Left Party MP Cansin Köktürk was thrown out of a German parliament plenary chamber on Wednesday for wearing a t-shirt with the word “Palestine” printed on it, a move deemed a political statement by the parliamentary leadership.
Bundestag President Julia Klöckner intervened during the session, reminding MPs that political messages on clothing are not permitted in the chamber.
While the Bundestag does not have a detailed dress code, its rules require MPs and visitors to dress “in keeping with the prestige” of the institution. Enforcement of this standard is left to the discretion of the session chair.
Nope, it’s just the dresscode being enforced as it always has been.
So, there is no actual rule that she actually broke, unless we interpret the word “Palestine” to be not in keeping with the prestige of the Budestag. Are other country names or geographical regions also not in keeping with the prestige of the Bundestag? Like, when I visit can I not wear a shirt that says “Greece” on it? Or that says “Quebec” or “Antarctica”? Or is this is a special rule for country names that butthurt Germany’s “staatsraison”?
The decision here is totally in line with how it was enforced in the past, unrelated to Palestine.
Come one, you know you’re just feigning igorance here.
You’re missing the point, I’m not feigning ignorance, I’m challenging the hypocrisy.
German politics have become so fucking toxic to pro-Palestinian advocacy that merely the mention of the word Palestine is considered a breach of decorum. The shirt did not say “Free Palestine”, a clearly political message, it merely said the name of the country. Do you not see that when the mere mention of Palestine is considered political you have crossed into extremely problematic territory? Do you not see that the symbolic erasure of the mere mention of Palestine as an entity that can be mentioned without controversy, is a kind of affirmation of the policy of erasure of an entire people, precisely at the moment when a genocide is happening? Do you not see why this is such an infuriating betrayal of what so many of us saw as a model democracy? I fucking love Germany, which is why it so fucking hurtful to see this.
And I’m telling you there is none.
Other members have been exeplled over simply wearing a hat or not wearing a tie in the past.
No, because that’s not what’s happening.
No, I don’t.
Can’t make you see what you refuse to see I guess.
This is incredibly sad.
Well, you can’t see something that isn’t there.
C’est l’histoire d’un homme qui tombe d’un immeuble de 50 étages. A chaque étage il se répète : « Jusqu’ici tout va bien. » « Jusqu’ici tout va bien.» « Jusqu’ici tout va bien. »… mais l’important c’est pas la chute : c’est l’atterrissage.