Cultural appropriation and racism In the Article
Fusion Revisited: Karneval der Kulturlosen (English: Fusion Revisited:
Carnival of the cultureless), published in
Missy Magazine, Yaghoobifarah accused the
Fusion Festival and its 'white audience' of racism and
cultural appropriation. Among other things, they criticized the mild spicing of food and the wearing of
dreadlocks. The article was strongly criticized by parts of the German left at the time, as some viewed Yaghoobifarah's argumentation as reminiscent of talking points used by the
New Right as well as a justification of
ethnopluralism. In October 2017, Yaghoobifarah published the article
Deutsche, schafft Euch ab! (English: Germans, abolish yourselves!), in
taz with a title and conclusion in reference to the book
Germany Abolishes Itself by
Thilo Sarrazin. In the article, they consistently use the derogatory epithet
Kartoffel to refer to Germans, who are spoken of negatively. They also labeled the
culture of Germans as dirty ('Dreckskultur'), in reference to the aforementioned epithet. The article closes with a sentence stating the Germans are abolishing themselves, and that Yaghoobifarah hopes they hurry up in doing so. The journalist
Jan Fleischhauer criticized the article and those that praised it for holding a
double standard, viewing such publications as incompatible with the goals of
anti-racism. The journalist
Elke Halefeldt also criticized the article for hypocrisy and commented in saying "So we learnt: racism against Germans isn't racism". The article presents a
thought experiment about where police officers could work if the police were abolished. It concludes with the statement:Off the top of my head there is only one suitable option that comes to mind: the landfill. Not as garbage collectors with keys to houses, but in the dump, where they are surrounded by garbage. They should certainly feel most comfortable among their kind.The article was heavily criticized in the German media. Some journalists and politicians viewed it as equating humans with garbage, and some even understood it as a case of
Volksverhetzung or 'group-based misanthropy' against police officers.
Schlecky Silberstein defended the article in
Deutschlandfunk Kultur, saying that the article was good satire and that critics simply didn't understand it. The two German police unions,
Deutsche Polizeigewerkschaft and
Gewerkschaft der Polizei, announced that they were filing a criminal report against Yaghoobifarah, upon which the
Berlin Police president
Barbara Slowik issued an internal letter to all officers where she pointed to German
freedom of speech laws as well as past court decisions on slogans such as
ACAB. The
federal minister of the Interior at the time,
Horst Seehofer, also announced to file a criminal report against Yaghoobifarah, but decided against it after public backlash. German president
Frank-Walter Steinmeier also criticized the article. There was also internal criticism within the editorial staff of
taz. After having received hate and threats for their article, Yaghoobifarah decided to seek police protection, which some viewed as hypocritical. == Selected publications ==