Ulrike Meinhof Quotes

Protest is when I say I don't like this. Resistance is when I put an end to what I don't like. Protest is when I say I refuse to go along with this anymore. Resistance is when I make sure everybody else stops going along too.

Objection is when I say: this doesn't suit me. Resistance is when I make sure that what doesn't suit me never happens again.

Protest is when I say this does not please me. Resistance is when I ensure what does not please me occurs no more.

Wir sagen natürlich, die Bullen sind Schweine. Wir sagen, der Typ in Uniform ist ein Schwein, kein Mensch. Und so haben wir uns mit ihnen auseinanderzusetzen. Das heißt, wir haben nicht mit ihm zu reden, und es ist falsch, überhaupt mit diesen Leuten zu reden. Und natürlich kann geschossen werden.

But that is who we are, that is where we come from. We are the offspring of metropolitan annihilation and destruction, of the war of all against all, of the conflict of each individual with every other individual, of a system governed by fear, of the compulsion to produce, of the profit of one to the detriment of others, of the division of people into men and women, young and old, sick and healthy, foreigners and Germans, and of the struggle for prestige. Where do we come from? From isolation in individual row-houses, from the suburban concrete cities, from prison cells, from the asylums and special units, from media brainwashing, from consumerism, from corporal punishment, from the ideology of nonviolence, from depression, from illness, from degradation, from humiliation, from the debasement of human beings, from all the people exploited by imperialism.

What did I care anymore about his political opinions, about Pasquale and Nadia, about the death of Ulrike Meinhof, the birth of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, the electoral advances of the Communist Party? The world had retreated. I felt sunk inside myself, inside my flesh, which seemed to me not only the sole dwelling possible but also the only material for which it was worthwhile to struggle.

What did I care anymore about his political opinions, about Pasquale and Nadia, about the death of Ulrike Meinhof, the birth of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, the electoral advances of the Communist Party? The world had retreated. I felt sunk inside myself, inside my flesh, which seemed to me not only the sole dwelling possible but also the only material for which it was worthwhile to struggle. It was a relief when he, the witness to order and disorder, closed the door behind him. I couldn’t bear to be under his gaze, I feared that lips raw from kissing, the night’s weariness, the body hypersensitive, as if burned, all would suddenly become visible.

Çok güvenli görünüyorsunuz! Fakat sanmayın ki bu böylece devam edecek! Öfke ve nefret büyük geminizin makine dairesinde terden geberenlerle birleşecek, biliyorum. İspanyol, türk, yunan, arap, italyan göçmenler ve avrupa’nın tüm ezilenleri…ve tüm kadınlar, ezildiğinin, aşağılandığının sömürüldüğünün farkında olan tüm kadınlar neden burada olduğumu ve beni neden öldürmek istediğinizi anlayacaklar… Gardiyanlar, yargıçlar, politikacılar, hiç biriniz umurumda değilsiniz. Asla beni delirtemeyeceksiniz! Beni sağlam öldüreceksiniz… mükemmel bir ruh ve mükemmel bir beyinle. Böylece herkes katillerin devleti ve katillerin hükümeti olduğunuzu anlayacak! Herkes sosyal demokrasinin neye benzediğini anlayacak! …şimdiden cesedimi kaçırıp saklamanızı, kapıyı avukatlarıma kapatmanızı görür gibiyim. Ulrike Meinhof kendini astı diyeceksiniz. Kanlı ellerinizle kapıları yüzlerine kapatacak ve fotoğraf çekmeyi soru sormayı yasaklayacaksınız. Yasak diyeceksiniz, cesedi incelemek yasak! soru sormak, düşünmek, tahmin etmek yasak!! yasak!!… ama kendi korkunuzu yasaklayamazsınız! Her katile özgü korkuyu yasaklayamazsınız! Cesedim bir dağ gibi ağır olacak…yüz bin ve yüz bin…yüz binlerce kadın kolu bu kocaman dağı kaldırıp omuzlarına alırken sizin oturduğunuz o sahte tahtı sarsacak müthiş bir kahkaha atacaklar! ..ve hep birlikte bağıracaklar: Ulrike Meinhof’u öldüremeyeceksiniz.

This strategy, apparently devised to attract voters, was realistic enough for its main ideas to be maintained to this day: a politics of détente, the refusal of nuclear weapons testing, and the willingness to reduce arms.

The basic theme of a hostile environment that seeks to destroy the ideology has many variations. Hitler fought his life-and-death struggle against a coalition (constructed by him alone) of 'Jewish, plutocratic and Bolshevik powers supported by the Vatican'; Ulrike Meinhof's indignation was directed against 'the German parliamentary coalition, the American government, the police, the state and university authorities, the bourgeois, the Shah of Iran, the multinational corporations, the capitalist system'; the opponents of nuclear energy imagine themselves up against a powerful, monolithic alliance of irresponsible corporations, the powers of high finance, and all the institutions that are slave to it: courts, authorities, universities, as well as other research institutions, and political parties.

The fact that students will no longer put up with such things, that students have decided to no longer let reactionary professors finish their speeches, and that those in earlier semesters will therefore not continue to lose valuable years before they finally see through the sham but begin to study and learn in critical fashion much earlier than preceding generations – this fact does not make the university “non-functional as a center of research and learning” – as R.W. Leonhardt would have it. On the contrary, this is precisely what makes it functional. The students have learned through bitter experience – such as the opening ceremonies of the University of Hamburg – that they cannot achieve their goals by being quiet and well-behaved. They have to be noisy and persistent. They have understood that ceremonious orderliness does not allow room for critical content or democratic discussions, and that certain professors will have to suffer some unpleasant experiences if they refuse other forms of discussion. -Ulrike Meinhof responds to critics demanding the class of 2014 grow up and listen to Condoleeza Rice and Christine Lagarde, 1968, Counter-Violence