DOCSLIB.ORG

The Passion of Joschka Fischer' by PAUL BERMAN

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The Passion of Joschka Fischer' by PAUL BERMAN T wrinkle her skin. Then each of the men orders the robbers to leave, which they do made in I960 and as vital as ever, he used uses one of her stockings as a burglar's not. They stuff her in a wardrobe, where some of the stylistics of the past, par- m mask. In broad daylight, they carry a lad- she smothers, but her death does not seem ticularly of Renoir—for his own ends, of der around the outside ofthe house and any more real than all the rest. It is as if course. Still, he used them. From then on, try to enter an upper window. Later they she were merely playing dead as part of he attacked or ignored them, often quite tramp noisily through tbe house. When this spoof lightheartedly. Band of Outsiders is a rev- 70 the owner appears, a woman, she merely olutionary souffle. • m In Godard's first feature. Breathless, C 03 r" o From the radicalism ofthe '60s to the interventionism ofthe '90s. The Passion of Joschka Fischer' By PAUL BERMAN I. many's federal govemment, let alone the the generation of 1968)—an unforesee- foreign ministry. A powerful man, there- ably rich and vivid scandal, fecund with AST JANUARY, Stem maga- fore a man with enemies. The photo- implications for Europe and modem life zine in Germany published a graphs gazed blearily at the world from and thirt\' or forty years of history. set of five grainy photographs the semi-glossy pages of Stern, and flames of Joschka Fischer, tbe Ger- of Christian Democratic wrath erupted at HE PHOTOGRAPHS WERE deliv- man foreign minister and vice once fi'om those many partisan enemies. ered to Stem by a tbirty-eight-year- Lchancellor, as a young bully in a street bat- Germany's foreign minister had disgraced Toid woman named Bettina Rohl, tle in Frankfurt. It was April 1973. The himself in those photographs; had embar- who described herself as an "independent photos showed: a figure in a black motor- rassed his nation; had lost the ability to journalist" but whose notoriety was owed cycle helmet, labeled as Fischer, facing ofl' represent Germany to the world; ought to mostly to her family background, which against another figure in a white police- be investigated, to be indicted, to resign. could hardly have been more sensational. man's helmet, witb a dented Volkswagen The street battles of 1973 took place Bettina Rohl was the daughter of Ulrike squatting in the background; the black- long ago, and it could have been supposed Meinhof. In the heyday of the left-wing helmeted Fischer drawing near, and a that Fischer's enemies, having given vent movement of the late 1960s and 1970s, skinny giri or maybe a long-haired boy to a thousand pent-up furies and Christ- Ulrike Meinhof was more than well- (this was an androgvTious era) running ian Democratic resentments, would eveu- known in West Germany. She was a to join him; Fischer and other people on tually calm down, and the scandal ofthose militant and a political theorist on the the attack, the white-helmeted cop going ancient photographs would fade. The edi- left's leftmost wing—one of the crazies, into a crouch; Fischer's black-gloved fist tors of Stem seem to have anticipated that you would have to say, except that crazi- raised as if to punch the crouching cop on sort of development. The magazine adver- ness and sanity were very much under the back, Fischer's comrades crowding tised its photographs on the cover with a interrogation. around; the cop huddled on the ground, quotation from Fischer CJa. ich war mili- In 1970, Ulrike Meinhof staged an Fischer and his comrades appearing to tanf), but the big story in that week's armed jailbreak to free an imprisoned kick him, with two additional people issue was Europe's meat crisis, illustrated comrade named Andreas Baader, who was watching. And no more dented Volks- by a giant sausage skewered on the tines of serving three years for his own violent wagen. Tbe photographer has evidently an oversized barbecue fork. Mad cow dis- antics. (He had set fire to a Frankfurt been circling around the skirmish, snap- ease, now that was a lasting story. department store.) Baader and Meinhof, ping his camera in what must have been The weeks went by, though, and the together v\ith Horst Mahler and a few a frenzy of adrenaline, each picture taken Fischer afFair, instead of fading, grew in other desperadoes of the revolutionary from a different angle. intensity and scale. Like the broken tape left, organized what became casually Those were brutal photographs. One on the door at the Watergate, or the girl- known as the Baader-Meinhof Gang, but glance at them and you were back in the ish confessions on Linda Tripp's treacher- was more formally and correctly called the days of left-wing street fighting from the ous recording, the photographs in Stem Red Army Fraction. In American English, late 1960s and 1970s, when young mili- seemed to pull slowly at a curtain that, as the Gennan word Fraktion is usually ren- tants in West Germany were always pour- it opened, revealed ever more distant dered as "faction," which falls easily on the ing into the streets, and Volkswagens were peaks of unsuspected scandals (or non- ear; but anyone who remembers the old getting dented right and left. And the scandals, depending on your interpreta- Communist phrase book will recognize photographs, having conjured the past, tion). The controversy spread to France. that "fraction," in English, used to be a provoked an outcrj'. The Joschka Fischer In London, The Observer, playing the part perfectlylegitimate and precise term, con- of 2001 was amember ofthe partv called, of the yellow press, gave the polemic a noting a disciplined party unit akin to a in expressively anti-bureaucratic fashion, slightly demented sexual twist. The cell—the opposite of a faction, which is a "tbe Greens"—a man ofthe left on its hip- Italians weighed in. The Fischer affair party unit that has escaped the party's dis- per, friskier side. He happened to be the achieved at last a large enough dimension cipline. A Marxist-Leninist party does not very first Green to hold a ministry in Gter- and a sufficiently accusatory tone to be have factions, unless tbe party is in dis- described rather grandly but not inaccu- array. But a Marxist-Leninist party does have fractions, or party units that go out PAUL BERMAN is the author of yl rately as "the trial of the generation of into the world and militate as best they Two Utopias: The Political Joumey of the 1968" by the editors of the Paris daily can, according to plan. Generation of 1968 (Norton). Liberation (who know something about 36 : AUGUST 27 & SEPTEMBER 3, 2001 Bettina Rohl's photographs of Joschka Fischer (in black helmet) attacking a policeman, Frankfurt, April 1973 Baader and Meinhof's Red Army Frac- organize her guerrilla army, which meant support that made each of tbose groups tion was tiny. But it went out into the that, in matters of age, she towered over nearly indestructible during the next world and proved to be extremely violent. the New Left's rank and file, the student decades. Kidnappings, bank holdups, murders; the naifs. She knew how to drape the grand The Red Army Fraction was not exactly group refrained from nothing. A bombing ideals of German philosophy across her invulnerable. Iu 1972, the West German in 1972 killed four American soldiers. A organization and its doings. To be sure, police did manage to arrest a number of few years later someone machine-gunned her guerrilla army was reviled by an key warriors. They arrested Meinhof her- to death the prosecutor who wanted to try overwhelming majority of West Germans, self. But arrests only rendered the group the group for killing the soldiers. Reprisals the put-upon bystanders and potential fashionable. Jean-Paul Sartre expressed were a specialty. The Red Army Fraction victims and frightened citizens. an admiring appreciation—a cagey admi- was hardy, too. The West German author- But in the universities and the counter- ration, designed to leave him unstained ities did their repressive best, but the cultural districts in Frankfurt and Berlin by any crimes that the guerrillas might guerrilla organization managed to keep and a few other places, her tiny organiza- commit. Meinhof wrote the famous itself alive, recruiting new members from tion drew on the active and even enthu- philosopher a letter, inviting him to visit ever younger generations to replace the siastic support of a not-so-small number Baader in jail, "to give us the protection fallen, and persisting in its killings and of people, plus the passive support of far of your name and your gifts as a Marx- kidnappings from decade to decade into larger numbers, the leftists who vvould ist, philosopher, journalist and moral- the mid-1990s—a long run in a well- never have endorsed a program of vio- ist." Sartre came. But the martyrdom only ordered place such as Germany. lence and who wanted nothing to do vvith deepened. One of the imprisoned war- Even today, a political legacy from the murders, but vvho would have said that, riors had already committed suicide by old Baader-Meinhof tendency has man- even so, the Red Army Fraction did have the time of Sartre's visit, and in 1976 aged to linger on, though without a clan- reason to despise German bourgeois soci- Meinhof likewise committed suicide in destine wing, or so it is said.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Black-Jewish Coalition” Unraveled: Where Does Israel Fit?
    The “Black-Jewish Coalition” Unraveled: Where Does Israel Fit? A Master’s Thesis Presented to The Faculty of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Brandeis University Hornstein Jewish Professional Leadership Program Professors Ellen Smith and Jonathan Krasner Ph.D., Advisors In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts by Leah Robbins May 2020 Copyright by Leah Robbins 2020 Acknowledgements This thesis was made possible by the generous and thoughtful guidance of my two advisors, Professors Ellen Smith and Jonathan Krasner. Their content expertise, ongoing encouragement, and loving pushback were invaluable to the work. This research topic is complex for the Jewish community and often wrought with pain. My advisors never once questioned my intentions, my integrity as a researcher, or my clear and undeniable commitment to the Jewish people of the past, present, and future. I do not take for granted this gift of trust, which bolstered the work I’m so proud to share. I am also grateful to the entire Hornstein community for making room for me to show up in my fullness, and for saying “yes” to authentically wrestle with my ideas along the way. It’s been a great privilege to stretch and grow alongside you, and I look forward to continuing to shape one another in the years to come. iii ABSTRACT The “Black-Jewish Coalition” Unraveled: Where Does Israel Fit? A thesis presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Brandeis University Waltham, Massachusetts By Leah Robbins Fascination with the famed “Black-Jewish coalition” in the United States, whether real or imaginary, is hardly a new phenomenon of academic interest.
    [Show full text]
  • Power and the Idealists: Or, the Passion of Joschka Fischer and Its Aftermath by Paul Berman, Soft Skull Press, 2005, 311 Pp
    Power and the Idealists: Or, The Passion of Joschka Fischer and its Aftermath by Paul Berman, Soft Skull Press, 2005, 311 pp. Philip Spencer Paul Berman’s latest book is remarkable. It is partly a collective biography, partly a work of contemporary history, and partly a political essay and argument about what has happened to the radical left over the past 30 years. It examines political and ethical issues of the utmost seriousness and challenges all of us on the left at the deepest level. It is also, one has to say, an extraordinarily well-written book, and hard to put down once you have started. Some of this has to do with the cast of characters that Berman assembles, all of whom committed themselves in various ways to the radical cause in their youth, and who have largely never given up on these commitments, even as they have had to come to terms with disappointment, dismay and, let it be said, betrayal, not least by many of their erstwhile comrades. Berman describes – in prose worthy of a novelist – the political odyssey of many of the 68’ers ‘from radical leftism to liberal anti-totalitarianism.’ Yet Berman is not engaged in hagiography. He shows how each has made mistakes and had to learn (often the hard way). They have argued with each other and with themselves at almost every stage, sometimes losing friends in the process, exposing themselves to vilification and abuse, their motives as much as their judgements impugned. And it is with the question of motive that Berman’s account really commences.
    [Show full text]
  • Political Islam: a 40 Year Retrospective
    religions Article Political Islam: A 40 Year Retrospective Nader Hashemi Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver, Denver, CO 80208, USA; [email protected] Abstract: The year 2020 roughly corresponds with the 40th anniversary of the rise of political Islam on the world stage. This topic has generated controversy about its impact on Muslims societies and international affairs more broadly, including how governments should respond to this socio- political phenomenon. This article has modest aims. It seeks to reflect on the broad theme of political Islam four decades after it first captured global headlines by critically examining two separate but interrelated controversies. The first theme is political Islam’s acquisition of state power. Specifically, how have the various experiments of Islamism in power effected the popularity, prestige, and future trajectory of political Islam? Secondly, the theme of political Islam and violence is examined. In this section, I interrogate the claim that mainstream political Islam acts as a “gateway drug” to radical extremism in the form of Al Qaeda or ISIS. This thesis gained popularity in recent years, yet its validity is open to question and should be subjected to further scrutiny and analysis. I examine these questions in this article. Citation: Hashemi, Nader. 2021. Political Islam: A 40 Year Keywords: political Islam; Islamism; Islamic fundamentalism; Middle East; Islamic world; Retrospective. Religions 12: 130. Muslim Brotherhood https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12020130 Academic Editor: Jocelyne Cesari Received: 26 January 2021 1. Introduction Accepted: 9 February 2021 Published: 19 February 2021 The year 2020 roughly coincides with the 40th anniversary of the rise of political Islam.1 While this trend in Muslim politics has deeper historical and intellectual roots, it Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral was approximately four decades ago that this subject emerged from seeming obscurity to with regard to jurisdictional claims in capture global attention.
    [Show full text]
  • The Prisoner Intellectuals
    Published on The New Republic (http://www.tnr.com) The Prisoner Intellectuals • Paul Berman • May 5, 2010 | 6:34 pm Koestler: The Literary and Political Odyssey of a Twentieth Century Skeptic By Michael Scammell (Random House, 689 pp., $40) I. The opening pages of Arthur Koestler’s Darkness at Noon are thrilling to read. In a very few sentences, Koestler managed to wrap his arms around one of the huge and mysterious philosophical master-themes of the last two centuries, and, in a muscular feat of poetic compression, to reduce his giant theme to a handful of simple images: The cell door slammed behind Rubashov. He remained leaning against the door for a few seconds, and lit a cigarette. On the bed to his right lay two fairly clean blankets, and the straw mattress looked newly filled. The wash-basin to his left had no plug, but the trap functioned. The can next to it had been freshly disinfected, it did not smell. The walls on both sides were of solid brick, which would stifle the sound of tapping, but where the heating and drain pipe penetrated it, it had been plastered and resounded quite well; besides, the heating pipe itself seemed to be noise-conducting. The window started at eye- level. And Rubashov observes the vista beyond the window bars: the snow, the moon, the Milky Way, a marching sentry, the yellow light of electric lanterns. You will remember that Rubashov is a hardened militant of the Communist revolution. In the old days, when he was a high-ranking commissar, he used to enforce Communist discipline on the party rank-and-file in different parts of the world, in the interest of the Soviet Union.
    [Show full text]
  • Camus' Catch: How Democracies Can Defeat Totalitarian Political Islam
    Camus’ Catch: How democracies can defeat Totalitarian Political Islam Alan Johnson Editor’s Note: This is a version of a speech given at a conference organised by MedBridge Strategy Center, Camus: Moral Clarity in an Age of Terror, in Paris, 25 February, 2006. …the Cold War was fought with not only weapons that were military or intelligence based; it was fought through newspapers, journals, culture, the arts, literature. It was fought not just through governments but through foundations, trusts, civil society and civic organisations. Indeed we talked of a cultural Cold War – a Cold War of ideas and values – and one in which the best ideas and values eventually triumphed. And it is by power of argument, by debate and by dialogue that we will, in the long term, expose and defeat this extremist threat and we will have to argue not just against terrorism and terrorists but openly argue against the violent perversion of a peaceful religious faith. it is … necessary to take these ideas head on – a global battle for hearts and minds, and that will mean debate, discussion and dialogue through media, culture, arts, and literature. And not so much through governments, as through civil society and civic culture – in partnership with moderate Muslims and moderates everywhere – as globally we seek to isolate extremists from moderates. (Gordon Brown, British Chancellor of the Exchequer, February 13 2006) I speak today from the democratic left and, mainly, about the left. But I am seeking interlocutors from, and alliances with, the much wider set of democratic and liberal traditions represented at this conference.
    [Show full text]
  • The Flight of the Intellectuals
    book reviews The Flight of the Intellectuals of the Left, who, apparently in the both the Nazi war machine and By Paul Berman name of a distorted and morally the Nazi’s ‘final solution’ for Scribe Publications, simplistic multicultural ethic, the Jews, and a close intimate Melbourne, 2010 feel the need to downplay the of al-Banna and the Muslim $29.95, 304 pages utter illiberality of the Islamist Brotherhood. ISBN 9781921640773 movement and its thinkers, All of this is essential background including Ramadan. to looking in detail at Ramadan’s aul Berman is a left-liberal As Berman recently told an published writings and speeches PAmerican intellectual who interviewer, this book was the and where he places himself in the has done as much as anybody in product of his own annoyance at Muslim Brotherhood tradition. the English-speaking ‘the refusal or inability Over 100 or so pages of often witty, world to grapple with of intellectuals and always fair-minded, and carefully the implications and journalists in the US researched argument, Berman problems of the violent and the West to come demonstrates convincingly many Islamist ideological to grips with the kinds devastating points about Ramadan. movement responsible of doctrines that are These include: for September 11 and cropping up.’ Instead, • Despite his ability to say most other subsequent he said, they prefer to what Western liberals want to hear, international terrorism. ‘project fantasies onto and the portrayal of Ramadan His book Terror and what they’re reading.’ by himself and others as a free- Liberalism was one of Berman begins with thinking reformer, he is nothing the most penetrating and original a review of Ramadan’s Islamist of the sort.
    [Show full text]
  • The Post-Left: an Archaeology and a Genealogy
    The Post-Left: An Archaeology and a Genealogy Gabriel Noah Brahm Jr. Distrust those cosmopolitans who search out remote duties in their books and neglect those that lie nearest. Such philosophers will love the Tartars to avoid loving their neighbor. – Jean-Jacques Rousseau The victims most interesting to us are always those who allow us to condemn our neighbors. And our neighbors do the same. – René Girard Prelude or Postmortem? A synchronic (structural) and diachronic (historical) analysis of today’s anti- Western left is sorely needed. [1] This essay is a first attempt. I will highlight the malaise experienced by parts of the left – the ‘proto-post-left’ so to speak – in the 1980s and 1990s. This period was defined by the demise of systemic opposition to liberalism and was experienced, as Fredric Jameson has confessed, as a time of ‘existential disorientation.’ In this period a pattern of discourse congealed that would help create a ‘post-left’ paradigm in the wake of 9/11. [2] During the interregnum of 1991-2001 – the period between the end of the cold war and the beginning of the war on terror – a post-cold war, postmodern, post- Marxist, postcolonial-theory ‘left’ emerged. It has been called, variously, a ‘Zombie Left’ (Bernard-Henri Levy), ‘The Left that Doesn’t Learn’ (Mitchell Cohen), and ‘The Unpatriotic Left’ (Richard Rorty). In this essay I explain why, after 9/11, it became a ‘post-left’ – linked more with tyranny and reaction than emancipation and progress – and I explore its character and influence. One hopes that what follows is its postmortem, but it is too early to say.
    [Show full text]
  • I. F. Stone Encounters with Soviet Intelligence
    HoI. F.ll Stone:and Encounters with Soviet Intelligence I. F.Stone Encounters with Soviet Intelligence ✣ Max Holland Of all the disclosures contained in the notebooks of Alexander Vassiliev, few are likely to be more contentious than those involving the jour- nalist I. F. Stone. From April 1936 until at least the fall of 1938, according to the note- books, Stone acted as a “talent spotter,” helping to identify or recruit other Americans who might be receptive to assisting Soviet intelligence.1 Under the assigned codename of “Blin,” Stone also acted as a courier, conveying mes- sages between a Soviet intelligence ofªcer and his American agent. These were intelligence functions, having nothing to do with being an editorial writer for the New York Post, Stone’s main occupation at the time. Vassiliev’s notes also reveal that Stone passed along privileged information that might be deemed useful for intelligence purposes. Altogether, these activities either contravene or, as this essay will argue, greatly complicate widely held views about Stone and his status as an icon of journalism. When Stone died in June 1989 at the age of 81, all three major television networks announced his death on their news shows as if he were a household name rather than a print journalist whose work had appeared primarily in elite publications normally associated with the country’s intelligentsia. Stone was hailed as the living embodiment of the ªrst amendment, a ªercely inde- pendent journalist opposed to the “Washington Insiderism” that often blights reporting from the nation’s capital.2 Both The Washington Post, Stone’s local paper, and The New York Times ran full obituaries, editorials of praise, and ap- preciations in several op-ed pieces.
    [Show full text]
  • Terror and Liberalism by Paul Berman
    Kurt Jacobsen Review Terror and Liberalism by Paul Berman reviewed by Kurt Jacobsen an’t we all just get along? If not, do you mind awfully if we do away with Cyou? Paul Berman argues that realists and leftists alike ignore irrational forces—“pathological mass movements”—that motivate global violence. He accordingly urges that liberal Western societies intervene militarily to stamp out these threats with, as the venerable saying goes, extreme prejudice. Berman delves into the extraordinarily complex question of terrorism and, in so doing, displays a desperate need to occupy the middle ground no matter where it may be. This hoary tactic can place one in strange, and even silly, positions. Where exactly is the middle ground regarding mass murder or female circumcision or slavery? (Spartacists may be annoying extremists but was Spartacus an extremist?) So Berman prudently takes the precaution of controlling where he winds up by dictating where the loony left and right margins are supposedly set. In Terror and Liberalism Berman tirelessly reiterates whatever the mainstream American media finds fit to print. Saddam in 1991 was poised to roll over Saudi Arabia. Arab problems are internally generated because heaven forfend that anyone mention colonial legacies or neo-imperial ploys. Saddam “threw the inspectors out” in 1998 (when they were withdrawn under severe White House pressure). The U.S. consequently “complained from the sidelines”— from which it had infiltrated CIA agents into UNSCOM. Scapegoating is Saddam’s “special genius”—although CIA Director George Tenet may beg to differ these days. Saddam gassed “his own” people, although most Kurds, as the gory record over many decades shows, hardly viewed themselves as “his” people, or even as Iraqis.
    [Show full text]
  • Dülffer on Berman, 'Power and the Idealists: Or, the Passion of Joschka Fischer and Its Aftermath'
    H-German Dülffer on Berman, 'Power and the Idealists: Or, the Passion of Joschka Fischer and its Aftermath' Review published on Friday, September 1, 2006 Paul Berman. Power and the Idealists: Or, the Passion of Joschka Fischer and its Aftermath. Brooklyn: Soft Skull Press, Brooklyn, 2005. x + 306 pp. $23.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-1-932360-91-2. Reviewed by Jost Dülffer (Historisches Seminar, Universität zu Köln)Published on H-German (September, 2006) Revolutionaries into Statesmen This is a partially self-referential book. The first of the five essays collected here, entitled "The Passion of Joschka Fischer," was originally published in the New Republic (August 28-September 3, 2001), briefly before 9/11. Two years later, before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the debate about Joschka Fischer resurfaced. In February 2003 in the Washington Post, Michael Kelly simplified and sharpened Berman's more complex argument to make an attack on Fischer's past, arguing that Fischer's previous deeds meant that he was not qualified to sit in judgment on the upcoming war (this is part of the argument of chapter 2). Kelly, a well-known Washington columnist and war reporter during the Kuwait War of 1991, went as an embedded journalist to Iraq in 2003 with high hopes as to the moral justice and political domino effects of this war. He died in an attack on a U.S. humvee (as described in chapter 5 of Berman's book). Berman presents himself autobiographically as a former adherent of the idea of bringing the U.S. political and intellectual left into the consciousness of Americans, an idea he embraced while still in college (p.
    [Show full text]
  • Erasure and Demonization: Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism in Contemporary Social Movements
    Erasure and Demonization: Antisemitism and Anti‐Zionism in Contemporary Social Movements Sylvia Barack Fishman OCCASIONAL PAPER SERIES no. 1/2021 INSTITUTE FOR THE STUDY OF GLOBAL ANTISEMITISM AND POLICY Chair Natan Sharansky Executive Director Charles Asher Small Academic Steering Committee Professor Irving Abella Dr. Ramy Aziz Professor Ellen Cannon Professor Brahm Canzer Professor Raphael Cohen-Almagor Professor Amy Elman Professor Sylvia Barack Fishman Professor Boaz Ganor Dr. Joël Kotek Professor Dan Michman Professor David Patterson Chloe Pinto Dr. Robert Satloff Charles Asher Small (Chair) ISGAP Oxford ◆ New York.◆ Rome ◆ Toronto.◆ Jerusalem www.isgap.org [email protected] All papers in the ISGAP Occasional Papers Series have been peer reviewed through processes administered by ISGAP’s Academic Steering Committee. The opinions expressed in this paper are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy, its officers, or the members of its boards. Cover design and layout by AETS © 2021 ISBN 978-1-940186-14-6 ISGAP PUBLICATIONS ANTISEMITISM IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE Collected Papers edited by Charles A. Small The Yale Papers The ISGAP Papers, Vol. 2 The ISGAP Papers, Vol. 3 GLOBAL ANTISEMITISM: A CRISIS OF MODERNITY Conference Papers edited by Charles A. Small Volume I: Conceptual Approaches Volume II: The Intellectual Environment Volume III: Global Antisemitism: Past and Present Volume IV: Islamism and the Arab World Volume V: Reflections MONOGRAPHS Industry of Lies: Media, Academia, and the Israeli-Arab Conflict Ben-Dror Yemini The Caliph and the Ayatollah: Our World under Siege Fiamma Nirenstein Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews: Antisemitism, Propaganda, and the Displacement of Ukrainian Jewry Sam Sokol Antisemitism and Pedagogy: Papers from the ISGAP-Oxford Summer Institute for Curriculum Development in Critical Antisemitism Studies Charles A.
    [Show full text]
  • Paul Berman's the Flight of the Intellectuals and Tariq Ramadan's
    Review Essay: Paul Berman‟s The Flight of the Intellectuals and Tariq Ramadan‟s What I Believe Irfan Khawaja Felician College 1. Introduction Neither of the books under review is a biography, but each devotes its pages to the words and deeds of a single individual. The individual in question happens to be Tariq Ramadan, Professor of Islamic Studies at Oxford University, globe-trotting political activist, media personality, author of several well-received books on Islam in the contemporary world, and human magnet for controversy. The depictions of Ramadan we encounter in these books are a Rashomon-like study in contrasts. Paul Berman‟s The Flight of the Intellectuals effectively describes Ramadan as a moral and intellectual fraud masquerading as a liberal reformer: a crypto-terrorist, a crypto-misogynist, an excuse-maker for anti-Semitism, and an apologist for the apologists of Hitler‟s Final Solution.1 Ramadan‟s What I Believe takes a predictably more benign view of its subject: dismissing the accusations made against him as the defamations of frightened hacks, Ramadan invites us, in a spirit of “open, thorough, and critical debate,” to “a book of ideas, an introduction to what I believe, meant for those who really want to understand but who do not always have enough time to read and study all the books.”2 Needless to say, none of the ideas intended for that audience indicate the slightest sympathy for terrorism, misogyny, anti-Semitism, or genocide. Both authors might well be wrong about Ramadan, but both cannot possibly be right. That fact gives both books a kind of semi-prurient urgency: What, one wonders, is the truth about Tariq Ramadan? The more-than- occasional tedium of the inquiry, however, and its uneasy similarity to gossip- mongering, prompts questions about the point of the inquest: Why all this fuss about the reputation and bona fides of an obscure Oxford don? Berman‟s book does a good job at posing these questions, but an uneven job at answering them.
    [Show full text]