On Wed, 10 Apr 2002, J. van Baardwijk wrote: > >I personally find it highly disturbing that the prominent symbol of any > >democratic government would establish such a double-standard, especially > >one that seems to be rooted in racism. > > I do not think this is necesarily rooted in racism; it probably has to do > with fear and security. Given the attacks on synagogues recently, I can > imagine that people right now do not want any displays of Jewish/Israeli > symbols for fear of being the next target.
To me that kind of reasoning sounds exactly like racism. An American analogy might be like this: suppose a white supremacist group decides to attack black people, burning African-American churches and lynching individuals. Examples of both kinds of actions have happened in recent years in the US. Now imagine that we don't permit black people or people wearning distinctively African garb into the local legislature because we don't want any displays of "blackness" to attract violence. If America did this, we'd draw huge amounts of well-deserved criticism for our racist practices. If the Norweigian legislature is refusing to permit in its halls people who are identifiably Jewish, or even just partisans of Israel's cause, just because they're afraid of becoming a target, then they're indulging in bigotry and cowardice. (Of course it's probably not "the legislature," but just a handful of twits behaving badly.) But the principle is utterly unsound and utterly immoral. If someone is following the reasoning you describe, Jeroen, then that someone is definitely racist. Marvin Long Austin, Texas
