ACLU-Open-Letter-to-U.S.-College-and-University-Presidents-Embargoed-PDF

The Islamophobia today reminds me of post-9/11, but the fear in the US today is not from Iraqi Anthrax, Iraqi nuclear weapons, „the terrrorists“, but fear of other Americans, from those others, from the political and intellectual polarization which shows no sign of abating. In 2001-2003 when the US National Guard was stationed on the Golden Gate Bridge there was open discussion of people afraid to cross bridges, afraid to travel near national landmarks, for fear of The Terrorists™. I remember family members afraid to travel to central Philadelphia for fear of the Anthrax that might be sprayed by Iraqi drones launched by the Iraqi Atlantic fishing fleet prowling just off the coast. The potential threats as explained to me were absolutely laughable, however the fear was very real: a mushroom cloud might only be minutes away for many. Americans angrily and fearfully called for revenge on the Iraqis who, while perhaps not having anything to do with 9/11, seemed to hate us for our freedoms.

Today I don’t feel a German fear of Palestinians when Berlin police rip down posters, just as last night when the Kurfürstendamm was lined with police — I thought for a bit that there were more police vans than there were demonstrators until I saw the mass of largely women and younger people — the sense I get is that Germans aren’t afraid of demonstrators with Palestinian flags any more than they are afraid of college-age kids with buckets of orange paint. The flags and the paint are not approved, however, thus making their carriers other, and so fair game for attack and abuse, like the Letzte Generation young woman thrown by a policeman to the pavement on Monday.

Lashing out in fear, having a helpless population to visit rejection on, seems a way to take some sort of action as well, both in Germany and the US. Universal fears, about the destruction of the planet’s ability to sustain human civilization, fear of the out of control concentration of wealth, fear of escalating numbers of immigrants, have some outlet.