Apartheid

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Africans), but they are being oppressed by a society which was closely allied to the apartheid
oppressors of South Africa. Both of the latter were mostly close allies of and aided by the
USA and western Europe. The differences between the main victims are thus fairly equal in
kind.
The main perpetrators, however, are all European or of European descent. This has
some theoretical significance, because Palestinians are among the many latter-day victims to
the same racist, hegemonic idea of ‘European’ excellence and dominance that Africans (and
others) were and are. This idea is described succinctly in Edward Said’s ‘Orientalism’:
[A] collective notion identifying ‘us’ Europeans as against all ‘those’
non-Europeans, and indeed it can be argued that the major
component in European culture is precisely what made that culture
hegemonic both in and outside Europe: the idea of European identity
as a superior one in comparison with all the non-European peoples
and cultures. 665
The US Empire, which during the 20 th century took over the reins as the world’s
leading military, political and economic power from the last hegemonic European one, the
British Empire, is as connected to it as ancient Rome was to ancient Greece, if not even closer.
The North American elites today generally speak English, a European language, whereas the
Romans mainly spoke Latin, not Greek. In any case, western Europe has made sure it will not
upset the new master, again like the late ancient Greeks did not anger Rome, with a few
exceptions in both instances. In each case, the earlier hegemonic power found it relatively
easy to switch its opportunist strategy from that of a supreme oppressor to that of a privileged
collaborator, as for instance observable in the UK’s behavior in the US-led wars on Iraq and
others during the last decades. The ethnicist, hegemonic culture was also transplanted
westwards with surprising smoothness and continuity in both cases. Today, the Palestinians,
and Arabs in general, are culturally mainly victims of American, white, and western European
ethnicism.
The web of racism, cultural stereotypes, political imperialism,
dehumanizing ideology holding in the Arab or the Muslim is very
strong indeed, and it is this web which every Palestinian has come to
feel as his uniquely punishing destiny. 666
Since many Jews have worked hard and earnestly at assimilating – for instance, they
have intermarried with Europeans (but also, marginally, with others) for centuries – they
themselves have been able to ‘pass’ as Whites, and their Jewish religion as an integral part of
the ‘western’ cultural heritage. The other Semitic-speaking peoples, however, are neither
considered white, nor western, nor European. Their chief religion, Islam, comparably similar
to Christianity, and similarly intertwined historically, has not been considered part of
‘western’ or European culture. One often speaks of ‘Judeo-Christian civilization’ today
without even considering the exclusivist aspects of this expression. If labels for civilizations
must be religious, then the ‘Christian-Muslim’, ‘Islamo-Christian’, and ‘Judeo-Muslim’ or
‘Islamo-Jewish’ civilizations are in fact at least as important realities as the ‘Judeo-Christian’
one is. In fact, the expression ‘Judeo-Christian’ was hardly ever used prior to the Second
World War. Its current popularity is due to sympathy towards Jews after the Holocaust, guilt
over the Holocaust, as well as a thus far rather successful concerted attempt to create and
uphold emotional and spiritual distance and prejudice towards Islam. 667
665 2
Said 1979 (1978): 7. Said refers to Hay: Europe: The Emergence of an Idea, 1968.
666
Ibid.: 27; Löwstedt 2004
667
Nettnin: Islamo-Christian Civilization, 2005