January 16th, 2011 | admin
Berlin — In Germany today, Muslims are often cited as a crucial factor in contemporary German anti-Semitism—and are themselves increasingly a target of ethnic based prejudice and bigotry.
Yet, leaders of Germany’s Jewish community have joined others in combating what many view as a tidal wave of German Islamophobia.
Though rich in irony, Jewish leaders see their position as a matter of Jewish self-interest in a Germany in which old ghosts remain laid to rest.
Concern about German Islamophobia comes against a backdrop in which experts who track anti-Semitism in Germany today cite a trend of Muslims joining with extreme leftists and traditional anti-Semites to protest Israel while invoking Jews, explicitly, as their targets.
A Living Revolution: Anarchism in the Kibbutz Movement
By Jame Horrox
Against the backdrop of the early development of Palestinian-Jewish and Israeli society, James Horrox explores the history of the kibbutz movement: intentional communities based on cooperative social principles, deeply egalitarian and anarchist in their organisation.
“The defining influence of anarchist currents in the early kibbutz movement has been one of official Zionist historiography’s best-kept secrets…It is against this background of induced collective amnesia that A Living Revolution makes its vital contribution. James Horrox has drawn on archival research, interviews and political analysis to thread together the story of a period all but gone from living memory, presenting it for the first time to an English-reading audience. These pages bring to life the most radical and passionate voices that shaped the second and third waves of Jewish immigration to Palestine, and also encounter those contemporary projects working to revive the spirit of the kibbutz as it was intended to be, despite, and because of, their predecessors’ fate.” —Uri Gordon, from the foreword
“A brilliant study of anarchism in the kibbutz movement, particularly regarding economy and polity. Revealing the roots and processes of the influx of anarchist ideas and practices into the early Jewish labour movement, assessing the actual kibbutz practice and seeing the kibbutzim as both a model way to live and a set of experiments to learn from, Horrox gives this history the meticulous attention it deserves. A Living Revolution is comprehensive, caring and even passionate, but also critical. Horrox’s study is an exemplary undertaking we can learn much from.”—Michael Albert, editor Znet and Z Magazine
“James Horrox’s accessible and clear history of the kibbutz movement and its intellectual roots is interesting and informative. Sensitive to political contexts in which the movement has operated, it provides a refreshing reminder of the constructive possibilities of anarchist ideas.”—Ruth Kinna, editor Anarchist Studies
Read the forward here
Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia Hatreds Old and New in Europe
By Matti Bunzl
The apparent resurgence of hostility toward Jews has been a prominent theme in recent discussions of Europe; at the same time, the adversities faced by the continent’s Muslim population have received increasing attention. In Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, Matti Bunzl offers a historical and cultural clarification of the key terms in these ongoing problems. Arguing against the common impulse to analogize anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, it instead offers a framework that locates the two phenomena in different projects of exclusion.
According to Bunzl, anti-Semitism was invented in the late nineteenth century to police the ethnically pure nation-state. Islamophobia, by contrast, is a phenomenon of the present, marshaled to safeguard a supranational Europe. With the declining importance of the nation-state, traditional anti-Semitism has run its historical course, while Islamophobia threatens to become the defining condition of the new, unified Europe. By ridding us of misapprehensions, Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia enables us to see these forces anew.
Dissonant Memories – Fragmented Present Exchanging Young Discourses between Israel and Germany
How does the younger generation exchange discourses between Israel and Germany? In this essay collection, authors from both societies elaborate on their memories of the Holocaust, the Nazi past and their present. They ponder experiences in German-Israeli exchange as well as social and political realities in both countries. By highlighting marginalised memories such as Palestinian and migrant ones, they challenge monolithic national memory discourses. Altogether, a trans-national memory discourse emerges – albeit a dissonant and highly subjective one, truthfully reflecting some of the fragmentations that actually exist in both societies.
Originally published in German in ak – analyse & kritik – zeitung für linke Debatte und Praxis / Nr. 533 / 21.11.2008
The successful prevention of the “Anti-Islamification” Congress in Cologne last September was the result of one of the largest anti-fascist and anti-racist mobilizations of the last few years. The abortive congress can be regarded as an attempt by the European right to consolidate its forces by means of the theme of the “Islamification of Europe” and the promotion of a pan-European right-wing party. The counter-mobilization also raised questions concerning anti-racist positions and strategies against rising anti-Muslim racism in Europe, and brought these questions to the attention of a broader public.
Broad coalitions – such as that in Cologne – are important and necessary components of a struggle for hegemony. It is just as important to bring an anti-racist critique into these struggles, a critique that does not appeal to tolerance, cultural difference, or freedom of religion. These “values” do not break with the logic of culturalization, but rather strengthen it from the “left”. Strategies must be developed concerning how to push back against (local and everyday) mobilizations against immigrants as “Muslims” without falling into the trap of culturalization. Thus, the following two questions are of foremost importance for us:
The National Competitive State and Security Policies
1) Why is “Islam” such an attractive bogeyman for so many people? The right’s capacity for mobilization has to be considered within the context of capitalism’s upheavals and neoliberal and authoritarian strategies of the ruling block. 2) To what extent can we actually speak of an anti-Muslim racism (AMR for short) without therefore falling into the trap of overlooking right-wing elements within Islamic movements? Reactionary political-religious movements within Islam must be criticized along with the social conditions in which they emerge, taking into account the racism of the majority society and the economic, cultural, and political contradictions of globalized capitalism.
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Antisemitism and Islamophobia in Europe:
comparisons/contrasts/connections
22nd – 24th June 2008
Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies
University College London
Organised by: Edge Hill University, Goldsmiths College, UCL
Aims
The aim of this conference is to explore the connections, commonalities and differences between Antisemitism and Islamophobia in Europe through a broad geographical and historical lens.
Papers will focus on contemporary and historical flashpoints, such as Britain, Germany, France, Iberia, Austria, Russia, the Balkans, and the Netherlands. In addition to ‘national’ case studies, the conference will attempt to gain a broad ‘European’, transnational perspective on this complex question or will at least consider whether such a thing can or should be attempted.
Given the acute relevance of the subject today, we aim to give equal attention to contemporary as well as historical research. At the same time, however, the importance of looking at Antisemitism/Islamophobia in the longue durée is critical, and papers will be included that go back to the medieval period.
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