Sigh
Posted by Joshua Claybourn on 13 September 2005 | 5 responses
The Israeli Haaretz reports the following:
Advisers appointed by British Prime Minister Tony Blair are proposing that Britain get rid of Holocaust Memorial Day because Muslims find it offensive, the British Sunday Times reported.
The draft proposals – which provoked a backlash from British Jewish leaders – want to replace Holocaust Memorial Day with a Genocide Day that would include recognition of Muslim deaths in the West Bank and Gaza, Chechnya and Bosnia, the Times said.
A Home Office spokesman said it would consider the proposals but said it regarded the Holocaust as a “defining tragedy in European history,” according to the report.
“The very name Holocaust Memorial Day sounds too exclusive to many young Muslims,” a member of one of the committees was quoted as saying. “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.”
Given that Hitler’s Mein Kampff is still quite popular in a number of Muslim countries, perhaps it’s time for the British to stop celebrating WWII as well? They might be offending their former foes.
5 Responses to “Sigh”
I read this too and just stared at the screen incredulously. It’s the most ridiculous idea I’ve heard in…well, a few hours anyway.
If the Muslim community has an idea for a particular sort of memorial that they think ought be included — perhaps to those slaughtered in the Bosnia a decade ago? — then that would be one thing to propose. And, for all I know, it would be possible to add something to existing Holocaust memorials to speak of Muslims who died in it, too (there must have been some). But this is just plain obnoxious.
(I’d be afraid that they’d propose something that memorialized martyrs against Israel or something like that, though.)
Perhaps we should think twice, given the source, but I’m not sure why questioning the idea of a Holocaust Memorial Day is so ridiculous. After all, we care about the Holocaust not because lots of Jews were killed, but because lots of _people_ were killed. And, sadly, no group has exclusive claim to being the victim of attempted genocide. The Turkish government still hasn’t fessed up to the Armenian Genocide, which is disgusting. Africa has seen two attemped genocides in the last decade alone (one of which is going on as we speak).
Perhaps it’s impolitic to say so, but the Holocaust has been used more for political gain than to “increase awareness” about atrocities. The slogan “never again” seems quite empty when judged against post WWII history, and the way we continue to deal with pre-WWII history.
That’s not to say that this is a unique phenomenon. “Victimhood” carries a lot of weight these days in political discourse, and any group that adopts that characterization is shrewd to do so.
And no, this is not to justify Muslim “martyrs.” Religion of peace my foot, and all that. Still, you know what they say about broken clocks.
Here is what Christian Zionists believe:
1. When the Jews reoccupy all of Biblical Judea and Samaria, the Christian Messiah will return to Earth.
2. When the Messiah returns, everybody who hasn’t been “saved” (Jews, Muslims, Catholics, atheists) will suffer a horrible fate.
3. Christian Zionists, therefore, are closet anti-Semites who are too arrogant to admit their own bigotry.
4. The Nazis were Christian, not Muslim. Get it straight.
Christian Zionists, now that must be quite a large group. How do they get to be “Christian” Zionists since items 1 & 2 are at odds with what the Bible says on the subject. Are you sure they’ve got the gospel right? There are a lot of cults out there you know.