Marina Gerner
The London School of Economics showed embarrassing double standards when it decided to cancel an integration debate which involved Thilo Sarrazin and Henryk Broder, on its premises, while failing to cancel a lecture by hate speaker Abdel Bari Atwan, who, among other things claimed that Jewish students bear personal responsibility for bombing Gaza, only a few months earlier.
A spokesperson of the LSE cited “safety and security reasons” as the explanation to why the LSE decided to withdraw its offer to host the debate on its premises. In the meanwhile, Sir Howard Davis, director of the LSE, was in Sicily and could not be contacted by phone. Within half an hour the organizers of the LSE German Society managed to redirect the event to the nearby Hilton Waldorf, moving the sound system, three camera teams, twenty accredited journalists, hundreds of students who came to see the event, into a new venue.
The reasons for the protests against the debate as well as the reasons for its following cancellation seemed so abstruse to me, I had to draw myself a ‘mind map’ in an attempt to understand the course of events.
The most basic question one has to ask is: Who is Thilo Sarrazin and why was he invited to speak at the LSE? And who is Abdel Bari Atwan and why was he invited to speak at the LSE?
Atwan is editor-in-chief of London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper. The LSE Palestinian Society invited him to speak on the subject of “How much influence does the Zionist lobby exert in the US and UK?” in December, where Mr Atwan accused Jewish students of “bombing Gaza”, referred to the “Jewish lobby” and refused to condemn Hamas, saying: “Would you want me to condemn those who are resisting the occupation?” (As reported by the Jewish Chronicle.) He has previously been captured on video in 2007 on MEMRI TV saying: “If the Iranian missiles strike Israel - by Allah, I will go to Trafalgar Square and dance with delight if the Iranian missiles strike Israel.”
The integration debate which was scheduled to be held on Monday was hosted by the LSE Germany Society and involved Thilo Sarrazin, who has become the focus of attention for protesters against the debate. Sarrazin has been described as an “anti-Semitic banker” by the Independent as well as the facebook group of protesters. However it is important to note that he is neither an anti-Semite nor a banker.
Sarrazin used to be a politician, he was the head of finance of the State of Berlin and afterwards he served on the executive board of the German Bundesbank. Since the release of his book “Germany does itself in”, which caused a range of debates in Germany, he was asked to leave the Social Democratic Party of which he has been a member for decades and he also decided to step down from his position at the Bundesbank, where, as he told me, his weekly workload was usually done by Tuesday noon, which is why he had enough time to write a book. And this book is the only thing he is nowadays representative of in German Society.
Allegations of him being an anti-Semite stem from his comment that “Jews share a certain gene of intelligence.” In post-WWII society it understandably causes outrage to speak of Jewish genetics, however, I personally do not take his comment as anything but a compliment.
According to Halacha, a person who is born to a Jewish mother is Jewish (genetic definition) as well as a person who converts to Judaism (confessional definition). Both definitions have existed alongside each other for centuries. German-Israeli writer Chaim Noll argues that while it is understandable why it is a taboo to relate Jewish identity with genetics in Europe, it is a different debate in Israel. Although research into Jewish genetic makeup by scientists such as Doron M. Behar and Harry Ostrer, who published articles in academic journals linking Jewish identity and genetic constellations, led to a range of debates, these debates are conducted more openly and without hysteria in Israel, without the immediate fear of allegations of racism, writes Chaim Noll.
Jonathan Hoffman, chairman of the UK Zionist Federation, responded to protesters about the alleged anti-Semitism involved by stating that “Sarrazin’s statement is not wholly accurate, for two reasons. One, because it is possible to convert to Judaism and because not all Jews share a particular gene. But certainly some do.” He added that “Sarrazin’s statement may have been inaccurate, but it certainly was not anti-Semitic. Anyone who says it is plain wrong.”
Protesters also claimed Sarrazin to be xenophobic, yet, when asked on the panel he described transformations in the German population as a natural phenomenon „in the same way that winter is abolished by spring“ he said „there always is transformation.“ He insisted that he was in favour of immigration, as long as immigrants were willing to integrate in German society by accepting Germany’s democratic values and laws and by attaining an education in order to become part of the German economy. When criticized by a member of the audience for presenting flawed statistics when describing the disintegration of Turkish immigrants in Germany, Sarrazin replied that he would be happy to see an alternative research to his own, and that he is willing to debate different solutions.
In contrast to that, when Atwan was challenged by a student, he responded by shouting and assaulting the student’s family. While Sarrazin was willing to engage in a constructive debate, Atwan clearly did not. There are more differences in the two cases that seem to be of significant importance to me.
Firstly, Sarrazin was invited to speak at the LSE as part of a panel, whereas Atwan came to speak alone. Atwan came to speak without opposition, whereas on the panel with Sarazzin there were three other speakers:
Ali Kizilkaya, the chair of the Islam Council of Germany, Hellmuth Karasek, literary critic and Henryk Broder, writer and journalist, who is by the way, Jewish. It is interesting to note that all speakers of the integration debate, apart from Sarrazin, have a migrant background: Broder was born in Poland, Kizilkaya inTurkey and Karasek was born in the Czech Republic - a point which, if you ask me, speaks for itself.
The second difference I would like to raise is the context of the lectures being held. What is the broader framework in which a lecture is chosen to be held at the LSE?
The panel discussion falls into the broader integration debate that is taking place in Europe and that was thematised by Merkel as well as Sarkozy and Cameron, in their respective speeches on the “failure of multiculturalism”. Which broader framework does Atwan’s lecture fall into, if not into the broader framework of anti-Semitism?
The third difference lies in the conduct and atmosphere a lecture creates at a University. While the panel discussion took place in a peaceful manner, apart from one protester shouting “fascists” at the audience, Mr Atwan personally attacked Jewish students in the audience and 30 students walked out of the lecture because of the hostile atmosphere they found themselves in.
These three differences cannot be ignored.
The protests in Egypt have shown that facebook groups such as “We are all Khalid Saeed” can mobilize masses and become symbolic of a whole social movement. Yet, the group that organized itself on facebook to protest against the panel discussion does not speak for or represent the German students of the LSE.
It is questionable whether protesters believed in their own cause seeing as their main argument against the debate was that it was “unobjective”, a claim they made before it the debate even started.
Anyone who attended the panel discussion can bear witness that those protesters could have hardly posed a security threat to the event. They were almost outnumbered by the amount of security people who the German Society hired on its own expenses. It is therefore hard to believe that the University felt it could not have provided adequate security for those protesters.
I do not say that I agree with Sarrazin’s point of view, neither I want to to restrict Atwan’s freedom of speech, but we have to differentiate between free speech and hate speech.
Days before the event, the German Society received emails from a so called “free speech committee” of the LSE to stop the debate from being held. What is this committee and where was it when Atwan came to speak? And why isn’t there an Anti-hate speech regulating lectures rather than a free speech committee curtailing speaker’s freedom of speech?
Marina Gerner hat russischen Migrationshintergrund, ein Abiturzeugnis vom Goethe Gymnasium in Frankfurt und einen BA in “Politics, Philosophy & Economics” von der University of Manchester. Zur Zeit macht sie ihren Master in “Politics & Communication” an der London School of Economics (LSE).
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