German foundations discussed Hannah Arendt's legacy and her political relevance.

To whom does Hannah Arendt belong? This is the question that four representatives of various organizations across the German political spectrum met on Saturday as part of the events commemorating the 50th anniversary of the philosopher's death . As the panel moderators, Patrick Eser of the DAAD and Friso Maecker, Director of the Goethe-Institut, explained, the discussion highlighted the multiplicity of theoretical and ideological-political readings of Arendt's thought and demonstrated her conception of the political act as an exchange of ideas in the public sphere.

After four o'clock, Hans-Dieter Holtzmann , director of the Buenos Aires office of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom (classical liberal orientation), Hernán Ouviña , coordinator of the School of Political Training of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation (Marxist left), María Carolina Riva Posse and Martín Plot, who participated representing the Konrad Adenauer Foundation (Christian Democratic Union) and Friedrich Ebert Foundations (social democracy) respectively, took their seats on the stage in room 3 of the San Martín Cultural Center.

As noted at the beginning of the meeting, all foundations have their counterparts in German political parties, but the topics discussed at the panel demonstrated their universality and engaged in direct dialogue with local current events. During the meeting, issues such as the role of dialogue in political debate, social equality, and freedom, particularly freedom of expression, were discussed, in reference to Arendt's work and the work of the foundations.

In the first round of questions, Friso Maecker recalled Arendt's rejection of isms and ideologies , which she saw as reducing critical thought and judgment, and questioned the participants about how much of Arendt's work is reflected in the daily work of the foundations.

“I found the question, to whom does Arendt belong, fascinating from the start. First of all, I found it fascinating because I have no doubt she would have hated her. And I think she would have liked what we're going to say in response. If Arendt was anything, she was a fiercely independent thinker ,” Plot began, eliciting a few knowing laughs from the audience.

"Perhaps there is something in Arendt's own deconstruction of the political space between left and right that is useful for our times, I venture to predict," added the doctor from the New School for Social Research, a researcher at Conicet and a professor at the Interdisciplinary School of Advanced Social Studies at UNSAM.

The microphone then passed to Riva Posse, a graduate and doctoral candidate in philosophy at the University of California, University of California, and professor of philosophy and ethics at the University of California, Los Angeles. She began by highlighting the clarity of Arendt's writing . "I think everyone would feel partly in control of what she's saying, because she reads us, she translates us as human beings. Because she's speaking of what we have in common, she returns to what the human experience is," she stated.

The floor then shifted to Ouviña, a political scientist with a PhD in Social Sciences, a professor in Political Science at the University of Buenos Aires, and a researcher at the Institute of Latin American and Caribbean Studies. In his role as coordinator of the Rosa Luxemburg School of Political Training, a foundation operating in the country since 2015, he maintained that dialogue, so important to Arendt, is one of the keys to the school's political training . "Precisely recovering the word, thinking about pluralism and dialogue from and alongside popular movements and grassroots organizations in the Southern Cone," he noted.

In his speech, he also recalled Arendt's admiration for Luxemburg and the similarities between their lives and thinking . "Today, a question Arendt poses in Between Past and Future takes on relevance. "Dare to ask not only what we are fighting against, but also what we are fighting for," he said.

Last in the round was the only German at the table, economics doctor Holtzmann, who revisited the commonalities between Arendt's thought and classical liberalism. "Hannah Arendt's insistence that it is not enough to understand freedom solely as negative freedom from something is fundamental; for her, freedom was always also positive freedom for something, a concept coined by Isaiah Berlin," he said, emphasizing the importance of fundamental rights being guaranteed politically and legally.

In a context of radical changes in the possibilities for deliberation, marked by the fragmentation of social coexistence, the reappearance of old totalitarian gestures (one need only recall the controversy surrounding Elon Musk's greeting), and the emergence of new authoritarianisms, those present were invited to reflect on the notion of political action as a joint action among equals.

“ The opposite of politics for Arendt was barbarism. That barbarism that Rosa saw not as something distant, but as something imminent. And I believe that the far right today, its contours, bear a worrying resemblance to that barbarism that Rosa obviously fought, but that Arendt herself also saw as a lurking danger,” Ouviña expressed.

“Reclaiming the word means breaking with the culture of silence and exercising something, paraphrasing Arendt, that is key in these times, which is the right to have rights . And the right to protest in these times is the right to have rights,” she concluded, to applause from the audience, alluding to the Argentine government's measures. In her speech, Plot echoed this perspective, stating that “the protocol that has been implemented is clearly the most anti-Arendtian thing one could imagine.”

“I believe that Arendt belonged, as she said many times, to the United States, but I would say to the Americas, precisely because of her status as an exile and an immigrant. What she saw—and I invite you to be proud of this—were societies capable of welcoming immigrants as political equals, regardless of their origin, their religious beliefs, or their ethnicity. That is at risk in our present ,” she concluded.

Holtzmann considered Arendt an example of her active commitment as a defender of freedom , especially for her actions in rescuing Jewish children from Nazism. She also brought a note of optimism by highlighting the demonstrations against racism and xenophobia in Germany, despite the existing challenges. Riva Posse, for her part, emphasized Arendt's notion of responsibility, for whom failure to take action allows evil to advance.

When asked about the relationship between freedom and equality, Plot, Riva Posse, and Ouviña agreed in seeing both notions intertwined , as mutual conditions of possibility. Holtzmann differed by emphasizing market freedom as a condition for improved social development. "In our opinion, the task of the State is also explicitly to help the truly needy with specific and direct sociopolitical measures. What we reject as ineffective are subsidies for everything and everyone based on a watering-can principle," he explained.

"A country like Argentina doesn't need a cultural struggle that unnecessarily divides the country. What's urgently needed is consensus and support to carry out the necessary reforms . But Argentina needs a cultural shift that moves it away from dependence on a nanny state or omnipresent caretaker and toward greater self-responsibility and initiative," he added.

Finally, the foundation representatives were asked about the connection between truth and politics , returning to one of the key themes of the conference, whose subtitle referred to post-truth. Are there values ​​we can still trust?

In his speech, Holtzmann referred to freedom of the press as a fundamental right and highlighted the work his foundation does to train journalists in identifying fake news .

Meanwhile, Ouviña defended the role of alternative media and used the question to speak out against the far-right's delegitimization of spaces Arendt called "repositories of truth," such as universities and research institutes like Conicet in Argentina.

Riva Posse, for her part, once again highlighted Arendt's humanism as a core value . Plot alluded to the problem of echo chambers, which dilute what Arendt called factual truths, a common ground for constructing interpretations. The answer, she agreed with her fellow panelists, lies in the multiplicity of media, freedom of expression, and universities.

Around 6 p.m., the participants left their chairs to take a group photo, concluding a meeting that vindicated the relevance of one of the leading thinkers on 20th-century totalitarianism.