German city of Bremen bans silent fox gesture over links to Turkish far-right group

What does this hand gesture mean? A little too much, according to the authorities of the German city of Bremen, who fear that it is linked to a far-right Turkish nationalist movement.

Authorities have banned the use of the “silent fox” hand gesture in schools because of its association with the Turkish nationalist movement.

The silent fox gesture, made by raising the index and little fingers while pinching the middle and ring fingers with the thumb, is used throughout Europe as a teaching method in silent classrooms.

But the silent fox is being phased out of daycares and schools in the German city of Bremen because of its visual resemblance to the “wolf salute,” a political symbol of the Grey Wolves (Ülkü Ocakları) and the Nationalist Movement Party in Turkey.

The controversial wolf salute gesture represents a combination of Turkishness and Islam by the Grey Wolves, a Turkish far-right political group that has been described as a “death squad” and a “terrorist organization” for its reported association with political violence.

Austria banned the wolf salute in 2019, and France followed suit. While the gesture is not completely banned in Germany, the decision by Bremen authorities is a significant departure from the approach taken by its neighbors.

The wolf’s salvation made headlines earlier this month when Turkish footballer Merih Demiral was banned for two matches by UEFA after using the gesture to celebrate a goal against Austria during the Euro.

Demiral claimed it was an expression of Turkish pride while German Interior Minister Nancy Faesar said: “Using football championships as a platform for racism is completely unacceptable.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan responded to what he saw as the hypocrisy of UEFA’s decision: “Does anyone ask why the German national jersey has an eagle, or the French jersey a rooster?”

Erdoğan has been criticized for his own use of the wolf salute. In 2018, he briefly made the gesture at a campaign rally in Mersin, which political commentators saw as an attempt to rally far-right nationalists around his electoral base.

If the wolf salute were to be banned entirely in Germany, it would join the Sieg Heil, the salute popularized as a sign of obedience to Adolf Hitler, as an illegal gesture. The use of the Sieg Heil is also considered a crime in Austria, Slovakia and Italy, and constitutes hate speech in most other European countries.