In The World After Gaza, Pankaj Mishra looks at the Israel-Palestine conflict since October 7, 2023 within a postcolonial framework. The reviews for the book were mixed. Not in the traditional sense though. The divided verdict reflects deep cleavages in our societies.
Germany is a central actor in Mishra’s book and occupies one chapter, which to me was the most illuminating part. This is mainly because I went to school in the 1990s, the decade in which the Shoah became perhaps the defining part of post-unification Germany’s national identity, leading to the Staatsräson – Germany’s a steadfast commitment to Israel rooted in Germany’s responsibility for the Holocaust.
Mishra introduced me to the term philosemitism, which denotes a kind of unreflected love or affection for all things related to Jewish life that in fact often borrows from racist and antisemitic tropes and originated in postwar West Germany’s largely non-denazified elite. (It was about seven times less likely to be trialed for Nazi crimes in postwar West Germany than in East Germany.)
The book has also been translated into German and was largely met with negative (annihilating?) criticism. In a way, this might be a vindication for Mishra: his postcolonial account of the War in Gaza must ruffle feathers given given postcolonialism’s foundational positions on the Israel-Palestine conflict. This goes all the way back to the founding father of the field, Edward Said, himself a Palestinian who frequently wrote about the conflict.
The negative reviews are also reflective of the more marginal character of postcolonial studies in Germany. As opposed to the US, where it is a recognized academic discipline (currently facing a huge backlash of course), in Germany it is mainly regarded as a peripheral protest debate.
There is generally a reluctance in Germany to use the holocaust in a comparative framework, e.g., to understand German pre-war colonial history in Africa. This is what M. Gessen had to contend with when their Hannah Arendt Prize was withdrawn after one of their New Yorker articles took issue with this what many believe is a lopsided Erinnerungskultur – “memory culture”.
Meanwhile, reviews in English speaking media are much more mixed and range from positive (NYT, Guardian, etc.) to predictably extremely negative (WSJ). There is also a review here that smashes the book from a somewhat unexpected angle.
So what is happening in Germany? I think there is a growing estrangement between the various narratives of the conflict. Large parts of the established social-cultural discourse view postcolonial studies with skepticism (just sample some of the articles here).
Meanwhile, progressive forces (derogatorily bundled as propagating so-called “Wokismus” – isn’t the German language beautiful) are more aligned with the perhaps less constrained and increasingly Global South driven critical discourse.
Meanwhile, to add an additional twist, the extreme right, not just in Germany but also elsewhere, are becoming staunch supporters of Israel, in a grotesque flashback of West German philosemitism, as well as a latent anti-Islam ideology underpinning their movements.
I cannot comment on the representation of the conflict in the media given my limited diet of German news sources. But a quick search found that the Frankfurter Rundschau, among other papers, has easily accessible interviews with M. Gessen, Nancy Fraeser and Pankaj Mishra. I also note that Mishra’s books and positions have been amply covered in German media, often favorably (unless it seems, he writes about the Israel-Palestine conflict…).
Perhaps reflecting my SOAS academic upbringing, I have a soft spot for postcolonial studies, although I do recognize some of its limitations. Far from being ideological or divisive, I think it represents a necessary reckoning with the West’s imperial past that expands rather than restricts intellectual freedom, challenges entrenched hierarchies, and fosters a more honest, inclusive understanding of global history.
