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Super Nase & Co: THIS IS NOT GERMANY?

Statement on "CANCELED” – Tomer Dotan-Dreyfus

The original meaning of the verb "to cancel” is to physically cross something out with a line, to erase it; it refers to written documents, to something that on the one hand no longer exists in the text, yet whose traces remain. The reader still encounters a word, a sentence, a paragraph that has been crossed out. Just imagining which documents in ancient Rome (where the word, as is well known, comes from Latin) had to be altered makes me believe that my instinct would be to look beneath the crossed-out words to see what is written there.

There is a difference between "canceling” carried out by an individual and that carried out by a state. As we move increasingly toward a world that is made more for states than for individuals - one need only observe how the "right to exist” of states is demanded to be recognized while, at the same time, the existence of people is literally erased in order to uphold this demand - we perceive state-produced "cancellation” as more legitimate than that initiated by individuals. The consequences, however, are considerably different: if we return to the historical meaning of the verb, simply to visualize it better, it makes little difference whether I receive a letter from the tax office stating that I owe a certain amount and then cross out that line with a pen. But if a state official removes my name from a certain list - or, God forbid, places it on such a list - that can potentially ruin my life. I do not wish to trivialize «cancellations” carried out by non-state actors, but only to point out that they are of a different nature.

In 2024, the Heinrich Böll Foundation commissioned me to write a text, which they then decided not to publish. Ironically, the text deals with the restriction of Jewish voices in Germany after October 7, 2023. An Israeli filmmaker made a film about the Nakba, more precisely about the silence of the perpetrator generation, to which her - and my -grandparents belong. She contacted me about a possible discussion following the screening of her film. In order to finance the event, she applied for funding from a foundation whose mission is to promote democracy. One of the key figures in this state-funded foundation then said in a private conversation that nothing would be funded if my name were involved - neither now nor in the future.

When the state or its institutions "cancel” - unlike when individuals do so - it is part of a state process of defining a «we.” They say: this artist, this intellectual, this bookstore, this person does not belong to this new "we.” What is this "we”? The creation of a new "we” is violent. It separates; it removes what is perceived as weeds. But the problem with weeds is this: we always find a way back. Whether through compost returning to the soil or through fire into the atmosphere - the violence of the line will always lead the reader to look beneath it. And there we will be - a new "we,” our own, emerging as a byproduct of their violent process of creating a new «we,” reminding them that the foundations of their house are sinking into the blood of the victims; while we spoke of them, they uprooted us.

This reminds me of films like Poltergeist. The state-funded exclusion of voices is an act of collective repression and suppression. Yet what is repressed inevitably returns - in moments of rupture, in spasms, in their dreams, in the questions their children will one day ask them: What did you do during the genocide? «Oh, I made sure that no one spoke out against it.” Imagine - there are people in this world whose answer will be exactly that. How haunted they must feel. Solidarity with the «cancelers”! Let us refuse their "cancellations” so that they may sleep better at night. Let us help them where they fail to help themselves!