After the right-wing book fair in Halle: Monika Maron should remember her responsibility

T he writer Monika Maron appeared at the right-wing “PagenWechsel” book fair in Halle. Deutschlandradio Kultur asked her about it. The moderator wanted to know whether she, as a prominent author, would not add value to the right-wing radical publishers who had gathered in Halle at the beginning of November. Monika Maron says no, points to the broad spectrum of exhibitors including conservative positions and emphasizes that she has little to do with the extreme right. She also makes an argument. She says that she would in no way enhance the value of the left-wing extremist publishers at the Frankfurt Book Fair if she appeared there.

Yes, she does. By participating, she gives symbolic capital and gives legitimacy to the entire event, whether in Frankfurt or Halle. That's so. The left-wing publishers in Frankfurt that she may have in mind are nowhere near as extremely left-wing as the publishers in Halle are extremely right-wing, and the horseshoe theory behind this argument is all too flat anyway. But given.

Because Monika Maron also said something shocking. She talked about how much she enjoyed the first edition of the right-wing book fair last year because there was “an incredibly good atmosphere” there. Maron: “People were walking around pretty happy and were totally relaxed.” That's why she came back this year and found a "very relaxed atmosphere" again.

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There is no reason to doubt the audience's relaxation. But you have to swallow. At the stand of Götz Kubitscheck's right-wing extremist Antaios publishing house in Halle there was a red banner with the inscription: "Fight, my people, and do not spare yourself!" Compact with Jürgen Elsässer, Nius, Junge Freiheit, they were all there. The ethnic ideologist Benedikt Kaiser held court. Putin's anti-Western thinker Alexander Dugin, who wants to give the Russian people supremacy in a Eurasian empire, was connected. The AfD representatives Hans-Thomas Tillschneider and Maximilian Krah were there. A Germany puzzle in the 1937 borders lay next to a book about Polish atrocities against Germans from 1919 to 1949.

In short, the event was a stage for ethnic right-wing extremists, conspiracy theorists, revanchists, anti-democrats, theorists of large cultural areas and remigration - and Monika Maron is happy about the “totally relaxed” audience. Cool.

The fact that there are people who are willing to pay an entrance fee for something like this cannot come as a surprise after the last election results and the new Leipzig authoritarianism study. But Monika Maron is a writer, shouldn't she remember her responsibility as such? Attention, sensitivity, the will to be truthful, a commitment to language and to correct descriptions of society (which can be expressed in anti-realistic forms) - all of this is part of this responsibility. Their passion should be to enrich forms of expression, to advance social speech and to shape the image of people with greater justice - not to celebrate authoritarianism and exclude people on a racial basis.

Monika Maron sorely misses such responsibility here. She has recently repeatedly held out provocative sticks to the supposed left-liberal mainstream to jump over. Right-wing radicals are now threatening to reach high state positions. Wouldn't it be time for a controversial author like her to look to the right and draw clear boundaries between right-wing liberal and right-wing radical, between gender criticism and contempt for humanity, woke skepticism and the ethnic cult of toughness?

Shouldn’t responsible authors want to push out reactionary books? How can you be so relaxed at a trade fair like this, right in the middle of them? The fact that one can no longer assume consensus on these issues is just as shocking as the fact that a few thousand people in Halle apparently enjoyed revanchism.

What would be appropriate behavior? Outrage: yes, being challenged: yes, curiosity: all right. But relaxation? No.