Kampnagel in Hamburg: How low can you go? Report on an intervention on Zamzam Ibrahim’s performance

1. 
   

   

   
   Kampnagel in Hamburg: How low can you go? Report on an intervention on Zamzam Ibrahim’s performance Despite our protest, Kampnagel went ahead and hosted islamistic activist Zamzam Ibrahim. Zamzam‘s opening speech at Kampnagel's climate summit was held online, as decided by Kampnagel‘s director Amelie Deuflhard, to shield her from our protest – and maybe also to avoid further antisemitic outbursts of Ibrahim. Then again, Ibrahim was connected

   digitally only to the “BIPoC Climate Reflection Space” workshop she co-hosted on Saturday, January 27.
2. On the Kampnagel website, this event was listed as “sold out”, but three of us were allowed into the event on site – maybe it was because we had put on hijabs? Wrapped in them, we were greeted with joy at Kampnagel, apparently as representatives of the “global South” we fitted in perfectly with their ideology. Besides us, there were five other workshop participants in the room. “Sold out”? Well. When we were asked to introduce ourselves, we dropped our hijabs and revealed the words “Woman, Life, Freedom” written on our bodies. “Woman, Life, Freedom”: the slogan with which people in Iran have been risking their lives every day on the streets of Tehran and other cities for almost a year and a half now.
3. 
   
4. We confronted Zamzam Ibrahim with the fact that she had given an interview to the Iranian foreign broadcaster 'Press TV' – which is directly subordinate to the mullah regime – without demanding freedom for Iranian climate activists who are innocently locked up in Iranian prisons along with thousands of other people, threatened with torture and death sentences. Anti-Israel activist Zamzam Ibrahim’s response to this was that she did not know what or who Press TV was; and that she appeared there "solely" to campaign against the “genocide against the Palestinians”. “We” should not let “the system” divide us. Our intervention was probably too much for this anti-Semite booked by Kampnagel who then left the video conference. This workshop was supposed to be a “Safer Space for BIPoC”. We can only conclude: With the content presented, Kampnagel is unfortunately not a safe space for migrants, nor for exiled Iranians or for ex-Muslims, Jews or Israelis. Hamburg's anti-Semitism commissioner Stefan Hensel had criticized Zamzam Ibrahim’s invitation in detail in advance. Why didn’t Kampnagel change its program? We don’t want to see Islamists at cultural events in Hamburg, especially not at those that see themselves as cosmopolitan and anti-racist. We can only state this: Kampnagel is not anti-racist. In the eyes of those responsible for the program there, “global South” means inviting Islamists and protecting them from substantive dissent and protest. Kampnagel urgently needs to take action against anti-Semitism. The fact that this institution just continued with its program even after

   the city’s anti-Semitism commissioner had voiced a strong critique of it shows Kampnagel's ignorance and a willingness to accept and promote anti-Semitic tendencies in society.

Hamburg Initiative against Antisemitism, February 6, 2024