[lbo-talk] Boycott The Left Book Fair in Berlin

Angelus Novus fuerdenkommunismus at yahoo.com
Sat May 26 17:53:51 PDT 2012


The English text is poorly translated, but I think the meaning is clear to anyone.

Please support this call for solidarity against the censorship by the Berlin Linke Buchtage against Laika Verlag.

Laika also publishes fantastic German translations of Marxist authors like Daniel Bensaid and John Bellamy Foster.

They also publish a very nice Book/DVD series, the "Library of Resistance", in cooperation with the Marxist daily newspaper Junge Welt.

http://boykottlinkebuchtage.blogspot.de

No Censorship of Leftwing Authors – Boycott “Linke Buchtage”!

For years German leftwing critics of Israeli occupation-politics and Israeli imperialist wars (dressed up as “War on Terror”) are defamed, mobbed, threatened, censored – in some cases even violently attacked.

Now, the agitation against critical leftists has reached a new level: The Laika Verlag, a publisher in Hamburg, has been excluded from participation in the “Linke Buchtage” (15th  till 17th of June 2012 in Berlin), a “leftists” bookfair. Upon the publisher’s inquiry a spokesman of the organizer claimed “political reasons”: In 2011 Laika Verlag had published a book entitled “Mitternacht auf der Marvi Marmara”( “Midnight on the Marvi Marmara”). The book included reports and reflections from roughly 50 authors – among them many Israelis and Palestinians – on the attempt by the Gaza-flotilla to run the blockade imposed by Israel as well as critical views on the attack of the Israeli navy on the ships, during which nine passengers were killed.

In recent years more and more former anticapitalist leftwing structures, parties, foundations as well as the German media have neutralized themselves politically. They are being colonized by neoconservative and other bourgeois rightists, who appear in the guise of “antideutsche Linke” (“anti-german leftists”) or “Ideologiekritiker” (“critics of ideology”). Obviously, also the turn of the „Linke Buchtage“ has come. A constructive debate with the organizers is not possible. They act under cover of anonymity und refuse to enter any discussion of their decision, which is beyond the pale.   The expulsion of the Laika Verlag from the „Linke Buchtage“ is one more attempt to silence international leftwing voices against occupation, war and oppression.

We will not accept this. The time has come to point the way. We call for a boycott  of the „Linke Buchtage“.



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