On Tuesday, the university group of the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) at Berlin’s Humboldt University submitted its election statement for the upcoming student parliament elections.
The elections on June 18 and 19 will take place under extraordinary conditions this year. While opponents of the genocide in Gaza are being suppressed by brutal police violence and prosecuted at the instigation of the management, university President Julia von Blumenthal and the Berlin Senate (state executive) are planning to tighten the Higher Education Act, which would allow students expressing critical anti-war views to be de-registered on a political basis.
Establishment politicians and the media have responded to an open letter from hundreds of lecturers condemning the violent dispersal of a protest camp at Berlin’s Freie Universität and defending students’ freedom of expression and assembly with a vicious smear campaign. At the same time, university campuses across Europe are being occupied by students to oppose Israel’s attack on Rafah and demand a halt to all Western arms supplies.
The struggle that the IYSSE has been waging for the past ten years against the imposed conformity at universities is thus gaining immense significance. We have revealed the militarist driving forces behind the attempt to attack the democratic rights of students and to turn German universities back into training schools for German imperialism. To stop the genocide in Gaza and the NATO war against Russia in Ukraine, the entire working class must be mobilised on the basis of an international and socialist programme against war and capitalism.
Below appears the statement of the IYSSE election list, which will be printed in the student election brochure. Take part in our election campaign and register as an active supporter at iysse.de/mitmachen.
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Stop the genocide in Gaza!
Stop the police violence against anti-war students!
We are running in the Student Parliament (StuPa) elections to oppose police violence against students who express critical anti-war views and media smears against lecturers. We will not allow opponents of war to be silenced at Humboldt University and for it to be turned into a training school for German militarism. It is not only our right, but our historical duty to speak out against the terrible genocide in Gaza, which is supported by the German government in every respect.
This war is not about “protecting Jewish lives,” but about pure economic interests. The same powers that are arming Israel are working together with anti-Semites and Nazi worshippers in Ukraine to defeat Russia militarily. In their fight for world hegemony, they are even prepared to accept nuclear war.
Scholarship instead of war propaganda!
In order to make Germany “fit for war,” the whole of society is being militarised and the budgets for education, health and housing are being slashed. Humboldt University plays a central role in the ideological preparations for war. While university management defames peaceful students as “antisemites” because they protest against genocide, it has for years backed the right-wing extremist Professor Baberowski, who claims that Hitler was “not vicious” and systematically trivialises the Holocaust.
We in the StuPa have been fighting against this war propaganda and the attacks on students’ democratic rights for 10 years. In view of the enormous escalation of the conflict between the militarism of the university management and the students, this work is of crucial importance. Only with a strong IYSSE in the StuPa can we fend off the attacks by the university management!
For a socialist perspective against fascism and war!
We students cannot win alone. The only social force capable of ending the genocide and defending democratic rights is the international working class, the great majority that creates all the wealth of society. As the youth organisation of the Fourth International, we stand for the unification of workers across all national, religious, and ethnic boundaries in the struggle against capitalism and war.
The brutal violence against opponents of war shows that it is pointless to appeal to the government. A world war can only be prevented if capitalism is overthrown and replaced by a socialist society in which the needs of working people come before the interests of profit. Join the IYSSE and follow us on instagram.com/iysse.de