In this dispute over etymological sovereignty of interpretation, numerous renowned experts jumped to the protesters’ defense. According to
Susan Arndt, professor of English and Anglophone literature at Bayreuth University, the racist provenance of the M-word resembles the N-word. Both are often used synonymously and influenced by the idea “that people can be divided by race [and] skin color or … that there are supposedly two races that have mixed.”
Anatol Stefanowitsch, professor at the Institute of English Language and Literature at the Free University Berlin,
considers the term a problematic foreign designation since Africans never called themselves that way. It stems from a time “in which there was — to put it kindly — a great ignorance as far as the various tribes in Africa are concerned.”
Only a handful of the affected pharmacies in Germany reacted to the criticism by changing their names. The Hof-Apotheke Zum Mohren in Friedberg is not one of them. The owner of the pharmacy refers back to an alternative
interpretation of the use of the term “
Mohren” as a tribute to the Moors, who
brought modern, advanced pharmacology from the Middle East to Europe.
www.fairobserver.com
