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Etiology of Racism in Europe
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Introduction
The Monograph on Racism briefly goes through various reports prepared by
international organizations on the contemporary forms of racism. It tries to
define racism, racial discrimination and racial prejudice as well as
ethnicity and ethnocentrism. It dwells on individual and group psychologies
in order to understand the underlying mechanisms which may lead to racism in
times of acute stress.
We shall attempt in this study to examine the causes of racism in Europe in
a historical perspective As Encyclopaedia Britannica (Macropaedia V.15, pp.
359-366) points out and we summarize in the following paragraphs, not only
is racism a recent phenomenon in history and the exception rather than the
rule as compared to the universal nature of ethnocentrism, it also seems to
occur in some parts of the world and not in other.
The evidence that the Indian caste system is racial in origin and that India
is or was a racist society is unconvincing. The basic caste dichotomy
between “once-born” and “twice-born” was probably related to the cultural
distinction between Aryan conquerors and Oravidian conquered. The latter
were probably darker skinned than the former, but it is not established that
this physical distinction was the socially significant one.
The Bible contains no positive suggestion that the ancient Semites were
racists. The same is true of the Qur’an and the Islamic tradition. Even the
devastation brought about by the Arab slave trade in East Africa in the
middle of the 19th century does not appear to have been rationalized on
racial terms as European slavery was.
Despite narcissistic canons of physical beauty and highly ethnocentric
judgments of other cultures East Asian civilizations (Chinese, Japanese etc)
do not exhibit what might properly be called racism.
There are a few documented cases of indigenous systems of racism not
attributable to contact with Western societies. The most notable one is the
racism between Tutti and Hutu in Rwanda and Burundi.
Far and away the most widespread, enduring, and virulent form of racism and
the costliest in terms of human suffering has been that which developed in
Western Europe and its colonial extensions in Africa, Asia, Australia and
the Western Hemisphere. Western racism is of relatively recent origin. In
ancient Greece and Rome, the status criteria were cultural and not racial.
Slavery was a juridical and economic condition unrelated to racial and
ethnic origin. There is no evidence that the blacks who had reached Rome
were regarded as inherently inferior.
In the Middle Ages, the religious criterion of membership in the ingroup
became paramount. Anti-Semitism was clearly religious and not racial and
continued so through the Renaissance, the Reformation and the Wars of
Religion.
The Spanish conquest of the New World was more than averagely brutal, and
the economic exploitation was thorough. Today, racism, though not totally
absent in Spanish America, is’ certainly much less prevalent than in other
parts of the continent. Cultural criteria are far more important than
physical ones in most of Spanish America even in the heavily Indian
countries.
Generally the Portuguese claim that its colonialism in Africa has been
nonracial is correct, at least by comparison with the British, Belgian and
Dutch. This is not to say that the Portuguese regime in Africa has been any
less oppressive and exploitative than the regimes of the other colonial
powers, but whereas the latter have frequently applied racial test of
discrimination, the Portuguese have been ethnocentric rather than racist.
In Brazil, race relations are quite complex and vary greatly from one region
to another. Brazil might be described as a highly racially conscious country
but without a well-defined forms of racial discrimination. Such
discrimination as exists is usually a subtle combination of racial, ethnic,
and social-class factors, with race frequently not the most important one.
The French, like the Portuguese and Spaniards, tended to be more
ethnocentric than racist in their colonial policy. It should be noted,
however, that in Algeria, the French exhibited considerable racism vis-à-vis
the Arabs. The Netherlands and Great Britain were responsible for the growth
of the most racist colonial societies that the world has ever known—namely,
South Africa, the United States, and Australia.
The anti-Semitic wave that swept Germany in the 1930’s ended in the
Holocaust the most heinous manifestation of racism in human history.
Although Nazi anti-Semitism grew out of a long tradition of religious
intolerance in Europe, Hitler’s theory of the master race gave it a hitherto
unknown genocidal virulence.
Religion has also been shown to be related to the amount of prejudice and
discrimination. There is an undeniable difference between the more racially
tolerant Catholic countries of Europe and their colonial extensions and the
more racist Protestant countries. The Catholic Church has frequently taken a
more universalistic position and rejected racism, whereas many Protestant
denominations, especially the more fundamentalistic and puritanical ones,
have often interpreted the Scriptures in a racist fashion.
En view of the above, one could understand the rationale underlying the
geographic focus on “North America and Europe” in the resolutions of the
Sub-Commission and “developed countries” in the final resolution of the
Commission. Consequently, we have to explain in this monograph how and why
racism has developed in a specific part of the world where a brilliant
civilization has been created. This question becomes all the more relevant
in view of the fact that neo-racist manifestations resurfaced almost half a
century after the immense sufferings of the 2nd World War and the Holocaust.
At first sight, there seems no reason in Europe for deep frustration,
regression and projection such as wars, economic depression, political
instability or crisis of security. Indeed, Europe is enjoying one o the
longest periods of peace and prosperity in its turbulent history. The
economic integration process has already reached an advance stage. Having
achieved the Customs Union and the Single Market, EC is heading for the
establishment of a common monetary unit, the last phase of an economic
union. Europe is already the largest and strongest economic and commercial
power in the world. Unemployment is relatively high, but social security and
welfare network is quite effective. In the economic field, Europe has high
hopes and great ambitions, and justifiably so.
Steps towards political union follow the economic integration with a
reasonable time-lag. In addition to goods, services and capital, European
citizens circulate freely in the EC rendering borders increasingly porous.
Even it the physical borders of the countries remain, as a result of the
political union, psychological borders will further fade and eventually
disappear. It is true, the ratification of the Maastricht Treaty which
envisages political and defense integration has encountered difficulties.
But, the slowdown could prove to be only temporary.
Internally, Europe is a remarkable success story. The European balance of
power system which led to two suicidal wars in less than half a century
seems to be eliminated for good. Historical enmities, fears and suspicions
between European nation-states, especially between France and Germany are
forgotten, making room for intensive cooperation.
Considering the upheaval created by the unification of Germany roughly a
century ago, the reunification of Germany this time has had almost no
perceptible effect in and out of Europe.
Externally, Western Europe has won the greatest victory of all times without
tiring a shot in the air. The strongest totalitarian state of history
crumbled within, removing by itself the lethal threat it represented for
Europe. Newly independent States turned into clients emulating
European-Western values in terms of political democracy, respect for human
rights and free market economy.
Under the circumstances, one expected that Europe should slowly savour the
victory. But the resurging racism spoiled the bliss. It also shook the
confidence in humanity’s future. Were there a potential danger of racism
even in these conditions, we could never enjoy any respite in human affairs.
We should perhaps study more closely the undercurrents of this situation in
order to comprehend the incomprehensible and make it intelligible so as to
restore a measure of certainty and determinism to life.
The number of foreigners is on the constant increase in Europe. Migration
and racism suggest that there is a special correlation between these two
phenomena. This would imply that, even if migration does not inevitably
produce racism, the former at least contributes to the latter, as the
anti-migrant nature of the present racism indicates clearly. (1) European
racism is a phenomenon speeded up by the European construction which is in
turn sustained by a certain ideal of Europe. The most obscure question is
whether “to define Europe” necessitates “to define Europeans”. This question
is essential for the analysis of the institutional and ideological aspects
of racism. Europe is a historic problem without a pre-determined solution.
Migration and racism constitute elements of this problem.
Europe will be not a closed entity (like a federal state or multi-national
empire), but an open gathering where various economic-cultural groups
encounter. This externally open gathering will not be less closed by some
internal borders which are invisible, but impossible to abolish. Not only
will political borders of the states exist, but also social borders based on
the division of labor between different populations. Migrants from the South
and the East will have different status for economic and ideological
reasons. Hence a European melting-pot or an unstable hierarchical complex of
ethno-social groups is emerging.
Europe will be the place where political problems of the world will be
reflected. Among all European nations, Germany will be the one which will
face the crisis of the nation-state in the most acute form. Not only because
the reconstituting of one nation out of the populations of RFA and RDA is an
uncertain enterprise, but also because the Germany of tomorrow, short of an
impossible blocking of immigration, will represent in a condensed form
almost all ethnic and social conflicts and tensions of the surrounding
world. Under these circumstances, the national (and nationalist) tradition
of Germany which has been forgotten or ostensibly forgotten resurfaces as
the determinant factor of European history(2).
Racism we face is not a variant of the old forms of racism. But it is a new
configuration which reflects the characteristics of the social structures
and relations of power of the contemporary Europe. For this racism three
factors came together:
- existence of a tradition (of racism) or collective memory, partly
conscious, partly unconscious, marked by traumatic incidents, impregnated
with the history of the culture and institutions, periodically reactivated
by historical events which testify to its persistence ;
- existence of a discriminatory social structure, not stable, but fulfilling
the necessary functions of economic power structure and at least partially
embodied in the organization of the State ;
- finally an institutional crisis involving the State and its ideological
foundations, the individual and the institutions, affecting his or her
identity, which is deeply disturbed, bringing about an intellectual and
moral insecurity at the level of masses.
First of all, we shall look into the situation in which the “tradition” (of
racism) has taken root in Europe.
Evolution of European Identity and Racism
Although nationalism dates back to the middle of the 18th century and at
least one hundred years earlier than racism, the evolution of the
nation-state had started much before. Nation-state was born to history in
Europe. To understand nation-state may help us solve the riddle of racism.
Emotional investment of raw and primordial character in the land which the
nation inhabited has increased enormously in the course of European history.
This has gone hand in hand with the inception and development of private
ownership. As a result, the diffused borders of ancient empires have turned
into the present day frontiers, which are well-defined and rigidly honored.
It is clear that the emotional meaning of one’s country’s borders,
unconsciously, is fused with that of one’s own boundaries (3). In other
words, State borders which are much better defined in nation-states are
unconsciously identified with the boundaries of the individual and the
group. This, in turn, contributed to building a more distinct and stronger
individual and national identity than had ever been possible in the earlier
species of States. European integration which aims at a political union
threatens on unconscious plane the psychologically overwhelmingly invested
State borders. Emotions released as a result of disinvestment from State
borders strengthen national group identity in a compensatory manner, leading
some groups to extreme forms of nationalism and even racism.
The individual in the sense of individualism was also born - or after the
Classical Greece reborn - to history in Europe. The evolution of the
nation—state cannot be dissociated from the evolution of the individual. The
individual gradually acquired rights and freedoms which protected him from
the arbitrary acts and actions of the political authority. This development
helped the evolution of the civil society. Eventually, the people made up of
individuals destroyed the mythical and mystical foundations of the political
power, increased their participation in and finally took over the governance
of their countries. Thus, they became citizens in the constitutional sense.
They secularized the religious ethic and morals, legislated laws,
designating right and wrong, good and bad for themselves.
As a result of this process, a new type of individual and group identity was
created in Europe. This identity enjoyed much greater freedom of choice and
action, and much better protected against the political authority. European
individuals and nations became stronger, more productive and more creative
actors of history.
But this identity is not more secure and stable. On the contrary, it is
quite possible that European individual feels more insecure, despite,
perhaps precisely because of, all these gains. Historical memory bears the
scars of extraordinary violence of the struggle involved in building this
individual and group identity. Its creation required a more cohesive, even
homogenized cultural (including religious) environment. It took revolutions
to establish democracy and respect for human rights. Promotion of economic
rights, especially right of ownership of land, acquiescing in the enormous
inequalities in wealth and income distribution called for painful
adjustments in value scales, especially in religious ones. Coupled with the
expanding role of the human intellect at the expense of the faith, these
developments reduced the legitimizing, sanctioning and redeeming power of
the religion.
The main characteristic of this process of identity-building (and identity
maintenance) was and is the generation of much greater unwanted and
un-integrated self- and object representations, because of regression in
times of stress and crises which were not infrequent. Therefore, projection,
displacement and externalization mechanisms have overdeveloped as a means of
restoring homeostasis or reducing anxiety in the European psyche.
The ethnic groups which for one reason or another did not partake of the
same process and tailed to create similar identity structures were
unconsciously perceived as potential dangers to this identity-building
process. The presence of these ethnic groups in the midst of European
societies apparently reminded them by way of example of the fatal dangers of
failure in identity-building. This is also true of today’s European
societies. Guest workers, refugees, and asylum seekers who immigrate in
these societies do not have the same or similar identities as Europeans.
This difference engenders anxiety in European individual.
Nevertheless, the presence of other ethnic groups in Europe which are
different from the identity-building point of view, served and is still
serving - or perhaps put to use by - European societies as suitable targets
of externalization onto which they project their unwanted parts. This
enhances the stability and security of the European identity.
Ethnic, religious and minority groups, dominated by Europeans in Europe or
in other parts of the world during colonization failed to resist massive
projections sustained for long periods and gave in by introjecting them.
Once overloaded with European’s unwanted parts, their identity structures
broke down and self-hatred installed (4). Naturally, they craved for a
stronger identity, that of the European. They were converted to
Christianity. Or they simply apostatized. They rejected their own
identities. They wanted to merge into the dominant society. They emulated
all the values of the Europeans etc.
The denial by the target groups of their own identity and their aspiring to
the European identity brought about, not what was sought for, but
catastrophe. The return of the projected material to the European was felt
as psychological annihilation of his identity. The European had then two
options, in the depth of the crisis, either to expel or to exterminate the
target group.
As a result, homogenizing forces in Europe have over centuries created
within well—delineated territories (homelands, fatherlands or motherlands)
religiously, culturally, socially and politically cohesive societies.
Western Jews were expelled from England in 1290, from France in 1394 and
from Spain in 1492. It is true, the Jews were not considered as a race, but
as a religious community. Nevertheless, psychological mechanisms at work in
Spain for almost two centuries which eventually ended up in expelling the
Jews offered many similarities with the later patterns of racism. Massive
projections onto Jews have been operated in times of particular stress such
as wars, famines, epidemics etc. Jews have been beaten, killed and compelled
to live in segregated quarters. Forced conversions have been frequently
resorted to. Once converted, however, their problem has worsened. The
unwanted parts of the Christian, which had been projected onto the Jew, came
back through the Jew’s conversion (boomerang effect). Then the Inquisition
was established to judge whether the conversion of the Jew was genuine or
not, i.e. whether he carried the unwanted parts of the Christian in which
case ‘he was subjected to torture in order to exorcise him of “his” evil
parts. Eventually, the expulsion eliminated for good the boomerang effect of
conversions which had become a vital threat to the identity of the
Christian.
Jews even after conversion were not allowed to hold public offices on the
basis of “limpieza de sangre” (purity of blood), which foreshadowed one of
the most important aspects of racism.
The Muslims were expelled from Spain in 1502 and Moriscos (converts to
Christianity from Islam) in 1609. Thus, “reconquista” of the Iberian
Peninsula from the Muslims was achieved.
The Church as the main homogenizing force in Europe dealt effectively with
heresies. After having eliminated Arianism, Crusades were organized as of
1208 to eradicate the Cathars in Southern France. The Crusades to the Holy
places which had been launched in 1097 and lasted two centuries created “us
and them” in Europe. Ottoman advances in the Balkans and European responses
imprinted on the identity of Europeans through chosen glories and traumas
the differentiation between “Christian Europe” and the Muslim encroachment.
Crusades served as an occasion for vast stereotyping against Muslims, Arabs
and Turks whose effects are still perceptible.
We think it is a valid question whether the same homogenizing forces are at
work once again, this time, against the followers of another monotheist
religion, namely Muslim migrant workers in Europe.
Religion and Racism
Racism developed in Western Europe and its colonial extensions in Africa,
Asia, Australia and Northern America. Since in all these parts of the world,
Christianity was the predominant religion, it would be interesting to look
into this very important aspect of the culture to see whether it had
anything to do with racism.
In the Holy Book, doctrine and liturgy of Christianity there is no trace of
racism. On the contrary, racism is an anathema to a religion based on a
profound love of God and on love between human beings. Indeed, from the
religious point of view, it is an enigma that racism has developed in
Christian societies.
To Mr. Turgut Özal, the late President of Turkey, the Jewish problem is the
key for understanding the role of religions in racism. In his book “Turkey
in Europe”, he says “it is of the utmost importance that we understand
objectively the roots of the Jewish problem for the salvation of a world
which is being rapidly westernized.
“The Christian perceives himself in the image of God. Historically, this
identification with God through Christ crucified for the sins of mankind
requires an exceptionally strict ethic which renders it very difficult to
house in the soul some vital natural instincts and impulses together with
God. Is it because of the need to tackle the evil which is embodied in
everything negated by this ethic that Jewry, together with other groups, was
unconsciously used as a target of projection, and hence subjected to
segregation, inquisition, and genocide? Let me point out in this context
that Islam, on the other hand, sanctities natural instincts provided that
their activities be regulated and their abuse prohibited. Historically this
aspect of Islam has been sarcastically criticized. Nevertheless, Muslims had
little need for a projection mechanism.
“One may say that the Holocaust took place at a time when the grip of
religion on natural instincts has been greatly relaxed following the vast
secularizing effects of the Enlightenment. This is obviously true. But there
might be two connected processes here.
Firstly, despite the tact that the religion which in the beginning
determined the ethics lost ground, ethical behavior patterns mostly
survived, although they have been emptied of religious content. Paralleling
this social process, the individual felt, on a psychological level,
unconscious guilt more deeply the more he moved away from ethical premises
in his behavior. In other words, cultural continuity provided the inner need
for sanctions in case of breach despite apparent rationalization of the
ethics. The only way out was the culturally well-established projection
mechanism.
“During the era of the Enlightenment, which is characterized together with
Christianity as the basis of Western civilization, the outburst of reason
did not only destroy the irrational elements in the religion, but partly the
religion itself. Deism, even atheism, as by-products implied a return to
pre-Christian conditions with an emphasis on Mother Nature. Is it because of
this excessive “desacralization” that the sacrificial cycle of primitive
religion has been revived (this time not only for lower-class heretics such
as “witches” who had already been subjected to inquisition, but for
intellectual elites also) as a result of which hostility was generated
towards target groups in the form of persecution and ultimately genocide
along with the increase in wars between nation states?
“I do not defend the superiority of one civilization over another. All I try
to do is to point out the social cost involved in what is called progress.”
(5)
Considering that Western Europe roughly comprises a Latin Mediterranean and
another north-western mostly “Germanic” parts (in historical sense), one
should perhaps look for an answer why the latter was more apt to racism
despite the tact that both parts have undergone the same or similar
individual and national identity-building processes.
Le Monde of 26 December 1992, in its editorial column refers to the racist
and xenophobiac wave of the last autumn in Germany, questions whether these
were only a fit of high fever without a future. It says that “although many
wished to believe it, the reality was less innocent, Demonstrations, no
matter how spectacular and impressive, did not lead to calling into question
the relations with... “the other” which remains fixed in the soul, These
demonstrations rather reflected in this country impregnated with
Lutheranism, the need of public redemption of a nation which feels sinful,”
It is beyond the scope of this monograph to expound the relationship between
Protestantism and the increased feelings of sin. It would perhaps be enough
to point out the concepts of strict ethic, “call” and predestination as main
characteristics of this creed.
“Combined with the harsh doctrines of the absolute transcendentality of God
and the corruption of everything pertaining to the flesh (in Protestantism),
the inner isolation of the individual contains, .. the entirety negative
attitude.. to all the sensuous and emotional elements in culture and in
religion.. “(6) (T]he Catholic ethic (on the other hand) was an ethic of
intentions. Quite realistically the (Catholic) Church recognized that man
was not an absolutely clearly defined unity to be judged one way or the
other, but that his moral Ute was normally subject to conflicting motives
and his action contradictory. ’Of course, it required as an ideal a change
of life in principle. But it weakened just this requirement by “the
sacrament of absolution..”(7) The (Catholic) priest dispensed atonement,
hope of grace, certainty of forgiveness and thereby granted release from
that tremendous tension to which the Calvinist was doomed... The God of
Calvinism demanded of his believers not single good works, but a life of
good works.. There was no place for the very human Catholic cycle of sin,
repentance, atonement, release, followed by renewed sin.” (8)
One should study whether the extreme requirements of Protestantism which
were humanly almost impossible to fulfill increased the feeling of sin and
the need to externalize it onto suitable targets both inside and outside the
society.
Another topic of investigation could be the relationship between the strict
Protestant (and Calvinist) ethic and the intrusive modes of childrearing
including especially excessive cleaning, deliberate and systematic corporal
or psychological punishment (as against hitting with rage) and breaking the
will of the pupil in education etc.
North-Western European societies are usually extremely orderly, clean and
well-regulated. This can be partly explained with the needs of modern
technology, public or personal hygiene, aesthetic requirements of
architecture and city-planning or safety and security of traffic etc.
Nevertheless, compulsive traits of this kind of orderliness do not escape
the notice. An American novelist who lived in Germany for 13 years writes in
an article about three “insignificant” personal incidents to point out the
potential danger. He concludes, “if Germans get this orderly, even, more
anal than usual, it’s time to worry. When they start into their orderly
mode, watch out, because what is first or foremost not in order are all
these foreigners, and when Germans start looking for the causes of their
societal problems, the scapegoats have the unfortunate fate of turning into
lamp shades and medical experiments.” (9)
Compulsive attitudes of excessive orderliness and perfectionism have little
to do with the reasonable and logical requirements of order. Compulsive
people feel bound to comply with the “rules” under the censure of primitive
super-ego, and hate those who are “disorderly”, “dirty”, “untidy” etc.
Moreover, compulsive character is rigid, intolerant and conventional,
especially in face of relaxed, casual, carefree and unconformable
foreigners. (10)
Development of Nationalism, Ethnocentrism and Racism in Germany
Are there other particular causes of racism in Germany? “(In West German
society) the trend-setters and go-getters ... scrambled after the war to
leave behind their German identity. People so Europeanized themselves as to
become quite unrecognizable as traditional home-spun Germans.
“Call it a case of almost self-hatred, engendered by the chilling
realization of what had been perpetrated in Germany’s name under Hitler’s
rule. With freedom handed back to a numbed populace, escape from
“Germanness” and the affectations of a culture of “World Citizens” seemed to
many the most tempting route to redemption from the past.
“The bills for so much self-alienation are now falling due. Suddenly,
Germans are looking at themselves and wondering once more about their
identity.” (11)
The denial and rejection of national identity can never be without cost. A
universal identity cannot substitute for the national one. A universal
identity can make sense only if it is supplementary to a well-founded
national identity. En the post-Second World War era, Germany became a fully
democratic country and buried the Nazi identity in history. Powerful human
rights circles in the country have taken on the task to defend respect for
human rights in the world. Most probably, these circles split oft this
undesirable past from their identity and project onto those who are supposed
to commit human rights violations in other countries.
With new generations and especially with the reunification, German people
might have felt the need to reconstruct the German identity, this time on
the basis of democracy and respect for human rights. The search for a new
German identity was bound to draw on the historical experience of German
nationalism which had been culturally handed down by one generation to
another. Therefore, one should look into the history of German nationalism
in order to see whether it has “anything to do with neo-racism.
British and French forms of nationalism grew from pre-existing bureaucratic
structures (States). For “Germany” on the eve of the French Revolution, the
over three hundred and fifty separate petty sovereignties which then
comprised the nearly defunct Holy Roman Empire prevented any “natural
growth” of the idea of nationalism.
(12)
In the Napoleonic Wars, the Germans were “humiliated” by the dissolution of
the Holy Roman Empire (1806), and the later defeat of Prussia (1807). (13)
Historians have long known that the conversion of the intellectuals, from
European cosmopolitanism or parochial particularism to nationalism,
clustered around the years, 1805-7, a time in which Germany was being
assaulted by French arms. It had happened before, sometimes with disastrous
consequences, as in the Thirty Years War, but the assaults had never
resulted in the actual political death of the Holy German Empire. Although
the First Reich was, in reality, more fiction than fact, on unconscious
levels it symbolized permanence, stability and immortality: it had, after
all, been in existence ... for a thousand years. Although the German
nationalists did not give much conscious allegiance to it, its dissolution
could only have been understood as a death episode. The ardour with which
the studies in Old German were pursued helped overcome the spiritual
depression. Because the nationalists identified with Prussia, her reduction
in size after the “humiliating” defeat of Jena, was experienced as
amputations: “By the Peace of Tilsit", wrote Jahn, “Prussia lost some of her
limbs.” (14) The struggle for Germany was an oedipal -and sibling-conflict
on a monumental scale, “(M)other Germany had been “penetrated” by the French
(who) were understood, partly consciously, partly unconsciously, as Teutonic
brothers. The French were “the other branches of the race” wrote Fichte. The
French were the hated sibling-rivals who had by violence and military
occupation achieved fusion with and sexual possession of the German “mother”
...”
Such oedipal fantasies - and primitive splitting of maternal images into
“good” and “bad” self objects are reflected in the extraordinary
preoccupation of the German nationalists with the theme of purity. As Arndt
wrote:
The Germany are not bastardized by alien peoples, they have not become
mongers. They have preserved their original purity ‘more than many other
people. . . Tacitus saw ... how important was for the future greatness and
majesty of the German people that they were pure and resembled only
themselves, that they were not mongrels.
Fichte believed that the nation should exist “without admixture of or
corruption by, any alien element”, and he spoke repeatedly of an “original
German stock”. (15).
The fact that the idea of a German nation was an artificially constructed is
suggested by many factors, not the least of which was the extraordinary
energies devoted to proving it had an objective reality. One way was to
insist that the nation was an organic entity. It was not the product of
reasoned choice, history, social contract, or rational constitution making,
but ... was imagined to be a natural, organic body pre-existent in nature,
“What binds all members into a whole” wrote Görres, “is the law of nature
which takes precedence before all artificial contracts.” Fichte wrote
“People and fatherland ... tar transcend the State” which was dead anyway in
the politico-legal person of the Holy Roman Empire.
The title of Arndt’s 1813 poem “Where is the German Fatherland?” reflects
not simply a rhetorical device used for poetic impact, but an
anxiety-producing contusion. Reflective of the insecurity Arndt felt in
identifying with a “nation” which had no political reality was his taking
twice as much space to tell his audience where the German fatherland isn’t,
as he took in telling them where it is. (16)
The uncertain existence of the German nation meant that Germandom had to be
defined in negative terms by projecting onto the French all the negative
qualities the Germans despised in themselves. They prepared long-lists of
the negative qualities of all Frenchmen, so that the Germans might vent
their rage against a split-oft part of themselves, a feared and despised
external object. The French were : “Incapable of eternal ideas, of deep
enthusiasm, of blissful ecstasy and human longing, for which they even lack
words ; making fun of the holiest and highest of mankind (presumably the
Germans) for the sake of wittiness”: Apparently the Germanic virtues - most
of which - . . . were emotional - were the opposite of these negative French
characteristics
Because the nation was not yet a political unit, since it was transcendent,
organic, and defined in negative terms, and because it was, therefore, an
artificially constructed (entity) ... the only way the nationalist could
actually be certain of its existence was to feel it, (17)
The only concrete example ever offered by the German nationalists to prove
the existence of the German nation is the German language.., as the bearer
and proof of Germanic kultur.(18)
German nationalists were interested in language ... because of the clear
connection it had to their own childhoods. The obvious equation is: maternal
group fantasy of the German nation the German mother tongue mother. As Jahn
wrote in 1807: “Every man has a mother; a mother tongue is enough for him.
Mother love is the first translator of speech; the mother tongue is the open
door to the heart, memory and reason.” Modern psychology has demonstrated
how profoundly language mastery among children, ages 2 to 4, is contingent
upon an intimate, loving interchange between mother and child, The German
nationalists’ obsession with language, with German as the only Ursprache
(original language) left in Europe, was an effort to recapture a maternal
intimacy earlier experienced. For the original German nationalists - and
perhaps for all nationalists - the issue is always an issue of a particular
kind-maternal love. (19)
Whenever individuals in groups experience high stress levels, either in
fantasy or in reality, the individuals tend to regress to very early levels
of childhood ideation. The German nationalists in the Napoleonic period were
involved in nothing less than a regressive fusion with the preoedipal
mother. (20) We know that, in fantasy, groups are often understood as
mothers. When the Germans set out to createa fantasy about their own group
(nation), they were, in effect, creating a fantasy which, by definition,
would be maternal. Since belonging to, and merging with, maternal groups can
be tremendously anxiety producing (because they are, in part, experiences
that awaken incest tears), the German nationalists defended against them by
euphemistically labeling “mother” Germany
“the fatherland”. (21) .
Because of the particular conditions, such as the absence of a unified state
structure and clear-cut borders, German nationalism put overwhelming
emphasis on nation, not as a politically objective reality, but as
“natural”, “organic body” “pre-existent in nature” and “subject to laws of
nature”. This definition of nation based mainly on biological concepts was
already very close to racism. As a result, purity of the race and the
original or unadulterated character of the German language became rallying
points of nationalism. Now, the question is whether the foreigners, not only
with their different manners and ways of life, but also with their creole
German are disturbing the obsessive and perfectionist purity of German
language.
Germany achieved unification roughly halt a century after the emergence of
German nationalism. Having defeated the Austria Hungarian Empire and France
it became the dominant power in Europe at the Berlin Conference of 1878.
It is beyond the scope of this study to speculate as to whether the
particular brand of German nationalism led to the 1st World War. The
enormous stress created by the war and post-war conditions helped the Nazi
regime to come to power. This regime displayed the most malignant forms of
racism which culminated into the Holocaust.
Unlike during the Napoleonic wars, Germany was not invaded by the allied
countries at the end of the 1st World War. Nevertheless, the conditions of
the Versailles Treaty were not only humiliating, but also not conducive to a
recovery from the post war problems. War debts caused a hyper-inflation. The
Great Crash had its adverse impact on the economy, Unemployment rose.
Ideological polarization and political instability ensued.
The depressive mood created by the trauma of the defeat seemed primarily
responsible for the rise of Nazism. Contrary to the situation following the
Napoleonic wars, at this time the defeated Germany was a major power in
Europe with a unitary state structure and a large “fatherland” with
well-established borders. Its fledgling ethnocentrism of the early
nationalist era had become the main bastion of the Bismarkian Germany.
Therefore, the defeat of the First World War was a free tall from the very
heights of this ethnocentrism. The regression was equally profound.
Analysis of Racist Theories
Some other factors had contributed to the depth of regression as well.
The 19th century was swayed by racist theories. German nationalism with
conceptual roots of biological nature must have been particularly vulnerable
to these theories. Therefore, the response of Germany to the trauma of the
1st World War was in the form of a deep regression from an overgrown
ethnocentrism down to the level of a nationalism which had been largely
impregnated with racist theories.
In his “The Aryan Myth”, Leon Poliakov presents us with the very serious
problem created by the scientism of the 17th and 18th century, In their
efforts to apply newly discovered empirical methods to the human world,
scientists and thinkers made heroic and dangerous generalizations on the
basis of such discrete morphological and physiological facts as skin color,
shape of the skull, and so forth. In such a manner, Poliakov says, was a
rudimentary racism sewn into the very fabric of that scientific revolution
which so many have seen as being a primary characteristic of the
Enlightenment. The generalizations which were made at this time served, as a
rule, to place European man at the very pinnacle of human grandeur and
achievement. So-called “lesser breeds”, such as Negroes and Jews, tended
more and more to be viewed not as being merely somehow different from the
Europeans, but rather, as being virtually separate species.... The overall
effect of this was, as Poliakov points out, to strip man of his divinity.
From the so—called “Age of Reason” on, man was, for many, part of the
natural world, a fact to be studied, classified and, on occasion, controlled
and condemned, much as nature acts to deal with species too grossly
ineffectual or too unfit to survive.(22)
The Mosaic Law had emphasized the fundamental distinction between man, as
having been made in the image of God, and all other forms of life on earth.
. . Somewhat crude “science” of the Enlightenment had begun a process by
virtue of which man came to be seen as not in any way divine, but rather as
a peculiarly hairless ape, gratuitously endowed with a trifle more gray
matter than his arboreal relatives. (23)
The particular Mythus of race was itself a product of that reaction to the
astringent world of reasoned scientism referred to as Romanticism.
Romanticism’s world was one of visions, some of them nightmarish to be sure,
but a world to be tapped by intuition, imagination and emotion. With
illusions damaged or destroyed, men sought refuge from the harsh light of
reason in the comforting twilight of feeling and imagination... Despite
their rebellion against reason, the romantics generally did not seek to
restore a lost dignity to mankind as a whole… (T)he assumption was that each
people had something of this quality in it,. .With Fichte and such devotees
of lost Aryan India as Schlegel, the romantic dream… became directed towards
that hoary search for origins. The dream of return, part of a dangerous
longing for the maternal, according to Poliakov, eventually assumed the form
of a search for racial origins. An extremely unfortunate tendency to confuse
language with racial groups was responsible for the concretization of the
Aryan Myth. (24)
“(T)his scientific racism, while a rebellion against the Judeo Christian
tradition, contained those elements necessary for the establishment of a new
religion, the religion of nature,.. While it is true that, between 1850 and
the First World War, these phenomena were well-represented throughout the
Western World, it is also true that they were more heavily represented in
Germany.. The National Socialists were the inheritors of this legacy and the
religion of nature informed the thought and actions of Hitler, and the
others in the movement. Nazi ideologist persistently claimed that their
movement was rooted in health—giving “principles of nature”, and thus
adherence to it and to its purposes put one in conformity with natural laws.
The Judeo-Christian tradition, was being replaced by a new religiosity, one
in which a putatively biological approach had been fused with mysticism. The
actions of “natural men”-actions undertaken in conformity with so-called
“laws of life”., would be self-justifying, and pernicious and soulless
representatives of the Mosaic Code could be exterminated without a qualm,
since, after all, these subcreatures existed at the very lowest level of
existence. It was thus that Himmler could declare that the “struggle” with
the Jews was a “natural one”.. The new “life-course” (Lebensweg) proffered
by the National Socialist Weltanschauung posited an organic approach in
which magic-infused mystery and the natural world had been brought together
in inviolable synthesis. (25)
Poliakov in the Aryan Myth offers an explanation for the tendency to attempt
to identify man with nature. Psychoanalysis, he says, describes the source
of this “dream” as follows:
It (psychoanalysis) relates that dream to the urge to recover the euphoria
which characterizes the most archaic state before individuation- the stage
of “primitive narcissism”, when as we are told by those who investigate
these obscure beginnings, human beings feel that they are at one with the
surrounding universe, and each individual feels himself to be organically
the Whole as though he were god in a pan theistic sense. Thus the childish
paradise of total happiness is in the final analysis that of the
preconscious life in the womb, before the ‘fall’ into the world. (26)
If an in-group regresses in the face of extraordinary stress to such
primitive level as complete maternal fusion, everything in daily life, every
adult activity, be it sexual or not, engenderspervasive feelings of guilt.
They have to split off and project all parts of self- and object
representations, which are unconsciously linked with the sense of guilt and
punishment, onto the outgroup. The purpose of this projection is to create
an extreme cohesion in the ingroup that a maternal fusion requires. For if
it is impure, maternal fusion becomes extremely dangerous. So long as the
ingroup remains at such primitive level of regression, the process of
projection has to be very active. When the outgroup is overloaded with the
unwanted parts of the ingroup, the symbiosis between the ingroup and
outgroup becomes dangerously complete. Psychologically speaking, the
outgroup becomes identical with the ingroup. Then the ingroup has two
alternatives: to expel or to exterminate the outgroup in order to save
itself from the feelings of guilt or sin.
Self-denial of the Target Group and Racism
Another aspect of the problem is the attitude of the outgroup towards the
projections of the ingroup.
It is interesting to note that the emergence of racism in Europe was
coincided with or followed the emancipation of Jews in the aftermath of the
French Revolution. Having been profoundly frustrated with the long
discrimination and persecution, emancipated Jews tended in great numbers to
dejudaize in the prevailing atmosphere of the Enlightenment and to get
assimilated into European societies.
The striving middle-class Jews had tried to prove that they were not
“little”, “ghetto” Eastern European Jews, made out as abasive, constricted,
uncivil, uncultured, alien, grandiosely and egocentrically given to
magical—religious.. The secular Jew, craving assimilation, tended to
repudiate in considerable measure his/her Jewish identity and heritage.
Thus, with Jewish identity maimed the secular Jew had little inner
protection from the noxious psychic implants injected by way of threat and
deriding definitions of Jews coming from the host society.(27)
Until their emancipation in Western and Central Europe during the eighteenth
century, Jews were in groups that were assigned by the larger society a
corporate character with obligations, rights, economic functions, and many
restraints. With emancipation, individuation and self-actualization became
dizzying possibilities... Excited by “the impossible abundance of the new”
(Kafka, 1920); governed by ambition, a drive for self-fulfillment, and a
gritty determination to reach the apparently newly available goals ;
exulting that their unique talents were giving rise to one of those rare
cultural flowerings of history; attempting to dissociate themselves from
Yiddish culture -— “tearing asunder the chain of generations” Kafka
remarked; having ceded their own tongue, culture, and the knowledge of their
past --thus lacking the power to be in charge of their self-delineation;
unsupported by their erstwhile institutions and customs --and therefore
standing naked in any current crisis; often subject to terror,
identification with the terrorizer, and self hatred, a psychological
sequence that in turn made them know shame because of the perennial yen to
convert; seeking status and an identity in the host society only to find
themselves, whatever their attainments, ambivalently regarded when not
disregarded; and enduring chronically the worry that sanctuary would forever
elude them. In the air was the foreboding that they and their descendants
would be hunted down, cankered, and killed (ct. Appelfeld, 1980). They had
surrendered their past, and there was to be no future. .. In his diary Kafka
comments that since the inspiration for their creativity derived from a
uniquely Jewish despair, the creation could not be part of German culture
because the problem was not really German. Kafka’s Metamorphosis depicted
that the Jew’s own definition of himself reflected the appraisal by the host
people: he was a bug, vermin, a pollutant, sub-human, an embarrassment in
the host’s home. (28)
Despite some similarities between the expulsion of the Jews from Spain and
the Holocaust, there are some important qualitative and quantitative
differences. Unlike the forced conversions in the Spain of the 14th and 15th
centuries, the Jews of the XIXth and the early XXth centuries chose to merge
with the Christians by themselves. By doing so, they have abandoned the last
and most important bastion of their identity, the religion. The
disappearance of the borders between the Jewish and the Christian identities
brought back to the Christian psyche the centuries old unwanted parts which
had been projected onto the Jews. The unwanted parts thus returned to the
Christian must have been reprojected onto the Jews in greater volume and
mass, dangerously destabilizing inter-ethnic relations which were further
exacerbated in the aftermath of the First World War, and led to the
Holocaust. What had happened in two centuries in Spain was condensed into
two decade in Germany which tact greatly enhanced the density of the
violence.
Another, perhaps, more important reason why the Holocaust was incomparably
more savage was that the level of regression of the ingroup was much deeper
in the second case. The discourse of the genocide was no longer religious,
but biological, blood-based and nature-oriented. This layer represents in
humanity’s evolution more primitive, pre-culture, even primordial phase much
earlier than monotheist religions. Expulsion of Jews from Spain, on the
other hand, was the result of a basically religious conflict with racist
overtones.
Halt a century has elapsed since the 2nd World War. Germans, probably like
all groups attaining a strong identity, form(ed) it initially in a binary,
narcissistic, contempt-laden, competitive, anxiety discharging fashion
marked by excessive projections and introjections in relation to another
group cf. Klein, 1932, 1948; Jacobson, 1964; Friedlander, 1978; Stein,
1980). The challenge for a maturing group is to go beyond this early
developmental stage, to realize that the negatively regarded outside group
possesses some virtues and the native group is subject to detects ascribed
to the other; in short that the two groups possess a common humanity.
Nevertheless, Germans had to confront, after the 1st World War, yet another
devastating trauma in the 2nd World War which impeded this maturing process.
In the aftermath of this war they regressed almost to the pre-national
stage, i.e, European cosmopolitan nationalism of the early XIXth century.
They repudiated their German identity in favour of a Europeanized or
universal identity. This coincided with the European integration which
mobilized efforts to build up a new European identity, it necessary, at the
(partial) cost of national identities. At this juncture, ultra right
centripetal forces emerged in Germany as in some other EC member countries.
They presently strive to reinforce the German national identity. It is
evident that the return of the national identity cannot be dissociated from
the historical experience of nationalism which has been intimately mingled
with racism. In other words, German nationalism comes back once again
together with the symptoms of racism. The search for the national identity
which has been repudiated because of its connection with humiliating events
cannot be achieved without feeling the pains of the narcissistic wounds that
these events have caused. Narcissistic wounds, in turn, trigger defensive
mechanisms especially in the form of ethnocentrism. But ethnocentrism or its
regressed form, i.e. racism had brought about these catastrophes in the
first place, hence the reason why panicky tears of all Europeans accompany
the resurgent racism.
Neo-Racism in Europe and European Integration
Since racist incidents do not occur only in Germany, but in other West
European countries, albeit on smaller scale, one should look into the causes
of racism in other parts of Europe which do not entirely share the same
historical experience with Germany in terms of nationalism and
identity-building.
Racism with reference only to the past cannot explain the causes and the
structures of new racism. As we have pointed out earlier, presently, there
is no visible stress generating situation. On the contrary, the EC Europe is
living a prosperous and peaceful period. It has already become the largest
economic and commercial entity in the’ world and is moving fairly
successfully towards political union. What is causing regression and
projection in Europeans is not easy to understand.
In Europe there is an institutional discrimination based on the structure of
employment. Private sectors in Europe reduce the cost of labor by importing
one part of manpower from peripherical regions of the world where there has
been no trade union rights as’ those enjoyed by European workers for more
than a century. Apparently, the EC officially maintains this differential
system which constitutes “ethnicisation” of the hierarchy and the inequities
in the labor force. The “subjective” counterpart of this situation is the
institutionalization of racist and cultural prejudices between the dominant
and the dominated segments. (29)
Migrant workers had been massively recruited and employed in certain jobs.
Now they seem to have settled in Europe for good. Family reunifications have
been realized. The second, in some cases, the third generation started to
enter the labor market. Just at this moment, they have to face rising
unemployment created by a technology which reduced the need for unskilled
labor. This unemployment does not only affect the guest workers. Rapid
technological change impairs the job security of all workers, and
necessitates recurrent training for frequent change of profession together
with all its inconveniences. The consequent competition between “national”
and “foreign” workers in the manpower market also contributes to racism.
Foreign workers deprived of the protective umbrella of their own states and
enjoying only restricted rights are also racially despised and treated as
sub-humans. Indignation and contempt they feel induce them to embrace more
closely their traditions and religion in a defensive mood. Host people
naturally sense this defiant reaction and react, in turn, with increased
racism. As a result, both sides engage in an escalation in their respective
attitudes.
In this context, the effect on the host people of the crisis the State
undergoes comes into the picture. The contemporary form of racism is not a
simple relationship with the “other” based on a perverted perception of
cultural or social difference. It is a relationship with the “other”
mediated by the intervention of the State. Or more clearly (this is
basically an unconscious dimension) it is a conflictual relationship with
the State which is experienced in a deviated manner, by means of
“projection” onto the other.
In this light, one can explain the slogan of “national preference” raised by
the French extreme right. This preference is both a fantasy and an
institution within which citizens perceive their special relationship of
dependence on the State. None of us can totally escape this situation,
especially it we are less privileged, discriminated against, treated as
subjects by the administration, school, political machinery etc.
The State in Western Europe established a correlation between the rights of
the citizen and nationality on the one hand, individual and collective
social rights, on the other. As a result, only the nationals of a State
enjoy full social rights. The question of what is presently the State in
Europe is essential in understanding racism. The State in Europe is neither
national, nor supranational, and this ambiguity is growing instead of
diminishing. In the distribution of power between national States and
Community institutions, it seems, there is competition. But in reality this
is a process in which the State is disintegrating. Its powers and
responsibilities are shrinking. It is striking that in the construction of
Europe there is no real social dimension, except in rhetoric: the European
State as social State is sought neither by market forces, nor by national
governments.
As a result, there is the State with all its administrative practices,
repressive capacity and arbitration role between interests (including
between the national interests and those of the classes) while there is no
State in the real sense of the word. In many respects, it looks like a
situation we are used to seeing in the Third World. Thus all the conditions
come together to produce a collective sentiment of identity crisis. Although
one may say that individuals, especially those who are deprived and
distanced from political power, fear the State, but they tear more from its
disintegration and disappearance.
In the European space of today, there are individuals who are citizens and
others who are subjects (without political rights). But the former are the
citizens of an unexisting - or disappearing
- State while the latter cannot be maintained in a situation of “no rights”.
This untenable situation which contributes to racism will last so long as
the question of what the people are in Europe is not answered.
The State ‘in the psyche of the individual and the group represents both
paternal and maternal characteristics. Generally speaking, the State which
protects the population against foreign enemies and maintains law and order
is paternal. The State that provides jobs, education and health services and
ensures social security and justice is perceived as maternal. On the other
hand, the individual and the group selves are identified with the State as
the sovereign power representing the nation and the country. Volkan finds
closer to modern psychoanalytic stand the view that the State itself
represents in the long run an idealized self.(30) Therefore, the
disintegration of the state, be it real or imaginary, is felt as the
disintegration of the identity.
But the erosion of the State identity is a long-running process. The
phenomenon of globalization in the world economy gradually reduced the
efficiency of economic policy instruments of the nation-state. Parities of
national currencies are floating. Interest rates can hardly be determined
nationally. Halt of the world output is produced by multinational companies
which make investment decisions in place of the governments. Employment in a
given country is becoming increasingly dependent on the high productivity,
discipline and low real wages of the labor force, for international
investment prefers only the countries with such labor force. Full employment
has become an obsolete objective.
Despite noises of protests against protectionist pressures or measures,
tariffs of industrial goods have gone down from an average of 40 % in the
1950’s to 6% now. The volume of trade has increased annually twice as high
as the output, thus becoming the engine of economic growth. Countries which
have adapted their economies to trade liberalization and competition become
successful. But structural adjustment required by international competition
leads to the phasing out of obsolete or inefficient industries or lines of
production and to massive lay-offs.
The neo-classical economic policies based on the “smaller state” and
“non-interventionism” together with the reduced scope and efficiency of
government economic policies are perceived by the people, especially by
those who suffer unemployment and insecurity, as the gradual disappearance
of the State, or rather the maternal and protective aspects of the State.
EC countries like other countries in similar situation have to face these
challenges of the modern world. So, there is nothing special with this for
Europe, except that European workers have to compete with foreign workers in
their own countries as well. But this argument should be qualified in view
of the tact that the division of labor in the manpower market is effected on
ethnic lines, e.g. unskilled jobs left mostly for foreign workers.
Racism cannot be reduced to competition between national and foreign workers
in times of economic stagnation and unemployment. Otherwise, it would be
difficult to explain why there is no racism in other countries in similar or
even worse situation. Moreover, national workers could vent their grievances
against foreigners in more peaceful ways than beating, killing and burning
them. Let us not forget that racist incidents are not perpetrated by workers
who are supposed Co face the competition of foreigners. (31)
In the EC Europe, we have all these phenomena and something else. As we have
pointed out, Europe is heading for a political union through economic
integration. Integration is achieved through a process of transferring State
powers and prerogatives to Brussels. As a result, the Community institutions
have acquired many attributes of the State as a supranational authority.
Nevertheless, Brussels has not yet become the source of the new European
identity replacing the identities of the nation-states or embracing them.
Allegiance of individuals is still directed towards their States. Thus a
tension emerged between the center becoming depositary of State power
without primary allegiance of the peoples, and nation-states being deprived
of power but retaining the source of national identity.
Any integration into a broader entity presupposes a parallel disintegration
into smaller entities; This is what is happening in Europe for the last. 35
years on real or imaginary plane. The importance of historical regions and
the long forgotten identities of ethnic groups are on the constant rise.
They claim to be the building blocks of the new European architecture. In
other words, not only the state disappears in Europe, but the national unity
is consciously or unconsciously perceived as disintegrating into regions and
ethnic minorities.
As we have said, the disintegration of the nation-state is psychologically
identified with the disintegration of the individual identity and felt as an
extremely painful process. It is true that, at first sight, there is no
trauma which can cause regression in European peoples and trigger projection
mechanisms against outgroups. There has been no suicidal war like the First
World War> nor can we talk about the disintegration of the State in the
sense of the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire. On the contrary, Europe
is marching triumphantly towards the age-old dream of politico-economic
union, becoming one of the most powerful entities in the world. Yet the
process of integration-cum disintegration brings about a regression as
profound as only a disastrous trauma can do.
Ultra-right parties or movements emerged as a reaction to this process and
started defending the integrity and the unity of the country. These forces
seemed to be more against foreigners than separatist tendencies of the
ethnic groups. They regard foreigners as a real threat to their national
existence. At first sight, this may look bizarre. But, in democracy, respect
for human rights and freedoms may discourage attacks against ethnic groups.
The hatred one feels towards disintegrating forces can be displaced onto
foreigners. By asking tar their expulsion, one unconsciously aims at
cleansing the ethnic groups of separatist intentions and thus restoring the
lost cohesion to the country. In this respect, racism of the extreme right,
but also of the majorities in EC countries, may be a response, though
deflected and distorted, to the disintegration of the nation-state, by
putting the blame on foreigners for spoiling the purity, it not the unity of
the nation.
Racial Violence of’ the Lowest Segment of the Society
As the UN report puts it, the manifestations of xenophobia, rejection or
latent conflict are the expression of an existential discontent and have
spread throughout the country and into all social strata, threatening to
leap across the barrier into genuine, aggressive and assertive racism at any
moment. We have tried to explain above society-wide racism and its causes in
Europe.
Although a noticeable number of people from the higher strata also express
racist feelings about foreigners, such as “repulsive like bugs”, “littering
everywhere”, “soiling our country”, racial violence in many European
countries, especially in Germany, is generally manifested by the lower
strata of the society. These strata consist mainly of unemployed, dropout,
rejected and marginalized young people in a highly competitive and
compulsive society. Apparently, in the absence of an ethnic group such as
Jews who could serve as target for externalization, European peoples in
general, Germans in particular, redirected some of their projections at the
lowest strata of their societies.
In a country where a universal or Europeanized identity has replaced a
historically crippled national identity, and the State as maternal entity
(especially for this group) is disappearing, it is understandable, if not
acceptable, for the lowest segment of the the State (their parents) as
responsible for this situation might also be displaced onto the outgroup in
a regressive racist manner. It is always easier to displace one’s anger at
one’s parents onto the members of an outgroup, i.e. migrant workers. .
In this process, the racists project onto the foreigners all the accusations
their compulsive societies make towards them. They say not us but foreigners
are dirty, disorderly, lazy, ugly, lustful etc.. Nevertheless, by projecting
these qualifications onto foreigners, they don’t try to become any cleaner,
orderly, hardworking etc. They keep these negative character traits which
now constitute their identity as a result of the projections onto them by
the society and introjection by them. Instead, they put emphasis on racist
and ultra-nationalist concepts as forces binding them to the society while
maintaining their identity.
Declining Inter-European Hostility and Racism
A major objective of the European integration was to eliminate hostilities
between the European nation-states which brought about suicidal wars.
Franco-German enmity which played such an important part in German
nationalism and in the subsequent wars seems to fade away and make room for
intensive cooperation within the EC. The same development is observed in
other member countries’ relations with Germany, and in the relations between
themselves. It is quite possible that these historical feelings of hostility
between European nations which have been gradually released by the process
of European integration might be greatly displaced onto the Soviet Union
during the Cold War. It is also possible that, especially after the tall of
Communism, these rejected or redundant feelings of hatred might be
externalized onto countries where human rights violations are committed.
Perhaps, it is not a coincidence after all that most immigrants are from the
latter group of countries. Hence, foreigners in Europe might be facing
racism which partly draws on the displaced hostility onto their countries of
origin or vice versa.
Especially after the collapse of the Soviet “enemy” which served as a
stabilizing factor for the European identity by receiving projections, the
unconscious need for new enemies must be deeply felt. The tall of Communism
has different effects on different parts or the world. For example, the
ideological terrorism in Turkey turned into ethnic terrorism as soon as the
bells of doom rang for the Communist ideology in the Soviet Union. Likewise,
European nations in the process of integration may now be withdrawing their
hostile projections from the Soviet Union as the embodiment of the
anti-national Communist ideology, and reprojecting them onto groups with
growing extreme nationalism or fundamentalism, among them, Muslim ones. (33)
The Middle-East conflict has kindled for half a century profound sentiments
of hostility not only between the Muslims and the Jews, but between the
former and the Christian West. Terrorism resorted to by the weaker party has
increased the resentment and damaged the image of the Arab in the West.
Religious fundamentalism partly as a reaction to the West, partly as a
response to the disappearance of the ideological alternative to the West,
has further widened the gap of mutual misunderstandings.
It is a gimmick of history that at this moment the majority of the
foreigners living in Europe are Muslims, followers of another monotheistic
religion who replaced the Jews that had been exterminated only 50 years ago.
These foreigners, moreover, concentrated in Germany, Belgium, the
Netherlands, France and Great-Britain, countries where there have always
existed traditional forms of racism, though in varying degrees. Therefore,
there is now an intensifying interaction and overlapping between the
projections made onto Muslim groups in Europe and onto the Muslim
fundamentalist enemy image developing with respect to their countries.
Because of these developments, migrant workers in Europe display an
increasingly profound attachment to their nationalism, cultural traditions
and faith. We observe that Europeans in general and Germans in particular
can respond less and less emphatically to this basically regressive defense
of the foreigners. Indeed, their response is becoming equally, if not more,
regressive, i.e. racism. All of us have to keep in mind that assimilation of
an ethnic group is an abysmal trap that Europe has fallen several times in
the past. Since expulsion or extermination is out of the question in the
contemporary world, the only exit is to develop empathy towards foreigners.
Empathy, in turn, calls for the withdrawal of one’s projections of one’s
unwanted parts and sharing the humanity of others.
Notes
(1) cf. Les frontieres de la democratie (Chapter 10), Etienne Balibar, La
Decouverte, 1992 Paris p. 170.
(2) Ibid, p. 177.
(3) Enemies and Allies, Vamik Volkan, Jason Aronson Inc, 1988 Northvale, New
Jersey, London, p. 128.
(4) La Hairie de Soi, Theodor Lessing, berg international, Paris, 1990.
(5) Turkey in Europe and Europe in Turkey, Turgut Özal, K. Rüstem & Brother,
London, 1991, pp. 106-108.
(6) The Protestant Ethic and The Spirit of Capitalism, Max Weber, Charles
Scribner’s Sons, New York 1958, p. 105.
(7) Ibid, p. 116
(8) ibid, p. 117
(9) Germany : The Descendants are Plain Dangerous, Michael Peterson,
international Herald Tribune, 8 January 1993.
(10) Compulsive personalities tend to project their strongly repressed
desires for dirt or rejected anality and anal aggression onto others who
have no compulsive anxieties.
(11) A Storm Over Asylum, Thomas Kielinger, the European, 11 October 1991.
(12) German Nationalism, David R. Beisel, the Journal of Psychohistory,
Summer, 1980, Vol. 8, No. 1, p. 3.
(13) Ibid, p. 5.
(14) Ibid, p. 13.
(15) Ibid, p. 14.
(16) Ibid, p. 7.
(17) Ibid, p. 6.
(18) Ibid, p. 7.
(19) Ibid, p. 9.
(20) Ibid, p. 11.
(21) Ibid, p. 9.
(22) Psychohistory and the National Socialist Revolution in Symbolism,
Robert A. Pois, The Journal of Psychohistory,. Winter 1979/80, Vol. 7, No.
3, p. 309.
(23) Ibid, p. 310.
(24) Ibid, p. 312.
(25) Ibid, p. 314.
(26) Ibid, p. 315.
(27) The Late Conceptualization of the Self in Psychoanalysis: The German
Language and Jewish Identity, Stanley Rosenman, The Journal of
Psychohistory, Summer 1983, Vol.11, No.1, pp. 13—14.
(28) Ibid, pp. 16-17.
(29) Balibar, p. 183.
(30) Op. cit. Volkan, p. 131.
(31) It is important to distinguish racism from other conflicts. In the
resolutions of the Sub-Commission, we are given to understand that racism is
directed against “indigenous peoples, migrant workers, other minority and
vulnerable groups”. However, if these groups involved in a conflict with
majorities over political power, economic resources or land, we could not
always talk about racism when we refer to the treatment given by the
majority to the target group. For instance, two ethnic groups may wage an
atrocious war over a territory and commit all kinds of crimes including
ethnic cleansing. Mutual hatred thus generated looks very much like racial
hatred. Nevertheless, in this case there is “real” reason for hatred, for
mutual violence is bound to breed mutual hatred. The ideal form of racism,
however, pre-supposes the “innocence” of the target group in terms of the
absence of a conflict over a tangible asset with the rest of the society. In
its purest form, victims even do not tight back. Their very existence or
presence seems to be the only cause of racist attacks.
Although target groups do not constitute a "‘real” threat to the society,
racists genuinely perceive them as threat and try to rationalize their
racial hatred and related violence. Historically, Jews have been accused of
committing deicide, ritual child murder, poisoning wells, etc. Presently, as
in the past, members of the target group are despised as ugly, smelly,
lustful, dirty, disorderly, noisy, lazy, sinister, criminal, terrorists
etc... In the new forms of racism, “invasion” of foreigners and the
resulting economic cost and job loss for the host country peoples are added
to the list to explain racist incidents. The alleged causes of racism do not
look very convincing, and normally should not justify racist violence of
such disproportionate nature. In view of the tact that cause—effect
relationship in racist arguments is greatly missing, pseudo—causation
underlying racial hatred and violence appears one of the essential features
or racism.
(32) Günter Grass : New Germany’s Mr. Gloom, International Herald Tribune,
31 December 1992 - 1 January 1993.
(33) Turkey After the Collapse of Soviet Empire Psychopolitical
Observations, Abdulkadir Cevik, Professor of Psychiatry, University of
Ankara Medical School, Conference paper in Charlottesville - USA on 6 August
1992.
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