Achille Mbembe

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Achille Mbembe (2015)
Awarded the Geschwister-Scholl-Prize 2015

Joseph-Achille Mbembe (born July 1957 in Malande ) is a Cameroonian historian , political scientist and theorist of post-colonialism .

Life

Mbembe comes from the Bassa people . He was taught in a Dominican boarding school before he began studying in 1978 at the University of Yaoundé , in the capital of Cameroon. During school and university he was responsible for the Jeunesse estudiante chrétienne (JE), among other things as the person responsible for the magazine of the Au Large movement . His studies were not only interrupted by strikes against the authoritarian regimes of Cameroon's President Ahmadou Ahidjo and his successor Paul Biya until 1982 , but they also allowed Mbembe to get to know all of Cameroon, including the English-speaking West and the Muslim North. There he took part in literacy campaigns for the rural population, particularly in the vicinity of Maroua , the large trading center in northern Cameroon. Further trips took Mbembe, for example, to the Tanzania of President Julius Nyerere and introduced him to the local form of socialism , Ujamaa .

Studies and teaching

Mbembe studied from 1982 at the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and received his doctorate there in 1989 in history. He completed his training at the Institut d'études politiques de Paris with the Diplôme d'études approfondies (DEA). Since his Paris years Mbembe has published in the left-liberal and decidedly left-wing press, for example in Le Monde diplomatique or today in the young Marxist world , at whose annual Rosa Luxemburg Conference he participated as a speaker. In Paris, Jean-François Bayart was his spiritual mentor , who opened the magazine Politique africaine to his ideas of a “politics from below”.

He then went to Columbia University in New York as an assistant for three years in 1986 . This was followed by a year in Washington, DC at the Brookings Institution before going to the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania . During his stay in the United States , he taught at the University of California, Berkeley , Yale University in New Haven , Connecticut and Duke University in Durham , North Carolina . In 1996 Mbembe was appointed to the Council for the Development of Social Science Research (CODESRIA) based in Dakar , Senegal . He left this facility in 2000 disappointed with the internal ideological trench warfare.

In 2001 he started working at the newly established Institute of Social and Economic Research (WISER) at the Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg in South Africa .

In 2019 Mbembe held a series of lectures as an Albertus Magnus Professor at the University of Cologne .

His writings have been translated into Arabic, German, English, Dutch, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish and other languages.

Scientific positions

His main research interests are philosophy , African history , postcolonial studies, and political and social sciences.

Africa as a projection

His most important work to date is the book De la postcolonie , published in 2000 . Essai sur l'imagination politique dans l'Afrique contemporaine (German: Postkolonie. On the political imagination in contemporary Africa ). In this text, Mbembe argues that the academic and popular discourse about Africa is caught in a multitude of clichés that are tied to Western fantasies and fears (ibid., P. 3). Based on Frantz Fanon and Sigmund Freud , Mbembe takes the view that this representation is not a reflection of a real Africa, but an unconscious projection that is tied to guilt, denial and the compulsion to repeat. Like James Ferguson, Valentin-Yves Mudimbe and others, Mbembe does not interpret Africa as a defined, isolated place, but as a tense relationship between himself and the rest of the world that takes place simultaneously on a political, psychological, semiotic and sexual level.

Necropolitics as an extension of Foucault's bio-power

Mbembe claims that Michel Foucault's concept of bio-power as a structure of disciplinary power and bio- politics is no longer sufficient to explain these contemporary forms of submission. Foucault's concepts of sovereign power and bio-power, Mbembe adds the term “necropolitics”, which goes beyond the mere “inscription of bodies in disciplinary apparatus”. Using the examples of Palestine, Africa and Kosovo, Mbembe analyzes how the power of sovereignty comes into effect through the creation of zones of death in which death becomes the ultimate exercise of domination and the primary form of resistance.

Globalization as a universal story

In his work Critique de la raison nègre (German: Critique of Black Reason ) Mbembe analyzes the emergence of Western capitalism from the transatlantic slave trade and its further development in the context of globalization , which takes place in the same spirit. The prerequisite for exploitation in the millions is the linguistic preparation and dehumanization of those being exploited. That is why Mbembe consciously uses the words race and negro, which have been rejected by anti-racists around the world . They are "real fictions", racist constructions that nonetheless determine the real world.

Anti-Semitism debate 2020

Mbembe was due to give the opening speech for the Ruhrtriennale on August 14, 2020 . On March 24, 2020, Lorenz Deutsch ( FDP North Rhine-Westphalia ) asked to unload him: Mbembe supported the essentially anti-Semitic BDS movement ; he compares Israel's domestic policy with the apartheid system of South Africa and this with the Holocaust ; he put "today's Jews of Israel in the logic of the overall argument in place of the National Socialist , white criminals". His appearance contradicts the decision of the state parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia not to sponsor BDS supporters. Felix Klein , the Federal Government’s anti-Semitism commissioner , added: Mbembe had relativized the Holocaust and questioned Israel’s right to exist . His appearance would damage North Rhine-Westphalia politically, since the state co-finances the Triennale.

On this occasion certain texts of Mbembé were debated. As early as 1992, he had placed the Holocaust in the history of colonialism and accused Israel of taking “the place of the murderers” in its Palestinian policy. The God of the Jews is a vengeance god. It remained unclear whether he meant by the "occupation of Palestine" the Jewish settlement before 1948, the establishment of the state or the "occupied territories" of 1967. In his book Politics of Enmity (2013) he wrote: “In the colonial context, the permanent separation and thus differentiation work was partly the result of the fear of annihilation felt by the colonists. […] The apartheid regime in South Africa and - on a completely different scale and in a different context - the extermination of European Jews are two emblematic manifestations of this madness of separation. ”In the foreword to the book“ Apartheid Israel ”(2015), Mbembe wrote about the occupation Palestine is "the greatest moral scandal of our time", "one of the most dehumanizing tortures" of the present and "the greatest act of cowardice of the last half century." go". Therefore it is time for the "global isolation" of Israel.

Felix Klein found it “at least misleading” to interpret the apartheid system and the Holocaust ideologically one after the other as “emblematic manifestations of a fantasy of separation”. With this, Mbembe relativizes the uniqueness of the Holocaust . Alan Posener ( Die Welt ) described Mbembe's statements as a structural problem of postcolonial studies and described him as a hater of Israel and a Holocaust relativist . The triennial was canceled at the end of April 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany . Patrick Bahners (FAZ) also called for a clear distance from Mbembe afterwards.

Mbembe said he had "no relationship whatsoever with BDS" but refused to cooperate with any institution or person involved in violations of international law or human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. This has nothing to do with anti-Semitism and denying Israel's right to exist. A criticism of colonialism and racism also has nothing to do with relativizing the Holocaust. He rejects anti-Semitism, all forms of racism and dehumanization out of deep conviction and therefore asked whether it was in Germany's interest to suspect voices from previously colonized countries “in at least a reckless way”. That could split and weaken the necessary common struggle. To call him a "Holocaust relativizer" hurt him deeply. It expresses the view that he is just an anti-Semitic “negro”. Mbembe explained to his supporters that he was "the object of completely baseless, insane and devious attacks by the right-wing and extreme right in Germany ". Lorenz Deutsch invented the "diabolical idea" that he, Mbembe, was an "anti-Semitic Negro" in order not to admit that he was rejecting a black African and anti-colonial theses at the Triennale. Since Felix Klein criticized him on behalf of the German state, Klein had to apologize publicly to him. He will demand that of him until the end of his life.

The Israeli sociologist Moshe Zuckermann defended Mbembe on the grounds that a distinction had to be made between anti-Zionism , anti-Semitism and criticism of Israel. The philosopher Susan Neiman and the cultural scientist Aleida Assmann considered Mbembe's comparison of apartheid with the Holocaust to be permissible and did not see it as a Holocaust relativization. Stephan Detjen ( Deutschlandfunk ) said on May 23, 2020, Klein is trying to “ban an internationally renowned scientist from a German discourse area”.

On April 30, 37 Jewish and Israeli scholars and artists declared their solidarity with Mbembe and demanded that Felix Klein be removed from office. On May 1, in an international appeal for solidarity, some scholars rejected the charge that Mbembe was an anti-Semite and played down the Holocaust; one wants to disavow him with the help of manipulatively distorted quotations and contents. In a letter to Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel and Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier (May 18), 700 signatories described the anti-Semitism allegations against Mbembe as "inadmissible political instrumentalization" of the Holocaust and alleged that the allegations were made by "right-wing extremist, conservative and racist groups" .

On the other hand, the Scholars for Peace in the Middle East initiative , to which around 50,000 scholars belong, supported Felix Klein's criticism of Mbembbe's statements about Israel with an open letter: It complies with the Bundestag resolution on BDS of 2017 and the definition of anti-Semitism of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) . Mbembe is not about free speech, but rather about hate speech . Groups like BDS tried unsuccessfully to differentiate anti-Zionism from anti-Semitism in order to play down their own racist policies. Federal Interior Minister Horst Seehofer , Uwe Becker ( German-Israeli Society ), Josef Schuster ( Central Council of Jews in Germany ) and Israel's ambassador Jeremy Issacharoff also criticized Mbembbe's comparison of Israel with the apartheid system as anti-Semitic and defended Felix Klein.

In 2018 Mbembe and the Israeli psychology professor Shifra Sagy were due to appear at a conference in South Africa on the subject of trauma from colonialism and racism. According to several reports, Mbembe and other BDS supporters put pressure on the organizers to get them off Sagy again. Sagy and her students wanted to present the project "Empathy towards the Other" for reconciliation work between Israelis and Palestinians at the conference. Despite Mbembbe's action, Sagy pleaded in 2020 to let him speak in Germany.

Jürgen Kaube ( Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung ) called Mbembe's statement that he had nothing to do with BDS "lied" and pointed out that sales of the book from 2015 were intended for a BDS founding organization and Mbembe at the time called for a boycott of Israel-funded scholars Had signed conferences. In the context of the controversial book passage, Mbembe does not specifically name the carriers of the separation and extermination wishes. The differences between their varieties are insignificant to him. But it is not the same whether a fence only separates residential areas or nations or locks people up in an extermination camp , whether "separation" or extermination is planned. Mbembe describes Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories unilaterally, for example as "generalized camp detention", without mentioning the wars of aggression, terrorist attacks or threats against Israel since 1948. For him, Israel’s violence is much worse than the earlier one in South Africa, because he believes Israel intends to exterminate the Palestinians. To this end, he cites BDS supporters such as Judith Butler and Jacqueline Rose , for whom Israel is an illegitimate, violent and racist entity. By essentially equating separation and annihilation, Mbembe gives up discernment in favor of "blatant indignation". In addition, he explains the common desire for destruction in various ideologies from the biblical principle of "an eye for an eye " and thus blames Judaism for it, without taking into account that the biblical Talion was supposed to curb the destructiveness of vengeance. In another text, Mbembe describes Judaism as a group defined by blood and soil and then remarked that the Jews had “ as we know, paid the price for it in the middle of Europe”. The interpretation of the Holocaust as a reaction to being Jewish is similar to Ernst Nolte's argument .

The anti-Semitism researcher Monika Schwarz-Friesel emphasized, “Even 10,000 signatures cannot deny the fact that Mbembe has written irresponsibly texts with classic topoi of hostility towards Jews”. His texts showed "with surreal analogies and emotional superlatives characteristics of such usage patterns" that are typical of current Israel-related anti-Semitism. Criticism of it was always followed by the same, well-researched defense strategies. Mbembe portrays himself “more and more vehemently and irrationally as a victim of 'German racism'”, he goes into the perpetrator-victim reversal and calls his critics “ Pharisees ” and “ Zealots ” (well-known swear words for Jews), use this with anti-Semites inflationary catchphrase “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”, accused the Jewish state of apartheid “worse than in South Africa”, accused it of “fanatical extermination” and demanded its “worldwide isolation”. There is no trace of serious science in these superlatives and explosive metaphors.

Political scientist Claus Leggewie regretted the outcome of the Mbembe debate. The Holocaust, racism and colonialism can hardly be discussed objectively. It should be carefully examined whether one can speak of “a forerunner of the Holocaust in colonialism and its aftermath in today's contexts”. He hoped that in the end there would be mutual opposition to the indisputable main enemy, white suprematism .

Personal

Mbembe is married to the literary and cultural scientist Sarah Nuttall , who is also a professor at Johannesburg Witwatersrand University. The two have two children.

Awards

Publications

Monographs

  • Brutalism. Éditions la Découverte, Paris 2020, ISBN 978-2-348-05749-6 .
  • Critique de la raison nègre. Éditions la Découverte, Paris 2013, ISBN 978-2-7071-7747-6 . German translation by Michael Bischoff : Critique of Black Reason. Suhrkamp, ​​Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-518-58614-3 .
  • Politiques de l'inimitié. Éditions la Découverte, Paris 2013, ISBN 978-2-7071-7747-6 . German translation by Michael Bischoff: Politics of Enmity. Suhrkamp Berlin, Berlin 2017, ISBN 978-3-518-75424-5 .
  • Sortir de la grande nuit. Essai sur l'Afrique décolonisée. Éditions la Découverte, Paris 2013, ISBN 978-2-7071-6670-8 . German translation by Michael Bischoff: Exit from the long night. Attempt on a decolonized Africa. Suhrkamp, ​​Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-518-58691-4 .
  • De la postcolonie. Essai sur l'imagination politique dans l'Afrique contemporaine. 2nd revised edition, Karthala, Paris 2005. German translation by Brita Pohl: Postkolonie. On the political imagination in contemporary Africa. Turia + Kant, Vienna / Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-85132-781-6 .
  • You gouvernement privé indirect. Codesria, Dakar 1999
  • La naissance du maquis dans le Sud-Cameroun, 1920–1960: histoire des usages de la raison en colonie. Karthala, Paris 1996
  • Afriques indociles. Christianisme, pouvoir et état en société postcoloniale. Karthala, Paris 1988
  • Les Jeunes et l'ordre politique en Afrique noire. Éditions L'Harmattan, Paris 1985

Cooperation

Associate Editor

Preface

Newspaper articles

  • Israel, les Juifs et nous. In: Le Messager: journal d'information et de débat , Douala , April 1992 ( ZDB-ID 2171823-4).

Web links

Commons : Achille Mbembe  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See for example: Hans-Christoph Zimmermann, The dream of perfect security, in: Junge Welt, May 14, 2019.
  2. ↑ https://amp.phil-fak.uni-koeln.de/professorinnen/2019-achille-mbembe
  3. ↑ https://portal.uni-koeln.de/universitaet/aktuell/presseinformationen/detail/postkolonialismus-theoretiker-achille-mbembe-ist-albertus-magnus-professor-2019
  4. ^ Sybille Wüstemann: Dr. Achille Mbembe receives the Gerda Henkel Prize 2018. In: idw-online.de. June 11, 2018, accessed June 11, 2018 .
  5. ↑ 34
  6. ↑ Sign In . Retrieved October 4, 2016.
  7. ↑ Achille Mbembe: Critique of Black Reason. Suhrkamp, ​​Berlin 2014. See Detlev Claussen : Vordenker des Postkolonialismus: Real Fiktionen . taz of February 22, 2015; Ijoma Mangold : Racism: How racist is the West . In: Die Zeit from April 29, 2020, p. 45.
  8. ↑ Again allegations of hostility towards Israel. In: Jüdische Allgemeine. March 26, 2020, accessed April 13, 2020 .
  9. ^ Protest against the appearance of Mbembe. Jewish General, April 17, 2020
  10. ↑ a b Jürgen Kaube: Anti-Semitism Debate: Who Lynched Achille Mbembe? FAZ, May 10, 2020
  11. ↑ a b Aleida Assmann and Susan Neiman on the Mbembe cause: Repairing the world without relativizing. Deutschlandfunk, April 26, 2020
  12. ↑ Sabine Peschel: Anti-Semitism Debate: Controversy about Achille Mbembe: Did the historian play down the Holocaust? Deutsche Welle, April 29, 2020
  13. ↑ The Causa Achille Mbembe: Serious allegations and dispute over some text passages. René Aguigah in conversation with Felix Klein and Andrea Gerk. Deutschlandfunk, April 21, 2020
  14. ↑ Alan Posener: Achille Mbembe at Ruhrtriennale: It's enough with the tax-financed hatred of Israel! Welt online, April 18, 2020
  15. ↑ Patrick Bahners: The Achille Mbembe case: How do you recognize scientific anti-Semitism? FAZ, April 23, 2020
  16. ↑ Achille Mbembe replies to critics: "This assumption hits me in my soul". Deutschlandfunk, April 22, 2020; further answers: Achille Mbembe: Anti-Semitism: Repairing the world. Die Zeit, April 22nd, 2020 (chargeable); Claude Paul Tjeg: Accusé d'antisémitisme en Allemagne, Achille Mbembe (intellectuel camerounais) répond à ses accusateurs. Cameroon-Info.net, May 8, 2020
  17. ↑ Achille Mbembe: Mbembe on the accusation of anti-Semitism: "Gigantic defamation campaign". taz, May 11, 2020
  18. ↑ Moshe Zuckermann on the debate about Mbembe: "Anti-Zionism, anti-Semitism and criticism of Israel are three pairs of shoes". Deutschlandfunk, April 25, 2020
  19. ↑ Anti-Semitism officer as a discursive gatekeeper. Deutschlandfunk.de, May 23, 2020
  20. ↑ Anti-Semitism: The dispute over the philosopher Achille Mbembe reaches politics.
  21. ↑ campaign. New Germany, May 5, 2020
  22. ↑ Anti-Semitism Debate: Damage to Freedom of Expression. Süddeutsche Zeitung, May 18, 2020
  23. ↑ Benjamin Weinthal: 50.000 scholar NGO slams 'anti-Semitic' BDS prof, supports German rep.. Jerusalem Post, May 6, 2020
  24. ↑ Ben Cohen: Despite Passionate Defense of 'Academic Freedom,' Scholar at Center of German Antisemitism Row Campaigned to Exclude Israeli Professors. The Algemeiner, May 4, 2020; Benjamin Weinthal: 'Antisemitic' academic pushed for boycott of Israeli professors in 2018. Jerusalem Post, May 6, 2020
  25. ↑ Anti-Semitism allegations: "Mbembe should not be treated as he treated us". Welt online, May 14, 2020
  26. ↑ Jürgen Kaube: Allegations against Achille Mbembe: Everything in one pot. FAZ, April 20, 2020
  27. ^ "Suggestions for Improvement" for Jews? A dangerous hubris. HaGalil , May 18, 2020
  28. ^ In the tumult of self-confident answers. Friday, May 22nd, 2020
  29. ^ Wits all the Wiser for its vital literary couple | The Mail & Guardian. Retrieved June 22, 2020 (en-ZA).
  30. ^ Geschwister-Scholl-Prize 2005: Achille Mbembe. In: Geschwister-Scholl-Preis.de . Retrieved May 18, 2018 .
  31. ↑ Achille Mbembe receives Ernst Bloch Prize. In: boersenblatt.net . May 18, 2018, accessed May 18, 2018 .
  32. ↑ Christiane Habermalz: Achille Mbembe: "The West carries a millstone of guilt" , Deutschlandfunk Kultur , October 9, 2018
  33. ↑ Albertus Magnus Professorship 2019. Accessed December 10, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Mbembe, Achille
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mbembe, Joseph-Achille (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Cameroonian political scientist and author
DATE OF BIRTH July 1957
PLACE OF BIRTH Malande near Otélé , Cameroon