All European Life Died In Auschwitz

[Mark Gambo]

Here is an interesting Article entitled "All European Life Died In Auschwitz"

Here is the original article in Spanish

[FunkyDexter]

It's not interesting at all. It's narrowminded and ill informed.

Any writer who seems to believe that the Musim population of Spain is a result of the replacing Jews in the twentieth centry rather than, say, centuries of Moorish occupation and that the persecution of Jews in Spain is significantly connected to the Nazi Party rather than, say, the Catholic Church and King Ferdinand displays a staggering ignorance of his own countries history. I would give his opinions no more credence than I would those of a urine soaked tramp.

[mendhak]

Actually, that article is quite interesting. If you read Mein Kampf, it's the same logic that Adolf Hitler used when justifying his hatred for the Jews, which of course eventually led to the events in history of which you are aware. And ironically, to the sentiments in this article.

What do you think, will history repeat itself?

[penagate]

What do you think, will history repeat itself?

I'm not sure that it reasonably could, given that—in general—we condition ourselves to feel so strongly about discrimination.

Then again, brainwashing can happen anywhere. Sadly, we often brainwash ourselves.

[crptcblade]

Then again, brainwashing can happen anywhere.

No it can't. Government told me so...

[Shaggy Hiker]

Actually, that article is quite interesting. If you read Mein Kampf, it's the same logic that Adolf Hitler used when justifying his hatred for the Jews, which of course eventually led to the events in history of which you are aware. And ironically, to the sentiments in this article.

What do you think, will history repeat itself?

It already did. If you read about the history of Europe from around 1000 to 1500 or so, there are numerous instances of the same kind of extermination of the Jews that the Nazis practiced. They were somewhat more organized, and covered a larger area, but I they weren't necessarily more thorough within the area they covered than some of the earlier assualts.

[FunkyDexter]

I can't see it repeating itself with the Jews in the West for at least another century, but only because the holocaust was such a staggering event that it's left an imprint on the Western psyche like no other.

I could easily see it happening to the Jews in the middle east or some other group in the West though. In truth it just needs a politician to spot the political capital to be gained by ostracising some group which hasn't the clout to represent itself combined with a feeling by society that their way of life is somehow under attack. If history is anything to go by it's incredibly easy to get an entire nation to hate a sub-culture once the ball's rolling. The German citizens of the 1930's were a generally well educated and tolerant buch of people but that didn't stop them, at worst, collaborating in and, at best, ignoring, the persecution that was taking place.

[SurfDemon]

Having just read the article, I feel obliged to agree with FD. The author is a rampant racist. To paraphrase the article, the Jews where all fantastic people who made our lives better, the muslims are all cheating bar stewards who want nothing more than to supress all other religons.

What a load of smelly fish*

*Carp.

[Shaggy Hiker]

I can't see it repeating itself with the Jews in the West for at least another century, but only because the holocaust was such a staggering event that it's left an imprint on the Western psyche like no other.

I could easily see it happening to the Jews in the middle east or some other group in the West though. In truth it just needs a politician to spot the political capital to be gained by ostracising some group which hasn't the clout to represent itself combined with a feeling by society that their way of life is somehow under attack. If history is anything to go by it's incredibly easy to get an entire nation to hate a sub-culture once the ball's rolling. The German citizens of the 1930's were a generally well educated and tolerant buch of people but that didn't stop them, at worst, collaborating in and, at best, ignoring, the persecution that was taking place.

Actually, demonizing a group is one of the major means of consolidating support by any group. I've heard from a couple of places that the leaders of the fundamentalist right used communism as the group to go after, and were in danger of losing cohesion following the fall of the Soviet Union. At that point they found another minority to demonize. At times in the past, this group has been willing to use the conventional minorities, but race and religion were out of favor (until 9/11 allowed them to coalesce against muslims), so they went after homosexuals. Now we hear fundamentalist leaders ranting about gays here and there just as they did about communists two decades back, but there are a fair number of people out there (me included) who don't actually know any gays. They don't wear signs in most places simply because of the discrimination, so they are hard to identify unless you happen to be overly attuned to them. Why weren't they an issue before? Because there was a better opponent.

[FunkyDexter]

the muslims are all cheating bar stewards

I think the thing that bothered me most about the writers opinion is that he's a Spaniard and there's nowhere in Western Europe where the positive influence Muslims have had can be more clearly seen. Anyone whose ever travelled round Southern Spain can be left with no doubt that Muslims have made an enormous contiribution to our Western Culture.

In particular, they kept Greek and Latin learning alive while the Catholic Church were busy burning every book they could find. It was the redisicovery of this knowledge by the Western Europeans during the Crusades and the Reconquista that lead directly to the renaissance. If there were no muslims, the chances are we'd still be in the dark ages.

Add to that a heightened sense of aesthetics, hygiene, manners, art...

I really hate the "what have the muslims ever done for the world?" attitude I keep encountering. It's utterly ignorant of history.

Actually, demonizing a group is one of ...

I agree 100%. I wish it wasn't true, but it is.

[Shaggy Hiker]

The muslim faith was originally founded with a pursuit of knowledge being the original meaning of Jihad. The arabic and muslim cultures lead the western world in science for many centuries, and preserved much of the body of western knowledge that would otherwise have been lost in the dark ages. Some have suggested that it is this preeminent position in the world of science that the radicals feel was taken from them. As in everything else, there are as many reasons as there are people in the movement.

[mendhak]

I personally feel that the current perceptions of the general muslim population is the result of a mass-cultural stagnation. They may have been leaders in mathematics and art in the past (from what I've studied) but then they just stopped moving in any direction. Such a situation is unfavorable to a capitalistic global economy, and it thus manifests itself in our perceptions of them.