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In Remembrance
Mike Ahlf
Monday was April 16th. For those who don't know (and those are becoming many), it was Holocaust Remembrance Day.
On April 16th 2007, In the Middle East, in the state of Israel, a day of national remembrance and mourning.
On April 16th 2007, across the Middle East, Arab/Muslim state-sponsored newspapers were releasing editorials in which Jews were called "apes and pigs", and in which the blood libels of the
Protocols of the Elders of Zion were repeated.
On April 16th 2007, in "Palestine", the words of Palestine TV's Ismail Radwan from March 30, 2007 were still being repeated as they were quoted from Muslim scripture: “The Hour will not come until the Muslims will fight the Jews and the Muslims will kill them, and the rock and the tree will say: ‘Oh, Muslim, servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, kill him!’”. Protesters took to the street and shouted for death to Jews, support for Hamas and other terrorist entities, and all matter of other nastiness.
On April 16th 2007, on the Daily Kos website, a writer named "Sabbah" was putting up disgustingly anti-semitic videos. He's since
changed his link and put up a disclaimer saying he "inadvertently" linked to a neo-Nazi site. "Inadvertently" my ass.
On April 16th 2007, a BBC "reporter" was already trying to spin the killing of longtime reporter Alan Johnston into a "
the Jews really did it" story, ignoring the evidence he was killed by Palestinian terrorists.
On April 16th 2007, Syria was busy
threatening violence again.
On April 16th 2007, Britain - for the first time since the Holocaust occurred - was not teaching the Holocaust's history in schools out of fear of "offending" Muslim students who are being taught Holocaust Denial in their Mosques.
On April 16th 2007, in America, no news network reported on the fact that it was Holocaust Remembrance Day, because they were too busy with "up-to-the-minute" bullshitting by camera-hogging personalities who all had something to say about Virginia Tech and a deranged shooter.
And yet, something amazing did happen.
On April 16th 2007, a lone man, a man who had seen the worst of humanity, a man who had every right to try to preserve his own life, did the precise opposite. Liviu Librescu - a 76 year old teacher who himself had survived the Holocaust, which the world was supposed to be remembering yesterday - used his own body to block the classroom door and
saved his students' lives at the cost of his own.
He should be remembered. How he died, how he lived, the lives he taught, and yes, the horrible tragedy he witnessed firsthand, should ALL be remembered.
And it is a shame to all the world that all the other things I mentioned, went on while he was selflessly showing us the best of humanity with his final act.
Observations
/On April 16th 2007, Britain - for the first time since the Holocaust occurred - was not teaching the Holocaust's history in schools out of fear of "offending" Muslim students who are being taught Holocaust Denial in their Mosques./
Of the many depressing things in this post, for some reason this stands out at me as the most depressing.
Brilliantly put. Thank you.
According to Snopes (
http://www.snopes.com/polit...), it wasn't all schools in Britain that refrained from teaching about the Holocaust. Snopes did find a couple schools that pulled Holocaust lessons for fear of confronting Muslim anti-semitism, but it doesn't appear to be widespread.
The fact that even a few would is scary enough, though.
Your article doesn't disagree with what Snopes says: a couple of schools refrained from teaching the Holocaust.
Both are using the Department of Education and Skills (DES) as their source. The difference is that according to Snopes it's a preliminary report and not a change in policy. The This-in-London story does not contradict that. The TiL story provides two examples (the point of the study not being that there are a lot of instances where the Holocaust is overlooked but rather a lot of instances of where political correctness has run amok with this as an example), which is apparently as many as the report provides. Maybe there are more, but the DES itself says that this is not British policy, which is what I feared that it was.
Per Snopes:
A spokesman for the Department of Education and Skills (DES) maintained that "The Adjegbo report on citizenship [a different report authored by Sir Keith Adjegbo and released in January 2007] said key British historical events must be taught" and that while "the national curriculum is a broad framework and there is scope for schools to make their own decisions, teaching elements including the Holocaust and key Britis events will be compulsory."
Currently, according to the DES spokesperson, "Teaching of the Holocaust is already compulsory in schools at Key Stage 3 (ages 11 to 14) and it will remain so in the new KS3 curriculum for September 2008." Schools in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland have different guidelines and curriculums; in those parts of the UK, according to the BBC, "Holocaust teaching is not compulsory but schools may teach it if they wish, and this has not changed recently."
That article also appears to be relying the the DES report (mentioning the exact same examples, which as far as we know are the only ones). So thus far we have at least a couple instances of it happening (which is definitely bad), but not as widespread as I'd initially feared.
Good post. (And I disagree with about 80% of Mike's perspectives).
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