Mechi’s reading tip: ‘Identity Crisis’ by Alice Hasters
Can you imagine the phrase ‘world overcooking’? Two words that you’ve probably never seen together before. But just as coffee can boil over on the stove when it gets too hot, Alice Hasters describes the state of the world when conflicts begin to simmer quietly and then grow louder and louder, developing into many different crises and eventually causing the world to boil over.
Then, argues Alice Hasters, bestselling author of ‘What White People Don’t Want to Hear About Racism, But Should Know,’ the world enters an identity crisis. Everyone has probably had an identity crisis at some point, or a time when they asked themselves, who am I really, what defines me, how do I want to live and what for? Applied to the world, Hasters describes it this way: the major and, above all, multiple crises of our time not only affect individuals, but also shake the foundations of social identity. Be it the climate crisis, the rise of right-wing parties and heads of state who threaten democracy, destructive wars, capitalist systems that are still based on exploitation and colonial structures, or a forgetting of history, to name but a few.
The book ‘Identitätskrise’ (Identity Crisis) offers a critical look at the ‘West,’ an analysis of social developments in Germany and beyond, integrating important feminist, anti-capitalist, and post- or de-colonial perspectives. How has the self-perception and self-narrative of people in Germany developed over the years, and what are the social and governmental possibilities and tasks for overcoming this crisis?
Hasters also repeatedly provides personal insights into her career, her perceptions and her upbringing as a Black woman in Germany and attempts to examine her German identity and what that actually means.
A super exciting, shocking and informative book!
