Nordrhein-Westfalen Landtag, Plenarprotokoll 17/149, pp. 37-38.
Right honorable Frau President. Right honorable colleagues.
The major inquiry is praiseworthy. It after all shows that
even the colleagues of the Bundnis90/Die Grünen delegation are concerned about
scholarly freedom [Wissenschaftsfreiheit].
The State government’s answers nevertheless provide little
information on the real influence of Chinese authorities over the Confucius
Institute in the German universities.
Yet the government is not to be unconditionally blamed that
these answers are so little evidentiary. The universities are plainly
autonomous. On that account, the State government cannot answer questions on
the intermediary contacts between them and the Confucius Institute, on
scholarly exchange and, in that regard, to what extent open or subtle influence
will be acquired.
We need now leave it to the scholarly personnel as to what extent
an unfavorable influencing and inadmissible direction are resisted and a restraint
imposed. Such prominent occurences as at the University Duisburg-Essen now only
make clear that there obviously are such influences.
To that extent, right honorable colleagues, this major
inquiry could provide no real information on inadmissible manipulations on the
part of the Confucius Institute. Thence, one can only proceed on the basis
that official representatives of a country like China, in which intellectual
life is strongly directed and controlled, self-evidently need to carry out the
agenda of their homeland. For him who still doubts this, there is no help.
Details are plainly not to be exposed in all exactness because mental
influencing generally occurs unnoticed and is not measurable.
If however you are concerned about freedom of opinion – and that
is certainly to be praised – then you could perhaps just for once begin here in
Germany. Since numerous scholars in German universities have wanted to speak
and quite concretely complain of the curtailments of freedom of opinion in the
German universities and colleges.
Meanwhile, the pressure on many scholars in German colleges
and universities has obviously become so great that now 200 of them trusted in
openness and with the establishment of the Scholarly Freedom Network [Netzwerks Wissenschaftsfreiheit] have
founded an organization which is opposed to the further narrowing of scholarly
freedom.
In its manifesto, the Network states – I may cite with
permission of the President –
We observe that the
constitutionally sheltered freedom of research and teaching shall be
increasingly placed under moral and political reservation [Vorbehalt]. We must take cognizance of increased attempts to set
boundaries, alien to scholarship, on the freedom of research and teaching, even
approaching the restraint of applicable rights [schon
im Vorfeld der Schranken des geltenden Rechts]. Before the background of their
worldview and their political aims, individuals claim to determine which
inquiries, themes and arguments are objectionable. Thereby is the attempt
undertaken to standardize according to worldview and politically instrumentalize
research and teaching. Who does not play along must then figure on being
discredited. In this way, a conformity pressure is generated which ever more
frequently leads to nipping in the bud scholarly debates.
If one thus reads this and calls to mind that you in your
inquiry occupy yourselves with China, then one could get the impression that
you want to distract from abuses here in this country. Scholarly freedom – a higher
value – is of course also obviously nipped in the bud, as the colleagues in the
universities write. Perhaps you may for once put a major inquiry as to how
freedom of opinion and scholarly freedom are disposed in German universities.
Freedom of thought these days again experiences, as a direct
result of an arbitrary drawing of boundaries, such a narrowing that entire
areas of reality will be excluded from dialectical thought processes and be measured by dogmas.
We see this, ja,
also outside the universities when the pandemic is discussed, and in regards
vaccination and all these events, how quickly people are brought into ill
repute who simply express themselves critically.
We of the AfD delegation already in November 2019 had
submitted a motion which referred to the restriction of freedom of opinion in
the universities and had demanded of the government to do everything to support
university administrations in regards the maintenance of the freedom of teaching
and scholarship. The motion bore the tile “ ‘The spirits which I summon…’ [‘Die Geister, die ich rief…’] The ‘Generation
Antifa’ must be stopped!” With this
title, the actors were alike named who contest freedom of opinion in the
universities and even threaten with violence scholars not in favor. There were
then already various attacks on scholars in the press.
You responded to this motion with mockery and scorn. To that
extent, I ask myself: With what effect shall this major inquiry clarify that Chinese officials
influence scholarly freedom in Germany? I will probably require longer than the
weekend to answer this question.
You then – as is your mode – had reacted only with
appeasement and, ja, in part with scorn.
To that extent, I doubt the earnestness of your motions to guarantee freedom of
opinion and scholarship in German universities and colleges. I hope that this
may yet change.
Many thanks.
[trans: tem]
