C onnewitzers have to go through a lot, whether they want to or not. Almost exactly ten years ago, neo-Nazis attacked the district in Leipzig that is considered left-wing. On the so-called “Day X” two years ago, the police locked down the district is almost gone.
What is new is that neither the police nor Nazis play the central roles. A few weeks ago, several pro-Palestinian groups announced that they would protest, among other things, against “Zionist thug gangs” in the south of Leipzig under the motto “Antifa means: Free Palestine”. The starting point for this was individual attacks on Palestinian solidarity actions in Leipzig, such as an attack by masked people on an information stand.
The aim of the demonstration was to be the office of the local left-wing politician Juliane Nagel and the socio-cultural center Conne Island be. In the eyes of the protesters, they symbolize the anti-German movement that has roots in Leipzig. Protests in solidarity with Israel then formed, from non-party anti-fascists to the German-Israeli Society.
Antifa anti Antifa
The threat of a “left against left” scenario also attracted individual representatives from the right-wing extremist and cross-front milieu to Leipzig. This also led to a rare sight in Leipzig-Connewitz: inspired by a general state of emergency and a massive police presence, recognizable neo-Nazis were able to feel safe for a moment in the otherwise well-protected anti-fascist district between Israel and Palestine flags.
Both camps managed to mobilize nationwide, and in the end they were each other almost 3,500 participants. Shortly before, the Palestine Demo deviated from its original route, also because the expected resistance was greater than expected. The day of protest in Leipzig remained more peaceful than many others.
It would be easy to be amused by the obvious absurdities. Circumstances alone don’t allow that. In the neighboring state of Saxony-Anhalt, there is a threat of unprecedented AfD success this year. In Thuringia, the right-wing extremist Höcke Youth was founded parallel to the day of protest in Leipzig. Right-wingers, conservatives and the BSW have long wanted to withdraw funding from spaces like Conne Island in the Leipzig city council.
Leipzig-Süd is considered one of the few places in all of East Germany where leftists like Juliane Nagel can still win a direct mandate. This is also why the Leipzig left largely withdrew from the mobilizations of both demo blocks. They only urged peacefulness.
Palestine flags on the “cross”
In retrospect it became clear that this approach was not strategically unwise. Although the Palestine protesters wanted their demonstration to be understood as a “criticism of solidarity”, at least the people of Connewitz mostly shook their heads at their action.
Also some otherwise pro-Palestinian groups cautiously distanced themselves from the attempt to seamlessly link decades of anti-fascist work in East Germany with more recent Palestine solidarity. That didn’t stop some youth groups from imagining themselves on the right side in their inner-left role play, while neo-Nazis watched in amusement from the side.
While left-wing spaces in the East are under unprecedented pressure from the right, the Palestinian flags are now flying at the “cross”. This may have seemed like a victory to some protesters, but almost nothing was gained. It remains to be hoped that this realization will not only mature when the spaces in which arguments about the Middle East could take place have completely disappeared in the very Near East.