We know without a shadow of a doubt that the far right is structurally antisemitic. We even know it so well that we sometimes forget that antisemitism is not structurally extreme right-wing. In this text, Julia Christ examines the deleterious effects of this discrepancy between what is known, and what does not want to be known. Without changing its ideological matrix, the far right has turned suspicion into strength – the ability to assume what it does and control what it says – aided and abetted by opponents who, rather than assuming their political responsibility, take refuge in childish posturing: “we didn’t know…”.
We often forget that the Western societies in which we live were built, in large part, on the acceptance of ignorance. In any case, this resignation in the face of foolishness is part of Europe’s long history, as long as we accept that it is Christian. “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do”, Jesus is said to have said as he hung on the cross, leaving it unclear whether he was referring to the Roman executioners or the Jewish crowd who, according to legend, witnessed the spectacle. It doesn’t really matter. The essential point is that the religion that prides itself on being the religion of forgiveness – and as such claims to be so much more humane than Jewish orthopraxy, which demands that everyone knows what they are doing – makes divine forgiveness conditional on the ignorance of those who act. “They don’t know what they’re doing”, so we can, indeed we must, forgive them.
This specific link between forgiveness and not-knowing has been maintained right up to the present day in our relationship with children, with people suffering from certain mental pathologies, notably the elderly suffering from senile dementia or Alzheimer’s. For the rest of us, it has faded. If ignorance in itself is frowned upon in our own countries, it is simply unacceptable when embodied in action. We mutually presuppose that each and every one of us knows what he or she is doing, and can therefore be held responsible for his or her actions. With the disappearance of transcendence from our lives, we have not only ceased to accept that “certain things happen” – miracles, like simple catastrophes, can be extended to an explanation in which we scrutinize every trace of a human source allowing the attribution, individual or collective, of responsibility – but we have also ceased to accept that individuals do anything at all. Everyone is expected to know what they are doing, to know the object of their action, to have a justifiable purpose (affectively in intimate relationships, pragmatically in ordinary practical situations, and rationally in political actions) and to have thought through the consequences of what they are doing. In other words, we expect them to foresee, to the best of their abilities, the results of their actions, including unintended results. Instead of forgiving, we say that the perpetrator “should have known”. And when we are faced with individuals who we concede are incapable of knowing what they are doing – that they could not or cannot have known – we generally relegate them to psychiatric institutions, modern-day substitutes for Christ’s merciful and forgiving benevolence.
The far right now fully embraces its discriminatory racism, as long as it is converted into a positive watchword: it calls this “national preference”. And it is counting on part of the French public seeing this project as legitimate, as long as the nauseating content of this policy of exclusion is translated into a language that swaps hatred of the other for love of the same.
So it’s only natural that political actors, whatever side they’re on, should never claim not to know what they’re doing when they utter words of consequence – and since political speech is unique in that it structurally contains a promise of translation into action, the prohibition on taking refuge in ignorance applies to the whole of political discourse. This taboo of non-knowledge obviously affects racist, sexist, trans- and homophobic speech, as well as antisemitism. Here too, the excuse of not knowing what you’re doing when you say them is unacceptable in our societies. This is borne out by the sanctions generally reserved for such remarks.
The far right seems to have taken note of this situation, which is unfortunate for a propaganda machine that has long relied on the intoxication of irresponsible speech. For it now fully embraces its discriminatory racism, as long as it is converted into a positive watchword: it calls this “national preference”. It openly asserts that discrimination, under the guise of “preference” based on an identity of origin, is its political project – it knows what it’s doing – and is counting on part of the French public seeing this project as legitimate, as long as the nauseating content of this policy of exclusion is translated into a language that swaps hatred of the other for love of the same.
At the same time, this political current has officially renounced all antisemitism, even though the latter is a constitutive element of its identity. It’s clear that this renunciation must not have been easy, as hatred of the Jew is essential to the nationalist argument, under the guise of the apparent “same” suspected of always being other. The sacrifice must have been all the more painful in that antisemitism is precisely one of the few places where the excuse of not knowing what you’re doing still works perfectly. If the far right can resist the temptation to make use of this perfectly common excuse, it testifies to their strong propensity for self-control: they’re the only ones who don’t dare say “we didn’t know” about antisemitism.
For this is exactly what we see elsewhere: witness the tiresome discussions about whether the epithet “Nazi without foreskin” or the characterization of the Israeli government as a “child killer” or the so-called sincere expression of “fear that the Israelis will come to poison the wells of Gaza” are antisemitism. In general, what these people say is not an outright denial that their words are antisemitic, but the same ingenuous questioning: “Really? How is that antisemitism? They pretend to be totally unaware of why this or that statement is so, forcing their opponents to come up with learned explanations of antisemitism that have already been repeated a thousand times.
Indeed, it’s only if the statement comes from the far right that the demonstration proves unnecessary. If you think about it, this is a singular feature of our times. Our societies seem collectively convinced that antisemitism is an absolutely reprehensible attitude, but also that it’s an attitude that doesn’t actually exist, unless an individual clearly identified as belonging to the extreme right is behind the incriminating act or word. In this case, and only in this case, the accusation of antisemitism is considered just, without asking the eternal question of why. We know where we stand, we say to ourselves. In any other case, however, the burden of proof falls entirely on the accuser, who can always exploit the seemingly infinite resources of “I didn’t know”.
Our societies seem collectively convinced that antisemitism is an absolutely reprehensible attitude, but also that it’s an attitude that doesn’t actually exist, unless an individual clearly identified as belonging to the extreme right is behind the incriminating act or word.
However, if this is the case, one point needs to be made: in French society, the recognition of the antisemitic nature of an act or utterance is not due to the fact that the content of the action or phrase has been identified as antisemitic, but only to the fact that the actor or speaker has been identified in advance as belonging to a movement that is known to be structurally antisemitic. As a result, the same statement, or a slightly altered one, made by an individual who does not belong to any extreme right-wing movement, comes under the microscope to reveal its antisemitism. And since, from this point of view, antisemitism is an attribute of certain individuals – and not of acts or statements – it’s only natural that antisemitism should be found in right-wing extremists. For everyone else, the offence is due to the fact that the perpetrator didn’t know that this or that (caricaturing a Jew with a big nose, calling a Jew effeminate, talking about poisoned wells, or calling a Jew a pig) was antisemitism. From this, we generally deduce that we’re not really dealing with antisemitism. In short, everyone in our society (except the extreme right) seems to have the right to ignore 2,000 years of antisemitism. They have the right to have learned nothing – an exemption which is all the more astonishing given that antisemitism is in no way an exotic phenomenon to which we need to acclimatize, but is a purely European product which is part of the history that everyone here must consider as their own. What we seem to have the right to ignore, in terms of the historical identity of European subjects themselves, is the long history of European hatred of Jews.
Antisemitism is the only form of discrimination in this strange position. Just think of sexist speech: it’s always clearly identifiable, to the point where no one is shocked that a woman who has made a sexist remark should herself be denounced as “sexist”. The same applies to racism: the classification of an act or word as “racist” is independent of what is otherwise known about the speaker. The proof: a left-wing person accused of racism will not argue with this characterization, but on the contrary will try to make amends by learning more about the diverse and often subtle forms that racism can take. With antisemitism, the situation is quite different. Everyone seems to be able to benefit from a certain vagueness as to the qualification of the act, apart from those whose membership of the extreme right makes them certain to be antisemitism. Under these conditions, it’s hardly surprising that the extreme right has made self-control a requirement on this point. Unable to use lack of knowledge as an excuse, it’s best to avoid exposing oneself. Knowing that we are subject to the accusation that we know exactly what we’re saying when we say it – the same accusation from which everyone escapes when it comes to antisemitism – it’s best to avoid playing this game.
Since nobody believes the extreme right when it tries to pretend it doesn’t know what antisemitism is, it, of all political formations, must renounce publicly stating its hatred of this particular minority. On the other hand, to deduce from this obligatory silence that it will tolerate it, or even cherish it, is to adopt a posture of ignorance.
It’s worth noting, however, that the extreme right has turned this deprivation, or lack of license, into a strength: it has been able to establish itself as the only political force that fully assumes what it says. It assumes to be racist, to be trans- and homophobic, to hate Muslims, to be sexist. It assumes all these denials of minorities’ right to autonomous existence, while asserting that it knows perfectly well what it is doing. This is undoubtedly a strength in a society that has been living for a long time now under a neoliberal regime that crushes lives while relegating everyone to individual responsibility. A power that assumes nothing of its destructive power, and at the same time demands that those whose lives are destroyed feel responsible for what happens to them, is an excellent breeding ground for a political force that shows it fully assumes what it says, and thus promises to take sole responsibility for what happens. If, in the 1930s, the crowds that succumbed to fascism were diagnosed as having an “authoritarian disposition” due to repressive social structures, it’s probably no exaggeration to assume that the National Rally (“Rassemblement National” (RN); Far-right political party in France) voters today have a “disposition to take responsibility”. This is quite normal in societies that increasingly promote individual autonomy; what is unforgivable, however, is that the Rassemblement National has been allowed to appear as the only movement reflecting this disposition, loudly claiming to “know what it’s doing”, and to put an end to all the “excuses” that liberal governments invoke to mask their lack of political control. In any case, the desire to finally see someone in charge take responsibility for what he’s doing seems sufficiently strong for some of our fellow citizens to accept that what the far right wants to take responsibility for is a project of exclusion, discrimination and, potentially, persecution of all minorities in France, which will destroy the country, both materially and symbolically.
Make no mistake: this plan to discriminate against all minorities obviously also concerns the Jewish minority. But since it is absolutely forbidden to be antisemitic – absolutely forbidden because antisemitism in the history of our societies has been a project of extermination, and not a form of discrimination that can still be disguised as positivity by using the argument of “national preference” – and since nobody believes the extreme right when it tries to pretend it doesn’t know what antisemitism is, it, of all political formations, must renounce publicly stating its hatred of this particular minority. To deduce from this obligatory silence that it will tolerate it, or even cherish it, on the other hand, is a posture of ignorance, impossible to adopt in this field too. Since we know that the RN’s plan is to homogenize French society, if necessary by force, precisely in the name of the “France” for which it claims to have a preference, we can’t fail to know that the Jewish minority will be just as much brought to heel as the others – in other words, discriminated against as a minority group, just as the Muslim minority will be. Of course, we can tell ourselves that we’ll get by as perfectly assimilated individuals. But not only does this option leave open the question of those in the group who insist on being different, it also forgets that the question is whether we can ever be sufficiently assimilated, given that the definition of a good Frenchman depends on “origins”. And are we really to believe that the RN, a party that cannot fail to be antisemitic, won’t be quick enough to try and pick the fruits of the antisemitism that has spread through French society thanks to LFI (far-left political party in France)? Do we really believe that far-right voters would be quick to revolt when their government starts singing the little song of Jewish privilege, of state philosemitism that needs to be done away with, or even that of dual allegiance? Pretending not to know this is no excuse, any more than pretending not to know that a word is antisemitic clears anyone’s name. In other words, no one will be able to say they “didn’t know” when giving their vote to the RN, and no “forgiveness” is to be expected after the vote.
France is perhaps one of the European countries where people are most sincerely convinced that one cannot be antisemitic (unless one is extreme right-wing) and where, therefore, the candid question “but why is it antisemitic? “is particularly well received.
It remains to be seen why antisemitism remains, except for the extreme right, the place where ignorance can still be pleaded. Everyone accepts that we can be racist, sexist or homophobic as simple human beings. On the other hand, to be antisemitic, you have to be extreme right-wing. Where does this exceptionalism come from? And why is it so structural in the current context?
It would seem that this is a distant legacy of Nazism in Europe. Apart from the country that spawned the Nazi barbarism, Germany, where we know that the executioners were simply ordinary Germans – so much so that it never occurs to anyone to confine antisemitic potential to the extreme right – the other European countries seem to have escaped the catastrophe by blaming antisemitism on the Nazi occupiers. At best, we are willing to consider that there were elements of the extreme right in the occupied nations, and that these elements may have collaborated in the extermination out of firm ideological conviction. But in no case, not even in countries as enthusiastically committed to the German side as Austria, has any real work been done on the antisemitism of the “good people”. Even less has been done in France, which did indeed save a large proportion of its Jews, while rounding up the “foreigners”, and where the myth of global Resistance has long persisted, having been carefully taught to generations of French schoolchildren by the national education system. Here, collaboration for reasons of cowardice or financial self-interest has certainly been painfully acknowledged over time, but never has the question been asked whether there was perhaps widespread antisemitism in the land of the Dreyfus Affair, and whether it might explain, in part, this shameful collaboration. France is perhaps one of the European countries where people are most sincerely convinced that one cannot be antisemitic (unless one is extreme right-wing) and where, therefore, the candid question “but why is it antisemitic? “is particularly well received – to the point where we come to write scholarly texts distinguishing between structural antisemitism (the extreme right (the Nazi occupier)) and contextual antisemitism (all the others who, not knowing what antisemitism is, are therefore likely not to know what they’re doing).
But should we believe those who ask this candid question? Should we concede that they really don’t know what they’re doing, and therefore forgive them? Should we really continue to believe in the French myth of the good people made up of beautiful people? Or is it not time to consider that, almost 80 years after the Holocaust, everyone knows what they’re doing, and that those who make antisemitic remarks know even more: they know that they don’t want to know. They know that antisemitism is potentially the prerogative of everyone, not just the extreme right, and they know that it’s forbidden to be antisemitic. And they know they don’t want to know, because what antisemitism enables them to do seems to them to be the noblest of causes at the moment.
They too have a project for French society, but they are incapable of saying why antisemitism is necessary to achieve it – unlike the extreme right, who are perfectly capable of saying why their hatred of minorities is necessary and indispensable. It’s probably because the others don’t know how to say it that it’s easy to perceive this antisemitism as contextual or electoral. To concede this is to overlook the entire history of Europe; it’s to pretend not to know that, just as anyone can be racist or sexist, anyone can be antisemitic. It means underplaying the presence of antisemitism in our societies, and thus giving ourselves permission not to ask the real question: what use is antisemitism in the mouths of those who are not fascists?
Just as it’s important not to believe the extreme right when they say they’re no longer antisemitic, it’s equally important to finally put an end to the “we don’t know what we’re doing” excuse when liberals, or even leftists, make antisemitic remarks. There’s no reason why hatred of Jews should be the only place where modern individuals can turn to their God for forgiveness. And if there is, it’s time to bring it out into the open, so that these same modern people can debate the merits of this exception to their condition as responsible people.
