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Tagged: anti-racism

‘Acting Like a Law’: Regulating ‘Care’ Through Germany’s Anti-BDS Resolution

By Sophia Hoffinger. In May 2019, the German Parliament (Bundestag) passed a resolution condemning the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, a campaign initiated in 2005 by Palestinian civil society actors to pressure Israel into complying with international law. The resolution passed with the support of all major political parties, except for Die Linke and the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). The story of the anti-BDS resolution in Germany raises pertinent questions about the relationship between law, the state, and the mobilization of antiracist principles: what does the application of a non-legally binding resolution as quasi-law reveal about the underlying norms shaping perceptions of history, Palestinians, Jews, and their relationships with Germany? Whilst laws are coercive, I suggest that quasi-laws like the BDS resolution present a site where we can follow the iteration and sedimentation of norms, which gives insights into how care is distributed between racialized subjects in Germany.