| Allan Siegel via nettime-l on Sat, 16 Dec 2023 10:46:52 +0100 (CET) |
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| Re: <nettime> the silence on the rising fascism |
*the Banality of Evil Redux*Thank you Podinski and your XLterrestrials for reminding us of the deafening sounds of silence emanating from so-called pillars of democracy; in the most outspoken bastions of ‘brand democracy’ what we are hearing and seeing is a blatant and insidious suppression of those voices articulating the strategic intentions underlying the genocidal campaign being waged against the Palestinian people by the Government of Israel.
A highly orchestrated campaign of suppression is not solely directed at those who voice their opposition but is also being done in coordination with a massive propaganda apparatus spreading an avalanche of lies and misinformation resulting in not just the censorship of information but also the thwarting of the most basic journalistic practices and the delimiting of public discourse.
Masha Gessen placed in historical context the de facto liquidation of Gaza as similar to the destruction of Jewish ghettos during WWII. Further to the point we see the wholesale demonisation of the Palestinian people being shouted-out by Israeli leaders in the press and on social media and in a manner abhorrently similar to the tactics of Joseph Goebbels. Perhaps, as Gessen indicates these comparisons are not just coincidental.
How ironic that the enabler of the Israeli onslaught happens to be the United States government and that German institutions and politicians are being morally fenced in by their own historical realities and unable to publicly express coherent circumspect narratives in order to navigate the current landscape of genocide. How deeply troubling is the fact that Gessen herself was unable to receive in Germany the Hannah Arendt Award being presented by a German Foundation and that, many tears previously, it was Arendt herself who was denounced by Israeli politicians for her book The Banality Of Evil. History repeats itself in new guises, refurbished slogans and newly minted uniforms.
There have been some very dramatic and courageous expressions of solidarity with the Palestinian Resistance globally but what is indeed the canary in the coal mine is the manner which that solidarity is being squashed and disfigured in the supposed heartland of Western democracies and the ringleader in this enterprise: the U.S. government. The slogan being shouted and brandished to neutralise and eradicate any criticism of Israel’s murderous campaign, and Zionism, is the necessity to fight antisemitism; meanwhile, gleefully, Israel’s leaders simultaneously condone the most despicable racist slogans directed against Palestinians; in practice this translates as antisemitism is bad but racism is ok. The contradictions embedded in this ideological framework are consistent with any colonial project and especially, at this historical moment, with the Zionist project that underscores the genocidal war being aged in Gaza.
What becomes clearer, as new pieces of information and more in-depth analyses of the events of surrounding October 7th become evident, is that the self-serving narratives promoting Israel as ‘a Jewish state’ and ‘the only democracy in the Middle East’ are riddled with fabrications and falsehoods. The implications of Israel as a Zionist project, first and foremost, is now being brought into focus. At the tragic expense of thousands of innocent lives. The ramifications of this murderous war will endure for many, many years.
best allan On 14/12/2023 16:37, podinski via nettime-l wrote:
Liebe nettimers, The XLterrestrials have been wanting to write the list for some time, to restart a thread that oddly never got any traction, Brian's post about World War 3... And was going to write "The Silence on World War 3"... or " The Silence on The Latest Genocide" ... But now things are getting a bit more specific... And it's time to get LOUDER ! Here in Berlin, we just attended a press conference this morning for the Oyoun cultural space in Neukoelln, which on Nov. 20th had its 4-year funding program abruptly terminated by Cultural Senator Joe Chialo ( CDU) during a livestream of the cultural committee. This was due to one of those ridiculous unfounded accusations of Anti-semitism. And the absurd irony is that these accusations + termination came as a response to hosting an outspoken jewish group called Judische Stimmung. There's been alot written about this, and other cancellations the last couple weeks so i won't take time to go into more detail on that topic... Perhaps one of the best perspectives we came across is this is Granta article from George Prochnik, Eyal Weizman & Emily Dische-Becker titled " Once Again, Germany Defines Who Is a Jew | Part I" https://granta.com/once-again-germany-defines-who-is-a-jew-part-i This link came to us via a fantastic Reading Group here on these issues in Berlin, which if your interested, please Pm me and will give you more details. Don't want to overexpose them here. Interesting to note that Forensic Architecture is now also getting cancelled. just last week in Netherlands ( on an unrelated topic ) ... Don't have time to go into alot of details on all this, the XLterrestrials are in the midst of putting together an article for our *Subslack* called *XLterrestrials Radar*. More importantly we wanted to alert you about here is that this is triggering some very dramatic resistance(s). Sophiensaelle perfomance art space also had a fierce open assembly last nite, and it will continue on thursday nights ( we think ), next one being hosted by the publishers of Art of The Working Class ( street sheet ) publishers. https://www.artsoftheworkingclass.org/ And Oyoun is now launching a 3-day festival in the midst of their own crisis, with an extremely courageous defiance... talks, workshops, performances, etc. starting TONIGHT called THREADS OF RESILIENCE ! Full program here: https://oyoun.de/en/unsere-arbeit/threads-of-resilience/ <https://oyoun.de/en/unsere-arbeit/threads-of-resilience/> It feels incredibly urgent to show our solidarity for this space and its staff ! So please share this news... AND their fundraiser to keep going while they build their challenges to the Senate decisions. OYOUN has now filed a lawsuit against them ! ... Just to quickly add some XLt analysis / perspective... There is also a danger to lose sight of the BIG PICTURE. For example we saw the tendencies of the art sector ( last nite at Sophiensaelle ) to focus more on fighting for their specific arts + culture territories, jobs, freedom of expression, artistic expression, etc.... And perhaps too little about what arts+media + cultural workers can be doing to show their solidarity and strategize on : STOPPING THE WARS, THE WAR CRIMES , THE GENOCIDAL ACTS and putting pressures on the various levels of political figures and on the war-profiting machinery itself that direct this gruesome trajectory into the fascist abyss. Of course we will need to fight these things simultaneously, because what also became apparent from the many deep-thinking speakers from the Sophiensaelle mileu, was that this shutting down of the diverse plurality of voices + the much-needed open discourse is how the narratives get controlled ! And how the nationalist agendas get pushed, and how populations are then funneled and forced into silence and complicity ! ... much more to report... but that's all for now, the XLterrestrials p..s.. Just wanted to add the quote from Brian... as a reference to where this conversation thread started in our heads... and the above is where we are now... in the local situations... and trying to remember that Berlin is still very much a bubble ... where these things can still be made so visible, and where we can mobilize these kinds of refusals to comply with the Flood of Bullshit... and all the Bloodshed ! the point is that the conduct of the Western countries has contributed to the hostilities, and rather than setting off on a jingoistic warpath, it's our responsibility to change that conduct. We watch bloody murder every day, we stand on the verge of a world war, and behind that is the Anthropocene abyss. It is time to cease thinking that it's all someone else's business, and I'm just gonna do my job and have my fun. It's equally time to cease thinking that because of collective guilt over the Holocaust, Israel should be supported in everything and at all costs - including that of creating a world full of enemies.
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