ALT Boycott of Berghain: from March 2024 to now More and more artists are boycotting Berghain in response to Berghain’s silence on the genocide in Palestine and cancellation of artists in solidarity with Palestinian liberation Antifascist Music Alliance 25/11/2024

ALT Interview with Josey Rebelle When did you make the decision? Was that before or after the March call for boycott from DJs Against Apartheid and Ravers for Palestine? I was upset to hear about Berghain’s cancellation of Arabian Panther’s event and the way the club had chosen to handle the situation. When this story broke in January I had just agreed to play six dates at Berghain across 2024 and so I knew I needed to have an urgent discussion with the club. I sent the club an email to express my thoughts, indicating that I was considering leaving, and we agreed to have a phone call.

ALT I asked whether Berghain intended to make any public statement or gesture to call for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, to signal any support for Gaza as it did with Ukraine, or to align itself with the demands of the Strike Germany movement. If the answer to these questions was no, I asked if Berghain intended to take any steps at all. While the tone of the subsequent phone call was respectful, it was clear to me that there was no remorse over the way this situation had been handled, and there was to be neither an apology nor any clarification on the club’s stance on Gaza. I was told that Berghain did not get involved in political matters. Again I pointed out that the club had been very vocal in its support of Ukraine, including setting up a dedicated page on its website, which proved that the club was absolutely able to speak up on these matters and was consciously choosing not to do the same for Gaza.

ALT One of the parties that continues to host events at Berghain, despite the boycott, is REEF. Ravers for Palestine reached out to REEF organizers privately on October 11, 2024, asking them to withdraw. After private outreach was not successful, Ravers for Palestine made their appeal public on October 18, 2024, asking REEF to stand with their community and boycott Berghain. REEF had their party most recently on November 15, 2024. As the Antifascist Music Alliance we also reached out to artists who were on the lineup (pictured below), asking them to respect the boycott. We did not receive a response.

ALT We’ve also reported on CTM’s lack of courage and solidarity with the boycott in the Left Berlin previously. CTM festival continues to host parties at Berghain. Their most recent party was on October 30, 2024 and Berghain is still listed as the main venue for their 2025 festival. CTM and REEF are only two examples of parties/festivals claiming progressiveness while holding their events at Berghain. Some other examples that we noticed include Your Love, Love on the Rocks, and queer party weeeirdos. There is no queer liberation without Palestinian liberation. These parties and collectives refuse to stand with those in the nightlife community who are courageously and unapologetically protesting against over a year of escalating genocide in Palestine and Lebanon and repression in Germany.

ALT Interview with Ravers for Palestine You announced in March a call for a boycott of Berghain, together with DJs Against Apartheid. What can you tell us about the djs heeding this call? A broad and diverse range of DJs is now boycotting Berghain, ranging from experimental up-and-coming artists to former regulars at the club. One clear throughline is the collective withdrawal of international artists. Very few DJs from the UK and US are still playing there, for example. This is a tectonic shift. Even Berghain’s Reddit community has registered this: anxious threads with titles like ‘Why are so many well-known DJs no longer regularly being booked?’

ALT How has it been so far with support for the boycott? What have you seen? What would you like to say? Early on in the genocide, we weren’t sure if we had the numbers within rave culture to challenge the normalization of ‘Israel’, and the West’s wider attempts to co-opt us into their imperial status quo. A year on, it’s clear these doubts were unwarranted. While nightlife institutions have largely remained silent, and, in some cases, have even repressed pro-Palestinian voices, the community itself has risen to this anticolonial moment. From boycotts of entities complicit in the genocide, to autonomous actions, the surge in PACBI nightlife endorsements, and the militancy and sacrifice of so many individual artists and ravers, we’ve shown that our culture has deep and powerful reservoirs of resistance at its grassroots.