Leipzig Book Fair opens
Activists disrupt Scholz’s speech
March 21, 2024, 12:44 a.m
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Flanders and the Netherlands are guest countries at the Leipzig Book Fair this year. At the opening, however, the focus is on a different region: Chancellor Scholz’s speech is interrupted by pro-Palestinian activists. And the book prize-winning philosopher Omri Boehm laments “catastrophic failure” in the Middle East.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s speech at the opening of the Leipzig Book Fair was interrupted several times by demonstrators on Wednesday evening. During the speech, several activists scattered around the Gewandhaus shouted loudly but largely incomprehensibly into the SPD politician’s speech. According to several witnesses sitting closer, the shouters accused the Israeli government of genocide in the Gaza Strip.
Large parts of the protest were drowned out by sustained applause from the audience. “Here in Leipzig, we are all brought together by the power of words – not shouting,” said Scholz, accompanied by applause.
After a few minutes he was able to continue his opening speech. Scholz came out as a bookworm. “All of us – and I include myself here – are united by a love of reading,” he said. He is no more tied to a specific genre than the trade fair: “If you allow it, then behind the cover of the book there is a surprise that we often miss on the Internet because algorithms show us mainly what we think is good anyway, right should find good.” If you allow it, you will find something interesting, exciting or touching everywhere.
Anyone who reads allows perspectives other than their own and takes a personal interest in developments, says Scholz. With every chapter, with every new page, contradictions that seemed unbridgeable in everyday life could be overcome. “Reading is therefore daily proof that we can understand each other despite our differences, that our societies, in Germany and in Europe, are by no means doomed to drift apart.”
Scholz appealed: “Let us not follow those who want to divide us, who want to deny entire groups in this country their membership in our society. Let us never believe those whose answers ultimately result in intolerance, exclusion and hatred.” This would ruin the country “not only morally but also economically.”
Prize winner Boehm: Germany should speak “hard truths”.
At the opening, the Leipzig Book Prize for European Understanding 2024 was awarded to the German-Israeli philosopher Omri Boehm for his book “Radical Universalism”. In his acceptance speech, he spoke of mistakes on all sides in the Middle East conflict and lamented “catastrophic failure” on all sides. “My Palestinian friends know that anyone who calls what my country is now doing in Gaza self-defense deeply shames my identity, Jewish and Israeli,” Boehm said in his widely applauded speech. At the same time, he called it a “moral bankruptcy” if the Hamas massacres of October 7th were described as armed resistance.
Regarding positions from Germany, Boehm said: “What about the German-Jewish friendship? Where it exists, it is a true miracle. One that is particularly close to my heart.” But this miracle must be protected from devaluation. No German-Jewish friendship can exist “if, in these dark times, there is no room for the difficult truths that must be said in the name of Jewish-Palestinian friendship.” The truth does not have to be sacrificed because of friendship, on the contrary, Boehm continued: “Hard truths must be spoken openly. Because we should remain friends.”
The Leipzig Book Fair – the most important German literary show after Frankfurt – runs from Thursday to Sunday. 2085 exhibitors from 40 countries present their books and new publications. After positive advance sales, an increase in visitor numbers is expected; 274,000 people came last year. As guest countries this year, the Netherlands and Flanders are presenting themselves as a common language and cultural area under the motto “Everything but flat”.