What’s the difference between a caricature and the real thing? This is the question I always ask myself whenever I hear complaints about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad indulging his anti-Jewish reflexes. This is not to deny the fact that the Iranian president’s statements are prejudiced and wrong. They should be condemned. My question is whether they have any ideological purchase.
Considering the nature of his statements, it’s easy to understand why German leftists would use his figure to combat Judeophobia. Prone to problematizing the Shoah, Ahmadinejad’s declarations parallel those of Holocaust revisionists. Similarly, his criticisms of Israel have an all-too familiar aura of scapegoating about them. Criticizing him this way illuminates both concerns.
The problem is that Ahmadinejad is Iranian. How useful can he really be, as a foil, to discourage discrimination against Jews, in Germany, instead of Iran? Doesn’t the contribution of German forces to NATO’s war effort in Afghanistan problematize such expressions of anti-racism? What about Israeli rightists, for whom the Nazi comparison serves different political requirements?
The responsibility for this situation is shared. Ahmadinejad has no difficulty reconciling the language of European anti-Semitism with anti-imperialism. It’s easy to misconstrue. Germans who emphasize his racism, without considering its significance, unnecessarily complicate their struggle against Judeophobia, by suggesting European and Iranian anti-Semitism are the same.
Photo: Lamp post sticker, west Stuttgart, July 30th.
