The afikra Podcast

German Guilt or Structural Racism Towards Palestinians | Sarah El Bulbeisi

Episode Notes

A raw and honest conversation about Palestine, Germany and Palestinians in Germany. Sarah El Bulbeisi discusses the history of the Palestinian diasporic experience in Germany, the erasure, tabooization and criminalization of this very experience and the structural hostility, racism and trivialization faced by the Palestinian community and anyone in support of it there. Finally, she grapples with the notion of post-War guilt and its impact (or lack thereof) on the German perception and treatment of Palestinians.

This episode was recorded on Friday Oct 27 at 16:41 Palestine time.

Please note, we're recording special podcast episodes relevant to understanding historical context to what is happening in Palestine. Make sure to check out the other highly informative conversations with guests from completely different disciplines who are generously sharing their time and insight in these dark times.

Sarah El Bulbeisi completed her PhD at the Institute for Near and Middle East Studies at the LMU Munich, Germany and currently works as a post-doctoral research assistant at the Oriental Institute Beirut. Before joining the OIB she coordinated the DAAD project “Violence, Forced Migration and Exile: Trauma in the Arab World and in Germany”, a Higher Education Dialogue between Palestinian and Lebanese universities as well as with the LMU Munich. Prior to that, she worked as a lecturer and research associate at the Institute for Near and Middle East Studies at the LMU Munich. Her PhD thesis “Taboo, Trauma and Identity: Subject Constructions of Palestinians in Germany and Switzerland, 1960 to 2015” draws on conversations, life stories and participant observation and explores the tension between the (family) histories of first and second generation Palestinians, which are characterized by the experience of expulsion and dispossession, and the reshaping of this experience in the Western European representation of the so called Middle East conflict.

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