Un/telling y/our story, part three
Amelia Walker
Acknowledgement: I live and write on the lands of the Kaurna people. I pay respect to Kaurna Elders, and to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Sovereignty was never ceded. This always was, always will be Aboriginal land.
What does it mean to have loved someone who later loved fascism?
The question consuming me as I gaze through the bus window at streets you and I once walked together mirrors one Derrida might have pondered after learning of de Man’s past writings. With them, fascism came before the friendship, so “later” would have been “earlier”. Still, the quandary must have felt both deeply personal and more-than-personal, given how their intellectual bond influenced Derrida’s critical reasoning (Derrida a xvii-xix). You and I may have been just a couple of punk-wannabe kids, but your lasting impact is similarly troubling. You were the first person with whom I seriously discussed social inequity, worker exploitation, and the insidious conditioning that coaxes us to accept these daily oppressions—problems I am still grappling with in my current work as a Lecturer in Creative Writing whose research probes literature’s links with hegemony, ideology, subjectification, and other modes of power (Walker 22-32). I argue that writing can promote equity and kindness. But if this work bears your imprint, does that leave it tainted—perhaps irreversibly?
The dilemma of having loved someone who later or earlier loved fascism is a gate opening onto further, stickier questions:
Was the beloved already or still fascist when that friendship formed and grew?
In other words, were traces or seeds of fascism present and part of the connection shared?
If so, what might have taken root in one’s self—or have been already rooted and part of the drive, the attraction, towards that o/Other?
I reopen Derrida’s lectures for de Man. The first, “Mnemosyne”, draws its title from a poem by Friedrich Hölderlin, literary darling of Martin Heidegger (Derrida a 7)—Heidegger the German philosopher, academic, and, from 1933, member of Adolf Hitler’s nazi party; Heidegger who as Rector of the University of Freiburg oversaw the expulsion of countless Jewish students and staff members; Heidegger who, though his genuine belief in fascism is sometimes debated, never openly renounced these actions (Ettinger 10); Heidegger whose works de Man cited prolifically (see Derrida a 7-8, 96) as did Derrida (see Rose 457-458 for an account of Derrida’s reflections on Heidegger’s nazism).
The bus shudders, halts. I glance up. Shit. My stop. Scurrying, I just make the closing door, tumbling from the vehicle’s icy capsule into boiling streets through which I stride, determined not to be late for the visiting scholar talk I’ve spent weeks anticipating. Sweat builds between my body and the calico shoulder bag grazing my side. Through its uneven fabric, a corner of Derrida’s book digs at me. Sharp. Worrying.
In a friendship with an o/Other who later—or earlier—loved fascism, what traces or seeds of that brutal love might have been present during the friendship itself?
Derrida probes similar concerns in his response to the revelations about de Man’s past. Noting de Man’s youthful inexperience, his immersion in a culture wherein the nazis held dominance, and the prestigious allure writing for a major newspaper must have held for a young man who “dreamed of nothing but literature” (Derrida a 171), Derrida highlights that de Man ceased contributing to the nazi-aligned newspapers in 1942—well before the occupation ended—deeming this “unquestionably a cut” (Derrida a 218) and proceeding to proclaim his “certainty” that de Man had in 1942 “broken” from nazi ideology “in a radical, internal, rigorous way” (Derrida a 222, original italics).
Still, Derrida acknowledges, rupture doesn’t equal erasure: de Man “must have drawn a certain number of lessons … historical, political, rhetorical” inevitably “readable in his texts” (Derrida a 222-223, original italics). Derrida thus argues we should read de Man’s writings for these very lessons (Derrida a 248). Derrida so redeems de Man’s legacy, if not the man himself—which is also Derrida’s own redemption, as it justifies their friendship’s influences on his writing and thought.
I enter the university gates. Inside, a recently-installed poster informs that student demonstrations on campus are permitted subject to a suite of caveats, breach of any of which will invite legal prosecution. Among them is a ban on camping out. These posters appeared following a recent series of campouts calling for an end to Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza—peaceful demonstrations for which I held support, though I ashamedly never managed to join the students.[i] I kept wanting to, but something else—teaching, meetings, family responsibilities, emails, deadlines, more emails, or just plain fatigue—always won.
The building where the visiting scholar’s talk is being held has tall sliding doors. As they open, a chill envelops me—once again, air-conditioning turned full blast, spewing carbon to make summers even hotter. I shuffle guiltily down the hall. How many ecopoems have I penned from the gloriously cool office this institution provides me?
I arrive for the talk, early after all. Taking a seat, I fish out my book and return to Derrida’s remarks regarding de Man, Heidegger, and Hölderlin. Derrida posits that de Man’s readings of Hölderlin’s poetry contest Heidegger’s, and even mock him (Derrida a 8, 96). This would be consistent with Derrida’s later insistence that de Man radically broke from fascist thought (Derrida a 222), as resisting a known nazi could reflect lessons de Man learned from youthful mistakes…
Still, something troubles me. In Derrida’s case for de Man as a hapless young lit buff seduced by the glory of a newspaper column, I hear echoes of defences made for Heidegger—that the “episode” was an “error” he later “corrected”; that he was “apolitical” and “unworldly” as opposed to a genuine nazi and just toed the line because it was necessary to maintain his university position (Arendt in Ettinger 10, 60).
A shiver grips me as cooling sweat rivulets down my spine. What’s troubling me isn’t with Derrida or de Man.
It’s this damn air-conditioning. And the ban on campout protests. And all the speaking out I haven’t done.
[i] In recent times, many writers and academics who have expressed support for the Palestinian people and/or condemned Israel’s actions have been unfairly accused of antisemitism (see Story). I recognise that, in the context of writing about nazism, my expression of support for the student protests against Israel’s war on Gaza might run risks of similarly being misinterpreted as an antisemitic or even pro-nazi gesture. I here note that this is absolutely not my intention: I am simply opposed to racial violence and genocide in any form, regardless who perpetrates and suffers from it. My objections to Israel’s actions are informed by and align with the public declarations of Jewish Australians who are in their own words “calling on the Australian government to take drastic action to halt Israel’s genocidal war on the Palestinian people” (Jewish Council Australia).
Works Cited
Derrida, Jacques, a. Memoires for Paul de Man. 2nd edn., Translated by Cecile Lindsay, Jonathan Culler, Eduardo Cadava, and Peggy Kamuf, New York, Columbia University Press, 1989.
Derrida, Jacques, b. Of Spirit: Heidegger and The Question. Translated by Geoffery Bennington and Rachel Bowlby. Chicago and London, University of Chicago Press, 1989. Original published 1987.
Ettinger, Elżbieta. Hannah Arendt/Martin Heidegger. New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1995.
Jewish Council Australia. “Jewish Council launches ad campaign Demanding Government Sanction Israel for Genocide, Condemns Australian Complicity” [Media Release], 18 September 2025, https://www.jewishcouncil.com.au/2025/09/jewish-council-launches-ad-campaign-demanding-government-sanction-israel-for-genocide-condemns-australian-complicity. Accessed 27 April 2026.
Rose, Gillian. “Of Derrida’s Spirit.” New Literary History, vol. 24, no. 2, 1993, pp. 447–465.
Story, Hannah. “Authors ditch University of Queensland Press after Indigenous kids book pulled for ‘anti-Semitism’ of illustrator.” ABC News, 23 April 2026, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-04-23/authors-quit-university-of-queensland-press-jazz-money-matt-chun/106596326. Accessed 27 April 2026.
Walker, Amelia. Reading and Writing for Change. London, Bloomsbury Academic, 2025.
The series
Part 1: https://southerlylitmag.com.au/un-telling-y-our-story-part-one/
Part 2: https://southerlylitmag.com.au/un-telling-y-our-story-part-two/
Part 3: https://southerlylitmag.com.au/un-telling-y-our-story-part-three/
Part 4: https://southerlylitmag.com.au/un-telling-y-our-story-part-four/
About the author
Amelia Walker lives and writes on the unceded lands of the Kaurna people (also known as Adelaide, South Australia). She has published five poetry collections, most recently Alogopoiesis (Gazebo Books, 2023). Her sixth is forthcoming in the new Gazebo Books short poems series curated by Phil Day. Amelia is also the author of Reading and Writing for Change: Theories and Tools for Confronting Power (Bloomsbury Academic, 2025) and co-editor of Ludic Inquiries into Power and Pedagogy: How Games Play Us (Eds Walker, Grimmett & Black, Routledge, 2024). She lectures in creative writing at Tirkangkaku / Adelaide University.