This week we showcase a special features section entitled Creating the ‘Other’ in Germany and Britain
Volume 12, Issue 2, pages 363-407
Introduction to the section, Creating the ‘Other’ in Germany and Britain – A Comparison of Discourses from the Interwar and Contemporary Periods
By Jennifer Kimberly Jackson
Discourses on the ‘other’ are central in demarcating the dominant ethnic or cultural group in every society. Recently in North America and Europe, these discourses have increasingly centred on the Muslim or Islamic other (Allen 2010; Cesari 2010). In the post 9/11 context, the idea that there is an Islamic monolith ostensibly seeking to supplant Western values has fostered feelings of insecurity and unease (Cesari 2009). These fears have changed the tone of debates around immigration, national security, and national identity in the West (Cesari 2009; Huysmans 2006).
Read the full introduction here.
The articles of the section:
Comparising Antisemitism, Islamophobia, and Asylophobia: The British Case
By Thomas Linehan
Abstract
This article examines how far discourses on the ‘Other’ and immigration in contemporary Britain resemble antisemitic discourses in Britain during and between the two World Wars. The article contends that there was a particular British species of antisemitism in evidence during the wartime and interwar periods which was made up of a number of key elements, defined here as ‘conspiratorial’, ‘cultural’, ‘religious’, and ‘economic’ forms of anti‐Jewish animosity. The article then considers whether similar elements can be discerned in responses to ‘Other’ maligned groups in the contemporary period, particularly in relation to anti‐Muslim sentiment or Islamophobic discourses. The article then investigates whether we can identify symmetry in relation to another group which has experienced high levels of discrimination in twenty‐first‐century Britain, asylum seekers. Here, the article considers whether one needs to situate contemporary ‘asylophobia’ in a wider explanatory framework which both takes account of the possible ‘re‐cycling’ of earlier stigmatising representations of Jews, and more contemporary influences and developments relating to neo‐liberal globalisation.
Read the full article here.
Landscapes of ‘Othering’ in Postwar and Contemporary Germany: The Limits of the ‘Culture of Contrition’ and the Poverty of the Mainstream
By Aristotle Kallis
Abstract
In the 1930s the National Socialist regime embarked on a chillingly ambitious and fanatical project to ‘remake’ German society and ‘race’ by deploying a peerless – in both kind and intensity – repertoire of ‘othering’ strategies and measures directed at the Jews, the Sinti/Roma, and non‐conformist groups within the Third Reich. At the heart of this campaign was the notion of a ‘zero‐sum’ confrontation between the nation/race and its perceived ‘enemies’: namely, that the existence of these ‘enemies’ within German society threatened the very foundations of the German ‘race’ and posed the gravest threat to its mere survival. To what extent can the experience of the 1930s aggressive, violent, and eventually murderous ‘zero‐sum’ mindset provide crucial insights into contemporary discourses of ‘othering’, linked with the European radical‐populist right but increasingly ‘infecting’ the social and political mainstream? The contemporary ‘ethno‐pluralist’ framing of the discussion divulges the persistence of a similar ‘zero‐sum’ mentality that is nurtured by socio‐economic and cultural insecurity, on the one hand, and powerful long‐standing prejudices against particular groups, on the other. The article explores this ‘zero‐sum’ insecurity mindset in the anti‐immigration ‘mainstream’ discourses in the Federal Republic of Germany, both before and after re‐unification. It demonstrates how – in contrast to the postwar ‘culture of contrition’ with regard to the memory of the Holocaust – this mindset continues to be a powerful political and psychological refuge for societal insecurities that has an enduring appeal to significant audiences well beyond the narrow political constituencies of the radical right.
Read the full article here.
