Tomorrow is Holocaust Memorial Day 2014, marking 69 years since the liberation of Auschwitz. It’s clear that this date should be one of respect and remembrance, it being a reminder of how far (or not) we have come since 1945.
This year, however, the run-up to the anniversary has been fraught with hot debat
e over the quenelle. This is a hand gesture propagated by the French comedian Dieudonné M’bala M’bala from 2005 onwards. It involves putting one arm and palm downwards while touching the shoulder with the opposite hand. Unsurprisingly, the gesture has been interpreted as anti-Semitic, since it resembles an inverted Nazi salute. Dieudonné himself has said that it’s meant to be “a kind of up yours gesture to the establishment”.
But it’s no secret that the comedian is an anti-Zionist. Indeed, he used the gesture in a 2009 election campaign for an anti-Zionist party. Further, he’s said that he is “proud” of footballer Nicholas Anelka for performing the quenelle to celebrate scoring a goal in December 2013, and linked the ‘anti-establishment’ aspect of the gesture to slavery: “Anelka is a descendant of slaves and if he wants to remark on this history then he has the right to – and we are all very proud of him doing so.” (Sky News, 23rd Jan 2014.) Anelka himself has insisted that his gesture was only to show his support for Dieudonné. I wonder why this reminds me of two criminals using each other as alibis; or, more disturbingly, that infamous phrase “I was only following orders”.
Though most people caught doing the quenelle would argue that they intended no offence, the gesture obviously is offensive. Why, then, do people persist, if not for the fact that there’s more to the quenelle than a laugh at society’s expense? Everyone likes being anti-establishment but most of us recognise that a) there’s no excuse for belligerent gestures like the quenelle, no matter what your personal beliefs, and b) what do they achieve anyway?
As a firm believer in education, I would say that the answer is to talk through what anti-establishmentism is; what Zionism is (I didn’t know for sure what it is until a few months ago) and what Judaism is and stands for. At least then, people will be able to decide what they believe in and how they want to argue their points. This will never purge the world of anti-Semitism, nor the quenelle, but it might show the latter up for what it is: a childish act of hostility by people who don’t really understand what they’re talking about. When I think of the Holocaust and its six million Jewish victims (only an approximate, not even counting other minority groups and Nazi targets), I wonder where overt discriminations like those of Dieudonné and Anelka could lead. These men are role models, remember. They will have children and young people, not to mention numerous adult followers, lapping up their every word.
The quenelle fiasco led me to consider: are there any ways of being anti-establishment that aren’t offensive to anyone?
Many signs of being anti-system are linked to overt sexuality, going so far as to be called obscene. For instance: “the finger”, a well-established insult in the west. Everyone knows what that means, and I think most people are still offended by it. But why is this crude way of saying “f*** you” so insulting, when the expletive itself is bandied around like a ball in a game?
I think that the f-word has largely been dissociated from its meaning. Certainly, I don’t often use it in the context of “having sex with someone”. Of course, we’re all aware that that’s what it means, and it is still used in that context, but because it’s used so often to mean other things perhaps it’s not so vulgar.
Maybe words as a rule are less offensive than actions, which are after all more aggressive: sticks and bones may break my bones but words can never hurt me, and all that.
As someone interested in language, and not easily shocked, the f-word doesn’t really offend me. However, its place in a line of Allen Ginsberg’s Howl (an anti-establishment piece of literature if ever there was one) did stand out to me as particularly provocative:
“…with mother finally ******, and…”
I think that line stood out to me for a multitude of reasons. Firstly, the implications of the euphemism are inescapable. In the poem, Ginsberg is talking about what American society has done to himself and his friends. This line appears basically at the crescendo of the ranting, yawping Part 1; to be crude, this line could represent both the sexual climax of a pent-up Beat poet and the violent sexuality of a destructive America. However, this line is memorable for another reason. Ginsberg uses the f-word throughout the poem; what’s surprising is that he veils it here, as if to say: I can restrain myself – can you?
The f-word, as well as other swear words I could mention, is a horrible-sounding word. To me, its guttural Germanic syllable, particularly the velar “k”, produced at the back of the throat, links to its connotation of a primal sexual instinct. Let’s be honest, “f***ing” does not mean the same thing as “making love”. Rather, its etymology suggests that it is more violent than loving, “possibly from an Indo-European root meaning ‘strike’, shared by Latin pugnus ‘fist’” (OED). However, the word’s increasing acceptability seems to imply that the act it denotes has also become more acceptable. Maybe this links to the rise of one-night stands and the normalisation of “kinky” sex acts through the Fifty Shades phenomenon, the widespread availability of hard and soft pornography and the change in attitudes towards sex in the last couple of decades.
I would argue, therefore, that the f-word is no longer as taboo and as anti-establishment as it was in Ginsberg’s time. The Beats and the subsequent hippie movement of the 60s advocated “free love”, after all, something seen very much as anti-system at the time. (I would argue that free love is something completely different to our modern acceptance of free sex, but that’s a debate for another time.)
The middle finger, however, is still widely regarded as an obscene hand gesture. Why? Well, when researching this (anyone looking at my search history would think me very rebellious) I found that historically – from as early as ancient Greek times! –the finger represents the phallus and, by extension, anal sex. By and large, I’m pretty sure that this is still taboo to talk about. (This isn’t the only interpretation of the finger, but other explanations seem to be era-specific, such as the suggestion that it was a way of averting the “evil eye” which I doubt many people believe these days.)
I do wonder, though, how many people know what the middle finger means, other than it being offensive. It’s easy to mimic something, quite another to understand it, which is partly why the quenelle’s popularity is disconcerting (especially since there have been quenelles photographed in front of Jewish sacred sites, which is just not on). So many people are angry at the way a country or society is run. Fine. So is everyone else, at least to an extent. It feels to me like signals like the middle finger and the quenelle are simply ways of channelling that anger, pointing at a specific target which is a synecdoche or a scapegoat for a bigger enemy: society. For instance, Google Street View apparently picked up a man giving the middle finger to the Governor of Wisconsin’s mansion.
So, I’ve claimed that signs and gestures are inappropriate and ineffectual methods of inciting change. I don’t necessarily think this of every “anti-system” gesture, however. (Although I do think that the minute something’s declared anti-system it becomes part of the system, just as it could be argued that atheism is a religion in itself.)
It’s interesting that the first example of a positive gesture that I thought of was connected with 
one particular protest and not a directionless display of anger. The Black Power Salute by Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City is now renowned. At the medals ceremony, these African-American men raised a black-gloved fist throughout the playing of the American national anthem. Compared to Anelka’s apparently spontaneous and purposeless quenelle, Smith and Carlos’ target was clear: American society. Who was Anelka protesting against? The action makes no logical sense.
In general, anti-establishment protests are not against anyone as such but are rather for self-determination or promotion of the demonstrators. For instance, the “peace” logo is positive in every way: British artist Gerald Holtom designed it in 1958 from the letters “ND” (to mean “nuclear disarmament” and from the figure of a person holding a flag in each hand.
I can’t help thinking that people like Dieudonné and Anelka are more interested in the personal publicity their gestures will give them than what they’re actually doing, when surely it’s more anti-system to want to be anonymous? Gerald Holtom’s symbol means much more than the quenelle, but I’ll bet that hardly anyone knows his name. Similarly, the protester in that famous Tiananmen Square photo of 1989 demonstrations made no “f*** you” gesture at the tanks, but simply stood there. I think that, like Ginsberg refusing at the climax to conform to society’s expectations of his obscenity, that means more than anything.
To see more about Holocaust Memorial Day 2014 go to www.hmd.org.uk
Babbling Gossip 