The Orwellian Origin and Development of the Term "Anti-Semitism"
Lazy intellectual opposition to the Bush administration aside, there are very few social phenomena or dynamics that can properly be called "Orwellian". However, the history and development of the word "anti-Semitism" really is genuinely one of those Orwellian dynamic. More so, it is Orwellian in the most precise sense: it's an attempt to manipulate language in order to destroy concepts. Recent initiatives by the Muslim world and the United Nations have continued the history of the discursive manipulation that surrounds "anti-Semitism" - with the goal undoubtedly being to undermine people's abilities to express opposition to anti-Jewish bigotry.
Although evidence as to when the phrase was first coined is inconclusive, we do know that it was popularized when German Jew-Hater Wilhelm Marr used it in his "The Way to Victory of Germanicism over Judaism" as a substitute for "Jew-Hatred." Marr thought that getting people to adopt "anti-Semitism" would make demonizing Jews sound more scientific and legitimate. Marr would later go on to found the "League of Anti-Semites", creating the first German organization explicitly dedicated to the destruction of the Jewish presence in Germany.
To accomplish this task of making hating Jews respectable, "anti-Semitism" had to crowd out "Jew hating", and to that extent Marr has succeeded absolutely. It is rhetorically impossible to speak or write "Jew hater" or "Jew hatred" without sounding shrill - those phrases sound awkward to all but the most tin ears. Marr guaranteed that the only way that anyone could talk about hating Jews was to do so on terms that already stacked the deck in favor of making bigotry acceptable.
Today, the Orwellian work being done by "anti-Semitism" is done through a new strategy:
The Muslim Link, an Ottawa-based publication, is currently running a piece by a certain Minhaj Qidwai that seems taken straight out of the infamous 2001 Durban UN conference on racism. The author claims that participants in a Toronto demonstration against the Danish cartoons adopted a so-called “Toronto Resolution” which among other specious demands calls on the UN and the world “to clarify the term anti-Semitic. It should not be used only for a specific religious group rather it should include Christianity, Judaism, and Islam”.
Don't underestimate the potential consequences of this new, UN sanctioned movement. "Anti-Semitism" began as a term designed to give Jew haters a way to stack the rhetorical deck in their favor by making their bigotry seem scientific. Now that they've succeeded in crowding out any other way to talk about their bigotry, they want to manipulate word further to make it not about hating Jews at all. The project is literally Orwellian: first hating Jews becomes respectable, and then it disappears as a concept at all. If accusing someone of "Jew hatred" sounds so hysterical that just using it delegitimizes the accuser rather than the accused and now if "anti-Semitism" isn't about Jew hatred but about religious bigotry in general - then there would be literally no word or phrase left that described the world's oldest hatred. Not to be overly dramatic about it, but this project is literally an attempt to undermine people's abilities to express a concept by manipulating the language that they use to talk about it.
The battle over language to call out Jew haters as "Jew haters" has already been lost: "anti-Semitism" is the term that can really be used. That's why it's so overwhelmingly important that any attempt to dilute that term - the only term left to describe the hatred of Jews - be resisted as the Orwellian strategy that it is.
[Cross-posted at IsraPundit]
Although evidence as to when the phrase was first coined is inconclusive, we do know that it was popularized when German Jew-Hater Wilhelm Marr used it in his "The Way to Victory of Germanicism over Judaism" as a substitute for "Jew-Hatred." Marr thought that getting people to adopt "anti-Semitism" would make demonizing Jews sound more scientific and legitimate. Marr would later go on to found the "League of Anti-Semites", creating the first German organization explicitly dedicated to the destruction of the Jewish presence in Germany.
To accomplish this task of making hating Jews respectable, "anti-Semitism" had to crowd out "Jew hating", and to that extent Marr has succeeded absolutely. It is rhetorically impossible to speak or write "Jew hater" or "Jew hatred" without sounding shrill - those phrases sound awkward to all but the most tin ears. Marr guaranteed that the only way that anyone could talk about hating Jews was to do so on terms that already stacked the deck in favor of making bigotry acceptable.
Today, the Orwellian work being done by "anti-Semitism" is done through a new strategy:
The Muslim Link, an Ottawa-based publication, is currently running a piece by a certain Minhaj Qidwai that seems taken straight out of the infamous 2001 Durban UN conference on racism. The author claims that participants in a Toronto demonstration against the Danish cartoons adopted a so-called “Toronto Resolution” which among other specious demands calls on the UN and the world “to clarify the term anti-Semitic. It should not be used only for a specific religious group rather it should include Christianity, Judaism, and Islam”.
Don't underestimate the potential consequences of this new, UN sanctioned movement. "Anti-Semitism" began as a term designed to give Jew haters a way to stack the rhetorical deck in their favor by making their bigotry seem scientific. Now that they've succeeded in crowding out any other way to talk about their bigotry, they want to manipulate word further to make it not about hating Jews at all. The project is literally Orwellian: first hating Jews becomes respectable, and then it disappears as a concept at all. If accusing someone of "Jew hatred" sounds so hysterical that just using it delegitimizes the accuser rather than the accused and now if "anti-Semitism" isn't about Jew hatred but about religious bigotry in general - then there would be literally no word or phrase left that described the world's oldest hatred. Not to be overly dramatic about it, but this project is literally an attempt to undermine people's abilities to express a concept by manipulating the language that they use to talk about it.
The battle over language to call out Jew haters as "Jew haters" has already been lost: "anti-Semitism" is the term that can really be used. That's why it's so overwhelmingly important that any attempt to dilute that term - the only term left to describe the hatred of Jews - be resisted as the Orwellian strategy that it is.
[Cross-posted at IsraPundit]
