I meant something closer to being a sub-category. There is a level of identification, for example, many Jews feel (especially Israelis here), with Turks.
Part of it is positional (the 4 million Turks in Germany are viewed as 'replacements' for Jews) and because the racism they are subject to feels similar.
Granted, its not the same, but the intuition of parallels, of overlaps, of otherness, as similarly hybrid Mideasterners/Europeans is still there.
To answer your question, no, I don't speak German. It is clearly something I'm going to have to master.
Thanks, Joel
On Oct 4, 2010, at 9:04 PM, Angelus Novus wrote:
>
> joel:
>
>> In your experience, on the German left, has there been any efforts to classify
>> or understand discrimination against German Muslims, as being consistent with
>> anti-Semitism?
>
> I'm not sure if I understand the question. Do you mean anti-Muslim racism in
> terms of being a sub-category of anti-Semitism, or rather than anti-Muslim
> racism is often perpetrated by people who are also anti-Semites?
>
> If the former, not really, that I know of anyway. Much of the theorization of
> anti-Semitism seems very indebtned to Postone, in one way or another, either
> adopting Postone' theses or modifying them, i.e. anti-Semitism as a projection
> of certain characteristics of modernity and commodity society onto Jews. I
> actually find this limiting in a way; not that Postone is wrong, just that there
> are manifestations of anti-Semitism that I think don't fit neatly into that
> schema, such as one reference is made in bourgeois newspapers to the "Old
> Testament character" of the Middle East conflict.
>
> A friend of mine, who publishes widely on anti-Muslim racism and queer studies,
> said in an article that Anti-Muslim Racism was basically an elitist liberal
> discourse in Germany, a sort of genteel liberal racism, whereas your average
> Stammtisch racist doesn't distinguish between Muslim and non-Muslim foreigners.
> I would have agreed with this analysis as recently as a year ago, but in light
> of the Sarrazin thing, I'm wondering if Anti-Muslim racism doesn't offer a
> perfect genteel cover for a more generalized racism.
>
> I think the best analysis on the phenomenon of Anti-Muslim racism has been done
> by the Gruppe Soziale Kämpfe, btw. I don't know if you read German but the
> stuff is worth checking out. They remind me of Slavoj Zizek in a lot of ways,
> actually, in terms of seeing racism as a sort of re-coding of the social
> question (i.e. the class struggle) : www.gruppe-soziale-kaempfe.org
>
>
>
>
>
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