Tweet
Indymedia Ireland, Ireland
May 13 2005
"'NEVER AGAIN' OVER AGAIN" - on Holocaust Remembrance Day
by Joseph Anderson, Berkeley, California, USA Friday, May 13 2005,
11:11am
dublin / rights and freedoms / other press
I thought that `Never again!' meant never again for all humanity -
not just never again for European Jews.
-
The Daily Californian newspaper
University of California at Berkeley
Berkeley, California
Friday, May 6, 2005
Holocaust Remembrance Day
`Never Again' Over Again
- by Joseph Anderson
Berkeley city councilperson Kris Worthington's letter to the Daily
Californian (`Lurking Legacy of Discrimination,' May 3) deals with
Holocaust Remembrance Day and the very profound tragedy European Jews
suffered under the Nazi regime. We are called again to learn the
lessons of history. But have we?
The primary lesson was supposed to be `Never again!' But, a very sad
disappointment - and even for many Jews, including some Holocaust
survivors - is that we really have not learned. For, as I grew up
seeing the horrors revealed in Holocaust documentaries and movies, I
thought that `Never again!' meant never again for all humanity - not
just never again for European Jews. Where is remembrance day for the
Native American, the black slave, the Filipino, the Armenian, in
effect the Vietnamese, and the U.S. Vietnam war expansion-triggered
Cambodian holocausts?
Blacks were also victims of Nazi Germany's holocaust machine that
consumed other ethnic minorities like the Roma, in addition to the
mentally handicapped, and before that blacks were genocidal victims
of Germany's colonizations in Africa - as with genocidal Western
European colonizers (there and in the Americas).
As a member myself of an often oppressed minority whose religious
traditions have identified with the Biblical legend of the Jews'
oppression, it saddens me to see many pro-Israel Jews oppress others
via a foreign state that would claim to embody Jewish values. For
African American ideals, `The Promised Land' is not a land to be
"reclaimed" after hundreds, or even thousands, of years, citing God
as the real estate agent. The Promised Land doesn't echo the
injustices of the past by, in part, replicating them upon others. The
Promised Land is the creation of a just society with an appreciation
for the diversity of all humanity and equality for all.
I appreciate Worthington's letter, but I object that it makes it seem
like Berkeley has become a bastion of Jew-hatred: `In Berkeley
itself, Jews have far too frequently been victims of hate crimes,' he
wrote.
California criminal-justice statistics show that hate crimes for all
minority groups have gone down - except for indigenous Middle
Easterners and Muslims.
Kris writes that overt prejudice, discrimination and
institutionalized exclusion are unacceptable. But, that's exactly
what Jews who commemorate the Holocaust - yet who also ideologically
believe in an exclusionary Jewish state - support every day for
Israel.
Others, like many of us, like `the good Germans' of another era, turn
our heads away from this human rights catastrophe against, in turn,
another 'despised' minority: the Palestinian people. Their resistance
to brutal ethnic cleansing - something any people would resist from
any other people - is, ironically, labeled `anti-Semitic.'
To paraphrase Worthington, Holocaust Remembrance Day should cause us
to reflect, to learn that the horrors of all these catastrophes did
in fact happen, to support the oppressed everywhere, and to join in
the activism to say, `Never again!' - for all humanity.
__________________________________________________ ________________
Joseph Anderson is a Berkeley resident, an occasional
contributing columnist/essayist to various newspapers,
political and literary publications, a grassroots progressive
political activist, and an occasional interview guest on KPFA's
Hard Knock Radio in Berkeley.
(the above is the slightly longer, original version
of the word length-constrained version published at
http://dailycal.org/article.php?id=18630 )
May 13 2005
"'NEVER AGAIN' OVER AGAIN" - on Holocaust Remembrance Day
by Joseph Anderson, Berkeley, California, USA Friday, May 13 2005,
11:11am
dublin / rights and freedoms / other press
I thought that `Never again!' meant never again for all humanity -
not just never again for European Jews.
-
The Daily Californian newspaper
University of California at Berkeley
Berkeley, California
Friday, May 6, 2005
Holocaust Remembrance Day
`Never Again' Over Again
- by Joseph Anderson
Berkeley city councilperson Kris Worthington's letter to the Daily
Californian (`Lurking Legacy of Discrimination,' May 3) deals with
Holocaust Remembrance Day and the very profound tragedy European Jews
suffered under the Nazi regime. We are called again to learn the
lessons of history. But have we?
The primary lesson was supposed to be `Never again!' But, a very sad
disappointment - and even for many Jews, including some Holocaust
survivors - is that we really have not learned. For, as I grew up
seeing the horrors revealed in Holocaust documentaries and movies, I
thought that `Never again!' meant never again for all humanity - not
just never again for European Jews. Where is remembrance day for the
Native American, the black slave, the Filipino, the Armenian, in
effect the Vietnamese, and the U.S. Vietnam war expansion-triggered
Cambodian holocausts?
Blacks were also victims of Nazi Germany's holocaust machine that
consumed other ethnic minorities like the Roma, in addition to the
mentally handicapped, and before that blacks were genocidal victims
of Germany's colonizations in Africa - as with genocidal Western
European colonizers (there and in the Americas).
As a member myself of an often oppressed minority whose religious
traditions have identified with the Biblical legend of the Jews'
oppression, it saddens me to see many pro-Israel Jews oppress others
via a foreign state that would claim to embody Jewish values. For
African American ideals, `The Promised Land' is not a land to be
"reclaimed" after hundreds, or even thousands, of years, citing God
as the real estate agent. The Promised Land doesn't echo the
injustices of the past by, in part, replicating them upon others. The
Promised Land is the creation of a just society with an appreciation
for the diversity of all humanity and equality for all.
I appreciate Worthington's letter, but I object that it makes it seem
like Berkeley has become a bastion of Jew-hatred: `In Berkeley
itself, Jews have far too frequently been victims of hate crimes,' he
wrote.
California criminal-justice statistics show that hate crimes for all
minority groups have gone down - except for indigenous Middle
Easterners and Muslims.
Kris writes that overt prejudice, discrimination and
institutionalized exclusion are unacceptable. But, that's exactly
what Jews who commemorate the Holocaust - yet who also ideologically
believe in an exclusionary Jewish state - support every day for
Israel.
Others, like many of us, like `the good Germans' of another era, turn
our heads away from this human rights catastrophe against, in turn,
another 'despised' minority: the Palestinian people. Their resistance
to brutal ethnic cleansing - something any people would resist from
any other people - is, ironically, labeled `anti-Semitic.'
To paraphrase Worthington, Holocaust Remembrance Day should cause us
to reflect, to learn that the horrors of all these catastrophes did
in fact happen, to support the oppressed everywhere, and to join in
the activism to say, `Never again!' - for all humanity.
__________________________________________________ ________________
Joseph Anderson is a Berkeley resident, an occasional
contributing columnist/essayist to various newspapers,
political and literary publications, a grassroots progressive
political activist, and an occasional interview guest on KPFA's
Hard Knock Radio in Berkeley.
(the above is the slightly longer, original version
of the word length-constrained version published at
http://dailycal.org/article.php?id=18630 )