EXBERLINER Issue 148 April 2016

“It was a tiny island with
bikers and hippies... and
then came the Ossis.”
www.exberliner.com
A Kotti guide for
hipsters, natives,
queers and Easyjetters
Issue 148 • €2.90 • April 2016
ATHINA RACHEL TSANGARI: “I thought it’d be interesting to
experiment with an all-male cast on a boat.” (p.28)
STEREO TOTAL: “We wouldn’t write a song about Merkel.” (p.36)
HAMID SULAIMAN: “In Syria, no one has the right to say that they have
nothing to do with war.” (p.42)
From burek to baklava,
five great places for that
real Kreuzberg flavour
U1 Cover 148.indd 2 21/03/16 21:30
Drugs, crime, violence:
Is Kottbusser Tor really
a ‘no-go zone’?
KREUZBERG
CHARACTERS
NOT JUST
FOR TOURISTS
CHEAP EATS
ON KOTTI
START-UPS
Our new regular
section on the
Berlin scene
What’s on? • Art • Fashion • Film • Food • Music • Nightlife • Stage
ISSUE 148
Cover photo by
Miron Zownir
PUBLISHERS
Maurice Frank, Nadja Vancauwenberghe,
Ioana Veleanu
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EDITORIAL / DESIGN
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Nadja Vancauwenberghe
ART DIRECTOR Stuart Bell
COPY/DEPUTY EDITOR Rachel Glassberg
WEB EDITOR Walter Crasshole
MUSIC Michael Hoh
FILM Zhuo-Ning Su
STAGE Lily Kelting
ART Amanda Ribas Tugwell
FOOD Françoise Poilâne
GRAPHIC DESIGNER Agata Sasiuk
PHOTOGRAPHERS Maria Runarsdottir,
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Heim, Liina Knirsch, Joseph Nowak, Yun-Hua
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■ Werner's political notebook By KONRAD WERNER
The AfD: Worse
than you think
So Germany has a new political party. Last
month, the “Alternative for Germany” persuaded
enough Germans that they should be represented
in three state parliaments. They even took almost
a quarter of the voters in one of those states (Saxony-Anhalt).
Not only that, it was on the back
of a proper turnout (between 60-70 percent), so
you can’t say that voter apathy let extremists get a
representation they don’t deserve. This was what
the people wanted.
But what does the AfD believe? What do they actually
want? These are especially
important questions because,
according to a ZDF poll, some
75 percent of their voters didn’t
vote for them because of their
political demands, but “to give
the other parties a warning”. But
the investigative journalists at
Correctiv last month got hold
of a draft of an AfD manifesto
(to be approved by the party this
month), which maps out some of
their ideas for how to run the country.
Here they are. (TL;DR: Ted Cruz would join.)
Stop trying to save the environment: The
AfD doesn’t believe in man-made climate change,
which they say is based on “computer models whose
conclusions aren’t confirmed by measurements
and observations.” That’s why they want to scrap
Germany’s Renewable Energy Act, which came into
force in 2000 and was updated in 2014 to administer
the transition to renewables. “We will end the
stigmatisation of CO2 as a pollutant and stop all
unilateral action by Germany for the reduction of
CO2 emissions,” the manifesto says. It also wants
to loosen Germany’s fracking law even further and
extend the life of nuclear power stations.
Imprison alcoholics, drug addicts, and the
psychologically disturbed: No more messing
about. The AfD plans to get rid of the rehabilitation
and treatment of criminals with mental illnesses
THE PARTY
WANTS TO
BAN MINARETS,
AS A “SYMBOL
OF ISLAMIC
DOMINANCE”.
– anybody who hurts
someone else or “poses
a danger” should go to
prison, no matter what.
Restrict Muslim and
Jewish rituals, but
especially Muslim
ones: An internal email
exchange between
AfD deputy Beatrix
von Storch and other party leaders, also revealed
by Correctiv, showed that she considers the issues
of asylum and the euro as “all used up” and that
she now thinks the party needs to concentrate on
discrediting Islam. To that end, the AfD wants to
ban circumcision and halal (and
kosher) slaughter. It also wants
to ban minarets, as a “symbol
of Islamic dominance”, as well
as burqas and niqabs in public.
Meanwhile, imams should only be
allowed to teach Islam in German
after having attended a German
university. All this, says the AfD,
will aid integration.
No more “single parent
propaganda”: Don’t really need
to parse this bit of the manifesto for you: “Those
who have fallen into this situation through no fault
of their own of course deserve our empathy and
the support of the community. But we reject any
state financing of the self-chosen lifestyle ‘single
parent’. We are strongly against the attempts of
organisations, media, and politicians to propagate
single parenthood as a normal, progressive, or even
desirable lifestyle.”
No more inheritance tax, profit tax, or
government unemployment benefits: The
AfD plans to get rid of the two taxes that affect
the rich the most. It also wants unemployment
benefits to be privatised, so that “employees will
have the path cleared for their own individual and
tailored solution.”
In conclusion: I think Germany can stop sniggering
and shaking its head about Donald Trump and
his supporters. We just voted them in here. ■
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