We could say that Trumpism is a sort of revenge of all against all.
The Ku Klux Klan is back, but now it is the most powerful agency in human history.
– Franco ‘Bifo’ Berardi ‘New Heroes’ eflux, January 15, 2025
Franco ‘Bifo’ Berardi: Once upon a time, I remember that we knew how to come out from this hell. We called it internationalism. Internationalism was exactly the possibility of finding a common ground of understanding among white exploited workers and colored people of the world. We have lost that way. And now we wage a war that everybody will lose.
My consideration is that now it’s the moment of coming out from the violence of modernity, from the violence of colonialism, from the violence of capitalist exploitation. We have to do this, not for moral reasons, but because the alternative is fascism and massive destruction of life, of our life, not only of the life of the others. You know what is happening in Paris, Berlin, Barcelona, and London, and everywhere in Europe, is a new form of war that we will not win.
Delayed outrage and grief is a powerful force that is now surfacing, thirsting for revenge, not just in the Muslim Middle East, but also very likely beyond. Debts are to be paid, not only the financial, but also the historical debts that often are harsher to repay. We have to pay our debt.
The population of Europe has to understand that we have to pay our debt. We, the workers of Europe, the intellectuals, the students, young people, women of Europe, have to say, it is in our interest as workers to open the borders. We have to say, it is in our interest as workers to open the borders.
Thomas Materner (Kassel city council & AfD member): We have to tolerate illegal immigration, so that we do celebrate this with such a monument. This is something that doesn’t fit here, and that is this annoying block of stone.
German Reporter: The regional newspaper HNA mentions that, referring to the obelisk, in front of the Commission of Culture has deformed art, resembling the term degenerate art from the Nazi era.
Thomas Materner: My precise wording was, ideologically politicised deformed art. By deformed I do not mean that the art is deformed, but that it distorts the Königsplatz in which it is located.
Franco ‘Bifo’ Berardi: What I want to understand is the background of the growing racism, fascism that is mounting first of all in Europe.
You see, we tend to think that white supremacism is a strange marginal fringe phenomenon that happens in some countryside of the United States of America. Forget about that. White supremacism is something which is deeply rooted in the global crisis of the Western domination of the world.
So we are unable to face our own impotence, and we are heading, we are going towards an extermination. I dare to use this word. You know, 30,000 people officially drowned in the Mediterranean.Is it a small figure? Is it a big figure? I don’t know. I wanted to use the name of Auschwitz as a shelter, as a protection against the Fascism that is coming again, against the violence, against the Holocaust that is looming at the horizon.
Was I right? Was I wrong?
Pope. L. (Whispering Campaign): The language is already spoken by everyone. It remains a mystery.
German Newspaper Article: Refugees suffering Auschwitz on the beach. German-Italian artist has created a performance that uses terms such as Gauletier, the concentration camp, or the salty water has replaced deadly Zyklon B. This performance is called ‘Auschwitz on the Beach’. ‘Auschwitz on the Beach’ equates the plight of refugees with death camp headline. This shows a lack of taste, which shouldn’t even happen. The comparisons to Auschwitz are very complicated. Everything that happened in the Holocaust is unique. The Nazis’ cruelties, the cruel and untold crimes are unique. Due to pressure from the city of Kassel, the controversial performance in its scheduled format was cancelled. A reading with the artist in charge will take place this Thursday. At this time too, Franco Berardi will probably resort to a comparison of the refugee crisis and the Nazi genocide.
Franco ‘Bifo’ Berardi: But now we have the title of ‘Shame on Us’. We have decided to cancel that performance because what is important for us is not the freedom of speech. I don’t believe that censorship is our problem.
We are overwhelmed by the hyper-saturating amount of talks, images, and words. The problem is not having the freedom of saying something. Important is to face our impotence, our present impotence, our sentiment of shame.
When I read someone writing to me or to someone, shame on you, I say, yes, I do feel shame. I feel shame because I am unable to stop the fascism that is mounting everywhere. I read, for instance, an article in a magazine, in a journal that comes out in the city, of a guy titled in his article, ‘Das Ende der Kunst’, the end of art, original.
He says that we are relativizing, relativisierung of Nazism. Well, stop. Listen to me a second.
What do you mean with the word relativization? I prefer to use the word that is the exact translation, the good translation of relativization, contextualization. I want to understand what Nazism has been. What has been Nazism? Nazism has been the reaction of the humiliated workers of Germany.
Nazism has been the effect of the words of Adolf Hitler, who anticipated precisely the words of Donald Trump, saying to the humiliated people of Germany, you are not humiliated and exploited workers. You are white warriors and you will win. They did not win, but they destroyed Europe.
– audio and screenshots from the film Exergue on documenta 14 (2024) by Dimitris Athiridis, Chapter 12: Soft Power. Even though they are used without permission, out of political urgency (and the ethos of documenta 14 as ‘not owned by anyone in particuular’) I hope the director would allow me to share this specific sequence from his incredible 14-hour film in this way because it is now the only available record of ‘Bifo”s speech after the video was taken down from the documenta 14 website. I wrote about it in an unpublished article, availabel to read by clicking the image below.
