Michel Friedman on Horst Seehofer

CSU, the Bavarian sister-party of Germany’s CDU, has always been more right-wing than its bigger sister. 39% of Bavarian voters, voted CSU in 2017, down from 49% in 2013, having hovered in the mid 50%, peaking at 60% in the 1960s-70s-80s. The practice of pushing hatred of the other to acquire votes is not new and it almost invariably works. CSU’s  senior politician Horst Seehofer, for whom a powerful Homeland ministry is being established in Angela Merkel’s new coalition government, is good at just this.

Seehofer’s very public and loud statement that Islam “does not belong to Germany”, has won condemnation from many directions, including that of his senior partner, Angela Merkel.

A few days ago, Michel Friedman, a German Jewish lawyer and publicist, opined that in making a judgement whether a religion belongs or does not belong to the country, Seehofer has infringed on the boundaries of his office.

Friedman severely reprimands Seehofer in his well-argued article, which I very much recommend to my English reading friends – here, and to my German reading friends – here.

Racism – Fight Back

The current outbreak of violence between Israel and the Hamas has produced Europe-wide anti-Israel demonstrations, many of which incorporate vile and anti-Semitic proclamations and slogans as well as acts of violence against Jews and Jewish institutions.

It is not surprising that European Jews are worried and often frightened. But so should be the rest of the population. It is up to civil society as well as governments – wherever these anti-Semitic incidents occur – not only to educate but also to come down fiercely against the organisers and perpetrators of these anti-Semitic occurrences.

Similarly, it is up to Israeli society and authorities to educate but also to come down fiercely against organisers and perpetrators of anti-Arab racism that is increasingly rearing its head in Israel. Unfortunately, such racism seems to get away unpunished. Moreover, the right-wing perpetrators of these racist acts are well represented in the Israeli political elite. Israel’s Foreign Minister Lieberman, for example, has just urged Israelis to boycott the businesses of Israeli Arab citizens who are taking part in a general strike in protest of Israel’s operation in the Gaza Strip.

It is generally accepted that such racist language, let alone acts of violence are totally unacceptable, and it is always a minority that perpetrates such racist outrage. But, the majority – be it in Israel or in Europe - must stop looking the other way. It must fight back. 

Inverse Racism

Was it inverse racism that led me, and probably many others, to hope for an attitude, policy and actions more sensitive to human rights from a black person in power than his white predecessors?

After the terrible eight years with George Bush whose administration gave the world morally defunct and strategically catastrophic invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan with the spin-off lowlights of Guantanamo prison, rendition programmes and a deterioration of our rights to privacy under the mantle of “homeland security”, there was a craving for change that went further than the normal Democrats – Republicans divide.  

The Republican Party offered the American people its dream ticket: a perhaps not senile but aging and self centred McCain and their very own version of a dumb blonde who was not even blond, Sarah Palin. Almost half of America voted for the Republican couple (46%). Obama came in at a disappointingly low margin.

Naively – it turns out - many expected that a black President would make a difference, especially in areas of human rights. It turns out that a black President is just that, a President who happens to be black. Obama promised to close Guantanamo and has not done so. Obama has allowed his military to torture a US soldier, awaiting trial for leaking secret documents to the wikileaks network. They held him in solitary confinement for months on end, forced him to sleep naked on sheetless beds, made to stand for parade in the nude. By not stopping this abuse, Obama condoned it. And then, there is the mass theft of our personal communications by the NSA.

This may be the one important legacy of Obama: an understanding that blacks are like everybody else.

F****** on Amtrak

A couple of months ago, I took a train from Los Angeles to San Juan Capistrano. Two friendly-faced young black men were talking quietly in their seats across the aisle. At some point the not so young white woman who sat in front of me called across the aisle “excuse me, please do not use that word.” And just in case it was not clear, she called out the letters “F-U-C-K”.

The word fuck was not even used as a swear word in their conversation and the black young men looked at her with some bemusement.

"Why do you object to the word?” I asked. “I am an English teacher” was her response. “Yes?” I said. “This is not a nice word” was her explanation. “Fucking is a word for something rather nice, actually” I said “don’t you think?” This was too much for the lady; she got up and said, “I am getting the train supervisor.”

A few minutes later, she returned with the ticket collector who asked the black men to refrain from using blasphemous language on the train. “You must also tell him,” the white moral authority said pointing at me and the ticket collector told me to please behave on the train. Blasphemous language should not be used on the train, I was told, not even in private conversations. I asked about my rights under the First Amendment, and whether they do not allow me to say fuck on the train. But the ticket collector said no, adding that she did have the authority to instruct me.

Rabbis vs. Rabies

Many years ago, my mother told me the joke about a man who wrote to a medical help column and asked, “what is rabbis and what can you do against it”, to which the response was “rabbis are a kind of Jewish priests and there is nothing you can do against them.”

Last week several dozen rabbis on the public payroll as municipal rabbis in Israel issued a religious ruling barring Jews from selling or renting homes to non-Jews.

It’s not a joke. A poll has revealed that 55% of Israel’s Jewish population support the rabbis’ position.