"Let the games begin" (Tehran, Iran)Iran is quickly consolidating its leading role in the market of state-sponsored genocide denial. Yesterday, the Islamic Republic opened an international conference in Tehran to "discuss the Holocaust away from Western taboos." Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has made several statements denying the genocide of 6 million Jews during WWII. Now, he has invited 67 scholars, including such luminaries as David Duke, formerly of the Ku Klax Klan, and Robert Faurisson to "re-examine" this issue. The dominant theme of the conference is that the Jews conspired to create the myth of the Holocaust in order to seize Palestine and create their own state. It's a message that still appeals to many people, especially in the Muslim world. For coverage, see Al Jazeera (quite good actually) and the New York Times. The lead sentence of the Turkish daily Hurriyet is a quotation from Ahmadinejad, "Yahudi soykırımı bir mitostur," [The Jewish genocide is a myth].
Some of our readers might be confused by images such as these, which have appeared in the media:
What are these Jews doing hugging Ahmadinejad? The individuals in question belong to an ultra-Orthodox sect that is so fervently anti-Zionist that it sends representatives to any cause that it perceives as injurious to the state of Israel. Most ultra-Orthodox Jews, including those who live in Israel and depend on the state for its benefits, believe that the creation of a secular state before the coming of the Messiah was a sin. A relatively small number of them believe that they ought to actively support Israel's enemies to reverse this historical transgression.
4 comments:
Genocide denial is normally conducted by those either commiting or profiting from the genocide; during WW-ii every nation said there was no holocaust, today Indonesia and its business partners say there is no genocide in West Papua. Yet there are about 4 million missing West Papuans, the most _conservative_ estimate is that the TNI and Laskar Jihad and other Indonesian jiahist groups have directly executed at least 100 thousand West Papuans.
Iran may be different for giving post support of one genocidal attempt; but it certainly is not the most vile of the current deniers.
Dear Andrew,
Thanks for your comments! Your argument certainly applies to the situation in West Papua, but I think you are actually under-estimating the phenomenon of post-genocide denial - certainly, both the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust are the object of large-scale denial efforts (think about all the publications and money poured into the productions of the negationists). The Holocaust has become a near-universal cultural code for evil in the West and in the world, in the last half-century. This has made its denial attractive to a variety of groups who have no historical connection to the events.
I am not sure how you would rank the respective "vileness" of the various deniers (who would top your list?).
Certainly no 'ranking' system could be used in relations to genocide, the crime is in the intention to wipe out a people and culture physically and from memory.
But by the same token, you can NOT retain any moral core while turning your back to people suffering genocide.
As for war situations like Darfur, it is great that people do want to help; but this too should not be used to allow the US to deny its responsibility for forcing the Netherlands to sell the people of West Papua to Indonesia in 1962, or America's responsibility for funding the TNI military and its various jihad militia relations for all these years.
Neither Bechtel nor Freeport McMoRan have a divine right to mine West Papua's gold.
A letter your nation could present to the United Nations.
To the United Nations General Assembly,
We call for the United Nations to now resume its decolonization obligation in relation to West New Guinea by facilitating an act of self determination in compliance with UN GA Resolutions 1514 and 1541, and the "New York Agreement" of August 1962 as noted in UN GA Resolution 1752.
We understand that the Republic of Indonesia being a member of the United Nations did support UN GA Resolutions 1514 and 1541 in December 1960; but in August 1962 signed the "New York Agreement" agreement which both acknowledged West New Guinea's status as a colony and provided for a seven year delay of self-determination.
As colonial control was transfered to Indonesia from the Kingdom of the Netherlands without consent of the people of West New Guinea, the colony's name should have remained on the UN list of Non Self-Governing territories, and Indonesia requested to continue supply of information under Article 73e of the United Nations Charter as the Netherlands had been doing since the 1950s. It is with great regret that reading UN Resolution 2504 of November 1969 we observe no act of self-determination has yet taken place, and that the IMF and World Bank funded transmigration program moving almost a million foreign nationals from Asia to this Pacific island nation now makes Term 18 of the New York Agreement essential to any fair act of self-determination. Specifically "eligibility of all adults, male and female, not foreign nationals to participate in the act of self-determination to be carried out in accordance with international practice" must be assured.
We again ask for the United Nations to end its forty four year moratorium on the decolonization of West New Guinea.
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