VHS Osnabrück: When education does harm

To mark “70 Years of Israel”, the Volkshochschule Osnabrück (municipal adult education centre) is holding several highly questionable events. They one-sidedly reinforce the narrative of the Palestinian side and are one-sided and highly tendentious in their choice of subject, choice of speakers and programmatic framing.

Here are the links to 2 of the events. At the very bottom is our first letter, above it the first reply. We have now begun extensive research and will document the entanglements of this VHS.

https://www.vhs-os.de/page_/VhsConnectSearch/courseJump?courseId=507-C-18A7211

https://www.vhs-os.de/page_/VhsConnectSearch/courseJump?courseId=507-C-18A7210

Our letter to the VHS Osnabrück

Dear Sir or Madam,

in our letter of yesterday we mistakenly stated that the „Deutsch-Palästinensische Gesellschaft“ is described by the Verfassungsschutz NRW (the domestic intelligence service of North Rhine-Westphalia) as the „German arm of Hamas“. That is incorrect. The Verfassungsschutz NRW describes the „Palästinensische Gemeinschaft in Deutschland e.V. (PGD)“ in this way. We apologise to you and to the „Deutsch-Palästinensische Gesellschaft“ for the oversight. Our criticism of your events remains, however, now in corrected form.

On 15 May an event entitled „100 Jahre jüdische Heimstätte Palästina“ (100 Years of a Jewish Homeland in Palestine) is to take place on your premises. A further event entitled „70 Jahre Israel – 70 Jahre Nakba“ (70 Years of Israel – 70 Years of Nakba) has been announced for 5 June. For both events your cooperation partner is the „Deutsch palästinensische Gesellschaft“.

We have noted these two events with the greatest irritation, which relates to two levels:

1. Choice of subject and speakers

Both the titles of the events and the choice of speakers could not be more unequivocal or more tendentious. If one wishes to convey background knowledge about a conflict, one should let the parties to the conflict have their say. You, by contrast, one-sidedly give the stage to pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli representatives. Should you be interested in an exchange on the substance, we would be glad to help arrange suitable experts.
You attempt to legitimise Professor Verleger as supposedly neutral by way of his status as the son of Shoah survivors and a former member of the Zentralrat der Juden (Central Council of Jews in Germany). That he enjoys hardly any backing within the majority of the Jewish community is well founded: his statements are essentially apt to demonise Israel one-sidedly and to serve the narrative of the Palestinian Arabs as the exclusive victims (cf. http://www.juedische-allgemeine.de/article/view/id/20006 ).
Mr Musharabash’s qualification to “sound out a viable solution” is, in view of his curriculum vitae, simply absurd.
We do not impute bad motives to you, but we hereby bring to your attention our utmost dismay at these events.

2. Cooperation partner

In accordance with its stated objectives, the „Deutsch-Palästinensische Gesellschaft“ is not a neutral cooperation partner and is therefore, in our view, not suited to contributing to the objective communication of knowledge.

Admission to both events is free of charge. Who is financing these events?

We expect you to cancel both events. The choice of your cooperation partner alone deprives both events of any justification for taking place within the framework of a Volkshochschule.

For the sake of completeness we should like to point out that we will publish this letter as well as your replies. The personal contact details of the persons replying will, however, be redacted.

We look forward to your reply.

Yours faithfully

Dr Elio Adler
Chairman of the Board

The reply of the VHS Osnabrück

Dear Dr Adler,

I confirm receipt of your email of 12 February 2018 and of the correction sent the following day, which contains a rectification with regard to the false accusations contained in the first message.

In your email you make the claim that the speakers at the events you list represent one-sidedly pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli positions that are apt to “demonise Israel one-sidedly”. You further state that both speakers are unacceptable on account of their curricula vitae and that the choice of the cooperation partner alone (the Deutsch-Palästinensische Gesellschaft, Osnabrück regional group) “deprives both events of any justification for taking place within the framework of the Volkshochschule.” Finally, you confront me with your expectation that I “cancel both events.”

Let me first answer somewhat more fundamentally, in order to make clear to you why civic education traditionally performs an important task at our Volkshochschule and at others.

After the First World War and the fall of the Empire, civic education was an essential justification for the founding of the Volkshochschulen in Germany, and again in the Federal Republic after their abolition under the Nazi dictatorship. From the outset, “popular education” at Volkshochschulen had a clear emancipatory educational character in the tradition of the European Enlightenment and was, moreover, strongly rooted in workers’ education after the First World War. Civic education work at Volkshochschulen builds on this tradition today. Since their founding, the Volkshochschulen have understood themselves as democratic places of social and political learning. Civic education has particular importance here; it pursues neither indoctrination nor party politics and fosters general commitment to democratic values and human rights and against fundamentalism. Volkshochschulen are distinguished by their political neutrality and by the broad approach of social education, which does not at all rule out that the respective subjective view of the respective course leaders and speakers may of course find expression in individual events. What matters, however, is to pursue an approach in the overall picture of the educational programme that reflects the existing plurality and the controversial standpoints of the differing opinions.

The basis for civic education (and also for offerings in other programme areas) is the so-called Beutelsbacher Konsens (Beutelsbach Consensus). The Beutelsbacher Konsens goes back to a conference of the Baden-Württemberg Landeszentrale für Politische Bildung (state agency for civic education) held in Beutelsbach in 1976 and has three premises:

• The prohibition of overwhelming: opinions must not be imposed.
• The requirement of controversy: the controversial presentation of social questions and the possibility of free formation of opinion must be guaranteed.
• Participant orientation: enabling participation and involvement in everyday social and political life

We as the Osnabrück VHS take these guidelines and tasks very seriously. This has been visible for decades in a highly differentiated programme in the field of civic education, which repeatedly takes up subjects of great social relevance that are, as a rule, discussed controversially. That such offerings do not meet with approval in all sections of the population has been a constant accompaniment to our work for decades.

Let me illustrate this with a few examples from my own work as managing director and, at the same time, the person responsible for civic education, which also show that protests against VHS events – and I regard your remarks as such – are not an everyday occurrence for us, but by no means unusual either:

• There were fierce public protests from the right-wing spectrum against the Wehrmacht exhibition, which I brought to Osnabrück in 1999 and whose extensive programme I organised at the time. Neo-Nazi groups demonstrated against the exhibition, and I myself was attacked in anonymous letters.
• An exhibition on the subject of „Rechte Propaganda“ (right-wing propaganda), staged jointly by the VHS and the local museum, provoked the same reactions. A lecture by the current president of the Lower Saxony Verfassungsschutz in the VHS hall was massively disrupted by numerous members of the neo-Nazi scene who turned up, and matters escalated no further only because a larger police training group happened to be present at the lecture.
• A Holocaust survivor speaking in the VHS hall was massively insulted verbally and accused of lying, and I had to exercise my authority as the householder. These examples could be continued.
• VHS events on the Kurdish question did not please Turks living in Osnabrück, which led to protests.
• Several critical events on radical Islamism or on Islam in general (e.g. with Ahmad Mansour, Hamed Abdel-Samad, Yassin Musharbash, Necla Kelek or Seyran Ateş) did not please certain Muslim-influenced circles. Several of these events were held under police protection because of threats against the respective speakers; in one case there was a small demonstration in front of the VHS building.
• VHS events with the former chairman of the Zentralrat der Juden, Paul Spiegel, or with the envoy of the Israeli embassy in Berlin were also held under police protection, which of course raises the question of whether it is soon to become standard that events on political subjects can take place only under police protection. Is that the political climate of the future?
• Events at our institution on the refugee issue, and above all the numerous German courses we run for refugees, arouse displeasure in those circles which are of the opinion in any case that these people should not be taken in here.

I could cite many further examples, but I think I have illustrated the problem sufficiently. What conclusions are now to be drawn, and what does that mean for the lectures you criticise? Should I rather avoid, in anticipatory obedience, all subjects that are politically controversial and where there is a danger of “treading on someone’s toes”? Then it would be consistent to discontinue civic education altogether.

In conclusion I should also like to address the charge of “one-sidedness” you have raised. You have now arbitrarily picked out two events from the current VHS programme, which has probably hardened into a false overall impression on your part. I should therefore like to set out the overall picture for you briefly and give you an insight into the events of recent years, of which you have taken no notice:

• Dr Moshe Zimmermann, head of the R. Koebner Centre for German History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, gave a lecture in 2011 in the context of the exhibition „Die Nakba – Flucht und Vertreibung der Palästinenser 1948“ under the title „Die Angst vor dem Frieden: Das israelische Dilemma.“ In the same context MEP Dr Hans Gert Pöttering, the former President of the European Parliament, spoke on the subject „Die EU und die Nahost-Frage“. In addition, a conference was held in cooperation with the Deutsch-Palästinensische Gesellschaft (DPG) and the Deutsch-Israelische Gesellschaft (DIG) under the title „Wem gehört das Heilige Land? Der Nahost-Konflikt aus palästinensischer und aus israelischer Sicht“. https://www.nzz.ch/unerwuenschte_palaestina-ausstellung-1.10402907
• Professor emeritus Dr Bassam Tibi lectured on „Der Euro-Islam als Alternative zum islamistischen Antisemitismus“. (in cooperation with the DIG)
• „Die Vertreibung der Juden aus den arabischen Staaten im 19./20. Jahrhundert“ was the subject addressed by Dr Omar Kamil. (in cooperation with the DIG)
• The foreign correspondent Marcel Pott spoke on „Der Kampf um die arabische Seele. Der steinige Weg zur islamischen Demokratie“.
• „Wir weigern uns Feinde zu sein. Perspektivwechsel im Nahostkonflikt“ was the title of a weekend seminar with the film-makers Stefanie Landgraf and Johannes Gulde.
• Dr Joseph Croiteru lectured on „Die neue Islamisten-Achse: Die Folgen der Arabellion und Israel“.
• The ARD foreign correspondent Werner Sonne lectured on „Staatsraison? Wie Deutschland für Israels Sicherheit haftet“.
• Tovia Ben Chorim spoke at a joint event with the DIG and the Gesellschaft für Christlich-Jüdische Zusammenarbeit (Society for Christian-Jewish Cooperation) on „Strömungen des Judentums in Israel heute“.
• At a joint panel discussion with the DIG and the DPG, their chairs Kais Evenhuis and Nazih Musharbash discussed the subject „Der Israel-Palästina-Konflikt – einmal anders dargestellt“.
• Likewise at a cooperative event with the DIG and the DPG, several academics discussed the subject „Eine Wahrheits- und Versöhnungskommission für Israel und Palästina? Eine Vision?“.
• In cooperation with the DIG, Alex Feuerherdt spoke on „Israel, die Palästinenser und das Wasser“ and Dr Konstantin Seidler on „Zionismus – eine emanzipatorische Bewegung?“.
• Likewise in cooperation with the DIG, Mohammed Miro Hasinyani spoke on „Die Kurden – Ein Volk ohne Staat im Kampf gegen den IS-Terror“ and Professor Achim Lichtenberger on „Biblische Archäologie – eine politische Frage?“. The envoy of the Embassy of the State of Israel also spoke, on the subject „50 Jahre Deutsch-Israelische Beziehungen“.
• The subject „Iranisches Atomprogramm und westliche Politik: Kein Grund zur Beunruhigung?“ was presented by Dr Matthias Küntzel.
• Together with the DIG and the Gesellschaft für Christlich-Jüdische Zusammenarbeit, the journalist Jörg Armbruster was invited on the subject „Willkommen im Gelobten Land? Deutschstämmige Juden in Israel“, and Dr Joseph Heid lectured on „Der Zionismus ist eine prachtvolle Idee. Wilhelm II. und Theodor Herzl“.
• In a cooperation with the DIG and the DPG the writer Lizzie Doron was invited and read from her book „Sweet Occupation“.

The list is incomplete, but it should give you an impression of the “one-sidedness” of our programme. All the events enjoyed very lively attendance – by members of the DIG as well as of the DPG and by people generally interested in the subject. The detailed discussions, including at the joint events with the DPG, are thoroughly lively and controversial. But people talk to one another and take note of other standpoints, which apparently no longer seems to be possible everywhere.

I should also not leave unmentioned that we as a VHS have for decades been particularly committed to coming to terms with the National Socialist past. In this context we organise, among other things, eyewitness talks with victims of Nazi terror and Holocaust survivors for schools on a large scale. In total, more than 67,000 pupils from Osnabrück and the neighbouring municipalities have now taken part in such events. https://www.vhs-os.de/ueber-uns/filme/zeitzeugengespraech-07112016.html In view of resurgent racist and fascistoid tendencies, we regard this work as particularly important.

Finally, my answer to your demand that the planned events be cancelled. In view of my remarks above, I shall not do so. You are, however, most welcome to take part in the events and join the discussion, for these events thrive precisely on controversial discussion. You are cordially welcome!

Since you pointed out in your email that you have a website and that you also use the echo chambers of the social networks in protesting against the VHS events, and that you intend to publish my reply to your email by these distribution channels, I should like to point out as a precaution that in this case I attach importance to a fair and unabridged publication of my statement. I shall respond by legal means to publications that distort the meaning or are fragmentary.

Yours faithfully

Dr Carl-Heinrich Bösling

Now the SPD Osnabrück has felt obliged to take a “protective” stand in front of the VHS:

27 February 2018, our reply, this time to the SPD:

Quod erat demonstrandum

1. We criticised very clearly the only announced events of the VHS Osnabrück on the occasion of this year’s 70th anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel. They are conceptually entirely one-sided.
2. Our criticism does not relate to the content – for, contrary to the defensive portrayal by those concerned, we can bear controversial opinions. Precisely with controversial subjects, voices for and against should be included conceptually within one and the same event. In the case of the events mentioned, however, it was decided to offer a stage to one side only, and specifically to speakers and cooperation partners who are highly questionable: the VHS Osnabrück has brought advocates and supporters of the antisemitic and in part already banned BDS campaign and anti-Israel agitators into its house in order to conduct a supposedly controversial discussion! Nor does it help that events have been staged in the past whose speakers presented a different opinion.
3. Do you wish to present Israel as an occupying state deserving of criticism? Very well, then find speakers and cooperation partners for that purpose who are at least beyond all doubt!
4. The chairman of the cooperation partner DPG and the speakers we have criticised (as well as their associated organisations) have positioned themselves unacceptably in substance in the past: on 18 January 2018 the BDS movement was classified as antisemitic in a cross-party consensus. The SPD at federal level also agreed to this unanimously. The chairman of the DPG has made statements at public demonstrations and on the internet that are hardly still covered by freedom of expression.
5. It was expressly important to the head of the VHS, Dr Bösling, that his replies be reproduced unabridged. We were of course glad to do so. The other way round, this does not appear to apply. Our remarks on the above-mentioned participants and our long collection of evidence for the shortcomings alleged above were evidently NOT passed on or – still worse – were not answered on the substance with a single word. .
6. We received no further reply to our third letter; instead we came across the press release of the SPD Osnabrück on the website of the Deutsch-Palästinensische Gesellschaft and through the notice of the BIB e.V. more or less by chance. Evidently it is more in keeping with local custom in the “city of peace” to issue statements about others rather than at least to take note of the arguments of the other side.
7. The SPD, always so present in the “fight against antisemitism”, feels called upon to take a protective stand in front of the VHS Osnabrück. That is telling. The SPD group on the Osnabrück city council disseminates insinuations about us without checking them and adopts the narrative of the antisemitic BDS propagandists. Evidently it would even have been inconvenient to exercise a minimum of accuracy: the passage about the “irresponsible handling of your educational mandate” was contained only in the first version of our letter, which was sent on 12 February 2018 at 11.30 p.m. With urgency and a note in red we corrected and deleted this only a few hours later, on 13 February 2018 at 7.10 a.m. Both letters were sent to the same recipients and only the corrected letter was left on social media. Why was the correction not taken note of? Because one would then be less peacemaking in the city of peace, Osnabrück? Because it would make it easier to attack us?
8. Quod erat demonstrandum: politics allows itself, in good faith, to be harnessed to the cart of those who are in truth making fools of it. It believes it is doing good and even acting as a peacemaker, yet in doing so it promotes those who are evidently interested in spreading hatred and thereby certainly contribute anything but to greater peace.

We stand by our criticism. We accuse the SPD group on the Osnabrück city council of having positioned itself reflexively and uncritically in this supposed controversy.

With kind regards,

Dr Elio Adler
Chairman of the Board