Professor hits back at ’racism’ accusation after being sacked by Max Planck Society
8 February 2024 15:46 GMT | Middle East Eye
▻https://www.middleeasteye.net/live-blog/live-blog-update/professor-hits-back-racism-accusation-after-being-sacked-max-planck
An Australian-Lebanese professor who was sacked by the Max Planck Society in Germany over his pro-Palestinian comments has slammed the research body for accusing him of racism.
In their statement on Wednesday, the organisation said that they had severed their relationship with “highly acclaimed” academic Ghassan Hage over a set of social media posts which they said were “incompatible” with the society’s values.
The statement add that “racism, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, discrimination, hatred, and agitation have no place in the Max Planck Society.”
In response, Hage - who is well-known for his work on anthropology - said that he could not accept being characterised as racist over his views.
I will soon issue my own statement.
I would have lived with the first part re incompatibility. But finishing with ‘there is no place for racism’ implying that i am a racist, I cannot accept.
Statement of the Max Planck Society about Prof. Ghassan Hage ▻https://t.co/XhJXJOjNT0
— Ghassan Hage (@anthroprofhage) February 7, 2024
“I really dislike ethno-nationalist states, and particularly colonially implanted ethno-nationalist states. They are the ones who have a long history of racial hatred, of censoring and burning books, of discriminating and burning stores, and putting peoples in concentration camps,” he tweeted.
“Here I am living in the very cultures that elevated Jew-hating, the burning of Jewish books and stores, and the putting of Jews in concentration camps and mass murdering them, into a macabre fine art, and I am being moralised on how not to be anti-Semitic and what I should do to love ethno-religious states. It doesn’t make sense but we know that certain political views don’t have to make sense in order to thrive.”
