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Beyond Victimhood : German Muslims and the Minority Question after the Holocaust
Author(s): Doughan, Sultan; Brusius, Mirjam Sarah
Date: 2022
Topics: Holocaust Commemoration, Jewish - Muslim Relations, Islam, Immigration, Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial, Minorities, National Identity, Attitudes to Jews
Abstract: In her research, Sultan Doughan shows how the memory of the Holocaust is mobilized in tolerance education and extremism prevention as a means of integrating Muslims into German society. Yet while the German government invests in memorials and museums that commemorate the Holocaust, Doughan argues, it also extricates itself from current forms of violence. Holocaust commemoration as a European project is part of a triumphalist narrative that presents Vergangenheitsbewältigung as a successful transition to liberal democracy—a reality that minoritizes and racializes Middle Easterners as Muslims. In this interview with historian Mirjam Sarah Brusius, anthropologist Sultan Doughan examines how Middle Easterners in Germany relate to the figure of the Jew. Muslims and Jews operate in this governed structure as opposing figures who must be religious and historical enemies. While both have clearly assigned roles in German public discourse, Doughan approaches their historical and contemporary positionalities beyond clear-cut concepts of Opferkonkurrenz, and thus rethinks this discourse and points to past and future alliances.