Naomi Klein

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Naomi Klein (2014)

Naomi Klein (born May 8, 1970 in Montreal ) is a Canadian journalist , globalization critic and political activist .

biography

family

Naomi Klein (2008)

Naomi Klein is the daughter of the documentary filmmaker Bonnie Sherr Klein and the doctor Michael Klein, who emigrated from the USA to Montreal , Canada , as opponents of the Vietnam War in 1967 . Since 2011, Klein has also had US citizenship, which she was entitled to based on the origins of her parents.

Her paternal grandparents were American Communists who began to turn away from the Soviet Union after the Hitler-Stalin Pact . Klein's grandfather, Phil Klein, lost his job as an animator at Walt Disney after he helped organize the first animators' strike at Disney in 1941, and then worked at a shipyard. Little brother Seth runs an alternative politics center in British Columbia .

Naomi Klein is a secular Jew . She is married to the Canadian television journalist and documentary filmmaker Avi Lewis, who also comes from a left-wing, politically engaged Jewish family. His mother Michele Landsberg is a well-known Canadian feminist journalist, his father is the politician and diplomat Stephen Henry Lewis , whose father David Lewis was one of the co-founders of the Canadian New Democratic Party and whose grandfather, Moishe Lewis nee. Losz, who emigrated from Eastern Europe to Canada in 1921 as an activist of the Jewish Federation . Klein and her husband, with whom she has a son born in 2012, live in Toronto .

Youth and education

In her childhood and youth, Naomi Klein was fascinated by consumption , designer labels and logos . She also felt uncomfortable having a mother who was publicly known as a feminist , especially after her anti-pornography film This Is Not A Love Story was released. She was able to reduce her consumption addiction and vanity to a reasonable level by taking an interest in other things, Klein said in an interview with the British daily The Guardian .

Klein wanted to study English and Philosophy at the University of Toronto when her mother had a severe stroke, and she postponed her studies to take care of her mother with her father and brother. When she returned to university in 1989, the rampage occurred at the Montréal Polytechnic , where Marc Lépine murdered fourteen women and injured another thirteen before killing himself , presumably out of hatred for feminists. This event made all female students politicized, and it was a matter of course that one would call oneself a feminist afterwards, said Klein.

At university, Klein began writing for the student newspaper The Varsity and became its editor-in-chief. After three years, she dropped out of college to do a traineeship at the Canadian daily newspaper The Globe and Mail in Toronto and then went on to work as an editor for the small alternative political journal This Magazine , which New Yorkers calls “the Canadian equivalent of the US The Nation magazine ”.

In 1996, after just over a year, she decided to continue her studies and found that a lot had changed at the university. In contrast to the past, students were no longer interested in questions of identity, but of economic issues. Klein dropped out of university and started writing a book about the new branded goods culture that was perceived as dangerous .

Journalistic activity

Naomi Klein has published several books and works as a freelance journalist. She writes a column for the US magazine The Nation and for the British daily newspaper The Guardian . Her articles are also published in Harper's Magazine , The Globe and Mail and in the New York Times - in German translation in part also in the Frankfurter Rundschau . Since 2017 she works as a correspondent for the journalistic website The Intercept .

Klein's first book, No Logo , was published in 2000 shortly after anti- globalization protests against the WTO meeting in Seattle in December 1999 and, as noted by the British weekly The Observer , documented the protesters' goals before the demonstrations even took place.

Klein analyzed in her book, the globalization of brands and the development of classical, producing manufacturers to lifestyle - marketing companies , d. H. to pure logo companies.

The book became a bestseller worldwide, selling over a million copies in more than twenty languages ; in the Observer it is referred to as a “ manifesto ”, as “ the capital of the growing anti-globalization movement ” and Klein praised as a “ prophet ” who is not able to see the future but the present better than others.

In an interview with Die Zeit , Klein rejected such representations. Her book is not a manifesto, nor is she the leader of the anti-globalization movement, which is also not centrally organized and therefore has no leaders.

Over fences and walls: Reports from the globalization front

About Fences and Walls is the German translation of the 2002 English book Fences and Windows: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Globalization Debate by Naomi Klein and the editor Debra Ann Levy. The book contains a collection of articles by Naomi Klein, which appeared mainly in the Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail , but also in The Nation magazine , supplemented by some of the speeches she gave.

The shock strategy

According to her book The Shock Strategy , published in 2007, Milton Friedman's theories, which she describes as “market radical”, have been used to implement broad privatization measures after economic shocks, military defeats or natural disasters . After the exemplary so-called “ Miracle of Chile ” under Pinochet , the shock strategy was also implemented or planned in Margaret Thatcher's Great Britain after the Falklands War, in the former Soviet Union Russia under Yeltsin and in the United States after Hurricane Katrina and in Iraq after the invasion been. According to Klein, Friedman's theses, which would have a major impact on the policies of the IMF and World Bank , contribute to impoverishment and exploitation in large parts of the world. Klein describes herself as a democratic socialist and advocates a mixed economy .

The decision: capitalism vs. climate

In her book The Decision: Capitalism vs. Klima ( This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate , 2014), Klein examines the relationship between capitalism and climate change . Necessary climate protection measures have so far not been implemented because they are in fundamental conflict with the ideal of a free, unregulated market economy and threaten the elite minority who have a supremacy in business, politics and the media. Among other things, she lists various examples of greenwashing and mentions Richard Branson , who has not yet kept his promise to provide three billion dollars for climate protection.

Klein is co-signatory of an open letter published in December 2018, in which politicians are accused of failing to address the climate crisis and are called on to join movements like Extinction Rebellion and to refrain from consumption .

Political positions

Iraq war

In her article "Baghdad year zero: Pillaging Iraq in the pursuit of a neocon utopia" , published in the American magazine Harper's Magazine in 2004 , Klein analyzed the situation in Iraq at the time . Contrary to the prevailing view that the messed up situation in Iraq was due to the lack of a plan by the American government for the period after the capture of Iraq, Klein argues that the Bush administration did have a post-war plan , but it failed .

Naomi Klein at a book launch in Berlin (2007)

According to this plan, the American neoconservatives had planned to use the shock that the military defeat in Iraq was expected to trigger to build a neoconservative utopia of a radical market system. Klein argues that it was precisely the brutality of the privatizations planned by the American civil administrator Paul Bremer , to be enforced with a number of corresponding regulations, which triggered the violence and uprisings of the various Iraqi groups, as a result of which Iraq became unattractive for Western investors . She expanded this thesis in her book The Shock Strategy .

Israel

As the editor of a student newspaper, Klein positioned herself against Israel during the first Intifada in an article entitled Victim To Victimizer (German, for example, from victim to perpetrator ) . Israel must end not only its policy of occupation against the Palestinians , but also against its own people, especially against women. The article was sharply criticized.

In April 2002, in a column in the Globe and Mail and the Guardian , she accused the then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of using global anti-Semitism as a weapon and justification for his policies and of inciting anti-Semitism through his actions. Critics of globalization would therefore have to reclaim the fight against anti-Semitism .

On the occasion of the Gaza War, she joined the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign and, in a January 10, 2009 Guardian commentary, called for a boycott of Israel: “The best strategy to end the increasingly bloody occupation is for Israel in becoming the target of such a global movement that brought about the end of apartheid in South Africa ”. Regardless of this, Klein continues to give Israeli media, e.g. B. Haaretz , Interviews and published the Hebrew and Arabic editions of her book The Shock Strategy in an Israeli small publisher specializing in translations of Arabic literature into Hebrew, for whose benefit she waived the income from the book. In September 2019, with over 250 authors, she criticized the city of Dortmund for awarding the Nelly Sachs Prize to the writer Kamila Shamsie because of her support for the controversial BDS campaign (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel), which the jury did not discuss was informed, had revoked. The jury had revoked their decision because Shamsie's position was in conflict with the statutes of the award and the spirit of the Nelly Sachs Prize.

Naomi Klein's call to boycott Israel has been rated as anti-Semitic several times , for example in Die Zeit and in the taz .

Publications

Movies

  • The Take . Documentary, 2004. Director: Avi Lewis, screenplay: Naomi Klein
  • This Changes Everything . Documentary, 2015. Director: Avi Lewis, screenplay: Naomi Klein

Honors

For her book No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies , Naomi Klein was the youngest winner in 2000 of the Canadian National Business Book Award , worth CAN $ 20,000 , which has been presented annually by PricewaterhouseCoopers together with the Bank of Montreal and the Globe and Mail since 1985 and in 2001 the Prix ​​Médiations co-organized by the French Senate . Furthermore, was No Logo among the top five for the Guardian First Book Award 2000 nominated books.

For her article "Baghdad year zero: Pillaging Iraq in pursuit of a neocon utopia" , published in Harper's Magazine , Naomi Klein received the 2004 James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism from Hunter College New York .

The documentary film The Take by Avi Lewis, which Naomi Klein co-produced and for which she wrote the screenplay, received the 2004 Grand Jury Prize of the American Film Institute , Los Angeles in the documentary category.

In October 2005, Naomi Klein was ranked eleventh in the 2005 Global Intellectuals Poll , a list of the 100 most important living intellectuals in the public eye, determined by the magazines “Prospect” (GB) and “Foreign Policy” (USA) through an internet reader survey. In 2014 it came in 13th place in the ranking now known as World Thinkers , and in 2015 it was 3rd

In 2007 Naomi Klein received an Honorary Doctor of Civil Laws from the University of King's College, Nova Scotia , Canada .

For her book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism , Naomi Klein received the first £ 50,000 Warwick Prize from the University of Warwick in 2009 .

For Naomi Klein's three columns “Disowned by the Ownership Society” from February 18, 2008, “Obama, Being Called a Muslim Is Not a Smear” from March 17, 2008 and “Obama's Chicago Boys” from June 30, 2008 received the editor of the magazine the nation the National Magazine Award 2009 of the American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME) in the category columns and comments.

This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate received an American Book Award in 2015 .

Web links

Commons : Naomi Klein  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Katharine Viner: Hand-to-brand-combat in: The Guardian September 23, 2000, accessed: March 27, 2009
  2. ↑ Naomi Klein: Why only a Green New Deal can save our planet . 1st edition. Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg 2019, p. 191-193 .
  3. ↑ Tom Sito: Disney Strike of 1941: How It Changed Animation & Comics  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as broken. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Dead Link / mag.awn.com   Animation World Magazine, July 19, 2005, accessed: March 25, 2009
  4. ↑ a b Larissa MacFarquhar: Outside Agitator: Naomi Klein and the New Left in: The New Yorker , December 8, 2008, accessed: March 27, 2009
  5. ↑ Naomi Klein: Why only a Green New Deal can save our planet . 1st edition. Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg 2019, p. 159 .
  6. ↑ Extended story by Avi Lewis: Who do you think you are? CBC television, accessed March 25, 2009
  7. ↑ Naomi Klein . Facebook. March 5, 2012.
  8. ↑ The Montreal Massacre - Big Think ( Memento of the original from July 25, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. January 27, 2008 (video, 1:32 min) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.bigthink.com
  9. ^ The Guardian : Hand-To-Brand-Combat (part two) September 23, 2000
  10. ↑ The New Yorker on Naomi Klein (and This Magazine) ( Memento of the original from June 5, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. : “Have you heard of this little publication, The New Yorker ? Well, in the tradition of all Canadians unexpectedly name-checked by larger and - let's face it - more profitable and widely read American peers, we're a little twitterpated that This Magazine gets a mention in a profile of Naomi Klein, former This editor and author of The Shock Doctrine . Not just any mention, either: they call us 'the Canadian equivalent of The Nation '. Quick, someone get us the smelling salts! " This Magazine, December 08, 2008, posted by Graham F. Scott; Retrieved April 3, 2009 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / blog.thismagazine.ca
  11. ↑ Betsy Reed: Naomi Klein to Cover Shocks of Trump Era for The Intercept. In: The Intercept. February 13, 2017, accessed February 23, 2020 (American English).
  12. ↑ No logo: taking aim at the brand bullies ; Knopf, Canada 2000 (first edition)
    German: No Logo! : the struggle of the global players for market power: a game with many losers and few winners ; from the American .; Riemann, Munich 2001
  13. ↑ a b Gaby Wood: Look, no brands ... Her surprise bestseller No Logo has propelled 30-year-old Naomi Klein to the forefront of the radical anti-corporate movement. But can boycotting Gap really change the world? The Observer , November 12, 2000, accessed April 6, 2009
  14. ↑ No power to brands! Interview with Naomi Klein by Claudia Riedel, Die Zeit , March 15, 2001
  15. ^ Fences and Windows: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Globalization Debate ; editor Debra Ann Levy; Picador, New York 2002; German: Over fences and walls: reports from the globalization front ; from the English; Campus, Frankfurt am Main 2003
  16. ^ Socialist Review: The Shock Doctrine . October 2007
  17. ↑ Non-fiction book - You pretend there is no global warming , review by Johannes Kaiser in Deutschlandradio Kultur on March 4, 2015, accessed March 11, 2015
  18. ↑ Suzanne Goldenberg: Naomi Klein: 'We tried it your way and we don't have another decade to waste' . In: The Guardian . September 14, 2014. Retrieved September 15, 2014.
  19. ↑ Naomi Klein: The hypocrisy behind the big business climate change battle . In: The Guardian . September 13, 2014. Retrieved September 15, 2014.
  20. ↑ Suzanne Goldenberg: Richard Branson failed to deliver on $ 3bn climate change pledge . In: The Guardian . September 13, 2014. Retrieved September 15, 2014.
  21. ↑ Act now to prevent an environmental catastrophe. The Guardian, December 9, 2018, accessed January 22, 2019 .
  22. ↑ Harper's Magazine : Bagdad year zero: Pillaging Iraq in pursuit of a neocon utopia; September 2004;
    German: Sheets for German and international politics : Baghdad in the year zero. The failure of the neoconservative utopia; Edition 01/2005
  23. ↑ Naomi Klein speaks out on Israel Interview by Lauren Sandler in Heeb Magazin , March / April 2003, accessed on utne reader, July 10, 2009.
  24. ^ The Guardian : Anti-semitism sustains Israel's brutal leader - the fight against it must be reclaimed , April 25, 2002
  25. ↑ Enough. It's time for a boycott . The Guardian . January 10, 2009. Retrieved January 18, 2011: "the best strategy to end the increasingly bloody occupation is for Israel to become the target of the kind of global movement that put an end to apartheid in South Africa"
  26. ↑ Naomi Klein: Oppose the state, not the people ( Memento of the original from July 4, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.haaretz.com
  27. ↑ Andalus Publishing
  28. ↑ Naomi Klein in Israel
  29. ↑ Open letter supported by Kamila Shamsie , Deutschlandfunk, September 24, 2019
  30. ↑ Die Zeit : Blinded , January 15, 2009.
  31. ^ Taz : Anti-Semitism from the Left , January 22, 2009
  32. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from July 14, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.nbbaward.com
  33. ↑ [1]
  34. ↑ [2]
  35. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original dated June 12, 2007 in the web archive archive.today ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / filmmedia.hunter.cuny.edu
  36. ↑ PDF at www.afi.com
  37. ↑ Prospect Magazine: World Thinkers 2014 . Retrieved March 28, 2015.
  38. ↑ Prospect Magazine: World Thinkers 2015 . Retrieved March 28, 2015.
  39. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original dated November 10, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ukings.ca
  40. ↑ Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine wins first Warwick Prize for Writing
personal data
SURNAME Little Naomi
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Canadian writer and critic of globalization
DATE OF BIRTH May 8, 1970
PLACE OF BIRTH Montreal , Quebec