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In memory of Dr Sylke Tempel (1963-2017), the Board of Trustees of the German-Israeli Future Forum Foundation set up the Sylke Tempel Fellowship Program in 2018.

Under the patronage of Sigmar Gabriel, former Federal Minister of Foreign Affairs and chairman of the Atlantik-Brücke, the foundation awards fellowships to young journalists working on foreign and socio-political issues that will continue to be relevant in Israel and Germany in the future.

The projects are discussed with experts in closed workshops, presented at public conferences and published.

The second year (2020) will focus on the topic “Israel and Germany in the Year of the US Presidential Election: National Narratives, Identities, and Foreign Policy.” Cooperation partners include the American Jewish Committee (AJC), the European Leadership Network (ELNET), the foreign policy magazine Internationale Politik (the German-language sister publication of Berlin Policy Journal; Sylke Tempel was editor-in-chief of both), and Women in International Security (WIIS).

Call for Applications

This call for applications is aimed particularly at young media professionals in Germany and Israel.

Journalists, bloggers, podcasters, and other media creatives who deal with the relations between Germany, Israel, and the United States of America are invited to apply.

The fellows are required to submit an article or other media creation by August 30, 2020, which will be published in a special edition of foreign policy magazine Internationale Politik, in the end of the year. They may independently choose where they want to work. In May 2020, they will be invited to attend expert meetings and a workshop in Israel in order to discuss their projects. In the end of 2020, they will have the opportunity to present their projects at a public conference in Berlin.

Up to twelve fellowships will be awarded with a grant of €3,000. In addition, travel and accommodation costs for the workshop and the two-day conference will be covered.

In order to apply, please provide the following documents:

– Your curriculum vitae

– Sylke Tempel was a passionate reader. In her memory, we are interested to know which literary work you recommend we read, and why.

– A motivation letter

– An outline of the planned project (please refer to the focus topic detailed below on no more than three pages)

Please send us your application documents in German or English by February 29, 2020, by e-mail in one file to: fellowship@dizf.de

If you have any questions regarding the application, please contact Teresa Schaefer: schaefer@dizf.de

Please apply with a project related to the following topical umbrella:

“National Narratives, Identities, and Foreign Policy”

How do the United States’, Israel’s, and Germany’s national narratives, their self-told historical stories and perception of self, impact their foreign policy and relations to one another? How and why do supposedly fixed identities change over time? Are they reflected in election campaigns? If so, how are they expressed specifically in Israel, Germany, and the US? How do national narratives and perceptions of each other shape bilateral and trilateral relations?

The post Sylke Tempel Fellowships: Call for Applications appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

In remembrance of Sylke Tempel, our sister magazine INTERNATIONALE POLITIK and Women in International Security (WIIS) this year launched The Sylke Tempel Essay Prize for Young Women. The inaugural winner is Warsaw-based journalist (and BERLIN POLICY JOURNAL contributor) Annabelle Chapman. We are documenting the original English version of her essay.

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In the academic literature, there has been a growing interest in the subject of gender and nationalism in recent years. Gendering Nationalism, a 2018 book edited by Jon Mulholland, Nicola Montagna, and Erin Sanders-McDonagh, examines the intersections of nation, gender, and sexuality with case studies from around the world. Other academics have studied the historical connection between manhood and nationhood, with men as the defenders of the fatherland and women as exalted mothers serving the nation.

Yet this gender dimension is overlooked in coverage of the new populist nationalism in Europe and the United States. Of all the articles on contemporary nationalism in the international press, few pause to consider its distinct appeal to men. Even fewer compare the attitude of nationalists in different countries toward women’s rights and motherhood. This essay argues that, although it is certainly not the only one, the gender dimension is vital to studying, understanding, and responding to the resurgence of nationalism in our societies.

For the purposes of this essay, “nationalism” encompasses both extreme-right nationalist movements and mainstream populist parties with nationalist elements, such Hungary’s ruling party, Fidesz. No longer on the fringes of European or American politics, nationalism has been mainstreamed and normalized.

Men and Nationalism

On November 11, 2018, Poland celebrated the 100th anniversary of the restoration of its independence. Nationalist groups with anti-immigration slogans marched through the capital, Warsaw, in a centenary rally supported by the Polish government. Red flares blazed above the crowd. Although there were women at the march, its tone and imagery were aggressively male. Poland’s centenary celebrations were a nationalist show of force, rather than a celebration of the country’s achievements in areas such as education and science. In contrast, Finland had marked the centenary of its independence in 2017 with a new public library in Helsinki.

In an article published in The Guardian in 2018, Cas Mudde, a Dutch specialist on political extremism in Europe and the United States, asked the simple question “Why is the far right dominated by men?” This domination is visible at nationalist events—from the march in Warsaw to the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in 2017. In Poland, most of the far right’s support comes from men—specifically, young men. A recent poll found that almost 30 percent of Polish men aged 18-30 supports the nationalist far right. This differs markedly from the political attitudes of women in the same age group, the majority of whom support the left or center. In the European elections in May 2019, the polls revealed similar support patterns for the Konfederacja nationalist alliance. This is no accident: as the head of a Polish polling firm put it, Konfederacja’s politicians target men who are “skeptics of women.”

Nationalism’s allure to men, rather than women, seems to come less from economic problems than from shifting cultural norms. It offers them a sense of belonging in a rapidly-changing, globalized world in which they are unsure of their place—as inhabitants of a small town in South Carolina or Saxony, but also as men. In many countries, traditional male roles have declined. Economically empowered and often better educated, women no longer need a man to live comfortably or even to have a child. This has led to a backlash in which nationalism and masculinity are intertwined. Russia, where traditional male roles crumbled after the collapse of the Soviet Union, has seen the emergence of what writer Natalia Antonova calls the “New Russian Masculinity” in recent years under President Vladimir Putin, fuelled by the annexation of Crimea in 2014. Meanwhile, in the United States, Germany, and Sweden, white nationalist groups have wielded masculinity to recruit members, as American sociologist Michael Kimmel shows in his book Healing from Hate.

Protecting the Nation

Today’s nationalists claim to protect their countries against threats, real or imagined. Some leaders, like Donald Trump or Viktor Orbán in Hungary, present themselves as the defenders of “Western” or “European civilization.” They mobilize supporters using fear of “outsiders,” who include (depending on the country): refugees, economic migrants, people of color, Jews, Muslims, feminists, gay people, and EU bureaucrats.

Nationalist leaders are adept at stirring up anti-refugee or anti-migrant sentiment, while presenting themselves as the only ones capable of halting the uncontrollable wave of foreigners. Trump has done so with Executive Order 13769, his ban on travelers to the US from several Muslim-majority countries, and with his pledge to build a wall along the border with Mexico. In the United Kingdom, it was partly anger at migrants from other EU countries that led people to vote for Brexit. In Hungary and Poland, politicians have spread fear of refugees from the Middle East, with Jarosław Kaczyński, the chairman of the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, warning that migrants carry “parasites and protozoa.”

These general messages carry a gender subtext, implicitly appealing to men’s traditional role as protectors and providers. The subconscious message is: if a foreigner takes your job, you will be unable to feed your family. Or worse: if the refugees come in and take our women, you will be unable to find a wife at all (note the dubious reference to “our” women, which implies ownership). This imagery was very present in right-wing coverage of migration in Europe, especially after the New Year’s Eve attacks in Cologne at the end 2015. A few weeks later, wSieci, a Polish pro-government weekly, ran a cover on the “Islamic rape of Europe” showing a white woman being grabbed from different directions by dark, manly arms. Yet rather than expressing concern about women’s safety, this type of imagery was addressed to men, asserting their entitlement to the women in their country. A Polish journalist who covered the refugee story says that she received threats from men on social media along the lines of “you should be raped by a refugee.” Sadly, this combination of anti-immigration nationalism and verbal violence against women is not uncommon.

Having created a sense of threat, nationalist leaders appeal to men to protect their nation. This involves what feminist scholars call “militarized masculinity,” the idea that real men are those who defend the fatherland. The examples from different countries vary, but they share a fixation on military heroism and national virility. In Russia, militarism has been rekindled under Putin. In Finland, a far-right group called the “Soldiers of Odin” founded in 2015 has been caught intimidating immigrants. Meanwhile, investigative journalists in Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary have drawn attention to the “militarization of patriotism” in their societies through nationalist paramilitary groups and historical reconstructions. In Poland, “militarized masculinity” is supported by the government’s official historical policy. This includes the cult of anti-communist resistance fighters from the 1940s known as the “cursed soldiers” (mostly male), who have been presented as a model for young Poles to emulate.

Perpetuating the Nation

Earlier this year, Hungary’s Prime Minister Orbán, announced a low-interest loan of 10 million forints (around €30,000) to women under the age of 40 who are marrying for the first time. Mothers of at least four children would be exempt from income tax. The aim of these measures, Orbán explained, was to “ensure the survival of the Hungarian nation.”

If, from nationalists’ perspective, men’s role is to protect the nation, then women’s role is to perpetuate it. With Europe experiencing low birth rates, some governments have been encouraging people to have children. In countries like Hungary, which has an aging population and a fertility rate below the EU average of 1.59 births per woman, policies that help people have children (if they so wish) might make sense. In Poland, which also has a low fertility rate, the PiS government has combined natalism with generous welfare policies since coming to power in 2015. Its flagship policy is a monthly payment of 500 złoty (around €120) per child. “Children and the family are the foundation of Poland,” said Beata Szydło, the country’s deputy prime minister, announcing further policies to encourage women to have children last year. “We must ensure … that more and more children are born in Poland.”

The problem with this rhetoric is that it frames the decision to have children in terms of national survival, rather than women’s rights, choices, and aspirations. At worst, it reduces women to vessels for producing the next generation. Women who have at least four children are “rewarded” for their heroic efforts—with the tax exemption in Hungary and a state pension in Poland. Meanwhile, there is a lack of serious discussion about men’s responsibilities as fathers or, indeed, how the government could help citizens combine fruitful careers with their roles as parents.

This natalism is underpinned by social conservatism on a range of issues, from women’s right to a safe abortion to gender roles. In May, Alabama became the latest US state to move to restrict abortions, including in cases of rape or incest. Under pressure from the Catholic Church, Poland’s ruling party mulled a similar tightening of the country’s restrictions on abortion, but backed down temporarily following widespread protests by women. At the same time, the party has terminated public funding for in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment. It has championed families, but only of the traditional sort. In Germany, the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) has opposed what it calls “gender mainstreaming”— policies that it sees as undermining “traditional gender roles.” Similarly, the Polish religious right has long viewed the English word “gender” with suspicion, using it as a catch-all term for everything from feminism to gay rights. Ahead of the European Parliament elections this year, the ruling Law and Justice party sought to mobilize voters by presenting gay people as a threat to the family.

The underlying theme in nationalist populists’ attitude to women is the control of their bodies, which is not limited to childbirth. Despite the outcry against them, Trump’s comments about women (“Grab them by the pussy”) have validated misogynist and predatory attitudes in some circles. Verbal violence against women can easily lead to physical violence. Yet violence against women, especially in the privacy of their homes, is often met with silence. In 2017, Russia decriminalized domestic violence, scrapping prison sentences for beatings that cause “minor harm.” In Poland, PiS politicians have criticized the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, which the country’s previous president ratified in 2015.

How We Can Respond

Male-driven nationalist populism has resulted in a backlash. Over the past year, the #MeToo campaign has spread beyond the US. In Poland, widespread protests by women halted plans on the conservative right to tighten the restrictions on abortion. Slowly, a new generation of progressive women leaders is emerging, from Alexandria Ocasio Cortez in the US to Zuzanna Caputova, who was elected president of Slovakia this year.

For all these successes, nationalism requires a broader response that addresses its allure to certain groups, especially young men. The nationalists’ simple solutions to global economic, social, and demographic challenges cannot be fought off with clever one-liners on Twitter. Nor can citizens’ fears be brushed aside. Although they are exploited by nationalist leaders, some of them nevertheless reflect genuine concerns. Instead, the challenges themselves must be addressed at the local, national, and, where applicable, the European level.

As this essay has shown, there is a complex relationship between nationalism and gender is an important topic that warrants further research by sociologists, psychologists, and economists, with data-driven studies on specific countries. For now, there are three general ways in which governmental and, where necessary, non-governmental actors should respond:

Firstly, women’s rights should be protected where they are threatened by nationalist-minded leaders and policies. Childbearing should always be a choice, rather than a national duty expected of women.

Secondly, democratic participation should be encouraged among all members of society, with a special focus on young people, including young men in disadvantaged areas. This will help their voices be heard through public channels and democratic elections, making them less likely to turn to aggressive or underground nationalist organizations. Children should be taught that there are many ways to be a good citizen, from helping others to picking up rubbish in the park, which do not involve dressing up as soldiers or shouting nationalist slogans.

Thirdly, the root causes of nationalism must be addressed calmly but seriously. There are few easy solutions, but they should include addressing the economic and demographic changes in Europe and the US, with special attention given to vulnerable groups such as young men who might seek solace in nationalism.

Ultimately, this is not a battle between nationalists and their opponents, or between men and women, but about creating societies in which all people feel safe and welcome, and where nationalism is no longer appealing.

N.B. The German version of this essay can be found here.

The post Where Gender Meets Nationalism appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

Our colleague and friend, Sylke Tempel, passed away on October 5, 2017, at the age of 54. She was struck by a tree and killed in Berlin during Xavier, a flash storm. Tempel served as editor-in-chief of Internationale Politik since 2008 and founded this publication, the Berlin Policy Journal, in 2015.

Tempel was one of Germany’s most prominent foreign policy thinkers. She was a regular guest on the political talk show circuit; she moderated panels at conferences across the world; she lectured students at Stanford University’s Bing Overseas Studies Program in Berlin; she worked with leading policy-makers on shaping international relations; and she chaired the German chapter of Women in International Security (WIIS).

Her sharp intellect and critical thinking resonated on the global stage. She thrived in debates, engaging opinions from across the political spectrum and fearlessly confronting high-ranking politicians, thinkers, and analysts. She loved a good argument, but she was never intransigent. She did not waver on her values – staunch advocate of democratic ideals and open, tolerant societies that she was – yet she listened to and engaged with other views.

Sylke Tempel was not merely erudite; she was also able to communicate complex topics to a broad audience in straightforward, unambiguous language, free of the jargon that so often clouds political discussions.

“She always thought about how to communicate the debate surrounding foreign and security policy here to a wider audience, not just in Germany but also abroad,” said Thomas Bagger, Director of Foreign Policy in the Office of the Federal President and a former director of the Federal Foreign Office’s policy planning staff. “Her ability to view things from the outside, to understand what people saw and expected of Germany, earned her particular prominence because there are so few in Germany who do so.”

Emily Haber, State Secretary in Germany’s Interior Ministry and a friend of Tempel’s over many years, recalls her immense desire to examine an issue from all sides – not to reaffirm her own beliefs, but to truly understand intricacies and nuances. It was a trait that set her analysis and coverage of Israel apart, for example. Her deep love and sympathy for the country did not prevent her from taking account of the various perspectives of the region’s political struggle, or building close friendships on all sides of the conflict.

“She wasn’t able to lie to herself. She wasn’t able to embellish things if they weren’t there to be embellished. She was extremely honest,” said Haber.

•••

Sylke Tempel was born May 30, 1963, in Bayreuth in northern Bavaria. As a young woman, she aspired to study medicine in the city of Augsburg. She was waitlisted, however, and enrolled at Munich’s Ludwig-Maximilians University instead. It was there that her love for history, political science, and Israel blossomed. She wrote her thesis on “The Reparations Question: Relations between the German Democratic Republic and Israel between 1945 and 1988.” She never did return to medicine.

After receiving a grant from the Volkswagen Foundation, Tempel conducted research for two years at Columbia University in New York – freelancing for the German-Jewish Aufbau – and then completed her Ph.D. on “The Relations between Jewish-American Organizations and the Federal Republic of Germany after 1945” at the University of the Armed Forces in Munich.

She moved to Israel where she would spend more than a decade reporting on the Middle East for various German, Austrian, and Swiss publications, including Die Woche and Jüdische Allgemeine Zeitung, Germany’s leading national Jewish weekly. Fluent in Hebrew, she covered a vast range of stories in the region, including the Oslo Peace Process and the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin in 1995.

Tempel authored six books, including Freya von Moltke: Ein Leben. Ein Jahrhundert, a portrait of an anti-Nazi resistance fighter, and Wir wollen beide hier leben. Eine schwierige Freundschaft in Jerusalem, featuring letters of correspondence between an Israeli and Palestinian student. She was honored with the Quadriga Prize for the latter.

She was also a dedicated transatlanticist, contributing to numerous American and international publications and lecturing at the Institute for German Studies at Stanford in California. Just before her death, she joined a group of leading German foreign policy experts to pen a transatlantic manifesto titled “In Spite of it All, America.”

“She had strong faith in her values,” said Joachim Staron, an editor at Internationale Politik. “Not even Donald Trump could shake her belief that the transatlantic relationship was fundamentally important.”

“A German With a Sense of Humor”

Throughout her life, Tempel remained passionately curious. She was a voracious consumer of books, articles, and films on the most varied of topics, from ancient history to contemporary satire, Harry Potter and the latest Tarantino movie. She drew upon a rich reservoir of knowledge, making her one of the most sought-after moderators and commentators in her field.

Despite the prestige and many honors bestowed upon her, Tempel also remained unfailingly kind, generous, and funny – so very funny, in a disarming, mischievous way. Her broad smile and warmth filled the room, and even the busiest of days were punctuated by the sound of laughter emanating from her office. She delighted in silly YouTube videos that she circulated among her colleagues and Loriot sketches she would recall in editorial meetings – and the Minions, a particular favorite. She drew parallels between Asterix and Obelix and Mickey Mouse and mankind’s most fundamental conflicts with a twinkle in her eye.

“She said it was always her advantage to be a German with a sense of humor because no one expected that,” said Rachel Tausendfreund, editorial director at the German Marshall Fund in Berlin, who worked with Tempel at Internationale Politik. “She was elegantly charming.”

Tempel had a penchant for jewel-toned jackets and brightly hued purses and shoes, a jolt of color in the often-drab foreign policy world of black and gray suits. Of her many projects, one was to update the IP and BPJ offices on the top floor of the German Council on Foreign Relations. When renovation work unexpectedly stalled (after a week, inexplicably, only two of six doors had been sanded and painted) she and her colleagues rolled up their sleeves and went to work painting themselves.

She ensured that all birthdays were celebrated with singing and generous portions of cake. She treated her colleagues’ children as her own, welcoming them to spend time in the office and share in her appreciation for Donald Duck. And she actively mentored younger colleagues, serving as a role model particularly for women trying to find their feet in male-dominated domains like foreign policy or defense.

Her long-time colleague, Uta Kuhlmann, said Tempel remained so firmly grounded due to her upbringing in the countryside in southern Germany and her close relationship with her family. She built her life upon three pillars: friends, family, and work. If professional commitments grew difficult, she would draw joy from her private life, surrounded by a small circle of good friends, her parents, her godchildren, or her partner.

“Sylke was just happy. She chose what she surrounded herself with in life, and she managed to do so because she was so clever and smart and optimistic,” said Kuhlmann.

Despite her professional commitments and busy travel schedule, Tempel was also deeply devoted to her nephew and her godchildren. She and her partner spent hours helping with homework assignments and traded in their convertible for a family car. Tempel also served as a reading ambassador, reading to students in a Berlin school in the morning before going to the office. She was generous with her time and attention, regardless of her audience.

“Sylke would completely concentrate on the person she was talking to at the moment. She gave you all her attention and concentrated on what linked her to you, and what would interest you,” said Emily Haber. “She would get the best of people because she took interest in what they could offer. That’s rare.”

Tempel led the push to turn Internationale Politik into a leading political affairs magazine, growing the brand and sharpening its profile to include IP Wirtschaft, or IP Business, in 2012. She had been working with the head of the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP), Daniela Schwarzer, on plans to restructure the think tank as well. She was also selected to be among the first class of Thomas Mann fellows, a program bringing leaders from across German society to the US to foster dialogue and exchange with intellectuals and institutions in the US.

Sylke Tempel is survived by her parents, her sister, her nephew, her partner, and her friends and colleagues.

The post Sylke Tempel (†) appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

It is with great sadness that the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP) and the German Foreign Office report the death of Dr Sylke Tempel, Editor-in-Chief of the DGAP journals INTERNATIONALE POLITIK and BERLIN POLICY JOURNAL. She died in an accident on October 5, 2017.

Dr Sylke Tempel was an extraordinary person who influenced the debate on foreign policy in Germany and far beyond. She shaped the public discourse on international affairs in the media, as an expert at political and public events, and was also a sought-after commentator on German foreign policy. Through her work, she helped many inside and outside Germany gain a better understanding of German foreign policy.

Since 2008, Dr Sylke Tempel reimagined the DGAP’s foreign policy journals and turned them into important reference points for those interested in international affairs.

Dr Arend Oetker, President of the German Council on Foreign Relations: “In Dr Sylke Tempel, the German Council on Foreign Relations loses an outstanding member of the German media and political community. As a commentator and academic, she significantly influenced national and international debates and was a key sparring partner on German policy issues.”

German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel: “We are mourning a good friend and a passionate foreign policy advocate. Her death is a heavy loss for us in Germany and far beyond. Those who have followed Dr Sylke Tempel’s path, her analyses, and her contributions to debates and discussions over the years, hugely treasured her brilliance and her warmth, her subtlety and her political acumen.“

The post We Mourn Sylke Tempel appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.