¶ … German-Jews. The history of German-Jewish conflict is widely known but many might wonder why it started in the first place. Why would Germans show such extreme hatred for an ethnic group while the other did not seem to have threatened the latter? This question is certainly strange but answer is worth seeking which also helps us understand the concepts of conformity and social perception that affects global conflicts of such magnitude. The German-Jewish conflict is as much grounded in ugly realities of imperislaims and racism as any other. Arendt discovered two important innovations that were cultivated during the rise of modern imperialism i.e. "race as a principle of the body politic" and "bureaucracy as a principle of foreign domination." (Arendt, p. 185) While racism was seriously grounded in the fear of the white man, bureaucracy emerged as a result of over exaggerated and entirely false sense of protection that white men felt towards their obviously "inferior" savage counterparts. Even though they emerged independently of each other, race and bureaucracy eventually got entangled to the extent that they became parts of the same phenomenon. I will argue that these two forces are intricately linked and that one has given rise to the other in such a manner that they cannot exist independent of each other anymore.
Hatred directed at Jews by Nazis is a slightly different form of racism which is not based on skin color but a person's religious beliefs and values. However it is still very much racism and must be studied in the same context. The only difference here is that in the case of anti-Semitism, both the oppressed and the oppressor belonged to the same skin color. This may confuse some but when we study racism, we normally think of it as a fight between the whites and the others. However in the case of anti-Semitism, we notice a marked difference. The people who were persecuted were also whites and had once been imperialists themselves. In order to see how imperialism and racism may have a connection in anti-Semitism is rather difficult.
This is because for ages, white people went to different parts of the world and treated people of other skin colors as savages and inferior. However in the case of Jews, we do not see racism in terms of skin color. The racism in this case is purely religion-based and hence its connection with imperialism is rather difficult to establish. But it should not be if we close study history.
Why would people suddenly turn against Jews when apparently they were coming from the same race or skin color? This is a puzzling question but one that Arendt has answered very well. In her book on the subject, Arendt writes that anti-Semitism is very much based on racial discrimination because it was a long time back when Jews got the idea that may be the animosity between them and Gentiles was not based on doctrinal differences but on pure race. "It was at this time that Jews, without any outside interference began to think that the difference between Jewry and the nations was fundamentally not one of creed or faith, but one of inner nature and that ancient dichotomy between Jews and Gentiles was more likely to be racial in origin rather than a matter of doctrinal dissension." (Arendt, xii)
But is this the only connection with imperialism? The fact is that racism in its mainstream meaning has a definite connection to imperialism and so does anti-Semitism but there is a difference in the nature of these two connections. While racism and imperialism were linked by skin color, anti-Semitism and imperialism were connected through the desire to rule the world. As we already know that imperialism was grounded in the desire for world supremacy. Spanish, English, French and Dutch for example had come to believe that they had a birth right to rule the world and since it wasn't possible to rule each other, they began looking for inferior nations. Inferior here means inferiority in terms of skin color and education as imperialists viewed it. In their desire to rule the world, imperialists discovered many places which they later turned not their colonies and thus the entire world thus became part of some imperial power. India for example was ruled by the British imperial powers that entered the country on the pretext of trade. However within a short span of time, it was clear that their intentions had been far more dangerous than mere trade. And slowly British people turned Indians into their slaves and India became...
History Of Zionism Zionism is the political movement that arose in Europe in the late 19th century with the aim of creating a Jewish state in Palestine. It asserted that the Jewish people were a separate nation and were entitled to have a country of their own and succeeded in its objective with the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948. Since then, the Zionist movement has concentrated on strengthening Israel
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