Talk:Andrej Holm

Untitled

http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/worldwide/story/0,,2153121,00.html

Holm´s depiction as a Stasi terrorist

Hi,

I´m completely naive when it comes to Wikipedia edit, but this page depicts Andrej Holm as a Stasi terrorist, and never happens to mention the relevance of his extensive, transdisciplinary work on the topic of gentrification and social housing, started since the beginning of the 90s, when the definition was still unknown to most people. In fact, the word Stasi is mentioned 29 times, while "gentrification" and "social housing" exactly 0. I don´t know how many of you are aware of what happened to Andrej the last year, when - after he was elected State secretary for housing - he was heavily attacked on the media for his alleged past in the Stasi. I feel like underlying here a couple of aspects related to Holm´s life and to this page:

- His engagement with the Stasi was the one of a 14 years old kid, coming from a Stasi officiers family, that just follows the track of his family in order to have the chance to study journalism, as he wanted to. He underwent a basic military education and any activity ended when he was 19 with the fall of the wall.

- The facts were of public knowledge already since 2009, and he regretted already publicly about it before the media tornado of 2016, saying he can´t change his biography but certainly his positions towards those organisations.

- The accusations of 2007 were merely based on the fact that he researched about the topic of gentrification, a recurrent word on the networks of the radical left movements, any accusation was dropped, I don´t think that is a respectful opening line.

- The opening digression depicting Die Linke as the follower of the former communist party is another political statement which is completely inappropriate in this context.

- The narration of the events of 2016 never happens to mention the massive protests started by the students of Soziologienwissenschaft against the accusation against Holm, which brought to an occupation of the Humboldt university that lasted more than a month under the hashtag of #Holmbleibt (Holm stays).

- Holm never refused to apologize his past in the Stasi as the section "Disciplinary proceedings against Holm over his Stasi past at the Humboldt University" mention.

The german page should work as a model for this page, this entire structure does not offer an analysis of Holm´s work and identity, instead, it is adressing the Stasi past issue in every section, from the header to the bottom. This is fundamentally a politically filtered vision of who Andrej Holm actually is, and depicts Holm in the light of the ideas of who wrote it. Please edit this page further.

Uanlov (talk) 16:07, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

Holm is known for being arrested on terrorism charges a decade ago, and more recently for the controversy related to his past service as a Stasi officer. He isn't known for any academic work. He's a research assistant, not even a professor, his number of citations isn't very impressive and he most certainly wouldn't be considered notable as an academic here at the English Wikipedia in accordance with WP:PROF. Few people would have heard of him if it weren't for these controversies related to his arrest and dismissal. The article mentions that he was 14 years old when he volunteered, that his father was in the Stasi and all that, and that he now condemns the Stasi. --Tataral (talk) 21:30, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

I read this 6y later and I have to say I am sorry, but you clearly have no clue of who Holm is. Andrej Holm is a highly influential academic and sociologist, an international reference on the topic of housing in Berlin, which is the reason why he was appointed as Staatssekretär für Wohnen in the first place. He wrote multiple books and is published in many different languages. People definitely knew his name before the controversy (which is why the entire department of Sociology of Humboldt has been occupied by thousands of students in support of his name for over three weeks). Moreover, there is a clear discrepancy with the German wiki, which makes in fact multiple mentions of his academic work, and the support Holm received against what has been perceived by many as defamation. I feel this page to be incomplete, impartial (if not defamatory itself) and an edit to be required. Uanlov (talk) 20:57, 6 November 2023 (UTC)