Fundamentalising « the Other » as Fundamentalist

AUTEUR : CLAUDIA JAHNEL

ABSTRACT

The current article understands fundamentlism as a modern phenomenon and as a product of cultural exchange processes as well as a product of reciprocal global interactions. Something new arises from the mixture of endogen and exogen cultural factors, even where one appeals to the authority of a sacred past. Two examples, namely the discourse of the german populist politician, Björn Höcke, and the public perception of refugees and migrants from north Africa in Germany reveals how racists, populists and fundamentalist-nativitists give a new birth to intersectional and neocolonial strategies in order to establish an dichotomical and hierarchical order between « we » and « the others ». With an appeal to access the global fundamentalist phenomena, Jahnel pleads for a critical deconceptualisation of notions and concepts which categorise « the others » as dangerous strangers and sometimes as fundamentalists. The article ends with theological reflections which lead towards the alternative of an orthopathy which is guided by an epistemology « of the other ».