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submitted 11 months ago by Silverseren@kbin.social to c/world@lemmy.world

A German foundation has said it will no longer be awarding a prize for political thinking to a leading Russian-American journalist after criticizing as “unacceptable” a recent essay by the writer in which they made a comparison between Gaza and a Jewish ghetto in Nazi-occupied Europe.

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[-] Tedesche@lemmy.world 16 points 11 months ago

In the paragraph the HBS draws attention to, Gessen wrote that “ghetto” would be “the more appropriate term” to describe Gaza, but the word “would have drawn fire for comparing the predicament of besieged Gazans to that of ghettoized Jews. It also would have given us the language to describe what is happening in Gaza now. The ghetto is being liquidated.”

Not taking sides here, but it does seem to me like Gessen's phrasing was deliberately provocative towards those who might be offended by their comparison. I'm left thinking, "I mean, if you kick a beehive, don't be surprised if you get stung."

[-] theacharnian@lemmy.ca 16 points 11 months ago

Let's start with the basic premise that German institutions don't get to have a fucking little opinion about what a Jewish person may or may not say about the Holocaust.

[-] julianschmulian 7 points 11 months ago

I agree that she‘s displaying a lot of self-awareness here and I‘d like to point out that this doesn‘t make her comparison any less warranted

[-] ShroOmeric@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago

This must be the kind of stupid thinking they do in Germany I suppose.

[-] Krauerking@lemy.lol 1 points 11 months ago

Yeah seems like he wanted to kick the can and make a lot of noise but it does get people to talk about you.

I wonder if it's braver and better to willingly shove away the pointless reward to try and get people to talk about a subject you care about.

[-] TheSanSabaSongbird@lemdro.id 1 points 11 months ago

Are you sure Masha Gessen is a man?

[-] Krauerking@lemy.lol 1 points 11 months ago

Nope. They use Gessen's name the entire time in the article instead of a pronoun and I had a very androgynous photo to go off of and I may have misgendered them.

[-] Legolution@feddit.uk 2 points 11 months ago

They are non-binary, FYI. It's not an accident that Gessen isn't gendered in the article.

[-] Krauerking@lemy.lol 1 points 11 months ago

Got it... Really wish we had a good way of representing that because it's gonna take a bit before people stop defaulting to use of pronouns even with best intentions

this post was submitted on 15 Dec 2023
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