Reading and discussion with Ernst Schmiederer (Vienna)
in German
Photo: Götz Schrage
Under the sign of Corona, too many have almost forgotten: Day after day people disappear from our midst. People who try to live a life in dignity and security in Austria are locked up in detention pending deportation – even to Afghanistan, even though war and violence prevail there.
Nawid Naderi is one of these displaced persons, a wanderer. He was born an Afghan 22 years ago with the mark of Cain of the “uninsurable”, as Achille Mbembe calls it. On Europe’s borders, according to the political scientist and historian from Cameroon, a distinction is made “between a life that is worth insuring and a life (…) that can be abandoned or is useless”. While the world is open to us, the insurable, and a cosmopolitan life is a realistic option, they, the uninsurable, must “stay where they are” in this deadly logic.
In August 2019 Nawid fled to France because Austria wanted to get rid of him after four years. Now he is wandering through Europe. And tries to stay in contact with his friends in Austria. Austrian politics has not changed in the meantime. Just as if turquoise blue still ruled.
Ernst Schmiederer presents his “book for a wandering friend”, the two volumes WE. HERE AND NOW as well as his project of a “narrative democracy”. He is committed to refugees and the right to stay here. For many years he has been collecting and publishing the “Berichte aus dem neuen OE” as well as the “Geschichten der Gegenwart” (edition IMPORT/EXPORT). Ernst Schmiederer was an editor at the news magazine “profil”, also reported as a U.S. correspondent for the Swiss magazine “Facts” from New York, wrote a lot for “Die Zeit” and published about the tax avoidance models of the big corporations (“Asocial Market Economy”).
An event of the Jewish Museum Hohenems in cooperation with the Hohenems City Library
ORT Hohenems Library
Marktstraße 1a, Pfarrheim St. Karl, 6845 Hohenems
Reservation required: T +43 (0)5576 72312-14 | info@buecherei-hohenems.at
What was ‘Project Europe’ and what has become of it? And what will become of it? Has the European Union drifted apart even further in times of alarming global challenges—posed not solely by the Corona pandemic—instead of moving closer together? Are national interests increasingly pitted against European solutions?
Against the background of these questions, the Jewish Museum Hohenems looks at Jewish individuals who in the face of Europe’s devastations and the attempted annihilation of the European Jews in the 20th century transcended national and cultural borders, demanded anew the universal application of human rights, and vigorously pursued a European dream. Based on their commitment to a united and peaceful Europe, the exhibition examines at the same time the renewed threats.
For this look at European utopias and disenchantments, the exhibition starts off by recalling the powerlessness and by looking back on the history of violence of the 20th century, on wars, genocides, and civil wars in Europe and under the banner of European colonialism.
The European project has seen itself also as a comprehensive peace project not only in view of the almost inconceivable sacrifices the boundless violence of Europe’s “civilized” societies had exacted. Nowadays, the EU increasingly emerges as a defensive alliance, limited to security and economic interests. Is Europe, therefore, doomed to fail?
Reservation required:
T +43(0)5576 73989 | E-Mail: office@jm-hohenems.at
If the booking is heavy, the tour will be conducted twice in a row.
Lecture and discussion with Micha Brumlik (Berlin)
Photo: Ilse Paul, 2016
In Europe, and not least in the German capital, a fundamental dispute has flared up: namely, whether anti-Semitism and Islamophobia can be compared with each other. Conservative forces, but also the strengthened right-wing populists have shot their way into the Jewish Museum Berlin and the Center for Research on Anti-Semitism, also located in Berlin: both institutions are accused of collaborating with Islamist anti-Jewish enemies. In doing so, they are working entirely along the lines of a “contact guilt” pattern, which was most recently effective in the USA at the time of the persecution of actual and alleged “communists” under Senator Mc Carthy.
Micha Brumlik discusses this public denunciation of every critical discussion of European Islamophobia, as well as every criticism of Israeli politics, as a case study of the fatal instrumentalization of Jews and Israelis. In the context of an ideology of the “Christian-Jewish Occident”, the newly discovered love for Israel apparently serves above all to exclude migrants and legitimize resentment.
Micha Brumlik taught as professor of educational science in Heidelberg, then in Frankfurt am Main. Born in Davos as a child of Jewish refugees, he now lives and works as a publicist in Berlin.
In the early 1980s, Micha Brumlik was one of the founders of the Jewish Group Frankfurt and the magazine Babylon. From 2000 to 2005 he headed the Fritz Bauer Institute in Frankfurt. He is co-editor of the Blätter für deutsche und internationale Politik. His most recent publications include Wann, wenn nicht jetzt? Versuch über die Gegenwart des Judentums (2015), Demokratie und Bildung (2018), Hegels Juden. Reformer, Sozialisten, Zionisten (2019).
With reservation only: T +43(0)5576 73989 | E-Mail: office@jm-hohenems.at
Participation in the event is also possible on Zoom. Please indicate on registration if you would like to participate personally or on Zoom.
The number of seats in the museum is limited.
Location Jewish Museum Hohenems AND on Zoom
Schweizer Str. 5, 6845 Hohenems
