Response to Max:
With all due respect Max, this is why this Jewish exclusivism
vis-a-vis ONE Holocausts and ONE group of victims that were unique in
that they were specifically targeted for extermination is so
pernicious and feels for other victims of THE Holocaust or victims of
other Holocausts exactly how the "scholarship" and rantings of the neo-nazi
Holocaust deniers feel for Jewish victims. And this is why I have
written on this subject.
Even in terms of the nazi Holocaust, the Wannsee Conference included
Sinti and Romani Peoples (so-called Gypsies) to be targeted for total
destruction and in fact, the "genetic test" for defining who was a
Gypsie to be targeted for extermination was even more stringent than
for defining who is a Jew to be targeted for extermination. But
beyond that, I urge you to read Ward Churchill's "A Little Matter of
Genocide: Holocaust and Denial in the Americas 1492 to Present" as
the scholarship is overwhelming and voluminous and will perhaps
disabuse you of this notion that Indians were not specifically
targeted for total extermination as it might illustrate to you that
there have been indeed other Holocausts by any criteria you might
care to use to define what happened to Jews as a Holocaust; and
indeed even in the Nazi Holocaust, there were indeed other groups,
targeted as whole groups, for total annihilation.
Just as some anti-Zionists and the Holocaust deniers are using
Holocaust denial as a cover for rabid antisemitism that is
unpalatable for many in its more rabid and overt forms, so this
Jewish exclusivity and the ONE Holocaust and only ONE group of people
specifically targeted for extermination is being used to cover all
sorts of ugly crimes and Faustian Bargains done in the name of
Zionism and "Never Again." for example, the sale of cluster bombs to
the Pinochet Government at precisely the time that the Chief Internal
Security Advisor to Pinochet was none ofhter than Walter Rauff,
formerly of the nazi SS, designer of the mobile gas chambers masked
as red cross vans, sentenced to death in absentia (why didn't they
kidnap him like Eichmann?).
So if you admit that you know nothing about the history of Indians or
Armenians, then why summarily a priori dismiss the notion of other
Holocausts or the notion of other groups of people specifically
targeted for extermination? And what does specifically targeted for
extermination mean? What does it take to show "mens rea"?.
Acknowledging more than one Holocaust or other groups of victims of
the nazi Holocaust does not "dillute" or deny or disrespect the
suffering of the Jewish victims of the nazi Holocaust; rather it
disrespects those non-Jewish victims, real Judaism (that is free of chauvinism
and exclusivism when it comes to the worth of victims) and indeed the
Jewish victims as well since the became victims through a system and
by nazi creatures who practiced divide and rule, isolate individual
groups of victims from their natural allies and assigned "hierarchies"
when discussing the worth and value of human beings or victims.
(so-called Lebensuwertes Leben or "life unworthy of life").
Please do some research on the subject. I'm sure that you would not
want you and your sentiments to be unwittingly used for purposes and
by forces that have nothing to do with real Judaism or with real
respect for the victims of the nazi Holocaust--Jewish and non-Jewish.
>From Israel Charny Executive Director of the Institute on the
Holocaust and Genocide in Jerusalem:
"I object very strongly to the efforts to name the genocide of any
one people as the single, ultimate event, or as the most important
event against which all other tragedies of genocidal mass death are
to be tested and found wanting...For me, the passion to exclude this
or that mass killing from the universe of genocide, as well as the
intense competition to establish the exclusive 'superiority' or
unique form of any one genocide, ends up creating a fetishistic
atmosphere in which the masses of bodies that are not to be qualified
for the definition of genocide are dumped into a conceptual black
hole, where they are forgotten (quoted in Churchill p. 52)
In the Russia House, the central charaacter, Barley Scott Blair, a
drunken, cynical, self-centered, hedonist publisher of an inherited
and failing publishing house is drunk with some Russian friends in a
dacha and he is waxing eloquent:
"If there is to be hope, we must all 'betray' our country. We
have to save each other because all victims are equal and none is
more equal than others. It is everyone's duty to start the avalanche.
Nowadays you have to think like a hero just to behave like a merely
decent human being."
Anyway, I know the feeling; we have Indian exclusivists who don't
recorgnize or care a wit about Jewish suffering in the nazi
Holocaust.
Holocausts are Holcausts; Victims are Victims; Holocaust Denial is
Holcaust Denial.
Please think about it.
Jim
Jim Craven
On 10 Sep 98 at 10:03, Max Sawicky wrote:
> > There is no question for me that the net effect of
> >what has happened to Indians has been genocidal. But a
> >significant portion of this was pretty unconscious and
> >essentially accidental, if "convenient" for the invaders.
>
> Before I start, I want to acknowledge that
> I have no expertise on the facts in this
> matter of Native Americans.
>
> This is a pretty critical question for
> the experience of LP and JC on the Nizkor
> list. For most Jews the uniqueness of
> the Holocaust stems from coordinated
> intent, rather than the view advanced
> by Barkley.
>
> Obviously the Nazi intent encompassed
> other populations than Jews, and this
> truth is neglected by many Jews. But
> other historical episodes which
> culminated in the mass slaughter of
> an ethnic group, a religious group,
> or of a nation did not entail an
> intent to bring about that result.
> The enslavement of Africans in the
> Western Hemisphere would seem to be
> a good example.
>
> Unfortunately, to describe something
> as unlike "the" Holocaust, or not a
> holocaust, is equated with the sentiment
> that "this wasn't as bad as blankety
> blank." For some this may not be
> the implied meaning. One's own experience
> or that of one's targeted group is unique
> because it is personal, not necessarily
> "worse" than a different historical atrocity.
>
> It still follows that some people
> exploit holocausts of assorted types
> for purposes not worthy of approval.
>
> But a little more sensitivity to the
> intellectual traumas of all aggrieved
> parties by all would make for better
> dialogue. Feelings on these issues
> are pretty raw, all around.
>
> MBS
James Craven
Dept. of Economics,Clark College
1800 E. McLoughlin Blvd. Vancouver, WA. 98663
[EMAIL PROTECTED]; Tel: (360) 992-2283 Fax: 992-2863
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"The utmost good faith shall always be observed towards Indians; their land and
property shall never be taken from them without their consent."
(Northwest Ordinance, 1787, Ratified by Congress 1789)
Those who take the most from the table,
teach contentment.
Those for whom the taxes are destined,
demand sacrifice.
Those who eat their fill, speak to the hungry,
of wonderful times to come.
Those who lead the country into the abyss,
call ruling difficult,
for ordinary folk.
(Bertolt Brecht)
*My Employer has no association with My Private and Protected Opinion*
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