Gaza War: Jens Balzer Book: Double Misunderstanding | nd-aktuell.de

Jens Balzer is right. October 7, 2023 was a turning point. The heartlessness of all those who saw this brutal attack by Hamas as part of a liberation struggle became abundantly clear. A more or less latent anti-Semitism, especially in parts of the global left, manifested itself in the most horrific way. It is also true that October 7th represents a historical turning point for the “woke” left and means moral bankruptcy for at least a part of it – namely that part that sympathizes with Hamas or even identifies with it. Because the ongoing war in Gaza is also calculated by Hamas.

But it is also calculated that the many, many dead Palestinians that Israel’s reaction brought about will be less noticed in the Germany from which Balzer is writing than the victims of the Supernova festival. Hamas is trying to reveal a breach of humanity that, when perceived in the West, can be read as anti-Semitism. This double misunderstanding – not understanding what October 7th means and not understanding what all the dead children on the roads to Egypt are as a result – shows that the social left does not have a problem of analysis here, but rather a problem of perception, which is undermined by any universalism.

But Jens Balzer is also wrong, especially when he dreams. At the center of his thoughts is the attack on the Supernova Festival. This is certainly not a statement that will go unchallenged – the woke leftists criticized by Balzer would certainly insist that that Hamas attack was also directed against illegally built settlements – but it has the advantage of being particularly sharply targeted , what Balzer seeks to defend: the diversity, the freedom, the encounter between people of different origins, positions and identities that this festival – and art in general – makes possible. Art, one could say with Balzer, should not be a battlefield, but a foyer.

The idea is beautiful, not because it is utopian, but because it seems so approachable: the left must be concerned with enabling people to find themselves and to meet each other at the same time. Ideally, spaces of dominance-free discourse are established in which the more sensible argument prevails; It would be the task of the left to create these spaces, instead of dreaming, together with a fascist terrorist group, of the potential extinction not only of a state, but above all of its population.

“After Woke” should have been longer to invite more than dreaming; A chapter would also have been needed that critically clarified the ideological foundations of this dream. Balzer points to Kant, Habermas and – as a normative basis – to the declaration of human rights following the French Revolution as the basis for that collective left-wing self-image that is worth defending.

However, that declaration of human rights in particular has contributed a lot to the fact that the objections of a European emancipatory left are no longer heard today because it is no longer considered credible. Because this declaration neither prevented the first self-liberating colony – Haiti – from being plunged into centuries of misery, nor did it repeal the Code Noir, the legislation that placed black people above animals, but legally separated them from white people divorced.

There is a revanchist moment in the support of postcolonial thinkers for fascist groups like Hamas. This revanchist moment is specifically directed against Israel and against Jews; but perhaps this also means those woke leftists who needed October 7th to realize that there was something fundamentally wrong with this world; although they too must have seen the photo of the drowned Alan Kurdi.

The revanchism against Israel and the Jews is nothing other than aggressive anti-Semitism and must be combated at all costs; However, the revanchism against a German left that has repeatedly proven to be an extremely unreliable partner for many marginalized groups over the years poses questions that cannot be answered by celebrating diversity.

Jens Balzer’s book is nevertheless a benefit because it opens a corridor of mutual understanding. Even if I think he is wrong in the historical parts of his analysis, we share the same view: being on the left means celebrating life in all its facets. Every life. This is a principle that being on the left must never fall behind; Balzer and I at least agree on this.

Jens Balzer: “After Woke”, Matthes&Seitz, born, 105 pages, €12.