate reason for stepping down. Rather the trigger was demands within the party that the guilty members be kicked out before the completion of an internal disciplinary review of their actions.

The review is of members of the party’s section for young members who in a WhatsApp group shared Nazi songs. One of them called “Der Untermensch,” or “Subhuman,” a 1942 Nazi propaganda book inciting hatred of Jews and Slavs, a “masterpiece,” the Het Parool newspaper reported last week.

Some party members seek to “skip the process and throw people under the bus before we know what’s happened,” Baudet said in video he shared on social media announcing his resignation as party leader. He warned against a “trial by the media, which isn’t trustworthy.”

If the accused engaged in anti-Semitism, he said, “they should leave the party, and my resignation will be an act of assuming responsibility for what happened.”

Forum for Democracy seeks a Dutch exit from the European Union and stricter immigration policies. It’s also consistently pro-Israel.

It won only two seats out of 150 in parliament in the 2017 elections but three of the 26 in the 2019 Dutch elections for the European Parliament.

BY CNAAN LIPHSHIZ

Marijuana plants seized from Argentine synagogue’s courtyard

NOVEMBER 23, 2020 

A plaque on the Sinagoga Medanos. (Screenshot from YouTube)


BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (JTA) — Police seized two pots of marijuana plants from the courtyard of a historic synagogue in Medanos, a small village in the Buenos Aires province.

Medanos, once the rural home of about 100 Argentine Jews, is in the Villarino district. Villarino Mayor Carlos Bevillacua said the synagogue was not responsible in any way for the marijuana seized last week and that people took advantage of the empty space, which was closed during the coronavirus pandemic.

The synagogue, built between 1913 and 1915, is designated a heritage site and was in the process of being turned into a museum before the pandemic struck earlier this year.

A local Argentine TV station made a video report about the synagogue in January.

President Trump is a religious leader

Trumpism, like other bad religions, denies science, identifies dark forces and denies reality.

November 17, 2020
By Jeffrey Salkin

(RNS) — This isn’t about Democrat versus Republican. As a lifelong Democrat, I believe in the two party system. To quote the old cliché: Some of my best friends vote Republican.

Neither is this about whether you voted for President Donald Trump, or whether you voted for former Vice President Joe Biden.

There were many reasons why millions of people voted for Trump. We Biden voters need to understand some of those reasons. I invite you to hear me in dialogue with Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson at American Jewish University on how we maintain American unity in the wake of this election.

The truth is: I am so over this election.

But, Trump is not.

Trumpism is no longer an electoral choice, nor a political ideology.

It is a religion — an overarching worldview, with a high priest and prophet at its head. A worldview that creates an “us versus them” mentality, a dualistic battle between the children of light and the children of darkness. A worldview that allows no disagreement. A worldview that persecutes heretics.

OPINION: Why Trump’s electoral crisis is really a moral crisis

In short, the “bad” kind of religion.

(Memo to my friends on the left: This defines many of us as well. Consider Monty Python’s famous line: “Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!” Call-out culture is a new Spanish Inquisition that uses not the tools of torture, but of intellectual reductionism and exclusion).

How has Trumpism become a bad religion?

President Donald Trump speaks from the South Lawn of the White House on the fourth day of the Republican National Convention, Aug. 27, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

First, a bad religion denies science.

Trumpism denies climate science. It denies and ignores medical science. Promoting bogus miraculous cures. Almost demanding of its followers that they laugh at science through their refusal to wear masks in public.

And, in the days after the election, a total denial of the mathematics of the electoral system.

Second, bad religion believes in invisible forces in the world that are responsible for evil.

The elitists, Hollywood and intellectuals. The chimera of election fraud. Long before the election, Trump said that the only way that he would accept the results of the 2020 election would be if he won.

There are dark forces — the darker-skinned forces, right on our borders, whose children must be consigned to the cages, who must not be admitted to this country. Darker-skinned people, especially Middle Eastern Muslims and those from “s—hole countries” in Africa.

QAnon — the most bizarre, irrational conspiracy theory that you could ever imagine. A Georgia congresswoman-elect, Marjorie Taylor Greene, espouses this theory. No less than 40% of Republicans agree that the QAnon theory is good for this country.

And, of course, that leftover obsession from the 1950s: “socialism.”

Third, bad religion denies reality.

Consider Chabad Judaism — the expectation, on the part of many of its adherents, that the Lubovicher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, will arise from his grave in Queens and become the true Messiah.

The Trumpists and their enablers will not accept defeat. They could never have accepted defeat. Long before the first vote was mailed in or cast, their religious leader told them not to accept the possibility of defeat.

Consider one of the most bizarre incidents in Jewish history — the story of the false Messiah, Sabbatai Zevi.

Sabbatai Zevi was a Turkish Jew in the 1600s. He convinced himself, and numerous Jewish and gentile followers, that he was the Messiah. Zevi advocated the abolishing of the mitzvot — God’s commandments — as the path to redemption.

It was a cult of nihilism.

Sabbateanism swept through Europe. Ultimately, Zevi was arrested by the sultan of Turkey and forced to accept Islam. Many of his followers said that in order to perfect the world, the Messiah had to enter the realm of the impure, to redeem the sparks of goodness.

“Sabbatai Zevi enthroned” Image from the Amsterdam/Jewish publication Tikkun, Amsterdam, 1666. Image courtesy of Creative Commons

Zevi was, by all accounts, mentally ill — delusional, grandiose, perhaps manic-depressive. The movement gradually disappeared.

What does this fascinating and disturbing chapter of Jewish and European history have to do with the religion of Trumpism?

First: As Sabbateanism was nihilistic, so, too, is Trumpism. It seeks redemption through the abolishment of the American mitzvot — any sense of statesmanship or civic responsibility.

Second: Zevi did massive damage to Jews, Judaism and Europe because of his inner demons.

Trump has done massive damage to the United States of America, democracy and human beings.

Competent professionals have seen in Trump’s behavior signs of malignant narcissism, grandiosity and delusional behavior, among other factors. As with the Sabbatean movement, such behaviors have become both seductive and contagious.

What we are seeing in the United States right now is one man’s delusional behavior. His delusion has become metastatic in the American body politic. It has many enablers.

That metastatic delusion prevents our nation from moving on. It prevents a new president from having an appropriate transition. This is the first time in our nation’s history that this has happened. As such, it threatens this country’s security and well-being.

What happened after Zevi’s conversion to Islam? Sabbateanism reemerged as the Jacob Frank movement. Frank was another false Messiah, who claimed to be the reincarnation of Zevi.

It is within the realm of possibility that another prophet of the religion of Trumpism will arise.

Gulp.

Opinion: Nazi resistance fighters, Holocaust victims and the nonsense of COVID-19 denial

When coronavirus deniers pose as victims of alleged Nazi methods to justify their actions, it's all about the prerogative of interpretation. We have to stand up to such nonsense, says Martin Muno.


Last week, a few politicians from the right-wing populist Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party referred to government-planned infection protection legislation as an "enabling law." A reminder: in March 1933, the Nazi-led government won the right to enact laws without the consent of the German Reichstag with that very law. The AfD was comparing regulations providing for contact restrictions to protect against a pandemic with a law that symbolized the end of parliamentary democracy and the beginning of Nazi tyranny.

Read more: Can Germany's infection protection law be compared to the Nazis' 'Enabling Act?'

Unanimously condemned by historians and political scientists as historical nonsense, the remarks, nevertheless, have motivated coronavirus deniers. Over the weekend, they took to the streets in several German cities to demonstrate against the alleged seizure of power. An 11-year-old girl in the western city of Karlsruhe compared herself to Anne Frank, a Jewish victim of the Holocaust, and a 22-year-old in the central city of Kassel compared herself to Nazi resistance fighter Sophie Scholl. Their bizarre performances were met with worldwide media interest.

Read more: German foreign minister slams COVID protester's Nazi resistance comparison

It should be clear to everyone that there is a difference between being fined for possible violations of coronavirus protection decrees (and being able to take legal action against the fines) and being killed either for being Jewish or for being committed to freedom and justice. But the far-right populists and radicals who throng around the coronavirus deniers don't care. They care about something else. To them, it is all about freedom of interpretation or cultural hegemony. Oftentimes, it is more a question of emotions than of intellect.
The powerless exert power

Throughout history, elected rulers who acted as dictators, as well as members of the opposition, have used the role of victim to legitimize their own actions.


DW editor Martin Muno

The Nazis used a — non-existing — Jewish world conspiracy to justify their extermination policy. The East German leadership called the borders it secured with walls and barbed wire, virtually imprisoning people in their own country, an "anti-fascist protective wall" — GDR citizens were made to believe there was a threat from the outside, and East Germany was merely trying to keep them safe.

Alleged powerlessness is used to exercise power. Struggling to stay in control, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has resorted to a similar pattern of argumentation, as has the China-led leadership in Hong Kong.

The White House currently harbors the champion of the playing the victim, however: President Donald Trump, one of the most powerful people on the planet, uses his favorite medium Twitter on a daily basis to tell the world how unfairly he is being treated. Be it investigations concerning outstanding taxes or conceivably illegal agreements with foreign governments — he perceives a "witch hunt" everywhere. He also feels cheated out of his "overwhelming election victory."
Sounding board for populists

On a factual level, this is as ridiculous as the public performance by the 22-year-old protester who compared herself to a Nazi resistance fighter and who achieved temporary fame as "Jana from Kassel." It is not, however, a matter of truth. It is about keeping like-minded people together and legitimizing legal as well as illegal protests. Even if Trump's efforts to overturn the US presidential election using legal means fail again and again, the number of supporters who believe the 2020 election was rigged is on the rise. He has skillfully pointed the ax right at the foundation of democracy.

Germans can be thankful that the sounding board for populists is so much smaller, the reason being a much greater common understanding in society of what is true and what is false. But, if you look at the situation in the US and the history books, its naive to believe that this will continue to be the case in the future. That's why it is important to nip things in the bud and to oppose the mixing of truth and lies, of perpetrator and victim.

This article was translated from German by Dagmar Breitenbach.

German protester of COVID restrictions compares herself to Nazi resistance fighter

NOVEMBER 23, 2020 

Sophie Scholl (Screen shot from YouTube)

(JTA) — A woman protesting coronavirus restrictions in Germany likened herself to a resistance fighter killed in a Holocaust uprising.

Speaking at a demonstration Saturday, a woman who identified herself as “Jana from Kassel” compared herself to Sophie Scholl, who was an organizer of the White Rose resistance movement in 1943 at the University of Munich.

The woman said she “feels like Sophie Scholl, because for months I have been active in the resistance here, giving speeches, going to demos, giving out flyers,” according to the German publication Deutsche Welle. “I’m 22 years old, just like Sophie Scholl when she fell victim to National Socialism.”

The following day, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas tweeted that such comparisons are unacceptable.

“Anyone who compares themselves to Sophie Scholl or Anne Frank today is mocking the courage it took to take a stand against the Nazis,” he wrote. “That trivializes the Holocaust and shows an unacceptable historical ignorance. Nothing connects the coronavirus protests with resistance fighters. Nothing!”

Some protesters in the United States have also made comparisons between Nazism and COVID-19 restrictions. In July, Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, tweeted, “To compare COVID-19 rules to the slaughter of millions in the Holocaust is disgusting, wrong and has no place in our society.” He was responding to an editorial cartoon comparing a mask mandate to the Holocaust.

The German woman encountered criticism at the protest, too. After she made the Scholl comparison, a security guard interrupted her, took off his vest and said, “I’m not going to be a security guard for bullshit like this,” according to Deutsche Welle.

BY BEN SALES