Tweet thread by Mohammed Elnaiem (@.m_elnaiem) dated January 13, 2024
There's something hard for us, children of the colonised, to articulate because the world is upside down. Europe and its descendants, can't differentiate between principle and episode. This is why Germany (and much of Europe) is doomed to be genocidal. Here is what I mean.
The Holocaust was the culmination of European violence. On principle, its components: racial supremacy, concentration, biopolitics - happened before, ( the Nama and Herero genocide), and elements of it after (Kenya). Europe only feels guilt about the episode, not the principle.
And so Europe believes that its crime was not the principle of genocide as such, but the crime against Jews. It seeks penance for the episode but reconciles itself with the principle of genocide which has been ongoing for centuries, and which was perfected in colonial occupations
And so this is why we see the absurdities in Germany. Germans do not believe that holocausts were the problem, or else they would learn about the Nama and Herero genocide in school. They believe that the holocaust was the problem, and that Israel can give them penance
The fascist batons, the rounding up of dissidents the kidnapping, the banning of BDS, the defence of Israel in the ICJ, all of this is fine, because it is not the principle of fascism which it condemns, only the episode.
It mistakes the episode for the principal.
And this is how Europe, which refuses to actually confront its violence, will forever be doomed to repeat it. I am Black. I am also a Muslim. There is no longer a Jewish question in Europe (and thank God Europe can learn) but there is a Muslim question.
Every single stereotype, that Palestinians are brutes, human animals, rapists, that they are misogynists, their children terrorists in waiting, women accomplices. These tropes arenot wrong, unless directed at Jews, because the episode, and not the principle is condemned.
Theu can't understand a simple premise which we must try to teach them in vain. The Holocaust, Leopolds Congo, the Malaya emergency, and today, the genocide in Gaza -- all of it must be condemned. What the "jew" was to your grandparents is what the Arab is to you.
And all of this is true, at the same time as the fact that despite all of these attempts at self consolation, Europe is still not safe for Jewish people, because antisemitism is still rampant.
This might not be easy to hear, but this is the absurdity which we confront on our television sets, in silence everyday. You cannot learn.
When you can say let them drown in the English Channel, or that there is no difference between Palestinian civilians and Hamas. When you can see our relatives fleeing war and treat them like flies and ants; that is the Hitler inside of you. Confront the principle, not the episode.
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