Racism is never funny

Submitted by Anon on 4 March, 2005 - 2:26

By Joan Trevor

French comedian Dieudonné M’bala M’bala is in the headlines and has had to cut short his latest tour because of remarks he made about the recent Holocaust memorials. The ceremonies marking the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz he called “remembrance pornography”.

What he means by that is not that many of the politicians lining up to pay their respects — Vladimir Putin, Tony Blair — are hypocritical racists happy to cry crocodile tears over something bad because it happened a long time ago.

What he means is what he always means when he talks about Jews and the Holocaust: Jews — all Jews — abuse the memory of the Holocaust to get advantage for themselves.

In his performances he says that all Jews are racist: Jews uniformly support the Israeli government and past Israeli governments and their murderous policies towards Palestinians. Jews downplay the horrifying impact of the slave trade on black people and claim a monopoly of suffering. He even hints that Jews invented AIDS to infect Africa.

In his shows, he shouts out the names of celebrity Jews for the audience to boo and hiss.

Dieudonné has been prosecuted many times for anti-semitism but so far got off. He claims his shows are just satirical and that they tackle political themes.

What Dieudonné says is sometimes distorted and misrepresented. What he said about the Holocaust memorials some of his enemies are trying to construe as Holocaust denial, laying him open to a new prosecution.

Dieudonné does not, as far as I know, deny that the Holocaust happened — but he does effectively tells Jews not to talk about it, and that is unforgiveable.

Anti-semitism is a kind of racism and Dieudonné is guilty of it.

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