Friday, January 27, 2012
Michael Portillo and Chief Minister Ian Gorst - Jersey Holocaust Day 2012
Every year Jersey people remember the Holocaust along with many others around the world but the Island seems so reluctant to ratify the most basic international human rights treaties or to enact local laws against discrimination and racism or to promote equality.
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The problem with the commemoration on 27 January is that it is something that our modern, compartmentalised minds can easily put to one side - "what does what happened in the 1940s mean to me, I wasn't born until a generation after the war".
ReplyDeleteIt was my understanding that this commemoration was originally intended to remember all civilian victims of war. Now that is a live political topic for many reasons: the victims of war might include those you regard as "enemy" - eg those who died in the Dresden raids in 1945 - or it might include things that were deeply embarrassing - eg the Israelis carrying out war crimes against Lebanese and Palestinians.
It might equally have to reflect the motivation for war - be that political, or economic. In the latter category you might put gaining control of mineral resources in the eastern Congo region, so that wealthy speculators might put their profits safely away in Jersey while the native population go in fear of machete-wielding thugs.
On balance, it's not surprising that the various establishments prefer to commemorate dead history than face the realities of modern life.