Response to Sentletse Diakanyo: “Jews do wield immense power and influence”
Dear Sentletse,
There’s a big difference between saying Jews are an influential minority (which they are) and claiming that Jewish money “controls” the Western world (which it does not). The minister said the latter, not the former. You, deliberately it seems, obfuscate the two.
Also, saying that Jews control the Western world is not a critique of Israel, but a hateful caricature of Jews. You are, therefore, abusing Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu’s comments about the sensitivities of some to critique when you use it to defend the minister’s statements.
What the minister said, and you defended, is the kind of propaganda that got pogroms going in the Middle Ages and placed the Third Reich on the road to the Final Solution. An ethnic/religious minority is generalised as the source of all problems and its logical corollary — that one can deal with those problems by somehow “dealing” with that group — is not far away.
It’s not quite on the same level as “kill the boer, kill the farmer” or threatening to “eliminate” the opposition, but it’s the kind of hatefulness that has so often created the conditions under which those guys with the dark glasses and trench coats get the upper hand and the innocents start piling up in heaps.
Words have consequences. That is why the Germans speak of “schreibtischtaeter”: people who were innocent of killing Jews, gays or Gypsies in person, but who contributed to the Holocaust through their writing.
Yours is the kind of rhetoric and frivolous polemic, Sentletse, that we South Africans have come to expect from our politicians and I am saddened when I see an intelligent young person like yourself follow their example. More so when so many readers, presumably also young and intelligent, agree with you, as was indicated by their comments on your piece. Our country needs responsible young role models.
And now I would like to digress somewhat. Mark Weber, the man you quote so approvingly, became quite explicit about his hatred for Jews in an article about the Anglo-Boer War (). Here he explains how the war was caused by the “boundless greed of the Jewish ‘gold bugs’” (mining magnates). He quotes a South African commentator at the time as saying that:
“Johannesburg is essentially a Jewish town. Most of these Jews figure as British subjects, though many are in fact German and Russian Jews who have come to Africa after a brief sojourn in England. The rich, rigorous and energetic financial and commercial families are chiefly English Jews, not a few of whom here, as elsewhere, have Anglicised their names after true parasitic fashion. I lay stress on this fact because, though everyone knows the Jews are strong, their real strength here is much underestimated. Though figures are so misleading, it is worthwhile to mention that the directory of Johannesburg shows 68 Cohens against 21 Joneses and 53 Browns. The Jews take little active part in the Outlander agitation; they let others do that sort of work. But since half of the land and nine-tenths of the wealth of the Transvaal claimed for the Outlander are chiefly theirs, they will be chief gainers by a settlement advantageous to the Outlander.”
The same old statistics game that you perpetrate in your own piece, Sentletse, in this case ignoring the existence of people like Sammy Marx and all the “Boerejode” who went on kommando against the British.
Weber collects further supportive quotes: Cecil John Rhodes’ associates were “generally of German Jewish extraction”. The “Semitic lords of the press” had successfully propagandised Britain into a “criminal war of aggression”. They were aiming for “an Anglo-Hebraic Empire in Africa stretching from Egypt to Cape Colony” designed to swell their “overgrown fortunes”.
The only thing that makes sense here is the bit about the “criminal war of aggression”, which, of course, the Anglo-Boer War was — just as one could call the war in Gaza senseless, brutal, inhumane and cynical.
Weber, by the way, also has some interesting opinions about black people. You can get an idea of what they are by trawling sites like “white pride world wide” () where his talks are announced. His opposition () quotes him as saying that: “I’m concerned about the future of (the white) race and I’m concerned about the future of our country.” “I don’t believe it’s possible for black Americans to be assimilated into white society.”
Weber’s buddy David Irving, another Holocaust denier, is quoted in the Independent as saying that it’s “fascinating to read what [Adolf] Hitler was thinking. A lot of it made sense”.
Like what?
“Oh, about women. Women have very special minds. They are superficially similar to us and they speak a very similar language to us but they are also rather like ants. They can communicate with each other without actually (using) a language that you can hear.”
When he gives his talks on what a jolly chap Hitler was, he wears a medallion that belonged to Idi Amin under his clothes.
Get worried, Sentletse. You find yourself in the company of crazies! Crazy old white guys! Folks who actually think that Hitler is just a misunderstood and misrepresented hero of the (white) people!
Be more careful into whose ink you dip your quill. It might just be poison.
Hey Sentletse.
Someone you left off your “list” – The Pope….Didn’t you know he’s Jewish too? That’s how the Jew’s manage to “control most Western Governments” as the erudite Ms. Hajaij points out. With the help of the Pope you see – he’s clearly one of them.
Please add to the list.
1. There is no such thing as “Jewish Money” or “World Bank Money” (another misconception) – that the money is that of clients/depositors/donors, not of the bankers, Jewish or not.
2. That a quarter of the population of the USA is Catholic (about 70 million people) and there are only 13 million Jews in the whole world! The biggest influence in the states is the Catholic Church. USA Aid policy is dictated by the Catholic Church, not by Jews – which is a disaster, because of the strings that the church attaches to such aid. Obama has already done something about that – by lifting the “global gaggiing order”. (Ref: M&G Jan30-February 5)
as unprofessional and degrading as it is for anyone in a diplomatic position to voice their personal hatred as haijadid did, and which her very position should have prevented her from doing, the absolutely false, unsustantiated screams she made are totally unacceptable to anyone who actually believes in the rhetoric of human-rights ,freedoms etc there are two specific points i’d like to make out of the myriad that my outraged and disappointed heart feels 1. if jews wield so much ‘money-power’(and which is grossly over-rated) how come the discussion of arab oil money is ignored…oil power affects significantly the economies of every country in the world, including our own. 2) i hated to discuss oil power and the arabs who hold the key to it because i cannot understand why we are all so pre-occupied with identifying race, religion and other demographic segmentations all the time. apart from the fact that it is supposed to be taboo (and maybe even illegal) to discuss racial groupings in our country, these discussions enable eveyone to escape their own duty to behave “properly” using instead their energy to pontificate about others in conversations with no agenda, no boundaries nor proper contexts (etc),no facts and use false premises and analyses to neatly sidestep such niceties as truth and instead blame someone for their own inadequacies or actions or guilt. let us each look at our own actions against some stated qualities of right and wrong, then first fix ourselves before having the temerity to be the un-elected judge of others. in conclusion, i imagine our government will not take a stand and move the deputy foreign minister out of official government ranks…preferring to ride it out and continue as if nothing happened. to date, i have not seen this concept of accountability practiced here in our country.
Conrad
To find my blog – just click on my name (in red) below!
No, but does it mean that stating a few correct facts about an ethnic group is racist? Should we now keep quiet about facts that we happen to know simply because there was once a Holocaust which most of us condemn, anyway? Anyway, what is the meaning of anti-semitism? Is hatred against Palestinians and the rest of Arabs also not anti-semitism? Are Hebrew/Aramaic and Arab not bot semitic languages? Let’s stop being so selective; Sentletse never exoressed any hatred against anyone. He simply stated what he thought was not broadly known. If people choose to challenge his ideas, let them do so without claiming what he never said – anti-semitism. The fact is, Jews are are influential and there is nothing wrong in revealing that fact. The question is, how does the world stand to benefit, or suffer, from that influence? How should the contemporary world position itself in relation to such an influence without necessarily becoming racist (anti-semitic?) against any group, including the Arab world.
Let us not overlook the fact that not all Jews are influential. Not all of them control the world’s economic resources. Stereotyping looks very senseless and dangerous to me. Jews, as practitioners of a religion and as a race (?), are not necessarily a homogenous group: some are Zionists while some hate the whole idea of any sort of nationalism. I speak from experience; I am studying David Goldblatt’s photography and have deep respect for him a person.
Joseph Shaw, I have noted your contribution and would like to add my points. While we know that Jews are not just a static, genetically ‘pure’ entity, we may also agree that they are marked with a high degree of hybridities (if I may this) of various sorts – cultural, religious, racial, etc. We have both black and white Jews today. We do have those who are religiously orthodox, still waiting for the advent of the Messiah, the Anointed One. Others call their fellow Jew, Yeshua (Aramaic) or Yehoshua (Hebrew), their Messiah and have embraced most Christian beliefs. Others have converted into Christianity, joining sects such as the Seventh-Day Adventists, etc. So, it should not shock us to find that some of the Jews are now Methodists, as you say, because the Jewry in general is now highly hybridized. I think all this drives us to one question, among others: Who is a Jew or what signifies Jewry in the twenty first century? Is the contemporary Jew the same as the one living during the Bible times? No. Are Jews called Jews only on the basis of their religious affiliation (Judaism)? Again, no! Jewry, I want to argue, has been highly reconfigured by many factors including the hybridity of Jews since their departure from ancient Palestine. Is a black Algerian Jew, who may be a Chrsitian by choice, no longer a Jew? If Hillary Clinton happens to be a Christianized Jew, is she no longer a Jew? Think of Messianic Jews.
Conrad,
I wish to commend you for this blog/site. May all your endeavours give you an intellectual and emotional fulfilement you so well deserve.
I am months late to this party, but I did get a good laugh at seeing virtually all of Obama’s cabinet named as Jewish. Who knew? And here my best friend grew up at Hillary’s Methodist church in Illinois. Maybe my friend is Jewish too?
Thanks to the person who went to the effort of correcting what were obviously glaring errors. For clarification’s sake, Geithner was raised Episcopalian and married by a UCC minister.
Attorney General: Eric H. Holder (Episcopalian)
Secretary of Labour: Hilda L. Solis (Catholic)
Secretary of Transportation: Ray H. LaHood (Maronite Catholic)
Secretary of Energy: Steven Chu (non-professing)
Secretary of Veterans Affairs: Eric K. Shinseki (non-professing)
Secretary of Commerce: Gary Locke (Baptist)
Reminds me of a Palestinian kid who swore to me that GW Bush was Jewish. I had to gently tell her that since I attended the same Episcopal church in Houston as his parents, who are the WASPiest people you’d ever want to meet, I knew it not to be true. Her response: “But miss, I read it on the internet!”
Methinks Sentletse has been reading too much crap on the internet.