Berlin Remmo family: The criminal as a neutral source

Discrediting campaigns work so well because you keep the other side busy refuting allegations. This is time-consuming because most well-run campaigns are convincing. And most people manage to at least color one picture. And in the midst of the conservative culture war, as some media called it, it was foreseeable that the negative campaigning against the left would certainly not stop with their election victory.

It certainly makes sense to look at the individual points of criticism against the Berlin Left. But it was neither largely objective criticism - Elif Eralp, the leading candidate of the Berlin Left, was called "clan mayor" by the Baden-Württemberg Interior Minister of the CDU, nor should this moment of political madness be viewed as a spectacle in itself.

The unease and doubts were articulated so often by the bourgeois media and also by left-wing actors that it stuck in the mainstream discourse: Anti-Semitism makes the party unfit to govern. Tens of journalists and activists tried to counteract this at the same time and analyze the media framing and the anti-left bashing.

Now photos and screenshots are difficult to refute, especially when they prove that Ferhat Koçak, Left Party member and MP, is knowingly chatting with the son of a major figure in organized crime (OK). I don't find it surprising that politicians have points of contact with people from the OC sector. That may sound callous. But decades of racism and the ethnic coloring of clan crime certainly made it possible for people to suddenly think they were on the same side in weak moments of shared anti-establishment ideas.

The scandal that followed is partly understandable. As “diverse” as organized crime in Germany is, it is characterized by fascist, patriarchal and strictly conservative ideologies. Of course you shouldn't flirt with this as a political leftist. It should be noted here that organized crime is a police term that must be viewed critically.

But the person who posted the chats was not a neutral player. It was Firas Remmo himself. And my question is: why? How does Issa Remmo's son benefit from posting the chats with Ferhat Koçak? If there were a political or collegial closeness, then surely we wouldn't beat each other up?

Not a single article, not a comment mentions critically that the motive of this chat revelation is unclear. And that Firas Remmo is promoting the defamation against Ferhat Koçak. And old-left actors are jumping on the bandwagon. There are calls for Koçak to be expelled from the party and for the party leadership to distance itself. And so the dangerous Remmos, which one should actually avoid, become a neutral source with no motive of their own.

Issa Remmo and his son clearly understand how their presence at an election party or their contact with the left is viewed by the media. Nevertheless, media of all political persuasions treated the incidents as if they were signs or direct reasons for an internal left-wing dispute.

It looks like a strategy to treat the Left, just like the CDU, as a party that you want to use for your own interests.