Sunday, August 30, 2009

The Post-Racial Age Has Arrived in Germany

...or: About people born on the right side. Twice.

The post-racial message of America's President Obama has finally arrived in Germany. How have we survived so long without it?

The director of the publicly funded "Workshop of Cultures" (Werkstatt der Kulturen), "theatermaker" and ethnologist Philippa Ebéné, decided Thursday to remove educational panels covering the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini from a planned exhibiton at her premises to the disgust of a district mayor, the curator of the exhibit and the Berlin Jewish community.

The exhibit covers the immensely topical issue "The Third World during the Second World War" and three of 96 exhibit panels are dedicated to the REALLY topical issue of the mufti's collaboration with the Nazis who had a decisive influence on the Holocaust (we reported many times already). Ebéné stated that she refused to display the information on Husseini out of respect for joint Arab organisations. Her decision was supported by migration commissioner of the Berlin Senate, Günter Piening. In a neighbourhood (heavily dominated by Muslims) like Neukölln a "differentiated presentation" was paramount, Piening stated.

"Not differentiated enough". The mufti and his German buddies.

Maya Zehden, a spokeswoman for the Berlin Jewish community, termed Piening's statement "an appeasement attempt" to ignore the fact that "there was no official resistance from the Arabic world against the persecution of Jews" during the Shoah. She accused Piening of showing a false tolerance to German-Arabs in a heavily Muslim-influenced neighborhood.

In an e-mail to the JPost, Heinz Buschkowsky, the district mayor in Neukölln, wrote that it is a sign of "anticipatory obedience to avoid probable protests. I do not consider this position to be good", notabene pointing out that Piening's statement is a "repression of the facts dealing with anti-Semitism."

Meanwhile, Ebéné denied that there was an "agreement" with the local Muslim community to censor the exhibit. She termed media queries regarding an agreement as "Eurocentric." The Jeruslem Post was informed that the exhibit was intended as a "homage to soldiers from African" countries who fought against the Nazis. Indeed, a crucial aspect of WWII so far totally neglected.

When asked about her opposition to the inclusion of the mufti panels, she asked, "was there ever a commemoration event in Israel to honor the [African] soldiers?" In an Interview with Radio Berlin Brandenburg Ebéné, who has a German mother and a father from Cameroon and is thus, so to say by birth and per definitionem, on the right side, stated: I am not white. I have no reason to be afraid of Arabs", which is rather endearing for somebody who is allegedly heavy into informing the world about the African slave-trade.

My take on all this? This is so rock-solid, die-hard, intransigently and impregnally stupid and so full of the usual German "antifa", politically correct, "fight against the right", "multiculti"anti-West and racist crap, that it defies any serious comment, because that would lend her antics a credibility they don't possess. That Ebéné is first confusing Fascism and National-Socialism and then, when challenged, peddling her family's (the German side, that is) history of saving Jewish children to show that she is by birth DOUBLY on the right side, is only the icing on the cake.

Of course, the reaction of the public, the political classes and the media, or the question how Ebéné could end up in such a position at all, are a different matter.

Cross-posted at Roncesvalles.

2 comments:

revereridesagain said...

Festering resentment, the culture of victimology, and racism make for strange bedfellows. Can't help but wonder if Ms. Ebene ever thinks about how she would have made out in Nazi Germany. Is she Muslim? If not, would she volunteer to be dropped dressed as she is but minus the scarf (so she won't be tempted to hide under it) in the middle of Riyadh or Tehran and see how she makes out there. She could always treat it as "street theater".

The_Editrix said...

I doubt she is a Muslim. We would have heard it if she were. It's that obnoxious "I'm left and I am not white so if you don't follow me you are a Fascist and a racist" thing. It has been there before, but I seriously think that Obama's election has empowered that sort of fake magic.