The German Moral Drift: Persecutory Antisemitism and the Palestine Case*

In memory of the victims & of our teacher Enrique Dussel

Are you really surprised that Germany supports a genocide? Well, at this point, no. Because, after all, the genesis of Europe is genocidal. What is colonialism, if not? Until recently, it was enough to look towards the Mediterranean to verify European humanism and its compassionate vocation. But there are surprises, somehow. The ease with which the German people comply with the ideological dictates of the state is astounding. One would think that the alignment created by propaganda in the 20th century was impossible after the irruption of the internet and the transformation of the environment into a polyvocal space. But not here. The power of the state to align its subjects is worthy of study. Since the case of Ukraine, the enormous capacity to create an overwhelming consensus on a rather thorny issue has been revealed. After all, the Russians defeated Nazism (it's easy to say). But what is happening in the case of Palestine is the next level. I wonder, if Latour were alive, would he say that German society has decided to live “outside of this world”? As he said of climate change deniers and Trump. It seems that here too people have decided to simply ignore the hard facts and act as if they live on another planet, in the view of everyone. A renunciation of reason, in favor of obedience. A sacralization of the deceitful state word and a regime of taboos, stronger than any religious conviction. One wonders, has anything changed since Heinrich Mann wrote der Untertan?

For us, as Latin American intellectuals, immersed in research logics and university affairs, it was always astonishing to verify the enormous banality with which people at all levels found no contradiction between supporting neo-colonial and exploitative agendas of governments and corporations while maintaining an ethical stance towards the world. In the German sphere, it is perfectly possible to preach gender equity while almost all decision-making positions in state and public institutions, educational or otherwise, are occupied by white men. It is possible to talk about multiculturalism and diversity while ethnic minorities lack effective representation in all areas of public life and are disciplinedly mistreated as part of mere everydayness. Not to mention equal access to education, health, housing, decent work, etc. It is even possible to speak of decoloniality here and there while remaining silent in the face of the genocide of a white supremacist colonial state like Israel. The most blatant contradictions and inconsistencies are perfectly plausible. Because here, at the core, the realm of authority has no moral backdrop, but is reduced to a matter of rank. Almost to something like a salary issue. The one higher up is the one who is right. It is as if the weight of power relations had nullified any possibility of seeing, not what those relationships are like, but how they should be. From that realm of authoritarianism par excellence, it is no longer strange that from above the greatest absurdity can be said: that anyone who opposes the operation of a genocide in plain sight is hiding a racist motive. But it is precisely the operation of racist ethnic cleansing that one wishes to stop!

The inconsistencies that can accumulate into mountains in the German media and the shameless bias of their discourses reveal a radical dissociation between reality and its representation, which should be a matter of concern for the outside world, considering the influence capacity of these states. More than the "fortress Europe," if care is not taken to preserve at least an iota of the critical edge of reason, the care for critical voices within these territories, this could end up becoming "madhouse Europe."

As people who come from the global south, we understand very well what a vassal state is. And, in this case, a union of vassal states. We understand that a discourse of war is articulated in the reason of state. But that the civilian population adopts it without further ado is what continues to astonish us. We can understand that the European Union is a de facto protectorate of the United States, politically and militarily, but that its population, which assumes itself as the heir of the Enlightenment, adopts these blatantly inconsistent discourses with nothing more than a grimace of acceptance and disciplinary alignment, is what seems to us a total renunciation of any ethical orientation of life. If Europe in general, and the German state in this case, are not capable of dissociating themselves from the crime against humanity that is happening at this moment in front of everyone, but on the contrary opt to continue as until now and be accomplices in its operation, by word, deed, and omission, they will be on the ethical plane what their civilization has been since 1492: a disgrace, and another ship adrift.

—let us then, now, hold a minute of silence

for the last gasp

of possible decency

of Western civilization

that is about to die—

From the Decolonial Research Group [decoco] of the IRI THESys at the Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, we express our full solidarity with the people of Palestine. We reject the colonial occupation of Palestinian territory, and the apartheid system operated by the state of Israel, and supported by the United States and its European allies. We reject the bombing and genocidal actions in the Gaza Strip and the cruel tolerance of Western countries.

The spurious excuse of the fight against terrorism serves the West once again to commit crimes against humanity under the intolerable patience of the whole world, while the power to define the facts as "war crimes" remains in the hands of the same imperial powers that indoctrinate in the tolerance of massacres.

It is also a great concern for us that in countries like Germany —where we reside— censorship and persecution are growing against solidarity with the Palestinian people, equating it with antisemitism and with sympathy for "terrorism" or the Hamas group. We know that this country has a history and a guilt for the acts of Nazism that must not be relativized or forgotten. However, the category of "antisemitism" cannot be weaponised and used indiscriminately and without further ado to deceitfully equate criticisms of a colonial state with expressions of racism, with possible legal consequences. Its merely persecutory use attempts to neutralize criticism of a genuinely racist extermination process. Racism is not in the anti-imperial critique, but in the practices of xenophobic and ultranationalist individuals and groups, both in Israel and Germany.  Anti-Zionism is not anti-Jewish nor anti-Semitic. And this global moral and political crisis cannot be resolved simply by killing the messenger.

For those of us who live in this society, as members of diasporas, it is regrettable to see that under the mask of a liberal democracy there are things that cannot be spoken about. Not all German Jews support the mass murder of the Palestinian people. Are they also antisemitic?

What is under siege here is reason and ethical coherence, which underpin a justified critique of the policies of a colonial, racist, and apartheid government that publicly launches a genocide.

What the Israeli government is doing in Gaza to a captive population, with no escape routes and enclosed, is a criminal act. The state of Israel no longer acts only as an army of occupation and distribution of settlers, but as a terrorist machine in itself. And this is happening supported by the moral and political blindness of the rulers of Europe, not only at the discursive level but also tactically and in the provision of money and weaponry.

Germany cannot afford to be trapped in the foreign policy of a declining empire—addicted to corpses since its inception—and become complicit once more in a genocidal process.

Massacring a people will never be an act of justice. Revenge is not justice. And complicit silence kills.

Immediate ceasefire!

Long live a free Palestine!

[decoco]

Berlin, November 6, 2023

—> Spanish version <—

*The opinions expressed in this statement are those of the authors. They do not purport to reflect the position of IRI THESys or Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.