For those who know me, know I travel a lot. According to the Star Alliance something in the order of 50,000 miles in October alone. As I travel, I enjoy meeting with people involved in various local technology scenes. Earlier today I had the chance to meetup with Martin Kliehm, who sits on Frankfurt's City Council and is a member of the German Pirate Party as well as a local web dev personality.
Kliehm represents a growing group of German technocrats who have been ushered into power mostly as part of the recent success of The Pirate Party of Germany (Piratenpartei Deutschland) or commonly referred to as Pirates / Piraten. Germany's Pirates have seen their platform open and ranks skyrocket over the last year, absorbing some of Germany's youth and political malcontent to win local elections in Frankfurt, Berlin, Cologne, Dusseldorf and Kiel.
To be frank, pun intended, I was not particularly familiar with the Piraten party in Germany, so I did some digging. The party was founded in September 2006 by what a recent article in The Atlantic describes as "a fervent but tiny group of German web activists. The activists had been meeting for months on a German wiki dedicated to re-creating the efforts of like-minded activists in Sweden, who had recently formed a political party known as the Pirate Party. The Germans' physical meeting was an endearing collection; 50 turned up. The wiki administrator, a 31-year-old with a soul patch and a Mohawk, called himself Mor Roquen or "Dark Knight" in a fictitious Elvish language. The group decided to call itself The Pirates, named after the Swedish Pirates and the Swedish file-sharing site ThePirateBay.se, which had long been a prominent target of the same internet regulation forces that this group so opposes."
The Atlantic article goes on to explain that "by the time they won 20 seats in the May election -- bringing their nationwide total to 45 seats in state legislatures -- Germany's Pirate Party claimed more than 30,000 members. Pirate Parties are officially registered in 15 European countries. They hold local government seats in Spain, Switzerland, and the Czech Republic. In 2009, Swedish voters elected two Pirate Party members to the European Parliament. A recent German opinion poll showed the Pirate Party tied for fourth nationally, with 7 percent saying they would vote for the party today."
Recently, the Pirates dreams have come crashing down, after surging ahead of the Free Democrats (FDP), Left Party and Greens to become Germany's third strongest party, polling 13 percent in April, the Pirates have fallen back to 4 percent. Their drop below the 5 percent threshold needed for seats in parliament could mean the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) and Greens recover enough votes to form a majority next year and oust current German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Party troubles aside, what I was expecting to hear from Kliehm was news of Frankfurt's burgeoning tech scene. In particular, a recent motion passed in Frankfurt's City Council that enables the city to become a sister city to San Francisco with the goal of fostering increased trade between the two cities. As a side note, the German consulate in San Francisco is looking for organizations who would like to keep contact to organizations in Frankfurt. Interestingly, for the most part this is not what we discussed. The conversation took an unexpected turn toward Germany's poor immigration policies and how Kliehm was ashamed of how his country was handling its refugee population. Yes. a technocrate with a conscience.
He begins to tell me a story of the current state of immigration in Germany, in what he says is "inhuman and xenophobic." Kliehm who is a native German goes on to describe the circumstances under which refugees live here today saying "They are denied freedom of movement, put into overcrowded camps in remote areas, which they can't leave. They are forbidden to work until their asylum application has been judged, which usually takes several years, sometimes a decade, and given less than 300 euro's / month to live on. Their children are allowed to go to school, but only until 9th grade thus limiting them from getting proper employment."
His cause is almost completely unknown outside of Germany, a quick Google search resulted in no english results. Kliehm tells me that the refugees have organized themselves on foot (some by bus) from Würzburg/Bavaria to Berlin and have been on hunger strike for almost a week now. They have set up a "camp" near the famous Brandenburg gate, but without tents or proper protection against the rain and low temperatures, there is constant illumination and police raids at 2 and 7 am. According to Kliehm the demonstrators are desperate and exhausted. When I asked what the government was doing, Kliehm say "The state minister of interior of Berlin is a member of the conservative party CDU and ignorant to the democratic value of demonstrations."
He says that "many members of parliament (almost exclusively pirates, greens, leftists) have shown up to support the refugees and to protect them from the police. Originally virtually nobody noticed the refugee camp, until people on twitter were calling for help in shock of police constraints that were violating human rights. Recently a Twitter hastag (#refugeecamp has been trending), German blogs, YouTube videos and live streaming has risen awareness about the situation. Finally newspapers and news channels get interested in the cause."
Kliehm believes that "what we need in Germany is a better immigration law, abolishment of the Residenzpflicht (obligation to stay within an administrative district), accommodation of refugees in proper apartments, work permissions, and equal education."
It seems that Kliehm and the Pirates may have found a new cause, although the question still remains whether or not this new found purpose will be enough to help restore their political fortunes.
If you're interested in learning more you can visit the following sites, (in German)
- Frankfurt refugee camp: http://fluechtlingsprotest-hessen.de/
- Refugee camp in Berlin: http://www.refugeetentaction.net/index.php?lang=en
- Live-Steaming from the Brandenburg Gate: http://bambuser.com/v/3104330
- English site: http://refugeecampberlininfo.tumblr.com
- Online Petition
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-- Update - -
The hunger strike and the #refugeecamp are in no way associated with the pirate party. A lot of the activists who are helping are members, but possibly because they have the (online)network to organize help fast.
It is very important that the protest is not associated with the pirate party or any of its members, because that would make it a political dummy action that helps members of parties distinguish themselves. This is not the case.
Everyone at the camp is there as a private person that wants to help, although members of the parliament have used their commissioned powers as assemblymen to protect the refugees and supporters from police harassment and violence. This is not an act of political profiling, but an act to defend human rights!
