2 weeks Ago By Admin
Wajahat Qazi* The Dutch Royalty – in a way a relic of the past but symbolically and notionally important – has issued an apology in the wake of football hooliganism in the Netherlands. Complementing this, reportedly Germany has issued a decree wherein any criticism of Israel will be deemed synonymous with antisemitism. The former has been met with denunciations by the Western political class.
With different reportage and slants thereof on football hooliganism in the Netherlands, it is difficult to establish who started this mini-riot. But this may be beside the point in the larger scheme of things. The question is: what accounts for the Royal apology by the Dutch and the stringent decree by Germany? The answer is historical.
Europe which always has had problems with ‘outsiders’ – be it Muslims, Gypsies, Jews, the Roma, and so on singled out the Jews for opprobrium and exclusion. This reached its apogee in the during the Nazi interregnum led by Adolf Hitler. The prelude to this horrible interregnum was the movement pioneered by the brilliant Theodore Herzl – the godfather of Zionism.
While the wellsprings of this movement were deeper, emanating from European prejudice, the catalytic spur was the Dreyfus affair where a Jewish member of the French armed forces was unfairly singled out and tried. The Dreyfuss affair galvanized European Jewry ghettoized as they were in Europe and excluded from public life and affairs. Even the ‘assimilated Jews’ were seen and viewed with suspicion.
This was the foundational premise of Zionism which climaxed in ‘self-determination’ for European Jews – the apogee of which was the creation of Israel. But within both world and European Jewry, there were splits about what constituted a Jew and fidelity to Jewishness: while many felt fidelity to the Torah was the defining characteristic, and that perpetual exile was the condition to be welcomed, many others felt that a state and lived reality in that would be the ultimate of Jewishness- albeit of a secularized nature and form. European imperial complicity – especially the British variant-, events, and the determination of Theodore Herzl and so on conspired to make Israel a reality.
This reductionist delineation was complemented by many other important themes and pivotal moments – the most significant of which was the Holocaust (Shoah in Hebrew) in which hundreds of thousands of Jews were murdered by Nazis. The Nazi intentions and actions were not merely based on hatred, crafting a ‘lebensraum’ (so-called living space for Germans) but instrumental motives informed the Nazi approach toward Jews: they wanted an ‘other’ to consolidate and redirect the energies of the Nazi regime too. The Holocaust after the Second World War became the pedestal- symbolic, real, and representational- of the sufferings of European Jews.
Thus, became real European and Western guilt about Jews. To this day, this guilt is reified. It is best represented by the Dutch Royal family’s apology and Germany’s conflation of criticism of Israel with antisemitism.
But a fundamental paradox is operative here: while historically informed guilt about a civilization’s past crimes toward an ‘outgroup’ is fine and reflects a modern refined sensibility, but projection of the same impulses – marginalization, exclusion, and hatred – toward another outgroup – that is Muslims- sounds not only bizarre and hypocritical. Is Europe in perpetual need of hating sub-groups, or outgroups- so much so that hatred for one is displaced and projected onto the other group? This is all the more outlandish when violence perpetrated in Palestine and the Levant goes unabated. Now returning to football hooliganism in the Netherlands, hooliganism and violence that disturbs public order and peace is pure bad- no matter who instigated it.
The guilty must be brought to book. But having said this, the Netherlands, despite the far-right drift of the country must in the truest liberal traditions that the country is proud of inject some proportion to it. A sense of proportion and sobriety calls for introspection and balance toward all groups that form its firmament.
Stretched further, it means respect for diversity in consonance with its rich historical traditions and its openness. This is not a call for special treatment of any group but purely a sense of proportion, fairness, and justice. In the realm of intergroup relations in the country, it means giving short shrift to exclusion and marginalization – perceived or real.
All this meshes into the apology issued by the Dutch Royal family: ANY guilt-informed apology must be proportionate, contextual, and contemporary too, if for nothing but for the sake of humanity and the good of the human condition. If there is anything, it is this that would accord with the nature, form, and philosophical underpinnings of the Netherlands. Let the country and its royal family be true to itself, its foundational premises, and its nature.
The country and the world will be better for it! *The author is a columnist based in Kashmir. ——.
