NCGS Workshop and Series #5 (Virtual)

Post-Colonialism, Antisemitism, and the Holocaust: The Achille Mbembe Case in Germany

This spring has witnessed heated debate in Germany about the campaign to disinvite Achille Mbembe, the South African-based Cameroonian theorist, as the keynote speaker at a music festival. In late March, some politicians and critics accused Mbembe of relativizing the Holocaust, trading in anti-Israel antisemitism for linking Israel to colonialism and Apartheid, and for supporting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS). In response, German and foreign academics signed public letters supporting Mbembe, who addressed his critics as well. Many of the contentious issues are familiar, but this time the debate extends beyond the self-referential European Cold War coordinates of the old Historikerstreit. For not only does Mbembe introduce a voice from Africa, Germany is also wrestling with its colonial past. Whereas Holocaust memory has been intended to promote political liberalization, now it seems that Holocaust memory, at least as currently mobilized, is wielded against other historical victims of the German state. We ask: what does “relativizing the Holocaust” mean today? How does this debate relate to the global moment of anti-racism and coming to terms with colonial pasts? Why does a postcolonial understanding of Zionism lead to accusations of antisemitism in Germany? In this session, we pose these and other questions raised by the Mbembe debate.

Roundtable with:

• Dirk Moses (UNC-Chapel Hill, Department of History)
• Joseph Ben Prestel (Freie Universität Berlin, Friedrich-Meinecke-Institut, Global History)
• Priscilla Layne (UNC-Chapel Hill, Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages & Literatures)

Moderation: Karen Hagemann (UNC-Chapel Hill, Department of History)

Co-Convener: UNC-Chapel Hill, Department of History