'No barbaric act can ever erase press freedom,' French President Hollande tweeted immediately after the bloody attack on the editors of the satirical weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo in January 2015. German Chancellor Angela Merkel walked side by side with him in a mass demonstration for freedom of speech. But that was the reality of the time. Now she is allowing criminal prosecution of German comedian Jan Böhmermann on the orders of a dictatorial leader.
For a long time, Merkel was my heroine. Although she was often under fire in her own country, I saw a woman of integrity, who always kept a cool head and stood up for our Western values. Such as freedom of speech and humanity - winged was her statement on the wave of refugees flooding Germany: 'Wir schaffen das!' - But then she made a devil's pact with the volatile Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
The wait was for the first incident. That came on 17 March 2016, in the form of the song broadcast by the NDR Erdowie Erdowo Erdowan, satirising the Turkish president for his press bias, lust for power and self-enrichment. He immediately called on the German ambassador.
While his demand to take the programme off the net was not met, Merkel kept remarkably quiet. The clip went viral and many laughed at the silly Turk, who had bitten the dust for the Germans.
Jan Böhmermann concluded in his programme Neo Magazine Royale on ZDF to go one step further. In a one-two punch with sparring partner Ralf Kabelka, he wondered where the limits of freedom of expression lie, only to explore them further in a satirical poem. The text was so over the top, that it is surprising that anyone could take offence at this.
The rest is history: Erdoğan angry, Merkel bowed, ZDF deleted the item*, Böhmermann faces up to 5 years in prison.
The Böhmermann case once again proves the usefulness and necessity of art. With his satire, Jan Böhmermann held up a mirror not only to Erdoğan but especially to Merkel. The former for his abuse of power, the latter for her flexible handling of principles. And by, like the jester in Shakespeare the powers that be pointing out their failures, he made the wrongs en passant understandable to the people.
Böhmermann thus exposed an open nerve: Germans' unease about the growing influence of non-Western elements on their society. Merkel thought to combat the discontent through a shadowy deal with Turkey, but became blackmailable in the process. Her knee-jerk reaction to Erdoğan means she is now facing a tsunami of anger that may even cost her her head.
For his part, the Turkish president is facing a deluge of mocking songs, cartoons and other forms of satire. Already dragging an average of three people a day to court for 'insulting', he now gets a day job with that. In this way, he is indirectly doing art a favour. Even I wrote a song again after years.
And Böhmermann? He is instantly world-famous, but is under police protection and will not perform for the next few weeks. Yet he has not lost his sense of humour. On his facebook page, he writes to take a small break "so that local government and the internet can refocus on really important things, like the refugee crisis, cat videos or Sophia Thomalla's love life".
He is reportedly enjoying a holiday in Turkey. - But of course: Turkey is the place to be.
*The integral item by Böhmermann can still be found at RBNSHT.
Postscript 21 April: today in Middelburg, Angela Merkel received the Four Freedoms Award awarded. At the same time, the Turkish Consulate issued an appeal to Turkish nationals to ''insults' to Erdogan to be reported.
Domestically, the Turkish president left all Christian churches of the city of Diyarbakir expropriated and declared state property.
Postscript 22 April: Merkel acknowledges that it was wrong Böhmermann's satirical poem ''deliberately offensive' mentioned.
Postscript 18 May: The Landesgericht Hamburg in a preliminary view while judging the item as a whole to be satire, nevertheless called large parts of the poem inadmissible. Böhmermann's lawyer is appealing against this.
Highlighted in red are the rules the court finds inadmissible:
Sackdoof, feige und verklemmt,
ist Erdogan, der Präsident.
Sein Gelöt stinks schlimm nach Döner,
selbst ein Schweinefurz riecht schöner.
Er ist der Mann, der Mädchen schlägt
und dabei Gummimasken trägt.
Am liebsten mag er Ziegen ficken
und Minderheiten unterdrücken,
Kurden treten, Christen hauen
und dabei Kinderpornos schauen.
Und selbst abends heisst's statt schlafen,
Fellatio mit hundert Schafen.
Yes, Erdogan ist voll und ganz,
ein Präsident mit kleinem Schwanz.
Jeden Türken hört man flöten,
die dumme Sau hat Schrumpelklöten.
Von Ankara bis Istanbul
weiß jeder, dieser Mann ist schwul,
perverse, verlaust und zoophil -
Recep Fritzl Priklopil.
Sein Kopf so leer wie seine Eier,
der Star auf jeder Gangbang-Feier.
Bis der Schwanz beim Pinkeln brennt,
das ist Recep Erdogan, der türkische Präsident.
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