Institute for Democracy and Civil Society presents first volume of journal

The "Institute for Democracy and Civil Society - Thuringian Documentation and Research Center against Misanthropy" (IDZ) introduced itself to the public in Jena today. The Institute presented its new journal, titled "Wissen schafft Demokratie" (Knowledge makes Democracy). The journal will be released as an open-access publication twice yearly. All articles can be downloaded for free at the IDZ's website, www.idz-jena.de. The journal will highlight the analysis and findings of researchers and civil-societal experts, focusing on democracy, misanthropic and hateful ideologies and civil society in Thuringia. The event attracted more than 100 visitors from Jena and the whole of Thuringia. The IDZ presented the documentary theater piece "The NSU Monologues", performed by the Berlin Stage for Human Rights, the previous evening, attracting an audience of almost 180. The "Monologues" tell the stories of the family members of those murdered by the National Socialist Underground terror cell. The evening's performance was the first in Jena, the city in which the NSU was founded.

The IDZ began its work in August 2016. It is sponsored by the Amadeu Antonio Foundation and is supported by the Thuringian State Program for Democracy, Tolerance and World Openness. The construction of the university research center was a consequence of the reappraisal of the NSU Complex in the Thuringian state senate.

Dr. Matthias Quent, sociologist and director of the Institute, emphasized that fact in his opening speech. He noted that the 6th of April also marks the anniversary of the racially-motivated murder of Halit Yozgat, a German-Turkish Internet café clerk, by members of the NSU. Eleven years after the murder, the questionable role of Andreas Temme, agent of the Hessian Constitutional Protection Agency, remains unclear. Temme was present when the crime was committed, and despite his denying involvement, Quent said the evidence proves his dishonesty. Without the failure of multiple government agencies, Halit Yozgat--not to mention the Thuringian police officer Michèle Kiesewetter--could still be alive, said Quent. The fact that the Thuringian Constitutional Protection Agency (Verfassungsschutz) has put civil-societal groups like the Weimar Citizens' Alliance against Right-Wing Extremism under suspicion of extremism themselves, while completely ignoring a string of right-wing attacks, shows that the agency is not reformable, Quent continued. Quent sees the Institute as countering such malfeasance with "public democracy research: solidarity of critical sociological research with civil society."

It is in this spirit that the Institute was founded. The Institute has a civil-societal curatorium and an academic council, and partitions its journal's focus accordingly, said Dr. Janine Dieckmann, psychologist and academic advisor at the IDZ. The focus lies on strengthening the transfer of knowledge between research, civil society and politics; the Institute seeks to make discrimination in society visible, to analyze it and to develop countermeasures and solutions.

Articles for the journal's first volume were chosen with this in mind, said Dieckmann. Among the articles are contributions from members of the IDZ on the conceptual and methodical foundations of research. Moreover, the journal seeks to unite praxis and academia.

In her presentation, Dieckmann explained: "In order to understand how violence like the NSU murders comes to be, it is important to research discrimination and hateful attitudes in all societal milieus." "Discrimination endangers democracy, as it denies equal access to education, housing or employment markets, communal living or personal development." Dr. Dieckmann used the example of closeted homosexual and bisexual individuals: the hostile societal climate and lack of acceptance cause people to keep important parts of their identities secret in order to fit into the majority society.

Subsequently, Dr. Daniel Geschke explained what "hate", "hate speech", "hate groups" and "hate crimes" mean from a sociological perspective: "With hate, it's about negative convictions and feelings referring to entire groups, swathes of people. Conceptually speaking, this is a matter of prejudices--deep-rooted attitudes towards other social groups and their members, which become emotionally charged through hate. Actions motivated by hate represent a special form of discrimination. Racism is a form of prejudice-guided hate, but hate can target many different stigmatized groups: the homeless, refugees, trans individuals, Muslims, and so on. Besides targeting members of those groups, it can also impact their representatives (social workers or politicians) or their property. Consequentially, hate activities and hate crimes are always group-related and always shaped by prejudice. It is for this reason that hate activities stand in conflict with basic human rights, which are founded on the equality of all people.“ According to Geschke, studies also show that the victims of hate crimes (in comparison with "normal" crimes) suffer from more fear, deeper depression, more panic attacks, and more thorough sleep problems and other psychological illness. The IDZ intends to research this further in future studies.

Also present at the Jena Volksbad were Anetta Kahane (Chairwoman of the Amadeu Antonio Foundation), Prof. Benjamin Hoff (Head of the Thuringian State Chancellery), Sandro Witt (German Union Alliance), Christian Herrgott (Thuringian CDU and state senator), Christian Schaft (Thuringian Die Linke and state senator) as well as Prof. Anette Treibel (Karlsruhe College).