Adam Paquin
This week had some really interesting topics from antisemitism to islamophobia and of course it always leads back somehow to Nazism. But until this week I had never heard about this man named George Soros who is apparently responsible for everything that is bad in the world at least in Europe. And the Kalmar article goes further in depth as to how Soros main goal is to destroy life as we know it in Europe and how he has his hand in almost anything negative that has happened in the past several years. The article written by Ezgi Guner has a somewhat lighter topic focusing on the difference between white and black Turks in Turkey. And the major differences between these two groups that have been living simultaneously in the country. Guner describes the thoughts around many Turkish citizens and their thoughts on these terms of black and white. Which in Turkey not only seems very different than many other countries but not necessarily in a bad way but more so in a step forward for equality in the country. And then we look at the Stone article and read about the EU’s unwillingness to accept refugees from the Middle East and ask questions as to why this might be. As we have seen in the past, they were more than willing to accept them after the Second World War so why not now? What are the reasons behind the EU’s reluctance to take in people who are stranded after their homes are ravaged by war and famine?
Hate 2.0 
Soros really was an interesting case. A lot of the hate for him honestly seems to stem from his Jewish descent rather than more rational arguments pertaining to economics. That obviously doesn’t necessarily mean he is cleared of any wrongdoing at all but it was just a small observation I made.
From my experience the mention of George Soros in any conservative discourse (for instance, while I was downtown in February during peak convoy occupation there was a lot of it) is more often than not a dogwhistle for antisemitism. It all goes back to that “respectable discourse” concept we discussed in class not long ago- mainstreaming something as vile as antisemitism instead as a concern for the economy or other arguments.
There is also the element of his presence in the post-Socialist and post-Soviet spaces during the transition period. He set up several NGOs and research institutions that promoted liberalism and free market economics, with most of them based in his native Hungary. While nearly all of these countries, including Russia, embraced liberal and free market reforms in the 1990s, economic “shock therapy” strongly affected average people, in particular how they lost a lot of the social welfare and security that they enjoyed under state socialism. While countries like Hungary and Poland fared quite well during the transition (ironic considering they are backsliding democratically now), Russia was hit very hard with economic instability, inflation, and poverty. One of the early political successes of Vladimir Putin was his promise to shield the Russian people from the horrors of the 1990s.
In this context, Western NGOs, philanthropists, and consultants became the villains that “caused” the disasters of the transition years. Putin even blamed Sorros for causing the Colour Revolutions in post-Soviet countries like Georgia: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emilytamkin/soros-anti-semitism-orban-putin-trump
Interesting to see the transnational nature of the demonization of figures like Sorros, especially considering the antisemitic conspiracy theories in this rhetoric.