tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34709652558187290242024-03-07T19:51:38.419-08:00Argument! Was nun? What Now?kaoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02846750141992383466noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3470965255818729024.post-72010460452379684512012-04-09T12:49:00.010-07:002012-05-15T15:09:16.339-07:00Entgegnungen auf den „Offenen Brief: Antisemitismus! Was tun?"<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: small;">Jens Kastner und Tom Waibel</span><span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: small;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: small;">Für eine differenzierte Debatte um antisemitische Argumente in der post- und dekolonialen Theorie!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: small;">Eduard Freudmann macht uns, den Übersetzern des Buches „Epistemischer Ungehorsam“ von Walter D. Mignolo (Verlag Turia + Kant, Wien 2012, </span><span style="color: blue; font-size: small;"><u><a href="http://www.turia.at/titel/mignolo.html"><span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">http://www.turia.at/titel/mignolo.html</span></a></u></span><span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: small;">), in einem offenen Brief vom 5. April 2012 den Vorwurf des „aktiven Verschweigens und Verharmlosens“ von Antisemitismus. Der Vorwurf des Antisemitismus wird mit keinem einzigen Argument untermauert, allein der Text Mignolos „Dispensable and Bare Lives“ (der in dem von uns übersetzten Buch nicht vorkommt), wird als selbstevidenter „Beweis“ für die angeblich antisemitische Haltung des Autors angeführt. Diese vermeintliche Haltung angeblich nicht erwähnt bzw. bloß „fußnotisiert“ zu haben, ist der Vorwurf an uns.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: small;">Wir weisen den Vorwurf gegen uns entschieden zurück. Weil wir erstens nichts verschwiegen haben und weil wir zweitens sehr wohl an einer Debatte um Antisemitismus in post- und dekolonialen Theorieansätzen interessiert sind, werden wir im Folgenden kurz Stellung beziehen – trotz des überaus selbstherrlichen und überheblichen Tons, den der „offene Brief“ aus unserer Sicht anschlägt. </span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: small;">Wir haben uns entschieden, ein Buch von Walter D. Mignolo in der Reihe „es kommt darauf an. Texte zur Theorie der politischen Praxis“ zu übersetzen, weil wir viele seiner Ideen und Anregungen zur Notwendigkeit, die sozialen, politischen und epistemischen Folgen des europäischen Kolonialismus zu thematisieren, für gut und wichtig halten. Nicht alles, was Mignolo dabei an Thesen vertritt, traf und trifft aber auf unsere Zustimmung. Einige seiner Argumentationsweisen sind durchaus ambivalent (und in dieser Ambivalenz kritikwürdig): so etwa die Verabschiedung des Marxismus als dem „okzidentalen Denken“ zugehörig, bei gleichzeitig starkem positiven Bezug auf die antikolonialen Marxisten Carlos Mariátegui und Frantz Fanon; oder verschiedene Vereinfachungen und Vereinheitlichungen in der historischen Rückschau auf 500 Jahre koloniale Praktiken; oder eben ein Verständnis der Entstehung des Staates Israel, das mitunter antisemitische Züge trägt. Dieses taucht in „Epistemischer Ungehorsam“ nur in einer Fußnote und jenseits der sonstigen Argumentation auf. </span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: small;">Wir haben diesen einzigen Satz in dem von uns übersetzten Buch, bei dem man von einer antisemitischen Argumentationsweise sprechen kann, nicht verschwiegen, sondern kommentiert. Er steht in einer Fußnote (64) an einer Stelle, an der es eigentlich um die Entstehung der modernen Epistemologie geht. Darin schreibt Mignolo (S. 113):</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">„</span><span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: small;">Warum der Judaismus nicht anstelle des Christentums hegemonial wurde, ist eine andere Geschichte, die mit der Konsolidierung eines jüdischen Staates nach 1948 in Verbindung gebracht werden muss und der Rolle, die Jüd_innen in Komplizenschaft mit der aktuellen Machstruktur einnehmen (z.B. in Russland ebenso wie in den USA; vgl. Amy Chua: </span><span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>The World in Fire. How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability</i></span><span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: small;">. New York: Double Day 2003).“</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: small;">Darauf haben wir in unserer Einleitung (Fußnote 25, S. 26) wie folgt reagiert:</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">„</span><span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: small;">Diese zuweilen mangelnde Detailliertheit findet auch Ausdruck in mancher beiläufigen Bemerkung, die die Argumentation eher schwächt als veranschaulicht. Etwa [...] wenn Mignolo in seiner Auseinandersetzung mit den verschiedenen Konzepten der Moderne en passant feststellt, es habe mit der Geschichte der „Konsolidierung des jüdischen Staates“ (1948!) zu tun, dass das Christentum und nicht das Judentum in der Moderne hegemonial geworden sei. Erstaunlicherweise macht Mignolo in derselben Fußnote – in der es um die Philosophie der Aufklärung geht – die „Rolle, die Jüd_innen in Komplizenschaft mit der aktuellen Machtstruktur einnehmen“ für diese konstatierte Hegemonie mitverantwortlich. Mignolo thematisiert im vorliegenden Buch wiederholt die Rolle von Jüdinnen und Juden als innerhalb Europas und im Inneren des europäischen Denkens Unterdrückte und Ausgegrenzte, doch an dieser Stelle bleibt er verständnislos gegenüber dem Holocaust als Auslöser und Gründungsmotivation des Staates Israel. Die Andeutung einer „Komplizenschaft“ von Jüdinnen und Juden mit der „aktuellen Machtstruktur“ bedient vor allem anderen antisemitische Klischees.“</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: small;">Der Text „Dispensable and Bare Lives. Coloniality and the Hidden Political/Economic Agenda of Modernity“ (2009) ist in „Epistemischer Ungehorsam“, wie bereits erwähnt, nicht enthalten. Da Eduard Freudmann in seinem „offenen Brief“ der eigenen Selbstdarstellung mehr Platz einräumt als den Inhalten, wollen wir die Auseinandersetzung mit dem von ihm genannten Text hier nachholen. Denn so selbstverständlich berechtigt, wie von Freudmann unterstellt, sind die Vorwürfe auch angesichts dieses Aufsatzes keineswegs. </span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: small;">In „Epistemischer Ungehorsam“ beschreibt Mignolo selbst das Aufkommen des Antisemitismus im Kontext einer inneren Kolonialisierung Europas, der herrschaftlichen Durchsetzung bestimmter Lebens- und Denkweisen gegenüber anderen. Jüdinnen und Juden werden dabei als Ausgegrenzte und Unterdrückte benannt, deren Exklusion, so Mignolo, zum Teil die Unterdrückung der Kolonisierten auf anderen Kontinenten vorwegnahm. Ähnliche Argumente finden sich in Mignolos Text „Dispensable and Bare Lives“ (</span><span style="color: blue; font-size: small;"><u><a href="http://scholarworks.umb.edu/humanarchitecture/vol7/iss2/7/"><span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">http://scholarworks.umb.edu/humanarchitecture/vol7/iss2/7/</span></a></u></span><span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: small;">). Dieser Text handelt von der Ablösung des Christentums als zentrale Formation rassisierter Ausgrenzung durch die Entstehung des Kapitalismus. Mignolo schreibt darin u.a. in Anlehnung an Aimé Cesaire – und in Übereinstimmung mit anderen AntikolonialistInnen wie Frantz Fanon –, dass der Holocaust sich nicht allein aus der inner-europäischen Geschichte heraus erklären lasse, sondern im Kontext des von europäischen Kolonialismus zu begreifen sei:</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">„</span><span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: small;">Not only that it cannot be explained through the history of Europe but [...], on the contrary, the Holocaust ‘reflected’ on Europe itself what European merchants, monarchs, philosophers and officers of State did in the colonies.“ (S. 77)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: small;">Die Shoah als „Widerspiegelung“ des Kolonialismus zu begreifen, wird der Eigenlogik des europäischen und insbesondere des deutschen Antisemitismus sicherlich nicht gerecht – das steht unseres Erachtens außer Frage. Mignolo beabsichtigt hier aber nicht, den Antisemitismus dem Kolonialismus als „weniger schlimm“ unterzuordnen. Vielmehr geht es ihm darum, verschiedene Herrschaftsverhältnisse und Unterdrückungsformen aufeinander zu beziehen.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">„</span><span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: small;">My understanding of anti-Semitism and the Holocaust comes from my understanding of the racial matrix of the modern/colonial world. More specifically, it comes from my understanding of dispensable lives in a capitalist market-driven economy [...], coupled with the legal/political dispensability brought about by the formation of the modern nation-state in Europe. The first is the case of enslaved Africans, the second of the murdered Jews in the Holocaust.“ (S. 74)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: small;">Bis hierhin schreibt Mignolo durchaus in der Argumentationslinie von Autoren wie Hannah Arendt, Giorgio Agamben und Zygmunt Bauman, die den Antisemitismus im Kontext der entstehenden Moderne zu begreifen versucht haben und die dabei ebenfalls die Begriffe des „überflüssigen“ und/oder „nackten“ Lebens verwenden. Am Ende des Textes allerdings weicht Mignolo von den Argumentationen dieser AutorInnen ab. Hier spielt die Shoah plötzlich keine Rolle mehr, wenn Mignolo zustimmend Mark Ellis zitiert, der behauptet, „(t)he major consequence of the complicity between secual Jews and Euro-American economic and political practice ended up in the construction of the State of Israel [...]“ (S. 87) – eine deutlich antisemitische Argumentationsweise, da die Bedeutung der Shoah für die Gründung des Staates Israel völlig verkannt und verschwörungstheoretische Ostküstenphantasien bedient werden. Diese Argumentationsweise zieht sich unseres Erachtens allerdings keineswegs durch den gesamten Text und steht sogar im Widerspruch zu anderen darin vertretenen Thesen. Man kann und muss, meinen wir, solche Argumente kritisieren und angreifen, und kann dennoch andere Aspekte in einem solchen Text aufgreifen und diskutieren.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: small;">Karl Marx schreibt in „Zur Judenfrage“ (1843): </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: small;">„Welches ist der weltliche Grund des Judentums? Das praktische Bedürfnis, der Eigennutz. Welches ist der weltliche Kultus des Judentums? Der Schacher. Welches ist sein weltlicher Gott? Das Geld. Nun wohl! Die Emanzipation vom Schacher und vom Geld, also vom praktischen, realen Judentum wäre die Selbstemanzipation unsrer Zeit. […] Die Judenemanzipation in ihrer letzten Bedeutung ist die Emanzipation der Menschheit vom Judentum.“ (In: Marx-Engels-Werke, Band 1, S. 353, 372.) </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: small;">Das sind eindeutig antisemitische Klischees, die hier, wenn auch zunächst deskriptiv gemeint, bedient werden. Ist es deshalb bei jedem Bezug auf Marx notwendig, den Antisemitismus dieser Stelle zu erwähnen? Ist deshalb jeder Bezug auf Marx unmöglich, weil es diese Stelle gibt? Wohl kaum. </span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: small;">Es besteht ein entscheidender Unterschied zwischen einer falschen Begründung für die Entstehung der Shoah und/oder für die Entstehung des Staates Israels – zumal sie bei Mignolo im Kontext einer Parteinahme für Jüdinnen und Juden gegeben werden – und dem Hass auf Jüdinnen und Juden und/oder der Leugnung der Shoah. Solche Unterschiede, die unseres Erachtens auch im Umgang mit AutorInnen gemacht werden sollten, werden von Eduard Freudmann mit der Rede von „Theorieproduktion von Antisemit_innen“ in Bezug auf Mignolo eingeebnet.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: small;">Eine Kritik, die für sich beansprucht, Antisemitismus in der post- und dekolonialen Debatte offenzulegen und anzugreifen, muss sich aber, statt pauschal zu denunzieren, schon die Mühe machen, solche Differenzen wahrzunehmen und zu thematisieren.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: small;">Ambivalenzen zu erkennen und zu diskutieren und Differenzen zu benennen, ist unseres Erachtens sehr weit davon entfernt, sich in die Geschichte des „Bagatellisierens oder Ignorierens von Antisemitismus“ (Freudmann) einzufügen. Mit der rhetorischen Frage, ob wir bedacht hätten, an welche „lokalen Konzepte und Figuren“ wir mit „der Politik des aktiven Verschweigens und Verharmlosens“ anknüpfen würden, entgleitet Freudmann die Differenzierungsfähigkeit und damit das historische und politische Maß vollkommen. </span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: small;">So wie wir betonen, uns nicht an Politiken „des aktiven Verschweigens und Verharmlosens“ beteiligt zu haben, so weisen wir auch die mit dieser Frage transportierte, infame Unterstellung vehement zurück, wir würden uns den geschichts- und erinnerungspolitischen Praktiken der so genannten Freiheitlichen und anderer RechtsextremistInnen in Österreich und Deutschland in irgendeiner Weise annähern!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: small;">Nachdem Walter D. Mignolo im Oktober 2010 zu drei Vorträgen in Wien war (an der Akademie der bildenden Künste, im Kreisky Forum und an der Akademie der Wissenschaften), und bei keiner dieser Veranstaltungen auch nur die leiseste Kritik in Richtung Antisemitismus ihm gegenüber formuliert wurde, möchten wir schließlich zumindest noch unsere Verwunderung über die Heftigkeit der Vorwürfe an uns zum Ausdruck bringen. </span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: small;">Mit der ersten Übersetzung eines Buches Walter D. Mignolos ins Deutsche ist jedenfalls nun einer breiten deutschsprachigen LeserInnenschaft die Möglichkeit gegeben, die Vorwürfe im Einzelnen selber zu prüfen. Eine Debatte um antisemitische Argumente innerhalb post- und dekolonialer Ansätze können wir nur begrüßen, um schließlich – selbstverständlich – Antisemitismus zu bekämpfen. Allerdings braucht es dazu Argumente und nicht selbstdarstellerisches Profilierungsgehabe.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: small;">Wien im April 2012</span></div>kaoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02846750141992383466noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3470965255818729024.post-53972605701408132092012-04-08T14:56:00.000-07:002012-05-15T15:08:13.983-07:00Replies to the “Open Letter: Antisemitism! What to do?”<div style="text-align: right;">
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For a
differentiated debate on Antisemitic arguments in post- and
decolonial theory!</div>
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In an open letter
from 5 April 2012, Eduard Freudmann accuses us, the translators of
the book “Epistemic Disobedience” by Walter D. Mignolo (published
by Turia + Kant, Vienna 2012,
<span style="color: navy;"><span lang="zxx"><u><a href="http://www.turia.at/titel/mignolo.html">http://www.turia.at/titel/mignolo.html</a></u></span></span>),
of “actively concealing and trivializing” Antisemitism. The
accusation of Antisemitism is not supported by a single argument, but
solely Mignolo’s text “Dispensable and Bare Lives” (which does
not appear in the book) is cited as self-evident “proof” of the
author’s allegedly Antisemitic stance. Purportedly not mentioning
or merely “footnoting” this alleged stance is what we are accused
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We decidedly
reject this accusation. First of all, because we did not conceal
anything, and secondly because we are indeed very interested in a
debate about Antisemitism in post- and decolonial theory, we will
briefly state our position in the following – despite the
self-glorifying and arrogant tone of the “open letter” in our
view.</div>
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We decided to
translate a book by Walter D. Mignolo in the series “es kommt
darauf an. Texte zur Theorie der politischen Praxis (“it all
depends. Texts on the Theory of Political Practice”), because we
find many of his ideas and suggestions on the necessity of
thematizing the social, political and epistemic consequences of
European colonialism good and important. However, we did not and do
not agree with all of Mignolo’s theses. Some of his modes of
argumentation are quite ambivalent (and deserving of criticism in
this ambivalence): for instance, jettisoning Marxism as belonging to
“occidental thinking”, while at the same time referring
positively to the anti-colonial Marxists Carlos Mari<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif,Times New Roman,serif;">á</span>tegui
and Frantz Fanon; or the various simplifications and homogenizations
in the historical review of five hundred years of colonial practices;
or indeed an understanding of the emergence of the state of Israel
that includes Antisemitic traits. In “Epistemic Disobedience”
this only appears in a footnote and outside the realm of other
argumentation.</div>
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In the book that
we translated, we did not conceal this one sentence, where one can
speak of an Antisemitic mode of argumentation, but rather commented
on it. This is found in a footnote (64) in a place that actually
involves the rise of modern epistemology. There Mignolo writes (p.
113):</div>
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The
reason why Judaism did not become hegemonic instead of Christianity
is a different story that must be linked with the consolidation of a
Jewish state after 1948, and with the role that Jews assume in
complicity with the current power structure (e.g. in Russia as well
as in the US; cf. Amy Chua, <i>The World in Fire. How Exporting Free
Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability</i>. New
York: Double Day 2003).</div>
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Consequently, we
reacted to this in our introduction (Footnote 25, p. 26) as follows:</div>
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This
occasional lack of detail is also expressed in some casual remarks
that tend to weaken, rather than strengthen the argumentation. Such
as [<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif,Times New Roman,serif;">…</span>]
when Mignolo states in passing in his discussion of the various
concepts of Modernity that is has to do with the history of the
“consolidation of the Jewish state” (1948!) that Christianity
became hegemonic in Modernity, rather Judaism.<br />
Astonishingly, in
the same footnote – about the philosophy of the Enlightenment –
Mignolo makes the “role that Jews assume in complicity with the
current power structure” co-responsible for this stated hegemony.
In the present book Mignolo repeatedly thematizes the role of Jews as
being oppressed and excluded within Europe and within European
thinking, yet in this passage he remains uncomprehending of the
Holocaust as impetus and founding motivation for the state of Israel.
The allusion to a “complicity” of Jews with the “current power
structure” makes use, most of all, of other Antisemitic cliches.</div>
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As mentioned, the
text “Dispensable and Bare Lives. Coloniality and the Hidden
Political/Economic Agenda of Modernity” (2009) does not appear in
“Epistemic Disobedience”. Since Eduard Freudmann grants more
space in his “open letter” to his own self-representation than to
the subject matter, we would like to take up the engagement with the
text he cites here. Even in light of this essay, the accusations are
by no means so self-evidently justified as Freudmann imputes.</div>
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In “Epistemic
Disobedience” Mignolo himself describes the rise of Antisemitism in
the context of an inner colonialization of Europe, the dominant
enforcement of certain ways of living and thinking over others. Jews
are named here as the excluded and oppressed, whose exclusion,
according to Mignolo, partly anticipated the oppression of the
colonized on other continents. Similar arguments are found in
Mignolo’s text “Dispensable and Bare Lives”
(<span style="color: navy;"><span lang="zxx"><u><a href="http://scholarworks.umb.edu/humanarchitecture/vol7/iss2/7/">http://scholarworks.umb.edu/humanarchitecture/vol7/iss2/7/</a></u></span></span>).
This text deals with the replacement of Christianity as the central
formation of racified exclusion through the emergence of capitalism.
Here Mignolo writes, in allusion to Aim<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif,Times New Roman,serif;">é</span>
Cesaire, among others, – and in accord with other anticolonialists
such as Frantz Fanon – that the Holocaust cannot be explained
solely from inner-European history, but is rather to be grasped in
the context of European colonialism:</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.5cm; margin-left: 1cm; margin-right: 1cm;">
Not
only that it cannot be explained through the history of Europe but
[<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif,Times New Roman,serif;">…</span>],
on the contrary, the Holocaust “reflected” on Europe itself what
European merchants, monarchs, philosophers and officers of State did
in the colonies. (p. 77)</div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.25cm;">
Grasping the
Shoah as a “reflection” of colonialism certainly does not do
justice to the specific logic of European and especially German
Antisemitism – this is without question in our view. However,
Mignolo does not intend here to subordinate Antisemitism to
colonialism as being “less terrible”. Instead, his point is to
relate different conditions of domination and forms of oppression to
one another.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.5cm; margin-left: 1cm; margin-right: 1cm;">
My
understanding of anti-Semitism and the Holocaust comes from my
understanding of the racial matrix of the modern/colonial world. More
specifically, it comes from my understanding of dispensable lives in
a capitalist market-driven economy [...], coupled with the
legal/political dispensability brought about by the formation of the
modern nation-state in Europe. The first is the case of enslaved
Africans, the second of the murdered Jews in the Holocaust. (p. 74)</div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.25cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Up
to this point, Mignolo follows the same line of argumentation as
authors such as Hannah Arendt, Giorgio Agamben and Zygmunt Bauman,
who have sought to grasp Antisemitism in the context of emerging
Modernity and also use the terms “dispensable” and/or “bare”
life. At the end of the text, however, Mignolo deviates from the line
of argumentation of these authors. Here the Shoah suddenly does not
matter, when Mignolo quotes Mark Ellis in agreement, when he states,
“(t)he major consequence of the complicity between secular Jews and
Euro-American economic and political practice ended up in the
construction of the State of Israel [...]” (p. 87) – a clearly
Antisemitic mode of argumentation, as the significance of the Shoah
for the founding of the state of Israel is completely unrecognized,
also making use of conspiracy-theory East Coast fantasies. In our
view, however, this mode of argumentation by no means permeates the
entire text and even contradicts other theses proposed in it. These
kinds of arguments can and must be criticized and attacked, in our
opinion, but other aspects in a text like this can nevertheless be
taken up and discussed.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.25cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Karl
Marx writes in “On the Jewish Question” (1843):</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.5cm; margin-left: 1cm; margin-right: 1cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;">What
is the secular basis of Judaism? </span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Practical</i></span><span style="font-size: small;">
need, </span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>self-interest</i></span><span style="font-size: small;">.
What is the worldly religion of the Jew? </span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Huckstering</i></span><span style="font-size: small;">.
What is his worldly God? </span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Money</i></span><span style="font-size: small;">.
</span>Very well then! Emancipation from <i>huckstering</i> and
<i>money</i>, consequently from practical, real Judaism, would be the
self-emancipation of our time. [<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif,Times New Roman,serif;">…</span>]
In the final analysis, the <i>emancipation of the Jews</i> is the
emancipation of mankind from <i>Judaism</i>.
</div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.25cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;">These
are unequivocally Antisemitic cliches that are used here, even if
initially descriptively intended. Is it therefore necessary to
mention the Antisemitism of this passage with every reference to
Marx? Is every reference to Marx impossible, because this passage
exists? Hardly.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.25cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;">There
is a crucial difference between a false reason for the emergence of
the Shoah and/or for the emergence of the state of Israel –
considering that Mignolo gives it in the context of siding with Jews
– and hatred of Jews and/or denial of the Shoah. Distinctions of
this kind, which should be made, in our opinion, in dealing with
authors, are flattened by Eduard Freudmann, when he speaks of the
“theory production of Antisemites” in reference to Mignolo.<br />A
critique that claims to reveal and attack Antisemitism in the post-
and decolonial debate, however, must take the trouble to perceive and
thematize these kinds of differences, rather than making blanket
denunciations.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.25cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Recognizing
and discussing ambivalences and naming differences is, in our
opinion, far removed from integrating oneself into the history of
“trivializing or ignoring Antisemitism” (Freudmann). With the
rhetorical question of whether we had considered which “local
concepts and figures” we would tie into with the “policy of
actively concealing and trivializing”, Freudmann loses his grasp on
the ability to differentiate and with it the historical and political
dimension completely.<br />Just as we emphasize that we have not
participated in policies of “actively concealing and trivializing”,
we vehemently reject the malicious imputation transported with this
question that we would in any way find ourselves in the proximity of
the politics of history and remembrance practices of the so-called
Freedom Party and other right-wing extremists in Austria and Germany!
</span>
</div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.25cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Since
Walter D. Mignolo was invited to hold three lectures in Vienna in
October 2010 (at the Academy of Fine Arts, at the Kreisky Forum and
at the Academy of Sciences), and not even the mildest criticism of
him in the direction of Antisemitism was formulated at any of these
events, finally we would like to express our astonishment at the
vehemence of the accusations against us.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.25cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;">With
the first translation of a book by Walter D. Mignolo into German, now
a broader German-speaking readership at least has the possibility to
examine the accusations in detail themselves. We can only welcome a
debate about Antisemitic arguments within post- and decolonial
theory, in order to ultimately – naturally – fight Antisemitism.
For this, however, arguments are needed, rather than
self-aggrandizing pompousness.</span></div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.25cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Jens
Kastner and Tom Waibel</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.25cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Vienna,
April 2012</span></div>kaoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02846750141992383466noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3470965255818729024.post-36441911942277988962012-04-07T15:04:00.000-07:002012-05-15T15:26:10.061-07:00Antwort auf den Offenen Brief von Edi Freudmann<div style="text-align: right;">
Wien am 12.4.2012<br />
<a href="http://eipcp.net/n/aw">eipcp</a></div>
<br />
Vorweg – Antisemitismus zu bekämpfen ist immer wieder eine dringend
notwendige Herausforderung. <br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
Das Anliegen, Theorie kritisch auf ihre
politischen, sozialen und historischen Hintergründe und Konsequenzen abzuklopfen,
ist uns als Menschen, die zwischen politischem Aktivismus und theoretischer
Produktion agieren, besonders wichtig. Ein entscheidendes Merkmal einer
gelungenen Auseinandersetzung ist die Fähigkeit, genau zu argumentieren und
dadurch ein Stück handlungsfähiger als davor zu sein.<br />
Worum es in Edi Freudmanns offenem Brief zu gehen scheint, ist die komplexe
Auseinandersetzung um Antisemitismus und postkoloniale Theorie, vor allem auch
im Kontext des politischen Aktivismus. Diese Diskussion kann durch öffentliche
Angriffe allerdings nicht ersetzt werden. Deshalb hoffen wir, dass sich hinter
dem Skandalisieren ein „Begehren“ verbirgt, das sich produktiv machen lässt. In
diesem Sinne wollen wir seinen offenen Brief beantworten. <br />
Zum Verlauf der Ereignisse: Edi Freudmann konfrontiert uns mit dem Vorwurf
des Bagatellisierens und Verschweigens antisemitischer Äußerungen, im gegebenen
Fall bei Walter Mignolo, dessen Text „Geopolitik des Wahrnehmens und Erkennens“
in der Ausgabe „Unsettling Knowledges“ des eipcp-Webjournals publiziert wurde
(siehe <a href="http://eipcp.net/transversal/0112">http://eipcp.net/transversal/0112</a>).
Die Anfrage an Mignolo für diesen Textbeitrag zu einem Webissue, in dem es um
postkoloniale Dimensionen von Wissensproduktion gehen sollte, wurde im Herbst
2010 gestellt – im Vorfeld seines Vortrages, der gemeinsam von der Akademie der
bildenden Künste in Wien (konkret der Klasse für postkonzeptuelle
Kunstpraktiken, für die Edi Freudmann als Assistent arbeitet) und dem eipcp
veranstaltet wurde.<br />
Erst später erfuhren wir von Walter Mignolos Text „Dispensable and Bare
Lives“. Wir entschieden uns, Mignolo mit unserer Kritik an der von Edi
Freudmann angesprochenen Passage am Ende des Texts zu konfrontieren und zogen
ernsthaft in Betracht, den lange davor für die eipcp-Publikation angefragten
und inzwischen gelieferten Text nicht zu veröffentlichen. Die
Auseinandersetzungen um Mignolo, die zur selben Zeit im Umfeld der Akademie in
Wien stattgefunden haben und auf die der offene Brief anspielt, ohne konkret
auf sie einzugehen, wurden bis heute in keiner Weise öffentlich artikuliert
oder diskutiert. Sie scheinen jetzt in jenen, die Texte von Walter Mignolo
veröffentlichen, eine neue Zielscheibe gefunden zu haben.<br />
Wenn wir uns letztlich, nach sehr kritischen und kontroversiellen
Diskussionen, doch für die Publikation des für das eipcp geschriebenen Texts
entschieden haben, so im Wesentlichen aus zwei Gründen: Einerseits steht die
betreffende Textstelle in „Dispensable and Bare Lives“, die antisemitische
Klischees bedient, in einem offensichtlichen Missverhältnis zum Rest des
Textes, der ein grundsätzlich anderes Argument verfolgt, nämlich jenes der
Kritik am Antisemitismus als Teil der europäischen Moderne (siehe auch die
Argumentation von Jens Kastner und Tom Waibel, <span class="link-external"><a href="http://argument-wasnun.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">http://argument-wasnun.blogspot.com/</a></span>).
Eine kritische Konfrontation mit dem Autor schien uns deshalb zwar notwendig,
die kategorische Diskreditierung des Autors als Antisemit hingegen nicht
selbstevident. Andererseits wird Mignolo in einigen der für den genannten
Webissue relevanten Kontexte rezipiert, weshalb uns die Einbeziehung seines
Beitrags als Diskussionsgrundlage sinnvoll erschien.<br />
Unseres Erachtens spiegelt die vorliegende Auseinandersetzung eine
politische und theoretische Leerstelle wider, deren Bearbeitung es wenig dienlich
ist, wenn Mignolo scheinbar stellvertretend für die postkoloniale Theorie
verhandelt wird, während eine differenzierende „no single issue“-Diskussion
über den Themenkomplex Antisemitismus und postkoloniale/antirassistische
Theorie und Politik ausbleibt. Das eipcp war und ist an einer kritischen
Auseinandersetzung mit dem Thema interessiert – und zwar über den engen lokalen
Kontext Wiens hinaus. Wir möchten sie mehrsprachig und mit TeilnehmerInnen aus
verschiedenen, transnationalen Kontexten führen und überlegen konkrete
Möglichkeiten der Organisierung einer solchen Diskussion.<br />
Schließlich ist es uns wichtig darauf hinzuweisen, dass die im offenen
Brief angesprochenen Personen (die HerausgeberInnen des Webissues) aufgrund
eines arbeitsteiligen Prinzips in der Produktion von <i>transversal</i> ganz unterschiedlich und zum Teil überhaupt nicht
involviert waren in die oben beschriebenen Prozesse. Die Personalisierung
dieser Auseinandersetzung ist deshalb problematisch – die Adressierung sollte
sich an das eipcp allgemein richten.<br />
<br />
eipcp, Wien am 12.4.2012kaoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02846750141992383466noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3470965255818729024.post-87434889234180257582012-04-06T15:12:00.000-07:002012-05-16T00:40:05.786-07:00Response to the Open Letter from Edi Freudmann<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: right;">
Vienna on
12 April 2012</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: right;">
<a href="http://eipcp.net/n/aw/?lid=aw-en">eipcp </a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.25cm;">
First of all –
fighting Antisemitism again and again is an urgently necessary
challenge. </div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.25cm;">
</div>
<a name='more'></a> The concern of critically examining theory in terms of its
political, social and historical backgrounds and consequences is
especially important to us as people operating between political
activism and theoretical production. A crucial characteristic of a
successful debate is the ability to argue precisely and thus gain a
bit more agency than before.<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.25cm;">
What seems to be
the point in Edi Freudmann’s open letter is the complex debate
surrounding Antisemitism and post-colonial theory, especially in the
context of political activism. Public attacks, however, cannot
substitute for this discussion. For this reason, we hope that there
is a “desire” behind this scandalization as well, which can be
made productive. It is in this sense that we want to respond to his
open letter.</div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.25cm;">
About the course
of events: Edi Freudmann confronts us with the accusation of
trivializing and concealing Antisemitic statements, in this case from
Walter Mignolo, whose text “Geopolitics of Sensing and Knowing”
was published in the issue “Unsettling Knowledges” of the eipcp
web journal (see <span style="color: navy;"><span lang="zxx"><u><a href="http://eipcp.net/transversal/0112">http://eipcp.net/transversal/0112</a></u></span></span>).
Mignolo was invited to write an essay for this web issue, which was
intended to address the post-colonial dimension of knowledge
production, in Autumn 2010 – prior to his lecture that was
co-organized by the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna (specifically the
Class for Post-conceptual Art Practices, for which Edi Freudmann
works as assistant) and eipcp.</div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.25cm;">
It was only later
that we heard about Walter Mignolo’s text “Dispensable and Bare
Lives”. We decided to confront Mignolo with our criticism of the
passage at the end of the text that Edi Freudmann refers to, and we
seriously considered not publishing the text that had been invited
for the eipcp publication long beforehand and had meanwhile already
been delivered. The debates about Mignolo, which took place at the
same time in association with the Academy in Vienna and to which the
open letter alludes, without specifically addressing them, have not
been publicly articulated or discussed in any way up to the present.
Now they appear to have found a new target in those who publish texts
by Walter Mignolo.</div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.25cm;">
When we finally
decided, following highly critical and controversial discussions, in
favor of publishing the text written for eipcp, we did so essentially
for two reasons: on the one hand, the relevant passage in
“Dispensable and Bare Lives” that makes use of Antisemitic
cliches is obviously disproportionate to the rest of the text, which
pursues a fundamentally different argument, namely that of a
criticism of Antisemitism as part of European Modernism (see also the
argumentation from Jens Kastner and Tom Waibel,
<span style="color: navy;"><span lang="zxx"><u><a href="http://argument-wasnun.blogspot.com/">http://argument-wasnun.blogspot.com</a></u></span></span>).
Although a critical confrontation with the author therefore appeared
necessary to us, categorically discrediting him as an Antisemite did
not seem self-evident. On the other hand, Mignolo is being discussed
in several contexts relevant to the aforementioned web issue, which
is why we found the inclusion of his essay meaningful as a basis for
discussion.</div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.25cm;">
In our view, the
present debate reflects a political and theoretical lacuna, which is
not likely to be filled by apparently treating Mignolo as being
representative of post-colonial theory, when a differentiated “no
single issue” discussion about the thematic complex of Antisemitism
and post-colonial/anti-racist theory and politics is still lacking.
The eipcp has been and still is interested in a critical engagement
with the topic – and specifically beyond the narrow local context
of Vienna. We would like to conduct this discussion in multiple
languages and with participants from different, transnational
contexts and to consider concrete possibilities for organizing a
discussion of this kind.</div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.25cm;">
Finally, it is
important to us to point out that due to a principle division of
labor in the production of transversal, the individuals addressed in
the open letter (editors of the web issue) were involved in very
different ways and some not at all in the processes described above.
This makes the personalization of this debate problematic – it
should be addressed to the eipcp in general.</div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.25cm;">
<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.25cm;">
eipcp, Vienna on
12 April 2012</div>kaoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02846750141992383466noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3470965255818729024.post-39274089215616197572012-04-05T15:16:00.000-07:002012-05-15T15:27:21.934-07:00Unignoring anti-Semitism<div style="text-align: right;">
Monday, April 30, 2012</div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<a href="http://unignoringantisemitism.blogspot.com/">Ivana Marjanović</a></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b></b></span><br />
<span class="Funotenzeichen1" style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="Funotenzeichen1"><span style="line-height: 115%;"></span></span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b> </b></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Unignoring
anti-Semitism in contexts of critical knowledge production</b></span><span class="Funotenzeichen1" style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="Funotenzeichen1"><span style="line-height: 115%;">[1]</span></span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">I would like to
react to the open letter by Eduard Freudmann and the discussion it opened on
the issue of the belittlement and concealment of anti-Semitism in the Austrian
artistic and academic community specifically related to philosophy, theory and
the arts.</span><span class="Funotenzeichen1" style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="Funotenzeichen1"><span style="line-height: 115%;">[2]</span></span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;">
More precisely, I would like to share some thoughts of mine and bring up a set
of questions specifically on how to act against anti-Semitism in the contexts
of critical knowledge production.</span><span style="color: red; font-size: x-small;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Anti-Semitism in
“our” spaces </b></span><span class="Funotenzeichen1" style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="Funotenzeichen1"><span style="line-height: 115%;"></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Anti-Semitism is an
irrational phenomenon and in the same time an extremely violent social and
political discriminatory mechanism of power that is at stake in everyday life
as well as in political fields. It occurs in almost every part of the spectrum
of politics that tend to be categorized into the Right and the Left.</span><span class="Funotenzeichen1" style="font-size: x-small;"> <span class="Funotenzeichen1"><span style="line-height: 115%;">[3]</span></span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;">
The hatred against Jewish people, their degradation and devaluation has been
reshaping throughout history, taking a large variety of forms, ranging from
Christian anti-Judaism to modern anti-Semitism (that culminated in the
eliminatory anti-Semitism of the Shoah) and new forms of anti-Semitism after
the Shoah, to name a few. However, the history of anti-Semitism has been
overlapping with the history of the political Left since the inception of the
Left.</span><span class="Funotenzeichen1" style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="Funotenzeichen1"><span style="line-height: 115%;">[4]</span></span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;">
Even a minor research on the historical and contemporary forms of anti-Semitism
shows the phenomenon’s entanglement with the Left and other spaces of critique
whose protagonists would locate themselves beyond the above mentioned binary
division. Anti-Semitism in the Left has been amalgamating with foreshortened
critiques, e.g. with a foreshortened critique of capitalism that is
historically related to the construction of the Jews being the incarnation of
capital, or a foreshortened critique of imperialism that departs from the
assumption that the state of Israel would be the incarnation of contemporary
imperialism.</span><span class="Funotenzeichen1" style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="Funotenzeichen1"><span style="line-height: 115%;">[5]</span></span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;">
Here ambivalence appears as one aspect of anti-Semitism that is central to its
occurrence. Anti-Semitic resentment is rarely unambiguous and anti-Semitic argumentation tends to even
contradict itself. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; line-height: normal; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Surely, it makes a difference where on the political spectrum
anti-Semitism appears and accordingly, the reaction to and the criticism of it
differs. As long as anti-Semitism occurs in the Right many are very ready to
declare and act against it. But, when it occurs in the Left and in other
platforms of critical thinking and action, one is often confronted with a strong resistance towards bringing the
issue of anti-Semitism to the table. In such cases discussions on anti-Semitism
or the acknowledgement of its existence, are repeatedly being resisted,
(self-)censored and silenced; acting against anti-Semitism is often paralyzed
and blocked with the presupposition that talking about it would damage the
image of these spaces. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: left;">
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">However, no matter
how much the Left strives towards a political thinking and acting against
discrimination, it seems unable to create or detect situations that are free of
discrimination and its reproduction (which doesn’t mean that this is not discussed,
reflected and worked on). Therefore it is clear that anti-Semitism operates in
“our” spaces, spaces that we</span><span class="Funotenzeichen1" style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="Funotenzeichen1"><span style="line-height: 115%;">[6]</span></span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;">
inhabit, where we collaborate and build alliances with people with whom we
believe to share similar political horizons, spaces we don’t want to abandon.
With leaving the occurrence of anti-Semitism uncommented we become protagonists
of its maintenance. As we are active in a field of critique and politics, it is
clearly our task to deal with the occurring anti-Semitism, to think what to do
with it, how to react on it and how to fight it. Since this is not always a
very easy task, I would like to look at an example related to my own recent
experience and base some proposals and conclusions upon it. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Dispute on the
textual production of the decoloniality theorist Walter Mignolo</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">I was very
surprised when a couple of weeks ago I called up the new issue of the <i>transversal</i>
web journal with the title <i>unsettling knowledges </i>published by eipcp, the
European Institute for Progressive Cultural Policies in Vienna.</span><span class="Funotenzeichen1" style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="Funotenzeichen1"><span style="line-height: 115%;">[7]</span></span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;">
I have been following this web journal for some years now and I contributed to
it with my own textual production. For me and many others this magazine has
been a great source for exchanging and producing knowledge on very different
and important topics related to progressive politics and knowledge production
and I have great respect for the colleagues involved in the work of this
magazine. What was so surprising to me was the fact that the editors of the
mentioned issue published a text by the decoloniality theorist Walter Mignolo
knowing that his work has been conflictually debated in Viennese academic and
university contexts for more than one year. The reason for the contestation of
Mignolo’s work is that certain theoretical reflections of his are criticized for
being based</span><span style="font-size: x-small;"> on</span><span style="font-size: x-small;"> anti-Semitic constructions, specifically in his
text “</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-small;">Dispensable and Bare Lives. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-small;">Coloniality and the Hidden
Political/Economic Agenda of Modernity</span><span style="font-size: x-small;">.”</span><span class="Funotenzeichen1" style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Funotenzeichen1"><span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 115%;">[8]</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Besides referring
to Mignolo’s theoretical production in my own work, I have been taking an
active role in these debates on several different occasions as a curator, writer,
PhD student, teacher and as one of the members of the editorial board of a book
that is comprised of colleagues – students and teachers – at the Academy of
Fine Arts Vienna. These conflictual discussions and processes, however did not
materialize in any public statement or text so far. Anyhow, the book we have
been working on, with the initial title <i>Vocabulary of Decoloniality</i>, was
referencing Walter Mignolo’s work related to the concept of decoloniality in
many different ways. Once we got to know about the above mentioned text, we had
extensive discussions about which implications arise from the situation for our
work, resulting in fundamental conflicts and gaps within the editorial board
that seem to be unbridgeable</span><span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;">.</span><span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">However, we did agree on the point that
publishing the book without addressing the conflicted subject at all would not
be an option. Precisely because of the difficulties of finding an appropriate
way to deal with the situation, the book has still remained unpublished and its
future is in question. In the course of the above mentioned disputes and as one
of the attempts to open a discussion on the topic, I wrote an analysis that was
supposed to be part of a larger dialogic text comprised of individual
contributions by the editorial board members. Eventually the format turned out
to be dysfunctional, so the text was not finished and never published. However,
the analysis, which I will expose below, relies mainly on these thoughts which
themselves are based on the knowledge I, as a migrant coming from the
post-Yugoslav space, have acquired in</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-small;"> the process of working, studying and researching in the post-Nazistic
space of Austria. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-small;">The text “Dispensable and Bare Lives. Coloniality and the Hidden
Political/Economic Agenda of Modernity”<i> </i>by<i> </i></span><span style="font-size: x-small;">Walter Mignolo </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-small;">extensively deals with the analysis of the
formation of modern/colonial racism and the concepts of dispensable and bare
life which is pointed out in two specific situations: in slavery and in the
Shoah. In the conclusive remarks of the text, Mignolo states that “[t]he larger
frame in which the racial formation of the modern/colonial world has to be
understood should take account of the context of concurrent transformations of
Christianity and the emergence of the Atlantic economy—an economy of investment
and accumulation of wealth (wealth of nations for Adam Smith) that we call
‘capitalism’ (after Karl Marx).”<span class="Funotenzeichen1"><span class="Funotenzeichen1"><span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 115%;">[9]</span></span></span>
These two concurrent moments are summarized in the conclusion in five points.
In the first three Mignolo explains how he sees the transformation of
Christianity throughout the centuries. The last two points and the subsequent
conclusive sentence constitute the most disputed part of the text, so I will
quote them fully: </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-small;">“d) The
emergence of secular ‘</span><span style="font-size: x-small;">Jeweness</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-small;">’ in Eighteenth Century Europe transformed
religious ‘Judaism’: the believer became, simultaneously, a citizen; a
condition that was not open to other ‘religions.’ One, because Muslims,
Buddhists, Hindus or Incas, were not European residents at the time and,
second, it was the complicity between Christianity and secular Christian
Europeans who managed to negotiate, maintaining imperial control, Christian
believers with European secular citizens;</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-small;">e) Last
but not least, all of these went hand in hand with the consolidation, during
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, of <i>homo economicus imperiali</i>. If <i>homo
economicous</i>, in the West, could be traced back to the thirteenth century, <i>homo
economicous imperiali</i>, in the West, is without a doubt the transformation
prompted by the economic change of scale opened by the conquest of the New
World and the subsequent massive exploitation of labor. Secular Jewness joined
secular Euro-American economic practices (e.g., imperial capitalism). The major
consequence of the complicity between secular Jews and Euro-American economic
and political practice ended up in the construction of the State of Israel—what
Marc Ellis describes as ‘Constantine Jews.’</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-small;">Anti-Semitism
today is clearly a consequence of the historical collusion between Western
(neo) liberalism and secular capitalism, backed up by Christianity, on the one
hand, and Constantine Jews,’ on the other.”<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 115%;">[10]</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-small;">Mignolo’s
proposal for the comprehension of the larger frame in which the “racial
formation of the modern/colonial world” has to be understood is problematic for
a number of reasons. First of all, he constructs Jews as a privileged group in
Europe, by stating that what is referred to as the emancipation of Jewish
people (“the believer became […] a citizen”) “was not open to other
‘religions’” as “they were not European residents at the time.” Mignolo here
produces a misconception of what Europe was and is – by excluding great parts
of it. As a matter of fact, Mignolo seems to talk about Western Europe only. As
is well known, Jews were not the only non-Christians living in Europe, for
instance Muslims have been for centuries European residents, and in certain
historical periods and spaces Muslims were definitely not less privileged than
Christians – for example during the Ottoman rule in the Balkans. Furthermore,
what Mignolo terms as condition of the believer becoming a citizen did not end
oppression and violence. Throughout the European history, before during and
after the Jewish emancipation, harm was done to Jews, pogroms against Jews were
conducted and Jews (including the so called “secular Jews”) were discriminated
against on many levels. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-small;">Second,
Mignolo’s next step is based on one of the most fundamental and wide spread
anti-Semitic constructions: the alleged complicity between Jews and capitalism.
He puts: “Secular Jewness joined secular Euro-American economic practices
(e.g., imperial capitalism).” Relying on generalization and simplification,
this argumentation categorizes an extremely manifold, heterogeneous group of
people, fully neglecting differences within it. It is impossible that the whole
part of one group of people that ceased to practice Judaism but were still
identified as Jews by themselves or by others (the so called “secular Jews”)
could “join” the “Euro-American economic practices.” Many Jews in Europe were
poor, many constituted a great part of the proletariat in the 19<sup>th</sup>
and 20<sup>th</sup> century.<span class="Funotenzeichen1"><span class="Funotenzeichen1"><span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 115%;">[11]</span></span></span>
Furthermore, some of them participated in the conceptualization and spreading
of anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist ideas playing an important role in the
history of leftist movements such as the anarchist, the communist or the
socialist ones.<sup> </sup>Reading Mignolo’s argument another question arises,
which is whether it is possible to relate a group of people, such as the
“secular Jews,” to “Euro-American economic practices” by presuming a process of
“joining,” meaning a process of decision making that is based on “their” free
will. And last but not least, how is it possible to assume that any group of
people or even a part of it could avoid capitalist economic practices in an
increasingly capitalist world? Through such analogies, Mignolo rather
reproduces the myth of the so called “homo Judaicus economicus”<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 115%;">[12]</span></span></span>
that has been an obsession of anti-Semitic discourses for centuries, both in
the most conservative and in the most progressive circles and both in the Left
and the Right (including Nazism).<i><sup> </sup></i></span></div>
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<div class="MsoPlainText" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: left;">
<span lang="X-NONE" style="font-size: x-small;">Third, although Mignolo bases
a large part of his thesis about the dispensability of human life on his
analysis of Shoah, he concludes that “[t]he major consequence of the complicity
between secular Jews and Euro-American economic and political practice ended up
in the construction of the State of Israel</span><span style="font-size: x-small;">,</span><span lang="X-NONE" style="font-size: x-small;">” thereby ignoring that the formation of the state of
Israel is causally connected to anti-Semitism and the Shoah. </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">Thus</span><span style="font-size: x-small;"> <span lang="X-NONE">he once again reproduces the myth
of Jews being complicit with capitalism which now, as he presumes, granted the
Jews another privilege: the creation of a state. H</span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-small;">ere a myth is reproduced, that is central in the
argumentation of new anti-Semitism and based on a foreshortened critique on
imperialism: that the Jews are complicit with imperialism. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-small;">Moreover, in the lines quoted above, he reduces all “secular Jews” to
one sole aspect of life – their relation to capitalism. This is remarkable not
only because it implies that all of them were capitalists, but also because it
presumes<i> </i>that no one from other
groups of people mentioned in his text, such as the ones in colonies and
post-colonies have had any active relation to capitalism. On the contrary they
are being portrayed as exploited by its mechanisms. I mention this here,
because Mignolo claims the intention to, as he points out, show the “</span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>larger frame in which the racial formation of
the modern/colonial world has to be understood</i>”</span><span class="Funotenzeichen1" style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="Funotenzeichen1"><span style="line-height: 115%;">[13]</span></span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i> </i></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-small;">taking into consideration the transformation of Christianity and the
emergence of capitalism. However, he concludes with showing us on one hand his
perspective on how Christianity transformed and on the other his construction
on how “secular Jews” “joined” capitalism. If this is the author’s conception
of the “</span><span style="font-size: x-small;">larger frame in which the
racial formation of the modern/colonial world has to be understood”</span><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-small;">– and the way
the conclusion is organized shows that it is – Mignolo ends up reproducing precisely what he announced to criticize
and deconstruct: “the racial formation of the modern/colonial world.”<i> </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-small;">The
culmination of the problem of Mignolo’s analysis is the last sentence where he
not only once again brings into relation Jews and capitalism but also defines
that relation as <i>collusion</i>,<i> </i>that
is<i> </i>a “secret agreement or cooperation especially for an illegal or
deceitful purpose.”<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 115%;">[14]</span></span></span>
Furthermore, he states that Jews are responsible for today’s anti-Semitism. As
a matter of fact he doesn’t refer to all Jews but rather to one group of Jews,
the so called “Constantinian Jews” (that he misspells as “Constantine Jews”) in
reference to Marc H. Ellis’ debatable categorization of Jews in the USA and
Israel. According to Ellis’ text, which is published in the same book as Mignolo’s
article, “Constantinian Jews” are those who form the Jewish establishment in
these two countries.<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 115%;">[15]</span></span></span>
But, knowing about the long history of anti-Semitism and the racialization of
Jews, about the Shoah and about the crucial role that the perpetrator-victim
inversion plays in the new forms of anti-Semitism today, it is absolutely
unacceptable to accuse any Jews for being guilty of anti-Semitism. We can
assume that Mignolo refers here to the Middle East conflict and Israeli
politics within it, an issue that is largely being reflected and debated on and
that is excessively being instrumentalized for a huge number of different
political means, an issue about which’s complexity or simplicity one can argue,
but an issue that definitely cannot be considered as the reason for today’s
anti-Semitism, not in the Middle East, not in Europe, not anywhere else in the
world. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Silence, wilful
ignorance and belittlement </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Although being
given little space the problem of anti-Semitism in Mignolo‘s thinking is addressed
by Jens Kastner and Tom Waibel in the footnote of the introduction of their
recently published translation of Mignolo’s work “</span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Desobediencia epistémica. Retórica de la
modernidad, lógica de la colonialidad y gramática de la descolonialidad</span>” into German language. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-small;">They state: “In the book at hand Mignolo repeatedly addresses the role
of Jews as being suppressed and excluded within Europe and within European
thinking. Though at this point he stays ignorant towards the Holocaust as
trigger and motivation for the foundation of the state of Israel. The
indication of a ‘complicity’ between Jews and the ‘current power structure’
mainly serves anti-Semitic clichés.”</span><span class="Funotenzeichen1" style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="DE-AT"><span class="Funotenzeichen1"><span lang="DE-AT" style="line-height: 115%;">[16]</span></span></span></span><span lang="DE-AT" style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-small;">Although some of the positions participating in
the present public debate (including
myself) think that the problem requires a more </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">in-depth analysis, </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-small;">it needs to be acknowledged that these authors <i>at
least</i> mentioned the subject of anti-Semitism in relation to Mignolo’s
theoretical production. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Looking at the
whole situation from my own troubled experience of failure to address the
problem, while in the same time seeing how my respected colleagues in the field
have addressed (or have not addressed) the same problem and with all the
understanding for the difficulties related to it, I would like to share my
thoughts on what could be a constructive critique in the existing case.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">What we have at
stake here is a body of theory written by Walter Mignolo which is by many of
the conflict’s protagonists considered as an important enterprise in the
destabilization of hegemonic power relations, mainly for its contribution to
Post-Colonial theory through its engagement in the theory of decoloniality and
the decolonial option as a proposal for radically questioning and overcoming
“Western” epistemological mechanisms and its power structures. At the same time
the produced theory is partly anti-Semitic and thereby reproduces violence
through knowledge which produces social injury (violence in this case operates
as discursive violence). However, in a very contradictory way a theory that
presumes to question domination itself repeats mechanisms of domination by
factually enforcing what was intended to be criticised and </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-small;">deconstructed: the “racial formation
of the modern/colonial world.”</span> </div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Considering
the reactions to and the criticisms of Mignolo’s contested text in mind, it
seems to me that it is impossible to dissociate the problematic text from the
“unproblematic” text by publishing the latter while not addressing the former.
Cutting away the problematic part of thinking from our perception doesn’t mean
the problem has gone away. It remains chasing us and others, no matter how much
we let ourselves be inhabited by spaces of paralysis not speaking about
anti-Semitism. Looking at how the discussions and the conflict has developed it
seems to me that acting as if the problem wouldn’t exist by not addressing it
while publishing the author, we would make an active decision to take part in
belittling and<b> </b>wilfully ignoring<b>
</b>anti-Semitism and thereby (intentionally or not) maintain not only <i>any</i>
structure of discrimination but a structure that has had a long history, plenty
of continuities and a vivid presence in this post-Nazistic space of Austria. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Addressing,
unignoring and unlearning anti-Semitism </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Conflictual
situations like the one described above are ambivalent and contingent. The
dynamic of work in such antagonisms depend on many different factors: power
relations, competition, previous knowledge, experience, authority of who can
speak and from which position and how much respect, understanding, patience,
self-critique and will for listening, learning and exchanging exists in such a
conflict. Yet, such situations serve as a platform for gaining and producing
knowledge (in this case about anti-Semitism and the way how it is being dealt
with): we think, learn and research and we reflect more in depth about
politics, ideology, interpellation, subjectivity and agency. Speaking and
thinking from my own experience as one of the protagonists of the conflict I
would like to propose what could be done in such
situations though being aware that every situation is specific and that there
can’t be one “formula” to be applied in any case.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">So, what could we
do, out of the experience we have now, if we in our publishing projects refer
to a body of theory we know is in parts performing anti-Semitic theories,
clichés and myths? How to act in public when we are confronted with
anti-Semitism in the knowledge production that aspires to decenter hegemonic
power relations? </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">For the beginning,
I would suggest to</span><span style="color: #bfbfbf; font-size: x-small;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">take the existence of
ambiguities and contradictions in spaces of critique seriously. This would
first of all mean doing away with the assumption that a space can be an
innocent one (though ambiguities and contradictions might temporarily change
due to our and others’ political actions and interventions but most probably
new ones will arise in their place). And secondly it would mean to understand
anti-Semitism as a political category that is ambiguous and contradictory and
can appear in many different forms, on many different levels and sometimes
closer to us and “our” spaces than we might have assumed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Now, dealing with
ambiguities and contradictions could take different paths: paths away from
silence and towards speech. Public speech would be the optimal political move
(in this case it would be the speech on anti-Semitism in Mignolo’s work). But,
speech is not always easily performed. Nevertheless, it can have a form of a
process and it can require certain pre-steps, spaces between, that can
constitute the failure of speech but in the same time ensure that the failure
is on the trajectory towards the speech. For example, if the <i>transversal </i>editorial
board decided not to analyse the anti-Semitism in Mignolo’s work, then it could
at least inform its readers that there was a discussion among them and share
the reasons that had led to the decision.</span><span class="Funotenzeichen1" style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="Funotenzeichen1"><span style="line-height: 115%;">[17]</span></span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;">
However, this would not be a solution to the problem, but at least it would
open a possibility for working on it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Biases, ignorance,
prejudices and all the other elements pertaining to structures of violence are
the problem of us all, they affect our lives, limit our possibilities and
freedom of what and who we might become (this has turned out very clearly in
the course of the on-going antagonism, no matter if the protagonists were
Jewish or not). Albeit these limits affect us to very different degrees and in
very different qualities, directly and indirectly and depending on the
specificity of the situation, anti-Semitism exists in our lives (as well as any
other violent vector of power such as different forms of racism, homophobia,
islamophobia, sexism). </span><span class="Funotenzeichen1" style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="Funotenzeichen1"><span style="line-height: 115%;">[18]</span></span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;">
We all do have reasons to confront it – especially if we consider ourselves to
be actively involved, through our work, in the fields of critical thinking and
acting.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Therefore it seems
to me that it would be much more constructive to treat anti-Semitism as a
political category and a concrete problem that has to be dealt with instead of
silencing ourselves and others, being negatory and </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-small;">apologetic towards it</span><span style="font-size: x-small;">. Zooming in on it, i.e. exposing precisely the
violent vector of power that is materialized in the theory and opposing it,
rather than downplaying it would allow us to learn more about it. Specifically
this would mean that before (or <i>at least</i> along with) setting any
thoughts of an author who reproduce anti-Semitism into further circulation,
the problematic writing would have to be
contested. Instead of dichotomically condemning and defending, it would be
rather necessary to discuss the problem, looking at the relation between the
explicitly problematic and non-explicitly problematic text of the theoretical
production in question. It would be important to examine if and until which
extent anti-Semitism in one text of the contested author is related to others
of his or her theoretical reflections and to the field of study and action.
Moreover, it would be necessary to think further, asking not only what is the
presence but also the history and the genealogy of anti-Semitism in the spaces
of critique in question. This, by no means, would mean dismissing post-colonial
theory, decoloniality or critical leftist theories as no space is free of
anti-Semitism (why should we expect that these are)? To get into a discussion
about contradictions does not make the postcolonial or any other theory’s point
weaker: on the contrary anti-Semitism has to be addressed. Addressing and
unignoring anti-Semitism actually empowers critical thinking and opens possible
self-reflective projects in these fields in order to make unlearning and
fighting anti-Semitism a political claim and practice. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><br />
<hr size="1" style="height: 2px; text-align: left;" width="33%" />
<div id="ftn1">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<span class="Funotenzeichen1" style="font-size: xx-small;"><span lang="DE-AT"><span class="Funotenzeichen1"><span lang="DE-AT" style="line-height: 115%;">[1]</span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> This text is partly based on reflections and
discussions among my friends, students and colleagues during the last one and a
half years in Vienna. I would like to thank all of them, from whom I learnt a
lot during this process. </span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn2">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<span class="Funotenzeichen1" style="font-size: xx-small;"><span lang="DE-AT"><span class="Funotenzeichen1"><span lang="DE-AT" style="line-height: 115%;">[2]</span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> In an open letter published on April 5, 2012, Eduard
Freudmann addresses friends and colleagues who recently published works by the
decoloniality theorist Walter Mignolo. Freudmann criticizes the concealment
respectively the belittlement of the author’s anti-Semitic constructions within
those very publications and poses a number of related questions to the
publishers. See: Eduard Freudmann, “Offener Brief: Antisemitismus! Was tun?” [Open
Letter: Anti-Semitism! What is to be done?], </span><span lang="DE-AT" style="font-size: xx-small;"><a href="http://antisemitismus-wastun.blogspot.com/"><span lang="EN-GB">http://antisemitismus-wastun.blogspot.com</span></a></span><span style="font-size: xx-small;">, retrieved April, 2012. Links
to all the answers and statements that comprise the discussion can be found
later in this text and on the blog as well. </span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn3">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<span class="Funotenzeichen1" style="font-size: xx-small;"><span lang="DE-AT"><span class="Funotenzeichen1"><span lang="DE-AT" style="line-height: 115%;">[3]</span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> I use here the terms Left and Right knowing the
problematic of such a binary division. However, I consider both, the Left as
well as the Right constituting no monolith categories.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn4">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<span class="Funotenzeichen1" style="font-size: xx-small;"><span lang="DE-AT"><span class="Funotenzeichen1"><span lang="DE-AT" style="line-height: 115%;">[4]</span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> See short overview of that history in the book by
David Cesarani, <i>The Left and the Jews. The Jews and the Left</i>, London,
Labour Friends of Israel, 2004.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn5">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<span class="Funotenzeichen1" style="font-size: xx-small;"><span lang="DE-AT"><span class="Funotenzeichen1"><span lang="DE-AT" style="line-height: 115%;">[5]</span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> This new anti-Jewish configuration is analysed for
instance by Pierre-André Taguieff who shortly explains it in the following way:
“…the argumentative form of this new thought-slogan, which developed since the
end of the Sixties, can be put like this: ‘all Jews are more or less hidden
Zionists; Zionism equals colonialism, imperialism and racism; therefore the
Jews are colonialists, imperialists and racists, openly or not’. ‘Zionism’ - as
repulsive myth and not as socio-political reality - became the incarnation of
the absolute evil.” See the translation of the interview with Pierre-André
Taguieff published in the <i>Observatoire du
Communautarisme</i>, September 7, 2005: “Preachers of Hate. Pierre-André
Taguieff on the new ‘anti-Zionism’” <a href="http://bartoncii.xanga.com/?uni8836469-direction=p&uni8836469-nextdate=2%2F9%2F2007+11%3A54%3A48.153">http://bartoncii.xanga.com/?uni8836469-direction=p&uni8836469-nextdate=2%2F9%2F2007+11%3A54%3A48.153</a>,
retrieved April, 2012.</span></div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn6">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<span class="Funotenzeichen1" style="font-size: xx-small;"><span lang="DE-AT"><span class="Funotenzeichen1"><span lang="DE-AT" style="line-height: 115%;">[6]</span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> I use here <i>we</i> as a collectivity of critical
subjects that doesn’t form a fixed category but is rather related to what we
believe we are part of and what we can become. The critical textual production
I contribute to tends to play a role in such process of constituting a <i>we</i>.
</span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn7">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span class="Funotenzeichen1" style="font-size: xx-small;"><span lang="DE-AT"><span class="Funotenzeichen1"><span lang="DE-AT" style="line-height: 115%;">[7]</span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> </span><span lang="DE-AT" style="font-size: xx-small;"><a href="http://eipcp.net/transversal/0112"><span lang="EN-GB">http://eipcp.net/transversal/0112</span></a></span><span style="font-size: xx-small;">, retrieved April, 2012.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn8">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span class="Funotenzeichen1" style="font-size: xx-small;"><span lang="DE-AT"><span class="Funotenzeichen1"><span lang="DE-AT" style="line-height: 115%;">[8]</span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> The text is published online in <i>Human
Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge </i>with the title<i> </i><i>Historicizing Anti-Semitism </i>in 2009<i>, </i>edited
by Mohammad H. Tamdgidi and co-edited by Lewis R. Gordon, Ramón Grosfoguel and
Eric Mielants. See </span><span lang="DE-AT" style="font-size: xx-small;"><a href="http://www.okcir.com/JournalVII2Spring09.html"><span lang="EN-GB">http://www.okcir.com/JournalVII2Spring09.html</span></a></span><span style="font-size: xx-small;">, retrieved April, 2012.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn9">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<span class="Funotenzeichen1" style="font-size: xx-small;"><span lang="DE-AT"><span class="Funotenzeichen1"><span lang="DE-AT" style="line-height: 115%;">[9]</span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> <i>Ibid</i>. p 86. </span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn10">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<span class="Funotenzeichen1" style="font-size: xx-small;"><span lang="DE-AT"><span class="Funotenzeichen1"><span lang="DE-AT" style="line-height: 115%;">[10]</span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> <i>Ibid</i>. pp 86-87; emphasis and misspelling in
original. </span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn11">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<span class="Funotenzeichen1" style="font-size: xx-small;"><span lang="DE-AT"><span class="Funotenzeichen1"><span lang="DE-AT" style="line-height: 115%;">[11]</span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> See </span><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Marvin Perry and Frederick M.
Schweitzer<i>, Antisemitism: myth and hate from antiquity to the present</i>,
Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2005 [2002], pp. <span style="color: #231f20;">134,
135.</span></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn12">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<span class="Funotenzeichen1" style="font-size: xx-small;"><span lang="DE-AT"><span class="Funotenzeichen1"><span lang="DE-AT" style="line-height: 115%;">[12]</span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> See: <i>Ibid</i></span><span style="font-size: xx-small;">., pp. 119-173.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn13">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<span class="Funotenzeichen1" style="font-size: xx-small;"><span lang="DE-AT"><span class="Funotenzeichen1"><span lang="DE-AT" style="line-height: 115%;">[13]</span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> Op. cit. p 86; (emphasis mine).</span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn14">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<span class="Funotenzeichen1" style="font-size: xx-small;"><span lang="DE-AT"><span class="Funotenzeichen1"><span lang="DE-AT" style="line-height: 115%;">[14]</span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> </span><span lang="DE-AT" style="font-size: xx-small;"><a href="http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/collusion"><span lang="EN-GB">http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/collusion</span></a></span><span style="font-size: xx-small;">, retrieved April, 2012.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn15">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span class="Funotenzeichen1" style="font-size: xx-small;"><span lang="DE-AT"><span class="Funotenzeichen1"><span lang="DE-AT" style="line-height: 115%;">[15]</span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> As Marc Ellies put: “Roughly speaking the three groups
are found in America and Israel, and can be defined as the Constantinian Jewish
establishment, Progressive Jews and Jews of Conscience. For definitional purposes,
these groups can be grouped into three categories; neo-conservative,
liberal/left of center and radical. The identity politics each group holds are
important in the selfunderstanding of each: Constantinian Jewish life revolves
around the Holocaust and Israel as central to Jewish life and thus increasingly
adopt a neo-conservative politics of remembrance and empowerment; . . . Though
perhaps a bit too easy, a shorthand understanding of where each group stands
can be summarized as follows: Constantinian Jews form the Jewish establishment;
Progressive Jews, as critics while being indebted to Jewish power, form the
Left wing of Constantinian Judaism; Jews of Conscience are seeking a way out of
the closed circle of Constantinian Jewish reality.” Marc H. Ellis, “On Jewish
Particularity and Anti-Semitism: Notes From a Jewish Theology of Liberation,” </span><span lang="DE-AT" style="font-size: xx-small;"><a href="http://www.okcir.com/JournalVII2Spring09.html"><span lang="EN-GB">http://www.okcir.com/JournalVII2Spring09.html</span></a></span><span class="MsoHyperlink" style="font-size: xx-small;">, </span><span style="font-size: xx-small;">retrieved April, 2012.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn16">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<span class="Funotenzeichen1" style="font-size: xx-small;"><span lang="DE-AT"><span class="Funotenzeichen1"><span lang="DE-AT" style="line-height: 115%;">[16]</span></span></span></span><span lang="DE-AT" style="font-size: xx-small;">
Translation mine. Original quotation: “Mignolo thematisiert im vorliegenden
Buch wiederholt die Rolle von Jüdinnen und Juden als innerhalb Europas und im
Inneren des europäischen Denkens Unterdrückte und Ausgegrenzte, doch an dieser
Stelle bleibt er verständnislos gegenüber dem Holocaust als Auslöser und
Gründungsmotivation des Staates Israel. Die Andeutung einer ‚Komplizenschaft’
von Jüdinnen und Juden mit der ‚aktuellen Machtstruktur’ bedient vor allem
anderen antisemitische Klischees.“ Jens Kastner and Tom Waibel, “Einleitung:
Dekoloniale Optionen. Argumentationen, Begriffe und Kontexte dekolonialer
Theoriebildung,” [Introduction: Decolonial Options. Arguments, Terms and
Contexts of the Decolonial Theory making], in: Walter D. Mignolo, <i>Epistemischer
Ungehorsam Rhetorik der Moderne, Logik der Kolonialität und Grammatik der
Dekolonialität</i> [Epistemic Disobedience. </span><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Rhetoric of Modernity, Logic of Coloniality and
Decolonial Grammar], Vienna, Turia + Kant, 2012, p 26, (footnote 25). See the
development of their argument in the answer to Freudmann’s open letter
published on 09.04.2012: </span><span lang="DE-AT" style="font-size: xx-small;"><a href="http://argument-wasnun.blogspot.com/"><span lang="EN-GB">http://argument-wasnun.blogspot.com/</span></a></span><span class="MsoHyperlink" style="font-size: xx-small;">, </span><span style="font-size: xx-small;">retrieved April, 2012.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn17">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<span class="Funotenzeichen1" style="font-size: xx-small;"><span lang="DE-AT"><span class="Funotenzeichen1"><span lang="DE-AT" style="line-height: 115%;">[17]</span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> Only after being addressed by Freudmann’s open letter,
eipcp gave their view on the situation on 12.04.2012: </span><span lang="DE-AT" style="font-size: xx-small;"><a href="http://eipcp.net/n/aw"><span lang="EN-GB">http://eipcp.net/n/aw</span></a></span><span style="font-size: xx-small;">, retrieved April, 2012. </span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span class="Funotenzeichen1" style="font-size: xx-small;"><span lang="DE-AT"><span class="Funotenzeichen1"><span lang="DE-AT" style="line-height: 115%;">[18]</span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> I believe that any occurring form of discrimination
should be addressed without competition.</span></div>
</div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: left;">
</div>kaoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02846750141992383466noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3470965255818729024.post-73187236470737933222012-04-04T15:19:00.000-07:002012-05-16T00:41:26.138-07:00Offener Brief: Antisemitismus! Was tun?<div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;">
<span lang="DE-AT">Wien, am 5. April 2012</span></div>
<div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://antisemitismus-wastun.blogspot.com/2012/04/offener-brief-antisemitismus-was-tun.html"><span lang="DE-AT">Edi Freudmann</span></a></div>
</div>
<div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;">
<br /></div>
<div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="DE-AT">Geschätzte Kolleg_innen und Freund_innen,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="DE-AT"></span><br />
<a name='more'></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="DE-AT">Aileen Derieg, Lina Dokuzović, Marcelo Expósito, Therese Kaufmann, Raimund Minichbauer, Radostina Patulova und Gerald Raunig<span class="st"> sowie Jens Kastner und Tom Waibel</span>!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="DE-AT">Ich bin einer, der sich <span class="st">ins
Gespräch mengt, wenn im Grünkramladen Albernheiten über Jüd_innen
geredet werden. Und ich entziehe Antisemit_innen das Wort – wo immer ich
kann und mit allen Mitteln. Antisemit_innen geht es nicht um Diskussion
sondern um Agitation und zwar in hetzerischer Absicht. Jegliche Debatte
mit ihnen erübrigt sich, denn ihr Hass ist leidenschaftlich und bar
jeder Vernunft, ihre Behauptungen sind absurd und immun gegen Argumente.
</span>Und obwohl ich davon überzeugt bin, dass solche Leute eigentlich kein jüdisches Problem sind, sondern das </span><br />
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3470965255818729024" name="more"></a><span lang="DE-AT">vieler Anderer, so dulde ich schlicht und einfach keinen Antisemitismus<span class="st">.
Punkt. Aus Selbstschutz und weil ich meinen Teil dazu beitragen möchte,
Antisemit_innen spüren zu lassen, dass sie es mit Gegner_innen zu tun
haben, die stark und schlau sind und viele starke und schlaue
Freund_innen haben. Und wenn sie sich schon nicht sattfabulieren können
an ihren unsäglichen Verschwörungstheorien, so möchte ich wenigstens
einer jener sein, die sie sanft aber bestimmt in die von ihnen ach so
gemütlich gemachten Bettchen drücken, um sie in den Genuss ihrer
Wahnkonstrukte kommen zu lassen: auf dass sie sich bis in ihre Träume
verfolgt fühlen, von uns, den Konspirateur_innen eines Widerstands, der
sich jeglichen Feindseligkeiten gegen Jüd_innen kompromisslos
widersetzt. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="st"><span lang="DE-AT">Nun
wird im Windschatten des Kampfs gegen Antisemitismus einiger Unsinn
getrieben und dabei die Grenze der Erträglichkeit des Öfteren
überschritten – etwa wenn politische Kontrahent_innen zur Unterminierung
ihrer Positionen als „self-hating Jews“ diffamiert werden oder
philosemitische Kinder und Enkel der Täter_innen, aus ihrer
überidentifikatorischen Selbstgerechtigkeit heraus, wieder mal meinen,
einer Jüdin oder einem Juden das kritische Wort über Israel verbieten zu
müssen. Ohne Zweifel gibt es vielerlei angebrachte Kritik an
israelischer Politik und sogar mancherlei legitimen Antizionismus –
nicht nur, aber vor allem in innerjüdischen Diskursen. </span></span><span lang="DE-AT">Allerdings muss <span class="st">uns
klar sein, dass Antisemitismus in unterschiedlichster Gestalt auftritt
und sich Israelkritik und Antizionismus zu politischen Feldern
ausgewachsen haben, in dessen vielfältigen Durcheinander das
antisemitische Gejeier die vernünftigen Stimmen zu übertönen droht.
Außerdem gibt es da auch noch die etwas schwerfälligeren Akteur_innen,
Schnarchnasen, die den Wandel ihres Metiers vom modernen zum neuen
Antisemitismus verschlafen haben und ihre Wahnkonstruktionen plump und
unverblümt, ohne die leiseste Anwandlung dessen, einen Genierer zu
kennen, zum Besten geben. All diese Sorten von Antisemit_innen finden
sich nicht nur in rechtsradikalen Parlamentsparteien, christlichen
Glaubensorden und islamistischen Bruderschaften, sondern auch in der
Linken und in so mancher ihrer verwandten Theoriediskurse. Da ich mich
als einen der diversen Teile dieser Linken betrachte und sie mir also
ein Anliegen ist, will ich das politische Feld nicht den Antisemit_innen
oder deren Apologet_innen überlassen, und auch nicht jenen, die sich
reflektiert und progressiv geben und dabei der Ansicht sind, sich
gegenüber Erstgenannten nicht positionieren zu müssen. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="st"><span lang="DE-AT">Konkreter
Anlass für die Veröffentlichung dieses offenen Briefs ist die Ignoranz
und Bagatellisierung der antisemitischen Konstrukte des post-kolonialen
Theoretikers Walter D. Mignolo, in den jüngsten Publikationen einiger
Freund_innen und Kolleg_innen. Seine Absurditäten im Detail zu
kommentieren, wird hier ausbleiben, der Text „Dispensable and Bare
Lives“ ist im Internet ebenso leicht zu finden wie die Antisemitismen
darin, insbesondere, wenn die Lektüre von hinten angegangen wird.
Vielmehr will ich einige Fragen an Euch richten, die Ihr Mignolos Texte
publiziert, während Ihr seinen Antisemitismus fußnotisiert (wie in der
Einleitung zu dem soeben bei Turia und Kant erschienen Buch Mignolos mit
dem Titel „Epistemischer Ungehorsam“) oder überhaupt gleich verschweigt
(wie in der aktuellen Ausgabe des </span></span><span lang="DE-AT">transversal-Webjournals
vom European Institute For Progressive Cultural Policies). Zumal Ihr
vor der Veröffentlichung Eurer Publikationen sowohl von den
antisemitischen Ansichten des Autors wusstest, als auch von den
Auseinandersetzungen die in Eurem Umfeld um diese geführt wurden, gehe
ich davon aus, dass ihr eingehend diskutiert habt, welche Implikationen
sich daraus für eure Arbeit ergeben. <span class="st"></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="DE-AT">*</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="DE-AT">Was
waren die Gründe Eurer Entscheidung, den Antisemitismus des Walter
Mignolo zu verschweigen bzw. zu fußnotisieren? Fürchtet Ihr nicht, den
postkolonialen Theorien und Kritiken dadurch mehr zu schaden als zu
nutzen?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="DE-AT">*</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="DE-AT">Ihr
scheint Antisemitismus als politische Kategorie nicht Ernst zu nehmen.
Wie kommt es dazu? Seid Ihr der Meinung, dass die Theorieproduktion von
Antisemit_innen abgekoppelt von ihrem Antisemitismus betrachtet werden
muss?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="DE-AT">*</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="DE-AT">Angesichts
des historischen Raums, in dem Ihr publiziert, stellt sich die Frage,
inwieweit Ihr euch mit der Geschichte und Bedeutung des Bagatellisierens
oder Ignorierens von Antisemitismus auseinandergesetzt habt. Habt Ihr
bedacht, an welche lokalen Konzepte und Figuren Ihr mit der Politik des
aktiven Verschweigens und Verharmlosens anknüpft?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="DE-AT">Ich bin mir<span class="msoIns"><ins cite="mailto:johanna" datetime="2012-04-05T11:43"></ins></span>des
Unterschieds zwischen einer halben Fußnote und KEINER halben Fußnote
bewusst. Als angemessene Form des Umgangs mit Antisemitismus erachte ich
aber weder das eine noch das andere. Dementsprechend gespannt bin ich
auf Eure Antworten.<span class="msoIns"><ins cite="mailto:johanna" datetime="2012-04-05T11:44"></ins></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<span lang="DE-AT">Beste Grüße, </span></div>
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<span lang="DE-AT">Edi Freudmann</span></div>kaoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02846750141992383466noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3470965255818729024.post-14956923463506380892012-04-03T00:43:00.000-07:002012-05-16T00:45:04.464-07:00Open Letter: Anti-Semitism! What to do?<div style="text-align: right;">
April 5th 2012, Vienna</div>
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<a href="http://antisemitismus-wastun.blogspot.com/2012/05/open-letter-anti-semitism-what-to-do.html#more">Edi Freudmann </a></div>
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Appreciated friends and collegues,<br />
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Aileen Derieg, Lina
Dokuzović, Marcelo Expósito, Therese Kaufmann, Raimund Minichbauer, Radostina
Patulova and Gerald Raunig as well as Jens Kastner and Tom Waibel!</div>
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I am a person who butts
into a conversation when stupid things are said about Jews at the greengrocery.
And I disrupt anti-Semites – wherever I can and by all means available.
Anti-Semites are not concerned with discussions, but with agitation and this
with demagogic purpose. Every debate with them is futile, because their hatred
is passionate and devoid of all reason; their claims are absurd and immune to
arguments. And even though I am convinced that these people are not to be the
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3470965255818729024" name="more"></a>problem of Jews, but that of many others, I do not tolerate any form of
anti-Semitism. Period. For means
of self-protection and because I want to contribute to letting anti-Semites
feel that they have enemies, strong and clever, who come with many friends,
just as strong and clever. And if they still don't feel saturated by fabulating
their endless conspiracy-theories, at least i want to be one of those that
gently but firmly tucks them into their comfy little self-made beds, to let
them feel the pleasure of their delusional constructions: shall they be haunted
in their dreams by us, the conspirators of a resistance, that fight any kind of
hostility towards Jews without compromise. </div>
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These days quite a bit of nonsense is produced in the
wake of the struggle against anti-Semitism which many a time trespasses the
border of endurability. For instance when political opponents are defamed as
"self-hating Jews" to undermine their positions or when philo-Semitic
children and grandchildren of perpetrators in their self-righteous over
identification think they have to deny Jews their critical word on Israel.
Without doubt there is plenty of appropriate critique concerning Israeli
politics and even some legitimate anti-Zionism – not only but mainly in
inner-jewish discourses. However, we have to get straight that anti-Semitism
appears in all sorts of shapes and that criticism on Israel as well as anti-Zionism
have grown to become political fields, in its diverse jumble anti-Semitic lamentation
is threatening to drown out the reasonable voices. Additionally you find the
lumbering protagonists, the sleepy dreamers, who have overslept the change from
modern to new anti-Semitism. They have no sense of shame nor reluctance to
crudely and bluntly share their delusionalconstructions. All
these different types of anti-Semites can be found not only in right extremist
parliamentary parties, Christian orders and Islamic brotherhoods, but also in
the left and in some of its related theoretical discourses. I consider myself
as one of the many parts of that diverse left, thus it concerns me. Therefore I do not want to leave
the field clear for anti-Semites and their apologists nor for those who
insinuate being reflective and progressive while seeing no necessity in positioning themselves towards the former.</div>
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Concrete occasion for the publication of this open
letter was the ignorance and belittlement of the anti-Semitic constructions by
the post-colonial theoretician Walter D. Mignolo in recent publications of some
friends and colleagues. To comment his absurdities in detail is not the purpose
of this letter, since his text "Dispensable and Bare Lives" is just
as easy to find in the internet as is the anti-Semitism within it, especially
when read from back to front. I rather want to pose a few questions to you – the
ones publishing Mignolo’s texts, while merely footnoting his anti-Semitism (as
in the introduction to Mignolo’s recently published book at "Turia und
Kant" with the title "Epistemischer Ungehorsam") or concealing
it altogether (as in the latest issue of the transversal web journal of the
European Institute For Progressive Cultural Policies). Since you were aware of the
anti-Semitic viewpoints of the author prior to your publications, as well as of
the conflicts that have taken place regarding that issue in your vicinity, I
assume that you have discussed extensively about the implications that this
will have for your work. </div>
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What were the reasons for your decision to disregard
Walter Mignolo’s anti-Semitism respectively reduce it to a footnote? Aren't you
afraid to do more harm to the Postcolonial Theories and Critiques than to be of
their benefit?</div>
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You seem to not take anti-Semitism as a political
categorie seriously. How come? Are you of the opinion that the theory
production of anti-Semites has to be regarded detached from their anti-Semitism?</div>
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In the light of the historical space in which you
publish, the question arises in how far you have dealt with the history and
meaning of belittling and ignoring anti-Semitism. Did you consider to which
local concepts and figures you relate to with your politics of active
concealment and belittlement?</div>
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I am aware of the difference between half a footnote
and NO footnote at all. However, I do not consider either of those as an
appropriate form to deal with anti-Semitism. Accordingly I await in curious
expectation your answers.</div>
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Best regards,</div>
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Edi Freudmann</div>kaoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02846750141992383466noreply@blogger.com0