My stomach could use one less hit.

[elfs]

Schools are dropping the Holocaust from history lessons to avoid offending Muslim pupils, a Government-backed study has revealed. It found some teachers are reluctant to cover the atrocity for fear of upsetting students whose beliefs include Holocaust denial.

Okay, this upsets me personally. I grew up with an uncle who had a number tattooed on arm, and both of my parents lost family during the Holocaust-- my father because his family is Jewish, my mother because some members joined the French resistance.

This kind of thing infuriates me. The Holocaust is a matter of historical record. Not one person indicted at Nuremberg tried to claim it didn't happen. You should not be allowed to dictate class curricula because your beliefs contradict reality. This is as true of history as it is of science. Holocaust denial and Intelligent Design are exactly the same in this fashion: those who propound these points of view are wrong and that needs to be repeated every second of every day until they feel absolutely beaten by reality.

If we don't do that, if we don't take a stand, then we can just kiss our world, and our future, goodbye.

Comments

[irismoonlight.livejournal.com]

WTF? Since when does Islam have anything to do with belief in, or denial of, the Holocaust? Or, for that matter, the arab-israeli conflict have anything to do with any particular Christian denomination?

[sirfox.livejournal.com]

My cousin is an army officer, did a tour in Iraq training Iraqi troops and officers there.

It's a cultural thing. Jews are reviled, blamed for many of the evils and hardships of their daily life, regardless of underlying fact. Sometimes he found it was the only thing that the Sunni and Shia troops he was training would agree on.

They never got taught about the Holocaust as an element of WWII. Never came up, not taught, not discussed, not anything. When somebody was on a tirade for "those awful jews occupying our holy land" he brought it up, and got a blank look of incomprehension.

My cousin, BTW, is Jewish.

I've kinda been thinking about this topic. Part of me wonders if some of the best use of time, money and infrastructure over there might not be to set up lots of little internet kiosks. put 'em in the coffee shops, schools, etc. Free information is kind of a viral thing, and if parents tell their kids not to go use those, because of the horrible things that they'll say, the kids will be all over it. Ethnic cleansing is just wrong... but maybe a viral injection of another culture might not be so bad.

Attitudes never change easily, and ones like you find in that region, so heavily re-enforced, are harder still. Right now, they've got 10th century morality, 15th century politics, 19th century infrastructure, and 21st century terrorism. Any kind of long-term fundamentalism will get you a situation like that, because it rails so hard against change and new ideas.

Gotta agree with Elf, tho. The fact that all this still goes on in the middle east is deplorable. That folks in the western world would even THINK of adopting that level of revisionist bullshit is simply nauseating.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Whaddaya mean, think?

There is an entire body of "scholarship" dedicated to proving Jefferson was as evangelical a Christian as Billy Graham and never meant for his "separation of Church and State" to become anything more than an idea he was toying with. There is an equally large body of "scholarship" dedicated to showing that all of medicine "depends upon Intelligent Design" for its output and products.

Take a look at Conservapedia (http://www.conservapedia.com/Main_Page), which is dedicated to being a "Wikipedia with a Biblical worldview." Don't worry that their history is wrong or their science would never cure anything; these people believe this stuff.

My only comfort is knowing they are my eloi.

[sirfox.livejournal.com]

Oh, i know those idiots are out there. Despite their best efforts, they still have trouble breaking into the public schooling system, though, and usually have to fund private education if they want to shelter their kids from The Evil Truth. Entitlement whining works better over in the UK, i guess. "Wah! cater to my historical prejudices or you're discriminating against me and my culture!!!"

Thinking about crap like this often reminds me of neal stephenson's "Diamond Age" and what it had to say about subversive knowledge and teaching. We've gotta get better at it than they are. ("They" in this case can refer to the middle east, belligerent immigrant communities in the UK, or fundamentalist christian nutjobs over here.)

[http://users.livejournal.com/_candide_/]

There is an equally large body of "scholarship" dedicated to showing that all of medicine "depends upon Intelligent Design" for its output and products.

Uhhh… they're not going to get very far with that sort of FantasyLand "scholarship".

See, you can assert all you like that the pencil you're holding will fall up when you let go of it, but Gravity will behave as it always has despite your beliefs.

So, maybe we should restrict them to medicines that depend upon Intelligent Design. Let them try to develop medical technology based on their ideologically-correct views. I doubt they'll get very far.

And this is why science will always trump any ideology attempting to conflict with it: science produces results. To paraphrase Carl Sagan, you go where the data points, no matter how uncomfortable you might be with what it's trying to tell you.

Now, I'm not saying, "Science will pwn all Fundies!" These nutjobs may succeed in squelching the entire science of biology with their "scholarship". If they do, they'll have lost. Aging tech breaks down. Without the science that the technology's based on, game over. Their beliefs won't repair any of it. So, by winning, the Fundies will doom their descendants to a new Dark Age.

[irismoonlight.livejournal.com]

They never got taught about the Holocaust as an element of WWII. Never came up, not taught, not discussed, not anything. When somebody was on a tirade for "those awful jews occupying our holy land" he brought it up, and got a blank look of incomprehension.

Ah. That, unfortunately, makes sense as a *cultural* reaction. For us to respond to it as if it we were disrespecting their religious beliefs is ridiculous. Thank you!

[sherm.livejournal.com]

So is it time to declare the war officially lost yet?

[mothball-07.livejournal.com]

My new sig quote:

"If political correctness makes us tell lies, it may be political, but
it is not correct, and it is an invitation to cultural suicide." -
unknown Israeli, speaking to my mother.

[erisiansaint]

My great-uncle flew planes in WWII, knowing that if he was shot down, he'd go to a concentration camp. Genocide is NOT something that should be denied, and people who are Holocaust Deniers should not get to dictate that we do not get to teach the greatest atrocity of the last century.

I'm infuriated.

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

I witnessed an antiwar demonstration at which some of the people were carrying anti-Semetic signs. I asked a couple of the demonstrators if they believed that this war was the fault of the Jews. When they smiled and nodded, thinking they had found a sympathizer, I told them the following:

"My father's generations dealt with you Nazis by burning their cities down around the heads of their dying wives and children, until they begged to be allowed to surrender, and this generation will serve you fascist bastards just the same!"

They shrank back in horror.

I think I made my point :)

[fallenpegasus]

I've seen those same anti-semitic signs and placards at assorted protests and "public actions" here in Seattle.

I will remember your response to them, and use it as needed.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_candide_/]

Good on you!

[sianmink.livejournal.com]

Disgusting, but I can't say I'm surprised. The UK has a recent history of rolling over to this sort of thing..

Gosh, if you avoid teaching any history that might offend someone, what's left?

[lovingboth]

Go on, what's the evidence for that assertion?

[woggie.livejournal.com]

What I want to know is: on what religion could you base forcing schools not to teach you math and counting? I'm sure one is out there somewhere. It's just a matter of time before they rear their ugly heads.

[(Anonymous)]

i consider myself a convert to the ways of a so-called primitive tribe whose native language does not include numbers greater than three. you must excuse me to go outside and commune with nature now.

[fallenpegasus]

Did you see this about conspiracy theory wankers?

http://www.ejectejecteject.com/archives/000140.html

The cultural and technological desert that is Islam is utterly riddled with conspiracy theories, most of the starring the Evil Jooos.

[bbw-seska.livejournal.com]

They where talking about this a few years back in the Netherlands as well...
They decided against it, since, well, out of all of the WWII countries ours was in the top 5 of hit places by the holocaust (I have lost 2 aunts, 1 uncle and my grandmother has lost all of her friends back then, I say lost since it's uncertain if they're dead or missing, the assumption is dead however).

I don't get this...
If you for your own beliefs sake do not want your kid to learn certain stuff, especially in the US I say homeschool the brat (homescholing is impossible in the Netherlands).

If not, tough luck, you may have to learn about things you might not believe in. Next thing we're scratching biology and evolution for the christians?

Hell, don't a lot of schools in the US still do the anthem thing every morning? I would rather not have my kids pledge alligance (spelling sucks, I know) but if that's one small detail of the entire pack that education is, so be it.

[lovingboth]

First thought: it's the Daily (Hate) Mail, therefore it's untrue crap.

This is the 'paper' that gave the world the front page story "Gay Gene Abortion Hope", the idea that if there were indeed a 'gay gene' you could test for it and abort any kids you found with it. Seriously.

To his shame, the religious figure they dragged up to quote for that one was the head of British Jews.

Second thought: by far the most popular period for children studying history for exams aged 16 here is Germany and the rise of Hitler. (To such an extent that the German ambassador has been known to complain that it's the only bit of German history that people here do know!) No way is anyone going to do that and skip over the Holocaust.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_candide_/]

Y'know, it's funny… Even assuming the article is tripe, you hear a lot of complaints from Muslims around the world that, "The West," is insensitive to their historical experience. Well, the mechanized slaughter of World War II and the horrors that the world saw upon liberation of the concentration camps — that's part of the West's historical experience. And the Muslim world had damned well better face that fact if they want the West to even consider offering them some respect.