Andrew L. Urban.
I had just re-watched British director Alan Parker’s outstanding 1988 film, Mississippi Burning, inspired by events in the 1960s, when two FBI agents (played by Gene Hackman and Willem Dafoe) arrive in Mississippi to investigate the disappearance of three civil rights activists. As I watched the film, I couldn’t escape the tragic conclusion that the behaviour of racists of that era is echoed by the behaviour of antisemites today.
The behaviour of those vile racists in the bad old American South seems even worse in hindsight than I remember from my history lessons. Callous disregard for human decency, from nasty name calling and social exclusion to brutal beatings and murder were daily events, all driven by a hatred of blacks. Those racists were akin to the Islamic teachers who, driven by hatred of Jews, today make comparisons of Jews with apes, pigs, rats and filthy animals to portray Jews as less than human or undeserving of ordinary human dignity. Just replace ‘Jews’ with ‘blacks’.
Islamic extremists want to eliminate (exterminate?) Jews just as the KKK’s mission was to execute blacks, pretty much at random. Mississippi Burning brought home to me how violent racism against blacks has the same characteristics as violent hatred of Jews.
Imagine my shocked surprise when just days later, the Green Party in the UK endorsed as official party policy that Zionism is racism. The juxtaposition of Mississippi Burning and that news on my TV sharpened my perception, the film delivering the visual impact with cinematic force.
It is not my intention to draw deep parallels but only to note the similar physical manifestations of these two irrational hatreds.