** Tomiwo Owolade: How Antisemitism Hides Behind ‘Anti-Racism’

You are here:

Home
Uncategorized
** Tomiwo Owolade: How Antisemitism…

TOMIWO 4

Note: The views expressed are solely those of the featured individuals.
They do not necessarily reflect the thinking of Project Star of David.

Tomiwa Owolade is a London-based writer and critic of African origin. In the video interview and article linked below, he expresses his thought-provoking and undoubtedly controversial ideas. The interview with Owolade explores this question: How is it that antisemitism can still survive in our post-Holocaust, supposedly anti-racist age? The article by Owolade asks, “If racism is about prejudice and power, where does that leave high-achieving minorities?”

Quote: “Ethnic minority people can express rage at racism without deploying anti-Semitic tropes; they can even adhere to the structural definition without resorting to anti-Semitism. But the issue is that this definition is blind to the prejudices against Jews and other minorities. Chinese people, Indians and, increasingly, Nigerians in contemporary Britain do not easily fit within the paradigm of structural oppression.”

Sources: J-TV via YouTube, Unherd.com

Watch “How Antisemitism Hides Behind ‘Anti-Racism’ ” [29.01]. >>

Read “The dangerous logic of anti-racism” by Tomiwa Owolade. >>

Photo: Medium.com

We welcome your comments. Click here.

Notable &
Quotable

“[T]he foundations for extremism usually are held in check by various restraints. Societies are not liberal, moderate, progressive, and free because almost all their citizens – let alone their politicians — are liberal, moderate, progressive or committed to the freedoms of others.

“But societies consistently avoid extremism when the infrastructures of freedom are strong: when key institutions and norms encourage a more decent, rights-respective, lawful politics; when powerful social movements and independent media hold leaders to account, expose rather than reinforce political fantasies, and champion the rights of the vulnerable; and when information is produced and scrutinized by scholars, civil servants, and non-governmental organizations devoid of either government repression or vested interests.

“Yet no infrastructure is rigidly immovable, and once key components are eroded and weakened, once sections of the political and cultural elite attempt to mobilize the foundations of extremism, the system of restraints can swiftly collapse.

“While genocide on the scale of the Holocaust is historically exceptional, its central lesson is that the broader danger of extreme atrocities is not. In the words of the great historian Ian Kershaw, the Holocaust ‘lit a warning beacon that still burns brightly: it showed how a modern, advanced, cultured society can so rapidly sink into barbarity… It showed what we are capable of.’ Only by rejecting false narratives of conflict and polarization, and maintaining systems of rights and freedoms for all, can we hope to prevent that capability from once more becoming a reality.”

— Jonathan Leader Maynard in his incisive article “Could It Happen Here?: The Holocaust and Atrocities in the 21st Century” To read the entire article, click here.