Zionism, anti-Semitism and eugenics

The conflation of the religio-nationalist ideology of Zionism not only with Judaism and the nation state of Israel, but also with antisemitism, continues to be widely promoted. Yet the terminology and the manner of its use grew out of the pseudoscientific racism that flourished in the 19th Century. This came in response to the humanist and egalitarian ideas that also flourished in the wake of the Haitian, American and French revolutions and the writings of ‘enlightenment’ philosophers.

In this context, antisemitism, a term coined in 1879 by a German, Wilhelm Marr, had nothing to do with the traditional Christian religious prejudice against Jews as ‘Christ killers’. Marr maintained that European Jews were not Europeans; they were Arabs – ‘Semities’ – interlopers to Europe. Even if they were in appearance European they were biologically polluted by the Arab ‘race’. This nonsense of ‘racial purity’ was a concept subsequently adopted most notoriously by Adolf Hitler and his followers.

In an irony missed by most, this historic definition qualifies the ‘Islamaphobia’ prevalent in Europe today, as antisemitism.

But little more than 200 years ago, there was a major push back against notions of liberty and egalitarianism. It was epitomised by the Scottish anatomist, Robert Knox. In 1850, he published a treatise entitled: The Races of Men — a fragment. Knox maintained that humanity was divided into separate species in an order of superiority. At the apex were the Caucasian (white), ‘Saxons’, with black Africans at the bottom. In between were ‘Celts (the Irish), Jews and Gipsies (sic)’. Also ‘Chinamen, Kaffres, Red Indians, New Zealanders’ (Maori?) who, ‘like all other animals’ faced ‘a limited course of existence’ before becoming extinct.

This was almost a decade before Charles Darwin published his Origin of Species, which clearly illustrated the common descent of humanity. But, in an age of empires, aristocracy and class divisions, this could not go unchallenged. Especially by the then strongly emerging mercantile capitalist class. Dressed in the language of science, an answer came in 1883 in the form of eugenics, ironically introduced by Darwin’s polymath cousin, Francis Dalton. It promoted the hierarchies of ‘race’, often conflated with social class.

Here is the origin of what became known as social Darwinism, a flawed and crude interpretation of the laws of heredity discovered between 1856 and 1863 by the biologist priest Gregor Mendel. Science, especially in the field of genetics, has progressed greatly since then as has much knowledge of human history, ancestry and the incredibly rich unity in diversity that is not just part of humanity but of a living planet.

Yet, outside of the technical, our social and political systems have not kept pace with scientific developments. The hierarchies of class and race, continue to be manipulated by ruling elites and aspirant populists. Their nationalist creeds, peppered with religion, language and other cultural attributes, along with geographic claims to nation and state, continue to be dominant. They are used to deny the potential of a truly democratic, egalitarian, global society while in the process gradually destroying the planet itself.

Zionism, and its Muslim equivalent, Jihadism, are mere political ideologies dressed in religious garb, whereas the imperial ambitions of the likes of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin seem to adhere more to the dictum that might is right.

This is the background and the history we, who care about humanity and our planet, have to confront, analyse and understand. The cornerstone of our conviction should be: There is only one race — the human race, that shares one, richly diverse, living planet.

This is the fundamental premise we should perhaps hold to as we determine which campaigns we join and which tactics we employ as we try to encourage others to think and act. Only by doing so can we start trying to expose pseudoscience and help dismantle the shackles of ignorance, fakery and superstition that have bound us for so long.

Then, perhaps, one day, as the poet Shelley once wrote, the exploited many will rise against the oppressor few “Like lions after slumber/ In unvanquishable number” and herald a truly democratic, sane and collective future.