Jan Böhmermann on "Moria 2": The EU is imprisoning innocents on Samos

Jan Böhmermann takes on the human contempt of the EU in the refugee camp Moria 2 in his ZDF magazine Royale. Is that still satire? The TV review.

What actually is satire? Before you click away at this point, please let me briefly explain this thought in connection with the current episode of ZDF Magazin Royale with Jan Böhmermann. I also promise that we quickly peeled the dust-dry shell from the core of the occasion.

The Duden, the holy scripture of German know-it-alls and language fetishists, defines satire as follows: “Art genre (literature, caricature, film) which criticizes people, events through exaggeration, irony and [biting] mockery, exposes them to ridicule, conditions denounced, scourged with sharp wit. ”So exaggeration. Irony and biting mockery. Sharp joke. In other words: pretty much what I, please correct me, have in mind when I think of Jan Böhmermann and his brilliant song “for” Rainer Wendt, for example.

You know, Rainer Wendt. This little, insignificant boss of an even smaller and just as insignificant police union, who thinks everything is stupid that does not serve as an intellectual, societal or social dust collector. In case you don’t know the song, please take a look at this before reading any further:

ZDF Magazin with Jan Böhmermann on the Samos camp: Is that still satire?

Good. Thanks. Since we are now struggling with the same catchy tune, let me explain why I threw the research question formulated at the beginning into the room. As someone who zaps into the ZDF magazine Royale week after week, also, but not only for professional reasons, I am now in a kind of reviewing crisis of meaning. What am I actually looking at? And against what background, damn it, should I classify what I see for you? After all, that’s my job.

My basic problem is: Jan Böhmermann is an outstanding satirist. If he wants to. His rap pasties as “Pol1z1stens0hn”, the Vera fake, the still confusing Varou fake, the outstanding songs “BE DEUTSCH!” And “Herz, Faust und winkerzwinker” – great cinema. Relevant (attention, please read the next word with emphasis) and funny. But somehow, I ask you again to correct me, Jan Böhmermann now seems like someone who no longer wants to be a satirist. Not a comedian. Rather, a political commentator who deals with current events and (usually) relies on excellent research.

His diligent research bees from his own ZDF editorial team and “neighboring” networks (today: FragDenStaat.de and the Reichelt debunkers from Ippen Investigativ) shovel grievances to light and rub them into a previously ignorant public with the tenderness of Steven Seagal (by the way meanwhile “Russian special adviser for humanitarian relations with the USA” – one cannot imagine) under the nose. Jan Böhmermann seems more and more like Günter Wallraff of ZDF. Politically, morally, investigatively. A role that suits him. That is free.

Jan Böhmermann denounces the inhumane policies of the EU on Samos in ZDF Magazin Royale

This is also the case in this episode of his ZDF Magazin Royale, in which Böhmermann denounces the hostile internment of people who are not accused of crimes. No, this is not about politically persecuted people in Russia or Belarus. And no, not about journalists in Turkey either. It’s about people who haven’t even chosen their own fate. About people, including many children and women on Samos, the refugee camp that has been operating under the unflattering term “Moria 2” for some time.

To people, including many children and women, who are locked behind barbed wire, as far away as possible from the nearest civilization, in order to eke out a dreary existence there. And to want to go back to where the bombs fall. There, according to Jan Böhmermann, “human rights are violated, but according to EU standards, please”. The entire episode ZDF Magazin Royale manages to completely expose the circumstances there and Beate Gminder. Who that is?

Well, the German bureaucrat Gminder operates under the job title “Deputy Director-General in charge of the EU’s Task Force Migration Management”. Basically she is something like the highest head of prison in Europe for people who, I like to repeat myself, are not accused of a single crime. Perhaps apart from the crime of wanting to live and escaping war, displacement, rape, murder, and starvation.

ZDF Magazin Royale on “Moria 2” Samos: Critical reproduction of investigative journalism

To summarize all of this in these few lines would not be appropriate to the unbelievable seriousness and disgusting contempt for human life and human freedom that the EU is showing there on the ground. So, completely with Jan Böhmermann, we recommend that you click on one of these links here (at least as long as there is still enough compassion to consider the life of people outside of one’s own Job Center catchment area as worth living):

Thanks for clicking. If you instead want to dwell a little longer in this TV review with your own identity crisis, I would like to try to close the circle especially for you. So what is satire? We know what satire is allowed to do. But what can she do? What is she? Where does it begin, where does it end and, above all, what distinguishes it from (absolutely relevant) investigative journalism or at least commentary journalism that reproduces investigative journalism?

In the run-up to this issue of ZDF Magazin Royale, I had the fun of reading all 24 issues of the “Neo Magazin Royale Classics” episodes in the ZDF media library. And was well entertained. I have laughed a lot. Sometimes the jokes, ditty and sketches were full of exaggeration, irony and [biting] mockery. They ridiculed people and events. They were satire.

“Moria 2” Samos: This ZDF Magazin Royale with Jan Böhmermann is no longer funny, but relevant

In the meantime I catch myself, please write me how you feel, hardly laughing when Jan Böhmermann invites you to ZDF Magazin Royale. Because Jan Böhmermann is hardly exaggerated, ironic, mocking. He’s no longer a court jester. I think he doesn’t even want to be that anymore. Because with the topics to which he is giving more and more space, while at the same time increasing reluctance to expose himself, he is now one thing above all: relevant.

And perhaps no longer in this role (that’s what I called Jan Böhmermann a week ago), the most important satirist in the country. On the other hand, one of the most important, if not the most important, voice of a critical journalism that squeezes its finger into the wound where we would all most of the time most like to look away in disgust. (Mirko Schmid)