Freiheit ist keine Metapher

by Vojin Saša Vukadinović (Editor), Mustafa Aldabbas, Nasrin Amirsedghi

Die Literaturwissenschaftlerin Silvia Bovenschen hat einmal bemerkt, dass vermutlich jede Bewegung irgendwann ihre eigene Karikatur hervorbringt. Der Genderfeminismus, der Antirassismus und der Queerfeminismus sind ebendies: Karikaturen geschlechter-, migrations- und sexualpolitischer Emanzipationsregungen. Der Sammelband nimmt diesen pessimistischen Befund zum Ausgangspunkt, um über den Verrat an der Mündigkeit nachzudenken, der sich in den letzten zehn Jahren besonders in den vorgenannten Bereichen kenntlich gemacht hat. Am Beispiel von Antisemitismus, Migration, Rassismus und Religionskritik zeigen rund dreißig Beiträge, wie fatal die Konsequenzen einer Haltung sind, die nur noch in Kollektiven zu denken vermag, die dann entweder als Gruppenidentität eingefordert oder aber ressentimentbeladen bekämpft wird; der als politische Organisationsformen nur noch „Koalitionen“ und „Verbündete“ einfallen und die zudem längst vergessen hat, dass Kritik ein Mittel dazu ist, um schlechte Verhältnisse nicht hinzunehmen.

Genres: Politics

486 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2018

Reviews

[Klara]

Dieser Sammelband beschäftigt sich mit Verhältnis des Queerfeminismus ("Genderfeminismus") zu den Themen Antisemitismus, Rassismus, Migration und Religionskritik. Die Autor:innen kritisieren dabei verschiedene Auswüchse dieser feministischen Strömung in Wissenschaft und Aktivismus und beziehen sich häufig auf Konzepte und Theorien, die der Kritischen Theorie, Psychoanalyse und dem radikalen Feminismus zuzuordnen sind.

In der Gesamtheit der Beiträge werden identitäspolitische Ansätze karikiert und diffamiert. Durch die Dominanz polemischer Seitenhiebe geht eine tatsächliche sachliche Kritik an diesen Ansätzen leider an einigen Stellen des Buches - wenn nicht sogar an den meisten - unter. Auch typsiche antifeministische Argumentationsmuster, wie beipsielsweise die Unterstellung einer Unwissenschaftlichkeit und Sektenhaftigkeit, das Lächerlichmachen über politische Forderungen (z.B. Transinklusivität) sowie Vergleiche mit Rechts(extremismus), tauchen immer wieder auf. Stellenweise kommen auch Argumente auf, die aus linker Perspektive zu kritisieren sind. So wird beispielsweise die Kriminalität von Drogendealer_innen moralisiert, der systematische Ausschluss migrantischer Männer von öffentlichen Veranstaltungen (racial profiling) legitimiert, Rechts- und Links ganz im Sinne des Hufeisenmodells gleichgeseetzt und der Einfluss der christlichen Kirche auf europäische Politik runtergespielt.

Eigentlich habe ich mir mehr von diesem Buch erwartet, denn eine Kritik an idenitätspolitischen Theorien und Aktivimus ist wichtig und richtig. Auch wenn im Großen und Ganzen die Polemik in den Beiträgen dominiert, zeigen sich stellenweise jedoch auch analytisch, inhaltlich und argumentativ gute, theoretisch fundierte Kritiken und Ausführungen in den einzelnen Beiträgen. Nichtsdestotrotz ist es eher anstrengend, sich durch die Flut an Polemik und Befindlichkeiten durchzuschlagen, um ab und zu auf sachliche Kritik zu stoßen.

[Andre]

I read this book because I read another by the same editor and I have the same issues that I had with the other one. E.g. Just like before, I do wonder whether this author is guilty of the same things that s/he accuses all those leftists of. These people are accused of cultural relativism and antisemitism but the way this author argues polemically here, really makes me question which biases are involved on either side here.
With another author of this collection, I really wondered what the author was trying to say. The title suggestws it´s something about identity politics, but she switched from Obama to a shoah survivor, then to the iranian leader Khomeni and then to the Book of Mormon. What was she trying to say here with all those examples and throwing around words? That there is a difference between self- and foreign identification? That could have been said in one sentence.
A following chapter was allegedly criticing racism, but not only doid the author seem to consider all "Dark-skinned" people still as victims of european colonialism in Africa (doubt he would say the same about the victims of chinese and japanese colonialism), he also throws in all whites and all colonialism into one pot. And I can't stand racists like him. And make no mistake, I think the author is racist. And after he mentioned Das Kapital, I suspected he was a marxist as well. Then he was throwing around god knows how many words, quietly switching from Africans to American slaves while starting in Germany and then just acting as if this is somehow valid for the entire world and not just the US. So he is racist and collectivist and just plain stupid. This awakened the desire in me to just stop reading. And if that wasn´t enough, then he brought in interracial pornography and naturally only interprets it in the most vile way imaginable for him. I expected shit when he only mentioned police as killers of black people, but not that he would go that far. What shit. In short, that chapter was pretty horrible.
Sadly, this wasn´t the only chapter like this, as the following was also about antirassism and antisemitism and in the typical polemic way that I came to expect. What is it with the authors of this anthology and antisemitism?
Then there was a chapter about feminism and antisemitism and then antisemitism again. And both sound just like the people and concept they criticize. Double standards, evasive arguments, almost conspiracy theories if you ask me. And all this followed by another chapter on antisemitism and it was even worse. That one was close to pro-Israel propaganda, even so far as saying that it is the state of the descendents of the victims of the Shoah, ignoring the fact that the majority of its citizens are actually mithrazim, aka middle eastern Jews, and the Shoah was almost exclusively something happening to Ashkenazi jews. And then another chapter about antisemitism, this time in German hiphop and antisemitic conspiracy theories... maybe I would give a shit if these chapters after chapters on this subject wouldn't sound like crazy conspiracy theories themselves, they even had the claim that antisemitism was the glue of modernity. That is straight up a conspiracy theory. I doubt these people even want antisemitism gone.
This interview with Chloe Valdary was the first chapter on antisemitism that I actually liked. I agreed with her that Jews being white in the west makes them a target. Albeit I disagree with her that jews are really fair game, the sensitivity towards antisemitism is too big for that, non-jewish whites are more likely to be free game in this context. I agreed with her on several critics regarding BLM and the toxicity of intersectionality, but I think that she has a big blind spot regarding antisemitism and zionism, as she argues very similar to BLM, especially the alleged constant threat for Israelis everywhere. Not to mention, that especially with her stating that she has no interest in converting angisemites, I wonder whether she truly objects to their existence.
The following chapter was borderline comprehensible to me. The author did throw words around, but they weren't so complex that I couldn't understand what is meant, most of the time. It was basically about the results of thinking about morality in terms of power plays and when you abandon humanism.
Sadly, another chapter came with "you don't belong to our group so you have nothing to say", and another had an unhealthy obsession with violence and suffering.And unlike him, I think that the image of secretive, degenerating powers is not specific to antisemitism. And I skipped the whole stuff about Butler and zionism. Whenever that comes up the authors tend to be polemic and almost propagandistic and I had no nerve for that right anymore, no matter from which side it comes.
Another chapter about some crazy queer feminists was more entertaining. Like how some queer feminist, called Ulrike Auga, actually said that the fact that water boils at 100 degrees is a "construct" of the celscius scale.... what? Does she somehow think that it isn't real? And another queer feminist, named Hengameh Yaghoobifarah, scolded Nasser El-Ahmad for making a demonstration for sexual self-determination in Neukölln, asking why he had to do it where there were many mosques, people of color, blacks and clacism"... jeee Hengameh, mabe he did it for exactly that reason. The guy was almost murdered by his own family and she criticizes him. And if this wasn´t crazy enough, there are people who basically want to forbid kissing in public because some people can't do it due to social reasons. The author is right, that is like people who have the chance to save drowning people select to drown themselves instead of trying to safe the people in the water. And the book also mentioned the ridiculous claims that Iran is so tranfriendly, because they have so much gender surgery, even though it is due to Iran's homophobia. And speaking of Islam, another author had a good point: What can a few moderate muslimas do against the major meaning of the head scarf? Of course criticism of such practices are usually attacked with the "you help the bigots" crap, which basically hurts the very people in the end such feminists claim to want to help. If you cannot criticize someone, there is no improvement. This goes so far in fact that you have a queer feminist defending a terrorist and apology for radical islam.
Amd gender feminism and Queer Theory should abandon Focault, this guy and his ideas seem to be nothing but BS! And while increasing the integration and lessening the religiosity of students to reduce homophobia is a good concept, you can forget it, these new leftists might agree to do that with the russian students, but not the turkish ones here in Berlin. And from there we have examples of how crazies criticized Bruno Mars for his music and then Niki Minaj for dressing as Chun-Li from Street Fighter because it is allegedly cultural appropriation. And these leftists sound like the rightwingers they allegedly despise so much. And they rather scream racism and condemn "white" enlightenment thinkers instead of highlighting the "black" ones. And someone like De Benoist seems to have been a racist rightwinger who sounds incredibly like the Critical Whiteness left wingers, including his purity of culture and parallel societies. And their craziness can go so far that they attack you for quote Martin Luther King just because the quote contained a word that they don´t like, as happened to Deniz Yücel once. And trust me Critical Whiteness proponents will not stop importing Critical Whiteness concepts from the US into Germany no matter how little it fits due to its different history and different minorities. It will simply claim that you can't be racist against whites even though there is racism against other white groups here.
Sadly the good parts of the book had to end at some point and not only did I wonder whether one author was prejudiced against Germans, but then there was the Holocaust as civilizational break again, and maybe, if the author wouldn't be so polemic when it comes to that topic, he would be more credible when he criticizes antiracism for its inconsistency and contradictions. And afterwards there was more stuff about antisemitism, would be less annoying if all these authors would have the same definition of that term. This one hear speaks of its magical and exterminatory nature, but several others came with examples that don't fit that, so weren't they antisemitic after all?
Surprisingly, Foccault came up again and apparently, he was shocked that homosexuals were executed in Iran, Which, makes me wonder how much the guy actually knew about the world. he seems to have had a fantasy about and yet after his death, many books were written that claimed that western christianity made the Islamic world homophobic, something I also saw claimed for East and Southeast Asia. The author made a good argument as to why the head scarf is not a religious symbol, it can't be based on islamic law and its usuage doesn't suggest a religious symbol either. And while there are similarities between radical islam and nazism regarding motherhood, the critics seem to not realize that, just like they don't see how close they are to the new right.
Another author was just so right, this constant guilttripping in Germany is insane. And even for its defenders, it should be clear that based on their own statements, it doesn't seem to work. And true, Jews are "too white" in Western imagery to be considered "good victims" for the new left. Albeit other authors here would probably disagree with her and even that she didn't say specifcally that jews are the biggest victims. And I get that certain things are offensive, however, many of her examples are old by now and this one case of where an old lady thought someone is a refugee from Syria is on the same level as when I was the only one who got a fork in a Vietnamese imbiss.
One chapter gave the enlightening statement about a workshop where it was stated that "people of color" is the "self-identification of people affected by racism." So, I can call myself a person of color now? And that they stated that racism is the discrimination of people of color, which is circular reasoning. However, I do wonder also why the author considers "animosity towards Jews" to be an insufficient definition of antisemitism. And are they accusing Edward Said of antisemitism now? Could be, this author seems to use one of the vague definitions. Antisemitism is one of the big flaws of this book, since so many of its authors completely switch when it comes to that topic and basically act like the people they criticized.
And speaking of critics, one author criticized the European and Gwerman immigration rrules regarding LGBTQ people. But what is the alternative? What is a functioning system? Never stated. And is what he states really so typical for Germany or just for Flensburg?
The last chapter about how queer feminists have basically embraced the nutjobs was good, albeit I doubt that the people it adresses will ever stop whining. They like it too much.

[Marvin]

Mittlerweile das dritte Buch in der Reihe des Queerverlags. Man bekommt viel zu viel Bekanntes und wenig Neues, wenn man sich intensiv mit den Themen, die auf dem Cover verbildlicht sind, beschäftigt. Wirklich gut ist allerdings Schnittlers Text.

Kritik an Queerfeminismus und CW bekam man in Beißreflexe schon. Da schließt FikM an. Die Analyse des Antisemitismus ist ein neuer Bereich in der Reihe, aber inhaltlich ausschließlich altbekanntes.