Thousands March In France Over The Murder Of An 85-Year-Old Holocaust Survivor // Michael Segalov: If you can’t see antisemitism, it’s time to open your eyes
Thousands March In France Over The Murder Of An 85-Year-Old Holocaust Survivor
Michael Segalov: If you can’t see antisemitism, it’s time to open your eyes
Thousands took to the
streets across France on Wednesday to decry the murder
of an 85-year-old Holocaust survivor that authorities have linked to
anti-Semitism. The silent marches,
the largest of which took place in Paris, were held in tribute to Mireille
Knoll, who escaped a roundup of Jews in Paris at the height of World War II.
She fled to Europe and Canada before returning to France after the end of the
war, where she lived for the remainder of her life. She was found dead in
her apartment last week, and authorities said she was stabbed 11 times before
her apartment was set on fire. Two men, ages 22 and 29, have been arrested and
preliminarily charged with murder with anti-Semitic motives. “I thought I was going
to die on the spot. I cried all the tears in my body and I thought of her. She
didn’t deserve this,” her son, Daniel Knoll, told The Associated
Press on Tuesday. “How can one do that to anybody?”... read more:
Michael Segalov: If you can’t see antisemitism, it’s time to open your eyes
Some forms of antisemitism are self-evident in their
manifestation: neo-Nazis wielding swastikas, denial of the Holocaust, vile
sentiments known as the “blood libel”,
which suggest that Jews harvest the blood of Christians with which to celebrate
religious festivals year on year. Most of us would recognise these as bigoted
and hateful, an attack on a community that has for centuries experienced
prejudice across the world. In the days that have
followed Jeremy Corbyn’s offensive Facebook post coming to public
attention, there has been outrage from what appear to be two distinct camps.
Some Labour members are deeply troubled by the situation, while others argue
ignorantly that the Labour leader has done nothing wrong. What has become
obvious in the past few days, however, is that many simply do not understand
the content of this mural and why it is so deeply offensive – this is a more
subtle antisemitic sentiment, which takes contextualising to understand.
Considering the Jewish
community makes up just 0.5% of the UK’s population, and that for many of us
the closest we will have to an education in the history of discrimination faced
by Jewish people amounts to a few months of GCSE history and Inglourious Basterds, it’s possible a simple explanation could
rectify the confusion once and for all.
First, make sure to
actually look at the mural. Don’t take a fleeting glance as you prepare to tweet your
outrage, but pause for a moment and take it all in. Sitting around a table is a
group of rotund men: one has a full beard, and is counting money. That, in and
of itself, is an antisemitic symbol.
It’s not just the big,
hookednoses and evil expressions that make this iconography offensive and
troubling, these depictions mirror antisemitic propaganda used by Hitler and the Nazis to
whip up hatred that led to the massacre of millions of Jews. This extends to
the table these figures are sat at, resting on human bodies, as the Nazis also
depicted.
Context here is also
important. If you haven’t yet, then research The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. An entirely fabricated text
printed first in Russia during the early 1900s, it purports to document a
meeting of Jewish leaders setting out plans to take over the world by
controlling the media and press, and fostering religious conflict to subjugate
non-Jews across the globe. During the 1920s and
1930s the
Protocols were a key element of the Nazi propaganda programme – at
least 23 editions were published by the party in the two decades that preceded
the outbreak of the second world war in 1939. The domination of the world by
hooknosed men wielding power and money? There is more than a visual connection
in this mural to antisemitism – the messaging is full-blown Nazi too.
In other
contexts Illuminati conspiracies are light-hearted and funny: it’s not
antisemitic to joke that Kanye West and Taylor Swift are part of a secret, triangle-based plot to
conquer the world. But the employment of an Eye of
Providence symbol (often associated with the Illuminati and
Freemasonry) in the offending mural is clearly antisemitic. Racist conspiracy
theorists also long claimed that Jews are in control of the Freemason
network – think the Rothschilds and George Soros. That is antisemitism too. If you’re left in any
doubt, just read the words of Mear One, the street artist who painted the
mural: “Some of the older white Jewish folk in the local community had an issue
with me portraying their beloved #Rothschild or #Warburg etc as the demons they
are,” he has written. Of course there are
some people – within Labour and
outside of it – who are pleased to have any excuse to attack Corbyn. Their
motivation might be unpleasant, but the “weaponisation” of antisemitism is
somewhat less troubling if it can perceived to be there in the first place.
A small handful of people
in Labour’s ranks know only too well the connotations in this mural, yet
continue to defend it. There is no space in the Labour party for you.
Progressive organisations are better off without you inside. Labour can’t just pledge to kick the antisemites it finds out of the
party: it needs to make a plan for combating bigotry in opposition and for
entering government too. The Chakrabarti report from 2016 into antisemitism in Labour must
be implemented fully. A party bureaucracy that has slowed the process down
cannot be allowed to do so any longer. Labour must pledge to improve the
national curriculum – better political education is needed in schools across
the country to ensure murals like this are understood for what they are.
There must also,
starting now, be better investment in educating Labour’s 550,000-strong party
membership. A party that prides itself on its commitment to equality can and
must do better.
It’s somewhat
understandable that some people jumping to Corbyn’s defence now do so as a
kneejerk reaction, as years of smears have made members defensive. This, however,
is no such nonsense.
Corbyn is no
antisemite, but he displayed a lack of judgment and awareness that he – and it
appears some members – need to address. Time must be taken for reflection and
education, or it will prove impossible to ensure the left is never blind to
this issue again.
