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THE RISE OF THE HOLOCAUST (DAY) DENIERS
by Michael Stickings
>>From the (London) Times:
The Moderate Voice
Sept 12 2005
ADVISERS appointed by Tony Blair after the London bombings are
proposing to scrap the Jewish Holocaust Memorial Day because it is
regarded as offensive to Muslims.
They want to replace it with a Genocide Day that would recognise the
mass murder of Muslims in Palestine, Chechnya and Bosnia as well as
people of other faiths.
The draft proposals have been prepared by committees appointed by
Blair to tackle extremism. He has promised to respond to the plans,
but the threat to the Holocaust Day has provoked a fierce backlash
from the Jewish community.
Holocaust Day was established by Blair in 2001 after a sustained
campaign by Jewish leaders to create a lasting memorial to the 6m
victims of Hitler. It is marked each year on January 27.
The Queen is patron of the charity that organises the event and the
Home Office pays £500,000 a year to fund it. The committees argue
that the special status of Holocaust Memorial Day fuels extremists'
sense of alienation because it "excludes" Muslims.
A member of one of the committees, made up of Muslims, said it gave
the impression that "western lives have more value than non-western
lives". That perception needed to be changed. "One way of doing that
is if the government were to sponsor a national Genocide Memorial Day.
"The very name Holocaust Memorial Day sounds too exclusive to many
young Muslims. It sends out the wrong signals: that the lives of one
people are to be remembered more than others. It's a grievance that
extremists are able to exploit."
Come on, really?
Look, I have no problem with a day to remember victims of genocide more
generally, nor even specifically: It's certainly true that the victims
of genocide in, say, Armenia and Cambodia, or Bosnia and Rwanda,
or even Stalin's Russia, are often forgotten, or at least subject
to far less official remembrance than the victims of the Holocaust
(and, even there, largely the Jewish victims of the Holocaust). Is
this fair? Is it even a matter of fairness of victimhood? Maybe,
maybe not. I'll let you decide that for yourselves.
But the fact is, there was, in my view, something truly exceptional
about the Holocaust. It was the culmination of centuries and centuries
of persecution. It was an attempt to wipe out an entire people -
even the memory of an entire people. I realize that there have been
similar genocides throughout history, but it's difficult, at least
for me, not to view the Holocaust independently of, or at least as
the ultimate event in, the history of genocide.
It could be argued, I suppose, that the Holocaust has been granted
this "special" status as a result of highly effective lobbying and
marketing by a powerful interest group - namely, Judaism as a whole,
backed up by the state of Israel and its supporters throughout
Europe and America. But this misses the point. We're talking about
the United Kingdom here. It seems to me that the Holocaust means
something there (and here in North America) that it may not mean,
at least not to the same degree or in the same way) in other parts
of the world. Obviously, jurisdictions with, say, large Armenian or
Cambodian populations would likely afford those two genocides greater
emphasis in terms of official remembrance.
To me, lumping genocides together means, ultimately, neglecting the
singularities of each one. I see nothing wrong with recognizing a
Holocaust Day, but then I see nothing wrong with recognizing a day
for another genocide (or other genocides). That should be up to
individual jurisdictions.
I realize that this is an incredibly sensitive topic, and I must
admit that I was hesitant to write anything about it. It's too easy
to write off this latest effort to do away with a Holocaust Memorial
Day as anti-Semitism (as Andrew Sullivan does). It surely is for
some, but there is indeed a case to be made, and not just for the
sake of Muslim youth, for lumping together all genocides into a
generic Genocide Memorial Day. But why do that? It's important to
remember the Holocaust as the Holocaust, not as yet another example
of humanity at its worst. It needs to be remembered on its own, just
as all other genocides need to remembered on their own, independently
of one another, whatever the similarities that bind them.
http://www.themoderatevoice.com/posts/1126508360.shtml
--Boundary_(ID_1vOySNUHX+WmmsK+5Sz8eg)--
by Michael Stickings
>>From the (London) Times:
The Moderate Voice
Sept 12 2005
ADVISERS appointed by Tony Blair after the London bombings are
proposing to scrap the Jewish Holocaust Memorial Day because it is
regarded as offensive to Muslims.
They want to replace it with a Genocide Day that would recognise the
mass murder of Muslims in Palestine, Chechnya and Bosnia as well as
people of other faiths.
The draft proposals have been prepared by committees appointed by
Blair to tackle extremism. He has promised to respond to the plans,
but the threat to the Holocaust Day has provoked a fierce backlash
from the Jewish community.
Holocaust Day was established by Blair in 2001 after a sustained
campaign by Jewish leaders to create a lasting memorial to the 6m
victims of Hitler. It is marked each year on January 27.
The Queen is patron of the charity that organises the event and the
Home Office pays £500,000 a year to fund it. The committees argue
that the special status of Holocaust Memorial Day fuels extremists'
sense of alienation because it "excludes" Muslims.
A member of one of the committees, made up of Muslims, said it gave
the impression that "western lives have more value than non-western
lives". That perception needed to be changed. "One way of doing that
is if the government were to sponsor a national Genocide Memorial Day.
"The very name Holocaust Memorial Day sounds too exclusive to many
young Muslims. It sends out the wrong signals: that the lives of one
people are to be remembered more than others. It's a grievance that
extremists are able to exploit."
Come on, really?
Look, I have no problem with a day to remember victims of genocide more
generally, nor even specifically: It's certainly true that the victims
of genocide in, say, Armenia and Cambodia, or Bosnia and Rwanda,
or even Stalin's Russia, are often forgotten, or at least subject
to far less official remembrance than the victims of the Holocaust
(and, even there, largely the Jewish victims of the Holocaust). Is
this fair? Is it even a matter of fairness of victimhood? Maybe,
maybe not. I'll let you decide that for yourselves.
But the fact is, there was, in my view, something truly exceptional
about the Holocaust. It was the culmination of centuries and centuries
of persecution. It was an attempt to wipe out an entire people -
even the memory of an entire people. I realize that there have been
similar genocides throughout history, but it's difficult, at least
for me, not to view the Holocaust independently of, or at least as
the ultimate event in, the history of genocide.
It could be argued, I suppose, that the Holocaust has been granted
this "special" status as a result of highly effective lobbying and
marketing by a powerful interest group - namely, Judaism as a whole,
backed up by the state of Israel and its supporters throughout
Europe and America. But this misses the point. We're talking about
the United Kingdom here. It seems to me that the Holocaust means
something there (and here in North America) that it may not mean,
at least not to the same degree or in the same way) in other parts
of the world. Obviously, jurisdictions with, say, large Armenian or
Cambodian populations would likely afford those two genocides greater
emphasis in terms of official remembrance.
To me, lumping genocides together means, ultimately, neglecting the
singularities of each one. I see nothing wrong with recognizing a
Holocaust Day, but then I see nothing wrong with recognizing a day
for another genocide (or other genocides). That should be up to
individual jurisdictions.
I realize that this is an incredibly sensitive topic, and I must
admit that I was hesitant to write anything about it. It's too easy
to write off this latest effort to do away with a Holocaust Memorial
Day as anti-Semitism (as Andrew Sullivan does). It surely is for
some, but there is indeed a case to be made, and not just for the
sake of Muslim youth, for lumping together all genocides into a
generic Genocide Memorial Day. But why do that? It's important to
remember the Holocaust as the Holocaust, not as yet another example
of humanity at its worst. It needs to be remembered on its own, just
as all other genocides need to remembered on their own, independently
of one another, whatever the similarities that bind them.
http://www.themoderatevoice.com/posts/1126508360.shtml
--Boundary_(ID_1vOySNUHX+WmmsK+5Sz8eg)--