Aryan supremacy reigns supreme in Switzerland

You must have heard that the open-minded people of Switzerland took to the polls last weekend to ban minarets – in a country where there are only four of them.

These days, the global news is full of stories and commentaries about this apparently democratic, yet shockingly illiberal decision. But if you really want to understand the undercurrents that led the majority of the Swiss society to this unbelievable point, I would suggest watching a 1940 film, “Der Ewige Jude.”

This was an anti-Semitic “documentary” produced by Fritz Hippler, who, under Joseph Goebbels, ran the film department in the Propaganda Ministry of the Third Reich. The 62-minute film, whose title means “The Eternal Jew,” was made to convince its German audience that Jews were dangerous creatures who, simply by their existence, threatened the civilized society of the Aryan peoples.

Aryan aesthetics

Aesthetics was at the basis of the “Der Ewige Jude” argument. The movie presented extended scenes about life in Polish ghettos, focusing on the long hair, beards, skull caps and caftans of Orthodox Jews. Contrasting these Eastern-looking people with the blond, blue-eyed and heavily muscled German athletes, the film argued that there is a fundamental gap of values between the two.

“The Nordic concept of beauty,” it said, “is completely incomprehensible to the Jew.” The latter, according to the script, were “dirty” people who enjoyed living in “bug-infested homes.”

To further emphasize the argument of incivility, the film also focused on the Jewish religious practice of kosher slaughtering, in which animals are bled to death. “Their so-called religion prevents the Jews from eating meat butchered in the ordinary way,” the narrator noted, remarking on how dreadfully different this was from the “well-known German love of animals.”

“Der Ewige Jude” was not speaking without “evidence.” It “proved” all its arguments with carefully selected facts. When it argued, for example, that Jews are compelled by their “so-called religion” to hate and conspire against non-Jews, the film quoted a few passages from the Jewish scriptures that indeed said harsh things about the gentiles.

Finally, the film focused on current events of the era. It told how Jews were multiplying rapidly among the Aryan peoples, polluting their clean living spaces. “They spread from Eastern Europe like an irresistible tide,” it warned, “flooding the towns and nations of Europe.”

That was the year 1940. And we all know what tragically happened in the next five years.

Now, if you want to understand why all this Nazi madness is relevant to today, you just need to replace the word “Jew” in the paragraphs above with the word “Muslim.” You will get a narrative very similar to that told by the nascent anti-Islamic movement in Europe, including the Swiss People’s Party, the main champion of the recent minaret ban.

Of course, this parallelism has its limits. First, I should note that I do not, by any means, foresee a “Muslim Holocaust” coming. Probably no European nation will ever go that insane again, at least in the foreseeable future. Moreover, there are differences between the sources of the anti-Judaism of the early 20th century and the anti-Islamism of today.

The Jews had become the focus of Nazi hatred simply because of the latter’s vicious ideology. In the current hatred against Muslims, though, one has to acknowledge the part played by the reaction to some of the nasty stuff done in the name of Islam: terrorism perpetrated or inspired by Al-Qaeda, violent protests against satirical cartoons, the repression of women in some Muslim communities, etc., etc.

Yet, still, one needs the contribution of racism and xenophobia to move on from these serious problems among Muslims to go against Islam as such, and against all of its believers. The overwhelming majority of Europe’s Muslims are in fact peaceful and law-abiding people who are just trying to make ends meet. Banning the very symbol of their place of worship means telling them: “Hey, in our eyes, you are all dangerous. Your mere existence here is our problem.”

Yet another Semitic people to hate

I know this mindless paranoia well, because we have a similar problem in Turkey with the Turkish racists. They despise the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, for its indeed despicable acts of terrorism. But then they channel their reaction toward all Kurds, not really looking at whether they really support the PKK or not, and moreover, not asking why those who support the PKK do so.

“The problem,” their motto reads, “is simply the Kurds themselves.”

Turkish racism is ugly, to be sure, but so is the Swiss one. The core problem in the latter belief, as I said, renders down to the old idea of Aryan supremacy – the idea that European Nordic people, and their “civilized” way of life, are inherently superior to those of the Eastern Semites, who are “polluting” it.

In other words, anti-Semitism, an aptly coined term, continues. In 1940, the hated Semites were the Orthodox Jews whose darker skins, strange food, “dirty” beards, skull caps and long caftans were enough to make them deplorable to the Nazis.

In 2009, apparently, the hated Semites are now the Orthodox Muslims, whose darker skins, strange food, “dirty” beards, skull caps, long caftans, and, as a novelty, headscarves and chadors, are the problem.

Just too bad to be true.