Fast-forward through tragedy

[sovay]

I feel as though it must signify something that the Schweizerische Volkspartei's breathtakingly anti-Islamic poster (and its successful vote) came out in the same year as images of Nazism are being flung nonchalantly around the American political arena, but past the absolute failure of historical memory, I'm not sure what that something might be.

Comments

[shirei-shibolim.livejournal.com]

Does it have to go beyond failure of historical memory?

I'd been wondering for a while why the reaction to Muslim immigration has been so much more brazenly bigoted in famously liberal northern Europe than in the United States. Not that we don't have our problems, but our politicians are at least better at couching their concerns in euphemism. Then, while reading The Jews of Medieval Western Christendom, it occurred to me that that part of the world didn't experience any significant non-Christian immigration between the Middle Ages and the past few decades.

[sovay]

Does it have to go beyond failure of historical memory?

I don't require it to: it's sad enough on its own. I'm just not certain if more specific issues are in play, and I'm not sure I'm sleeping enough to articulate the questions that might elicit them.

Then, while reading The Jews of Medieval Western Christendom, it occurred to me that that part of the world didn't experience any significant non-Christian immigration between the Middle Ages and the past few decades.

I hadn't even considered that as a factor. I suppose when your most recent template for cultural interaction is the Ninth Crusade . . . Good grief.