UK to ditch Holocaust remembrance?

[Oren]

The Sunday Times published this morning that a committee has recommended Blair to ditch the Holocaust Memorial Day in order to appease Muslims in the country. Muslims in the UK have boycotted the Holocaust remembrance in the past, claiming it is exclusive as it does not commemorate the "genocide" against the Palestinians.

Here's the full article:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...775068,00.html

Palestinians have long been trying to equate the Israel-Palestinian conflict to a genocide against Palestinians. In 2002 Palestinian sources claimed that "the massacre of the 21st century" had took place in Jenin. After a worldwide condemnation of Israel (which irreversibly hurt its image), it turned out the actual death toll was 56 Palestinians (mostly militants) and 23 Israeli soldiers.

I really hope Blair does not accept these recommendations. Hurting the feelings of Jews is surely not the right way to appease the Muslim Minority. If the UK thinks that there should be a remembrance day to Palestinian suffering (suffering, not genocide!) then it should put a separate appropriate remembrance day for that.

What can I say? I'm pretty much disappointed by what's going on in the UK recently.

[L'Etranger]

I think the Holocaust was a most singular disaster in European history and should be commemorated separately. I hope a day or a form of commemoration could be found in addition that includes all victims of colonialism and imperialism and finally genocide. A kind of "Shame-on-You-who-abuse-your-Power" day that recognizes the Armenians', Darfur tribes', Hereros', Kurds', Native Americans', Palestinians', Roma, Sintos' and all other's victims and ordeals.

[johneffay]

This is patently anti-Semitic nonsense. I very much doubt that many young Muslims worry about the exclusivity of Holocaust Memorial Day as, like just about everybody else in the UK, they have no idea when it is (if they know that it exists at all). Furthermore, not all victims of the Holocaust were either Jewish or Western Europeans.

[T Guy]

Abul Taher, in The Sunday Times:

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.

Is it Taher or the Jewish leaders who are having trouble with their sums?

5.8 million Jews
3 million Polish Roman Catholics
600, 000 homosexuals
some gypsies (90% or so of those in central/eastern Europe)

Sir Iqbal Sacranie, secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain... said: “The message of the Holocaust was �never again’, and for that message to have practical effect on the world community it has to be inclusive. We can never have double standards in terms of human life. Muslims feel hurt and excluded that their lives are not equally valuable to those lives lost in the Holocaust time.�

I expect that the odd Polish Roman Catholic, homosexual or gypsy might wonder if Sacranie thinks that his life is less valuable than a Muslim one.

[Mikey_C]

This is the type of organisation the government takes to be representative of Muslims: http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_ne...548786,00.html

Far from representing the more progressive or spiritual traditions within Islam, the leadership of the Muslim Council of Britain and some of its affiliates sympathise with and have links to conservative Islamist movements in the Muslim world and in particular Pakistan's Jamaat-i-Islami, a radical party committed to the establishment of an Islamic state in Pakistan ruled by sharia law.

Actually, I had some involvement with Holocaust Memorial Day this year, and its remit very much extends to remembering acts of genocide worldwide.

http://www.holocaustmemorialday.gov.uk/

I hope that Tony Blair does not make this concession to terrorists (which is what it would basically be...)

[Vampyro]

Whether the palestinian death toll was significant or not, it does not take away from the fact that 6 million souls perished at the hands of facist predators, right under the noses of western civilization.
Israeli/Palestinian relations have nothing to do with genocide in WW2,
and I'm sure Mr. Blair would be the last guy in England to appease a tit for tat argument in favor of Muslims.

[David Mosley]

Whether the palestinian death toll was significant or not, it does not take away from the fact that 6 million souls perished at the hands of facist predators, right under the noses of western civilization.

Sorry, but if you read T Guy's post above you'll see that it was much more than 6m 'souls' who were exterminated in the Nazis' (death) camps. I think this is part of the problem that has prompted this committee (which appears to be a Muslim one) to make its 'recommendation'* to Blair.

We need to understand what 'Holocaust Memorial Day' is supposed to be about: whether it 'commemorates' just the Holocaust (as a single definable moment in world history) or whether its meant to reflect other incidents of 'genocide'. (And if it is to just mean the Holocaust, is it supposed to 'just' mean the extermination of the Jews or to encompass the 3-4m other victims of the Nazis?)

Personally I, like I suspect most of the British population, couldn't have told you when HMD was in the first place (until I read the ST article at any rate), which probably says something about how much importance it has to the Great British public - which is why its a good thing the Holocaust is (hopefully) starting to be taught in British schools, 'cos it certainly wasn't in my day. :(

*As a 'recommendation' Blair is of course under no obligation to accept the recommendation. Committees can 'recommend' all sorts of things - it doesn't mean they're going to happen.

[johneffay]

We need to understand what 'Holocaust Memorial Day' is supposed to be about: whether it 'commemorates' just the Holocaust (as a single definable moment in world history) or whether its meant to reflect other incidents of 'genocide'. (And if it is to just mean the Holocaust, is it supposed to 'just' mean the extermination of the Jews or to encompass the 3-4m other victims of the Nazis?)

Their website is pretty clear on all this and simpy blows the Muslim Council's argument out of the water. I wonder whether they bothered to do their research, or just fancied a bit of Jew bashing?

I find it reprehensible when one religious group uses that fact that they are being discriminated against to discriminate against another, but that's just the nature of the beast, I guess :(

[Mikey_C]

A bit of background from 2001:

The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) has expressed its inability to attend tomorrow's Holocaust Memorial National Day Ceremony.

In a letter to the Home Secretary, the Secretary General, Yousuf Bhaliok said that whilst they fully condemn the Nazi Holocaust and sympathise with the families of the Holocaust victims, they have reservations about the actual ceremony.

1. Firstly, it totally excludes and ignores the ongoing genocide and violation of Human Rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, in Jammu and Kashmir and elsewhere.
2. It includes the controversial question of alleged Armenian genocide as well as the so-called gay genocide.

http://www.mcb.org.uk/news260101.html


Controversial??? (well, maybe for the Turkish government...) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_genocide

So-called!!!!!! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_Holocaust

This statement in itself rather blows the idea that HMD is solely concerned about Jews out of the water.

Also - is anyone seriously suggesting that the territorial dispute in Palestine/Israel, tragic though it is, equates to genocide? If a word is over-used, it uses its meaning. There's already a Human Rights Day on Decmber 10 which covers these wider issues:
http://www.un.org/events/humanrights/2004/index.htm

[Michael Moorcock]

I think you have to have the idea of exterminating an entire race of people to be guilty of would-be genocide and presumably you have to have been successful to be guilty of genocide. So should we withdraw swympathy from New Orleans because it has a memorial to Andrew Jackson, whose policies set out to exterminate a number of Indian tribes. Lordy, lord. I'm unhappy with Israeli policies in Palestine and presumably if enough Israelis agree with me they'll be able to change those policies, but so far I haven't seen evidence of genocide. This is perhaps on a par with calling some rightwing person you don't like a Nazi. Or calling someone wjp is tightfisted a Jew, maybe ? I've been called both homosexual and Jewish in some Arab countries, sometimes by people who spat at me for good measure. Does this mean I should object to memorials to massacred Arabs in Spain, for instance ? I hate hypocrisy more than I hate racialism, don't you ?

[Mikey_C]

Too right. I regret my 'concession to terrorists' comment, but this kind of thing makes me angry. Talking of hypocrisy, on could mention facts such as the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem (Arafat's mentor) wartime support for Hitler http://www.varchive.org/obs/480223.htm, but this is akin to scraping in a gutter. I believe we all have some responsibility for what happened in those dreadful years. Britain could have done much more to support Europe's Jewry, or offer asylum at least. HMD is supposed to be a time when we can reflect on our common humanity and learn lessons from the past.

[Oren]

Yes, hypocrisy! Instead of asking to commemorate a "genocide" against Palestinians, one that never took place, Muslim and Arab leaders should have a look in their backyard first. The US declared the killing in Sudan last year, done by Arab militias, a genocide, reporting "consistent and widespread pattern of atrocities committed against non-Arab villagers." A memorial day for that horror would be much more appropriate.

The number of Arab and Muslim casualties in all the wars of Israel, does not reach 0.1% of the number of Arab and Muslim casualties in their own internal conflicts. Remember the Iran-Iraq war with its 1 million deaths? Remember Hafez al-Assad killing 38,000 (some say move) Syrians in El-Hama using poison gas?

I believe that when the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia said that "double standards when dealing with Israel" is a form of anti-Semitism, it was referring to this kind of hypocrisy.