Organization for direct democracy through referendum

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The organization for direct democracy through referendum was a political organization founded by the artists Joseph Beuys , Johannes Stüttgen and Karl Fastabend on June 19, 1971 in Düsseldorf. The anthroposophically influenced concepts of the expanded concept of art and social sculpture should also be implemented in politics in order to change social developments.

Content profile

In its “Political Program”, the “Organization for Direct Democracy through Referendum” refers to the Basic Law . "Real characteristics of democracy" are according to this program:

  1. The formation of will in politics from the bottom up,
  2. the indispensable sovereignty of the people at all administrative levels,
  3. the people as their own constitution,
  4. Women and men without a party register have the same rights as party register holders in the legislative bodies,
  5. no privileges for individual representatives and officials,
  6. Volksveto in individual cases (e.g. where no equal treatment of all people is guaranteed),
  7. Respect for the will of the electorate on the part of the elected,
  8. Referendum on important matters and fundamental rights issues,
  9. Possibility of voting out unworthy or incompetent representatives of the people and officials.

The organization should therefore explore possibilities in this regard in special working groups and inform its members and insufficiently informed sections of the population about them.

Women and men should be enabled to implement the Basic Law and the state constitutions or to contribute to them. In particular, the organization wanted to focus its attention on the equal rights of the interests of those sections of the population who belong to the disadvantaged in the political system .

In this respect, the "Organization for direct democracy through referendum" pursues a charitable purpose as a free popular initiative in the interests of its members and countless other people in Germany.

“ People's rule in my eyes means ...: All people create their own constitution, choose after they have made the constitution, their council administration or their fiduciary administration (...) and all areas of life are unbundled. That means: There is more and more free self-administration, both the entire school system and the economy, so that the state represents pure legal administration ... People's veto and voting out must be possible every day. . "

- Joseph Beuys

Starting at the popular level, she wanted to use the uncensored, free information guaranteed by the Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany to participate in political elections within the scope of her financial possibilities, so that starting at the lower administrative level such as the municipal elections, women and men also come to the legislative bodies, who don't have a party book in their pockets.

aims

The aim was to gather forces among the population who, for various reasons, were no longer interested in party elections. The legislative initiatives should be determined by the people and binding votes should be made possible. Beuys saw the organization's task as providing political information, discussion and the concrete organization of referendums. He wanted to make it clear that a functioning democracy requires the will to shape and the skills of a majority.

history

Origin, foundation and documenta 5

The "Organization for Direct Democracy through Referendum" emerged from the German Student Party founded in 1967 .

In the spring of 1970, Joseph Beuys rented a shop in Düsseldorf's old town at Andreasstrasse 25, which he set up as a public information and action office that was accessible to everyone. On June 19, 1971, the "Organization for direct democracy through referendum" was founded there. A year later, Beuys set up the office of the “Organization for direct democracy through referendum” as his contribution to Documenta 5 in Kassel, where he spent 100 days discussing questions about how direct democracy could be shaped in society and how it could be implemented. The publicity of the documenta contributed to the awareness of the organization. Finally, on October 8th, the “boxing match for direct democracy through referendum” was staged, in which Beuys fought against Abraham David Christian. After that the information office in Kassel was closed.

One day after the end of Documenta 5, Johannes Rau , the then Minister of Science of North Rhine-Westphalia, dismissed Joseph Beuys from teaching at the Düsseldorf Art Academy without notice . Beuys, however, did not accept the dismissal and took legal action against the state of North Rhine-Westphalia . After years of legal dispute, the dismissal in 1978 before the Federal Labor Court in Kassel was ultimately declared invalid.

development

In the fall of 1976, on the occasion of the federal elections , the Organization for Direct Democracy formed a working alliance through a referendum with the Action Group for Independent Germans (AUD), a small, almost still unknown party that mainly operates in southern Germany and advocates direct democratic expansion of the existing parliamentary system and advocated the principle of referendums or the establishment of an institution of the “Federal People's Commissioner”.

The “Action Group for Independent Germans” made their list places available to non-party personalities. In 1976, Joseph Beuys ran for the Bundestag on a list. As the top candidate for the AUD in the federal elections in North Rhine-Westphalia, Beuys received 598 votes (3%) in his constituency of Düsseldorf-Oberkassel .

In 1979 Beuys ran for the European Parliament as a direct candidate for "The Greens" and in 1980 for "The Greens" in the state parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia, but he was unable to enforce his own political ideas with the Greens.

literature

  • Thomas Mayer & Johannes Stüttgen Work of art referendum, Wangen 2004 (FIU-Verlag), ISBN 3-9287-80239
  • Susanne Anna (Ed.): Joseph Beuys, Düsseldorf , Hatje Cantz, Stadtmuseum Düsseldorf, September 29 to December 30, 2007, Ostfildern 2008, ISBN 978-3-7757-1992-6
  • Flensburger Hefte 24, 1789–1989 Direct Democracy - Interviews with Hans Peter Bull (SPD), Heiko Hoffmann (CDU), Gerald Häfner (Greens), Joseph Beuys and Direct Democracy, the artwork Omnibus for Direct Democracy u. a. 226 pages, 1989.
  • Rainer Rappmann (Ed.): Thinkers, Artists, Revolutionaries - Beuys, Dutschke, Schilinski, Schmundt - Four Lives for Freedom, Democracy and. Socialism , Wangen 1996, FIU-Verlag, ISBN 3-928780-13-1
  • Michael Ende & Joseph Beuys: Art and Politics - A Conversation Wangen 1989 FIU-Verlag, ISBN 3-928780-48-4
  • Götz Adriani, Winfried Konnertz and Karin Thomas: Joseph Beuys ; New edition, Cologne, DuMont (1994), ISBN 3-7701-3321-8

See also

Web links

swell

  1. ↑ a b c d Political program of the Organization for Direct Democracy through Referendum ( PDF )
  2. ↑ Harlan, Rappmann, Schata, Soziale Plastik - materials zu Joseph Beuys, p. 34
  3. ↑ Susanne Anna (ed.): Joseph Beuys, Düsseldorf , Hatje Cantz, Stadtmuseum Düsseldorf, September 29 to December 30, 2007, Ostfildern 2008, p. 99