The name Achille Mbembe may not mean much to Israeli readers, but exactly two years ago it was at the center of the storm that shook Germany's political, cultural and academic world - a storm that also directly affected Israel.
The reason: Mamba, the most important African thinker today and the most prominent intellectual figure in the field of post-colonial studies in the world, was invited to open one of the most important cultural festivals in Germany.
But then a German politician discovered that Bambamba had written in an introduction to the book "Apartheid and Israel" that "the Israeli occupation is the greatest moral scandal of our time."
As expected, the discovery caused a scandal: the anti-Semitic commissioner in Berlin on behalf of the government demanded the cancellation of Mambam's lecture, and the press was soon filled with articles discussing the limits of criticism of Israel and whether any criticism of it was in fact an expression of anti-Semitism.
One of the intellectuals asked to comment on the subject was Israeli professor Nathan Schneider, one of the most prominent scholars in the fields of sociology of memory and sociology of the Holocaust and genocide, who is also regularly involved in public debates in Germany.
But then an unexpected thing happened: the corona plague led to the cancellation of the festival, and the question of Bamba's lecture was dropped.
By then it had already opened a Pandora's box: behind the standard debates about the Holocaust and Israel, occupation and Palestinians, hid much deeper currents - Germany's old-fashioned mental account of its responsibility for the Holocaust, and its relationship to its colonial past as a former European empire.
Like parallel lines, these two narratives never meet, producing competing and vocal monologues on each side;
Schneider, who was already confined to his home because of the closure, decided to upgrade the article - and compose a book that would still try to lead both sides to a dialogue.
The result: the book "The Vanishing Points of Memory: On the Present of the Holocaust and Colonialism" (Fluchtpunkte der Erinnerung: Über die Gegenwart von Holocaust und Kolonialismus), published earlier this year in Germany and immediately topped the list of reference books.
These days he is also nominated for Book of the Year in the field of reference literature in the country.
The game of metaphors opens
"The discourse around responsibility for past injustices in Germany in particular and in Western Europe in general is changing, and we are not fully aware of it in Israel," says Schneider, who has been teaching at the Tel Aviv-Yafo Academic College since 1994. And the crimes of Stalinism, and the debate actually took place on the European West-East axis - in recent years, with the opening of Europe to migration groups from the south, a new axis was created for the debate, north-south, and once created, the Holocaust began to recede in the collective memory. The greatest is colonialism - a crime in which most European countries were involved.
"Now, Germany actually had a marginal part in colonialism - compared to England, France or Belgium - but it also had colonies. Young historians began to talk about the fact that in fact the first genocide was in 1908-1904 against the Herro and Nama tribes in one of these colonies, southwest. German Africa, modern-day Namibia. There, too, were camps, starvation, deportation to the desert to die, and racial laws forbidding sexual intercourse. "The roots of the Holocaust already assume that it is possible and necessary to understand the Holocaust neither from itself nor from German anti-Semitism. We have another source."
And talk about the injustices of colonialism as a reason or as a model?
"Both. 'Bloody Lands', as historian Timothy Snyder calls Eastern Europe, in which ethnic groups fought each other and murdered each other. That those people who say they oppose the uniqueness of the Holocaust, then talk about how Israel uses the memory of the Holocaust to defend itself from international criticism.
"But hand in hand with the uniqueness of the Holocaust also goes its perception as unique to Jews, and the resulting connection between it and the solution in the form of Jewish sovereignty. As stated in the Declaration of Independence itself: Go today: What do you want? There were more cases of atrocities. "
And the Holocaust becomes, then, another "crime"?
"Yes, in the progressive, post-colonial discourse, it is treated as part of white man's crimes against other minorities, and this is of course linked to the famous statement that anti-Semitism is a sub-category of racism. On its inclusion in racism, the question also arises as to whether Israelis can also be racists. Of the metaphors opens, and it works like a revolving door: one enters through colonialism, and exits on the other side with a critique of Israel. "
The game opens, but both sides seem to speak different languages and run in parallel lines. And you want to create a conversation between them. Is this even possible?
"The concept of 'vanishing point' implies this: it is a client of the painting, and we are interested in lines that meet in the infinite future. But in the meantime we need to create a discourse in the present, to find a foothold. What I have tried to do is More in common than the two sides are willing to admit. I do not claim to be objective and suggest looking at the sides from a bird's flight. Absolutely not. But I also do not think the truth lies with the oppressed: the fact that you have no power Greater is the truth.I do not want to discuss who is right and who is wrong, who is telling the truth and who is lying, but to open the discussion itself out of the ability to stand up for mine - and at the same time look at the world through someone else's eyes.
"One can also look at Israel as a tremendous success of the anti-colonial struggle, if one understands the Jews as those who were enslaved in the Diaspora and underwent internal colonization. The Jews carried out a process of emancipation."
"Personally, for example, I think Israel is a place of refuge for Jewish refugees, who had no other place to go. But at the same time it is clear to me that a Palestinian can not look at it just like me. I also can not abolish the primacy of colonialism for an African because the Jews But if I manage to open the discussion and write from the point of view of someone I disagree with, maybe we can understand our position better. And it's important to stand on it because I also do not want to get into politics as a trauma lab, I do not believe that. "
Fanon-Lantzman test
To illustrate the possibility of a dialogue between the Holocaust and colonialism, between the Jew and the black, Schneider dwells on the friendship of two who seemingly could not have been more different from each other: Franz Fanon and Claude Lantzman.
"From today's point of view, they are enemies," says Schneider. '
And he is considered one of the greatest fans of the State of Israel. Jewish perspective. Both also fought against the Nazis in different settings. Fanon, a native of Martinique, thought that if he enlisted, he would become a Frenchman; Lantzman believed that his participation in the Resistance would do the job.
And Fanon remains black.
And that connected them. "
And how do you move from the story of these two personalities to the Jewish and post-colonial conceptions? Do you imagine a thinker like Bamba in the place of Fanon?
"The post-colonial conception and the Jewish conception - they have a common place, because one can also look at Israel as a tremendous success of the anti-colonial struggle. "But as those who were enslaved in the Diaspora and underwent internal colonization. The Jews carried out a process of emancipation. Thus, in any case, Lantzman understood Israel, and therefore was not afraid of Israel using violence. He saw it as a liberating force."
"Struggling with his Frenchness."
Fanon,
Both Fanon and Lantzman were in dialogue with their French, meaning they were largely strangers. Is being a stranger necessary to the dialogue you read in the book?
"Yes, because in alienation lies the distance, which allows the gaze from the outside. Such a distance is also required of myself, if I want to look at something in the eyes of the other and understand it, but at the same time one must not cancel this distance for the other or common humanity. "Time for a certain foreignness to open perspectives and see them at the same time. The perspectives are like a fan: if it is closed, it can be used as a hammer. If it is open - spectacular images are revealed, and a bit of wind enters."
Open the space for speech
The fan, for its multiplicity of images that do not necessarily blend into harmony, is also a good image for the figures that accompany the bridge that Schneider builds wishes of Jewish emancipation in the 19th century for post-colonial questions in the 21st century.
Along with Lantzman and Fanon, the book's chapters are dedicated to Alfred Dreyfus, the French officer who was "exposed" as a Jew, to the "broken Jew" Franz Kafka, to the political and cultural Zionist thinker Hannah Arendt, who after World War II also added an American tier to her Jewish and German identity;
To the French-Tunisian-Jewish writer Albert Memi, the Arab Jew who articulates the concept of Judaism as an anchor for Jewish identity without religion;
But also to Edward Said, the Palestinian-American thinker who authored, among other things, the book "Orientalism."
"The big political question is how to live with the opposites and how to avoid silencing the discourse by symbolic violence, i.e. labels like 'racist' or 'antisemitic'. In doing so I would like to see my contribution: teach to listen to each other."
"Said is a key figure," Schneider says, "because he made the move from Africa to Palestine on post-colonial issues. The question of Palestine. There Said also makes the transition from Orientalism to application in Palestine and claims: Jews are Europeans, they are whites, who came to conquer the authentic Arab region. They are part of colonialism. At the same time, Said considers himself a Jew: when in one interview "He returned to Palestine, replied that he would rather be homeless, like the Jews. 'I am the last Jewish intellectual,' he called himself."
Both a friend of Fanon and an ardent supporter of Israel.
Claude Lantzman // Photo: AFP,
Schneider points out that Said actually sees only one side of the equation - or of the fan - and ignores the other side.
"Zionism was also a national liberation movement, while Palestine and later Israel - a place of refuge for the Jews who were persecuted and fled from west to east. But yes, there are also those who meet this liberation movement, and this movement can not but use force. "Israel's force would not have been established. This is how any national liberation movement is."
"Young historians began to talk about the fact that the first genocide was in the years 1908-1904 against the Harro and Nama tribes. There were also camps, starvation, deportation to the desert to die, and racial laws that forbade sexual intercourse."
You readers might ask: Why do we need this? If we are convinced of our righteousness, why is an understanding of the other perspective required?
"It is required as long as we agree that we want to share this world, to be in it together. If I come across a person who does not want to share the world with me - like the Nazis - then it makes no sense. Then we have to fight. But if there is a chance others, In their righteousness, they will be able to see the world as I see it, and I will be able to see the world as they see it, it will be possible to open the space for speech, for a kind of conversation-based solidarity. The same internal enslavement of the Jews - but also as a colonialist movement for other people, we open a place for dialogue. ... "
... but life is not just logic.
"Exactly. We need to stay with the opposites, and the big political question is how to live with them and how to avoid silencing the discourse by symbolic violence, that is, labels like 'racist' or 'antisemitic.' If it does not prevent wars. "
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