Hur Qassemi
Heidelberg: In Germany, despite large protests in Berlin and Frankfurt with tens of thousands of pro-Palestine supporters opposing the Zionist entity and its ally, the German state, the imperialist network remains unmoved, and the broader population stays largely silent and passive.
Every protest and demonstration for Palestine experiences state repression. The German state arrests dozens of people – most of them have become habitual offenders – for raising slogans like “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”, holding a picture of resistance fighter Leila Khaled, comparing the genocide in Gaza with the Nazi Holocaust, or even covering one’s face with a keffiyeh or a medical mask.
The next day, things get normal. Protestors resume the routine. Those charged with offenses consult with their lawyers. The scared ones become even more terrified and intend not to be as vocal as they were last time. Everything comes to a standstill again, for nothing seems to work out, and nothing is bringing about any change; then why should one risk one’s life, career, and education in the First World?
In the words of Marxist-Leninist theoretician Louis Althusser, “when nothing is happening, [the state ideology] has worked to perfection”.
The main aim of this text is to understand the German state, its ideology, the repression against pro-Palestinian voices, and the reproduction of relations of capitalism (and neo-colonialism) with the help of Althusser’s seminal theory of Repressive State Apparatus (RSA) and Ideological State Apparatus (ISA).
The reason for the emphasis on Germany is its influence in West Asia. Contemporary German imperialism, a subordination of the American Empire, is in its most brutal form to date as it keeps maintaining its antisemitic stance by weaponizing the Zionist entity, forcing the innocent Jewish community to stay away from Germany and settle in an area where life will always be at the crosshair of those who have been dispossessed by the Western project that Israel has been.
There is no doubt that in creating an illegitimate Zionist entity in West Asia, Germany also creates itself. Israel is but a mirror of what German society has become for a long time, a colonial watchdog in West Asia.
To maintain this status quo wherein the genocide sponsored by the United States and Germany keeps continuing, the latter has to make sure that its state ideology stands firm and is embedded solidly in the masses’ minds. Unfortunately, this ideology – the false consciousness – is not only embedded in the minds of people who are Zionists, anti-Deutsch, anti-Palestine, or Islamophobic, but also amongst the people who appear to be pro-Palestine and usually are seen on the right side of history by being involved in the movement in the country. This is not to say that their work and efforts are not necessary and that their intentions are not well-intentioned. To say this will be to undervalue their sacrifices and the efforts that are carried out by them to develop their class consciousness against imperialism.
Contextualizing Germany’s Role in the Genocide
According to reliable sources, in 2023 alone, Germany exported to Israel: 10,000 tank missiles, 3000 portable anti-tank weapons, 50 diesel engines for tanks, 500,000 rounds of ammunition for machine guns being used to exterminate an entire population, including most of the victims, children, and women(www.stoparmingisrael.de).
Germany, after the United States, is the largest supplier of major conventional arms to the Zionist and genocidal entity. Israel’s imports from Germany constitute 47 percent of its total, valued at € 326.5 million.
To hide its historical crimes and the responsibility attached to it, the German state justifies everything that the Zionist entity does. Killing masses of Jews in the Nazi Holocaust resulted, shockingly, in yet another antisemitic policy of supporting the ethnic-cleansing project of Israel and brainwashing the German Jewish community. However, that policy is merely a façade, as it is already apparent and exposed. What lies behind it is the imperialistic intentions and the maintenance of hegemony in West Asia, so that monopolistic and war-capitalism can continue wreaking havoc with the people of the Global South.
Germany, by sponsoring the ongoing genocide in Gaza, makes sure that it earns legitimacy in the Western sphere of the international community, given its deplorable, genocidal history, and also generates money by exporting weapons to Israel. The instability caused by imperialism and its brutal aims ensures that hundreds of thousands of people from West Asia and the Global South in general come to Germany and become part of the lumpen- and informal proletariat. There again is a façade that Germany is hospitable towards refugees and is generous enough to provide them with homes. Nothing can be further from the truth. The people in the Global South constitute in Germany a very special – immensely dehumanized – segment of workers who are socially alienated from society because of the prevalent racism inherent to Western capitalism. The work ecosystems they are integrated into are related to those jobs that no German would want to perform. They are often forced into this environment even if the workers from the Global South hold degrees and professional education.
Further, these workers are indoctrinated with state ideology, where they are informed about the fundamentals of freedom. We refer to it as ideology because it is created to maintain the state and the capitalist-imperialist mode of production, and is not based on scientific knowledge. They are told how to protest, when to protest, when to stop, and warned about the lines that should never be crossed. The German state asserts its authority: You are welcome here to do the dirty jobs for us, become part of the racist society and strengthen its very ideology, but if you dare bring your culture, values, and ideas to this society, you will be shunned and thrown away.
The state’s social indoctrination could be perfectly observed last year when the German state shut down three Shia Muslim mosques across the country, saying they were promoting a particular ideology, which, of course, was pro-resistance and pro-Palestine. Furthermore, when the International Court of Justice (ICJ) declared war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu wanted genocide, German Chancellor Frederich Merz stated proudly that he would host the wanted criminal in Germany and make sure that he is not arrested. (See: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/election-winner-merz-invites-netanyahu-germany-says-israelis-office-2025-02-24/)
Lastly, it is not the masses in Germany who are pushing the boundaries set by a criminal system amidst an ongoing genocide in which their state is actively involved. Instead, it’s the German state that has been pushing the protesting masses against the wall by coming up with macabre rules, regulations, and often spontaneous rulings to suppress the pro-Palestine and anti-war voices, such as the one in which protestors are barred from raising slogans and speaking in Arabic. The strangest part is the acquiescence shown by the protesting masses to the state, allowing it to impose whatever rules it wants.
Locating Germany Within the Imperialist System
According to the popular intellectual Michael Parenti, Imperialism is “the process whereby the dominant politico-economic interests of one nation expropriate for their own enrichment the land, labor, raw materials, and markets of another people.”
Michael Doyle goes further and says that imperialism is simply the process or policy of establishing or maintaining an empire. Describing the premise on which his definition is based, he goes on: “Empire is a relationship, formal or informal, in which one state controls the effective political sovereignty of another political society. It can be achieved by force, by political collaboration, by economic, social, or cultural dependence.”
Since our concern is with the state ideology and people’s acceptance of it without question, we adhere to these definitions for now. Doyle’s definition aligns with the strategy that Germany has adopted over the past few decades.
However, before we discuss RSA and ISA as outlined by Althusser, it is essential to examine imperialism, its relationship to the neo-colonies, and the masses in general, particularly those based in the First World. No one is truly free until everyone is free, and our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinian people (the latter half of this slogan can, of course, be attributed to Nelson Mandela). There is no doubt that US-European imperialism seeks control of West Asia for its vested interests, be it economic or cultural, for the former cannot stand without the exploitation of the latter.
The organizations and so-called parties calling themselves socialists or social democrats have the responsibility to address the question of neo-colonialism and adopt a strategy to fight it in their home countries. The leader of the Bolshevik Revolution, Vladimir Lenin, stressed this critical point. In Second Congress of the Comintern in 1920, he said:
“I would … like to emphasise the importance of revolutionary work by the communist parties, not only in their own, but also in the colonial countries, and particularly among the troops employees by the exploiting nations to keep the colonial peoples in subjection.”
He goes on: ” … The parties of the Second International have pledged themselves to revolutionary action, but they have given no sign of genuine revolutionary work or of assistance to the exploited and dependent nations in their revolt against the oppressor nations. This, I think, applies also to most of the parties that have withdrawn from the Second International and wish to join the Third International. We must proclaim this publicly for all to hear, and it is irrefutable. We shall see if any attempt is made to deny it.”
After Lenin, the great revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh carried forward his legacy and challenged the ideological hegemony of European communist parties in the Comintern and their silence over the colonial question. In 1923, he spoke in the Fifth Congress:
“According to Lenin, the victory of the revolution in Western Europe depended on its close contact with the liberation movement against imperialism in enslaved colonies and with the national question, both of which form a part of the common problem of the proletariat revolution and dictatorship. … As for our Communist Parties in Great Britain, Holland, Belgium and other countries – what have they done to cope with the colonial invasions perpetrated by the bourgeoisie class of their countries? What have they done from the day they accepted Lenin’s political programme to educate the working class of their countries in the spirit of just internationalism, and that of close contact with the working masses in the colonies? What our parties have done in this domain is almost worthless. As for me, I was born in a French colony, and am a member of the French Communist Party, and I am very sorry to say that our Communist Party has done hardly anything for the colonies.”
When Lenin and Ho Chi Minh were struggling against this trend in the International, they were challenging the bourgeoisie and colonialist ideology that had crept into the communist circles due to eurocentrism. Today, we still have to wage this struggle in the First World by focusing on the role of historical capitalism in creating colonies, which has now evolved into a system of neo-colonialism. The imperialist-capitalist powers have maintained this system through the network of ideology and its various apparatuses, to which now we turn.
Germany and its Ideological and Repressive State Apparatuses
Let us remind ourselves of what German poet and playwright Bertold Brecht once said:
“The worst illiterate is the political illiterate, he doesn’t hear, doesn’t speak, nor participates in the political events. He doesn’t know the cost of life, the price of the bean, of the fish, of the flour, of the rent, of the shoes and of the medicine, all depends on political decisions. The political illiterate is so stupid that he is proud and swells his chest saying that he hates politics. The imbecile doesn’t know that, from his political ignorance is born the prostitute, the abandoned child, and the worst thieves of all, the bad politician, corrupted and flunky of the national and multinational companies.”
The bread that Germans eat today is full of the blood of Palestinian children and women. The companies that are based in this land and that employ Germans today send all kinds of military equipment to Israel to continue massacring Palestinians. The taxes they pay are used for imperialist forces like NATO to kill the people, to carry out coups, and implement the policy of neo-liberalism under the guise of the free market. Hence, Germany is rapidly underdeveloping the Third World by attempting to maintain American imperialist interests, which it is subordinate to. All of this takes place while Germany postures as a social democratic state or what it itself calls a Social Market Economy – so-called “socialism” for their own capitalists and barbarism for the people of the Third World. This could not have continued for long if Germany had not employed a powerfully cunning state ideology.
The people in Germany would be considered illiterate if they fail to understand this, because without this understanding, there would be no revolutionary theory, without which there can be no liberation or revolution in the end.
Althusser, while initially developing a theoretical framework for RSA and ISA, says that the class struggle waged by the people against capitalists (here we say capitalist-imperialists) is economic in essence “… but also, from the outset and simultaneously, an ideological class struggle,” he writes.
Oftentimes, we tend to think that capitalism-imperialism is all about economics and the growing inequality between the North and the Global South. That is not true. Marx’s commentary on capitalism, as we see, is also full of the masses’ practical experience – their grinding, pitiless daily suffering of the real relations that dominate their lives. With this also comes the social division of labor, where some workers are employed for their entire lives, while others are managers or decision-makers and have the privilege of upward mobility. Let’s further stretch the theory by saying that under the current imperialist system, some people are supposed to live a miserable, pitiless life in the Global South or even in the North as sub-humans. Some people are supposed to be doomed, bombed, and starved until they evolve into proper human beings, rid of “terrorist tendencies”. The diaspora of the Global South in Germany (and elsewhere in Europe) is allowed to live a particular kind of life, always beset by risks and dangers if they dare cross the limits granted to them by the imperialist states. What makes the masses – be them Germans or the migrants in Germany – convinced to adhere to this fixed set of rules is state ideology, which we are unpacking now.
In the words of Althusser, the conviction gets established when the state, with its apparatuses like schools, universities, and even the army, teaches the masses ‘know-how’ for living in society, but in forms which ensure subjection to the ruling ideology or the mastery of its ‘practice’. “All the agents of production, exploitation and repression not to speak of the ‘professionals of ideology’ (Marx), must in one way or another be ‘steeped’ in this ideology in order to perform their tasks ‘conscientiously’ – the tasks of the exploited (the proletariats), of the exploiters (the capitalists), of the exploiters” auxiliaries (the managers), or of the high priests of the ruling ideology (its ‘functionaries’), etc.”
We now only talk about the Palestinian movement, an anti-imperialist global force that has seen rapid growth in Germany as well. Connecting the Palestinian question with imperialism is essential because the war in West Asia seems to be the principal contradiction that communists and progressives all around the world have to work on to make this world a better, freer place to live. Suppose the Palestinian and Lebanese resistance forces can defeat Washington and its allies in West Asia today. In that case, it will create a condition for providing the possibility of success for advances in any region of the world, as analyzed by Samir Amin.
Therefore, without breaking the chain of relations of production of imperialism, the Third World can never free itself from the yoke of neo-colonialism, of which Palestine is just one part. The conscientious and class-conscious masses in the Global North, in general, and in Germany in particular, will have to develop a struggle against the imperialist state ideology.
How Ideology Works in Germany
Ideology interpellates individuals as subjects, making them agents of the state apparatus. It is only through individuals in society that ideology becomes material. On this, Althusser makes a critical and dense point: “… the existence of the ideas of [an individual’s] belief is material in that his ideas are his material actions inserted into material practices governed by material rituals which are themselves defined by the material ideological apparatus from which derive the ideas of that subject.”
Ideology’s existence is, therefore, material as it exists in an apparatus and its practices. Ideology reproduces the relations classes – downtrodden, lumpen, capitalists, rulers – have amongst themselves. Without ideology, the truth – history and its science – will be revealed and the exploitative system will collapse immediately. And history, as Marx stressed, is a history of class struggle, between the slaves the masters, the feudal lords and the peasants, the capitalists and the workers, and today between the dehumanized masses of the Global South and the labour aristocrats of the First World (the form of this last struggle can change though if the proletariat of the First World joins the battle of liberation of the oppressed nations). To separate the masses from this reality or truth, the rulers put a barricade between them, and that is what ideology precisely is.
Althusser says: “If history is difficult to explain scientifically, it is because between real history and men there is always a screen, a separation: a class ideology of history in which the human masses ‘spontaneously’ believe: because this ideology is pumped into them by the ruling or ascending class, and serves it in its exploitation.”
To strengthen and propagate the ideology, the state recruits individuals from the private sphere of civil society to undertake this task. This is what Fanon reminded us of when he said that “In capitalist countries a multitude of moral teachers, counselors and ‘bewilderers’ separate the exploited from those in power” to create a shield between them and the concrete reality.
Now, when the masses in Germany play by the rules of the state, they become its agents and part of its Ideological State Apparatus, if not Repressive State Apparatus. While the Repressive State Apparatus can be categorized into different institutions like police, army, judiciary, paramilitary, intelligence agencies, the Ideological State Apparatus is the primary functionary of the state, as it includes various institutions, both public and in private spheres, such as:
The critical point to make here is that the ISA has primacy over RSA, as the latter depends on it; however, both are intertwined. While RSA targets the body, the ISA hits the soul, reshapes and molds it according to the required material conditions for exploitation. One can only understand this phenomenon while being part of the class struggle, as it’s the laboratory of the science of history.
Even before the Repressive State Apparatus starts functioning against revolutionaries or any activists, the Ideological State Apparatus threatens us with all its force to amend our ways.
“Don’t do vandalism even when children are starving and being bombed. Don’t participate in direct action the way Palestine Action did as we will be labelled as terrorists if we do so! Don’t call the those who are fighting for the survival of human civilization resistance fighters but call them terrorists as per the legality. Don’t raise banned slogans in the protest because then the organizers will be booked, and their lives will become hell in Germany! Don’t break any law as it will be considered immoral!”
These are our inner voices – not for all but for a considerable amount. But deep down, there are threats and cautions embedded inside thanks to state ideology. We follow them and keep getting away from reality as the state pushes us against the wall.
I leave it to the imagination of the reader to think of more such examples when ideology stops us from speaking up, taking matters into our hands against severe exploitation and dehumanization of a vast majority of people.
The indoctrination begins with schools and continues at universities, where we are taught the ‘know-how’ of functioning within German society. The rest is then taken care of by the ideological state apparatus, where we are bombarded by biased media, theories, and literature to assimilate into and reproduce the ideology.
And lastly, the Political and Associative Ideological State Apparatus! Even our solidarity organizations are manifestations of ideology where we play by the rules: registering a demonstration, never changing the routes of the march, never covering our faces, avoiding chanting banned slogans, avoiding confrontation with racists or Zionists, not being loud enough and visible (for example, by using smoke-grenades that sometimes are used in demos) and etc. The pro-Palestine or anti-Colonialism movements themselves become a hand to further the cause of state ideology.
Thus, Althusser writes: “The individual in question behaves in such-and-such a way, adopts such-and-such practical line of conduct and, what is more, participates in certain regulated practices, those of the ideological apparatus on which ‘depend’ the ideas that she has, as subjects, freely and in all good conscience chosen… If she believes in Justice, she will unquestioningly submit to the rules of law and, when they are violated, may well protest in the profound indignation of her heart, or even sign petitions, take part in a demonstration, and so on.”
That is why it is appropriate to say that ISA ensures the reproduction of relations of exploitation behind the protective shield of the Repressive State Apparatus and the possibility of resorting to it. Therefore, the first and foremost task for the revolutionaries is to deconstruct, debunk and smash the ideology and its apparatus once and for all without which no condition of a real change can be produced.
When the masses ignore the functioning of state ideology, they end up with a situation wherein Hitlers and Mussolinis are born and inculcated into the state apparatus without much protest. Remember what Aime Cesaire said: “People are surprised, they become indignant. ‘They say: How strange! But never mind, it’s Nazism, it will. pass!’ And they wait, and they hope; and they hide the truth from themselves, that it is barbarism, but the supreme barbarism, the crowning barbarism that sums up all the daily barbarisms; that it is Nazism, yes, but that before they were its victims, they were its accomplices; that they tolerated that Nazism before it was inflicted on them, that they absolved it, shut their eyes to it, legitimized it, because, until then, it had been applied only to non-European peoples; that they have cultivated that Nazism, that they are responsible for it, and that before engulfing the whole of Western civilization in its reddened waters, it oozes, seeps, and trickles from every crack.”
What Is To Be Done?
It is time to reiterate that without a revolutionary theory, there can be no revolutionary movement that can end the barbarism and genocide being committed by Western civilization and its formidable imperialist formation. Instead of adhering to the racist laws made by the imperialist powers, the masses should be able to understand the workings behind those legal-moral ideologies and smash them. How many people will be arrested and prosecuted if the people en masse start breaking the law or stop abiding by the state ideology? One should remember the historic experience of the Paris Commune and the glorious Bolshevik Revolution when the Russian military, instead of siding with the Tsars, stood firm with the revolutionary masses and Soviets. Once the breakdown of the legal-moral structure has begun, it’s the responsibility of the masses and their vanguards to develop a new culture, replicating the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution under the leadership of Chairman Mao. That would be a difficult task but a historical task that only downtrodden masses can fulfill to pave way for a better world. We leave other step and solutions to the radical imagination of the reader.
Hur Qassemi, a student organiser for Palestine in Germany, advocates decolonised education and views resistance to Western hegemony as vital for oppressed nations’ liberation.
Author’s Notes:
This is a developing document which will be extended next with the theory of Antonio Gramsci, Mao Zedong, Terry Eagleton and others. One important point that I want to make here is about the methodology of this essay as I have adopted the idea of descriptive theory of a phenomenon, in this case state, its apparatuses and its ideology. When I discussed the German state and its Ideological and Repressive State Apparatuses, I started with the descriptive theory of state in a Marxist sense. But only taking the principal concepts of Marxism. Descriptive theory means that although its fundamentals are established, the theory can be further extended and developed. Therefore, Althusser took upon the task to theorize the different state apparatuses and their functions in society. Likewise, I tried, perhaps unsuccessfully, to apply those valuable principles to the German state and extend the theory even further. Marxism is not a dogma. It is an ever-continuing project, a project which was indeed left incomplete by Marx, the great leader of the exploited and downtrodden masses. The intention of this document is to start a debate around the concept of ideology and state in the context of German imperialism and let a hundred flowers blossom and hundred schools of thought contend out of it, despite all the shortcomings in this essay.
