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Dear HZ and List,
While I am oppossed to book burning (which I always view with scientific
suspicion and political disgust) I am very far from being a Holocaust denier
of any sort myself. I remain a member of the Tikkun Community for example
becausse I feel it is making a good faith effort towards justice in Is/Pa, but
I felt morally and scientifically obligated to resign from the Int. Assoc. of
Genocide Scholars, because I fear it is mired in hypocracy over selective
condemnations of genocides. ALL genocide is evil, the perpetrator (or the
sponsor of the perpetrator) does not matter.
It is a bit like my oppossition to bombing a country already demolished by
decades of bombs, so women can go without veils -- at the price of the death
of their children. This makes no sense to me. It seems more of a cover for
protecting a planned pipeline or "projecting force".
I did email the National Holocaust Meuseum -- evidedently their estimate
is 1.2 million Jewish kids under 16 were killed in the death camps. To make a
comparison with Iraq I asked them to disaggregate the figure to children under
5. I believe the person there was genuinely sympathetic but he said that the
data were not available to permit that division. Nor evidently was data
available by cause of death (always hard in dire situations).
It is double standards that I object to. Tragically, genocide was
committed by the Nazis. What one is to make of the tactics of the Allies in
fire bombing cities, I leave to experts in WWII. Hope this clarifies matters.
Finally, I fear that the Holocaust was not unique -- see King Leopold in
the Congo, the deaths caused by privlidging oil over safe water in Iraq today
by the U.S. Vicroy there, etc., etc.
That is the true extent of the past and continuing horror. Look at the Congo
today or other parts of the world, many which have the direct imprint of the
U.S. and European empires upon them. Then of course there is the structural
violence (Galtung) of the killers in suits that may dwarf many of the other
horrors by the use of economic tools from privitization through sanctions.
tom
>===== Original Message From Hassan Zeini <hasseini@yahoo.com> =====
>Deal List,
>
>Tom Nagy should not be surprised for being a victim of
>censorship. The same censorship is applied in New
>Zealand too...
>
>HZ
>--------------------------
>
>http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/thepress/0,2106,2576265a6009,00.html
>
>University split over decision to suppress article
>22 July 2003
>By TARA ROSS, By MATT CONWAY
>
>A "book burning" scandal has erupted at Canterbury
>University over an article on controversial Holocaust
>scholar Joel Hayward.
>
>A decision to recall and destroy copies of the history
>department's journal History Now – and dump editor Ian
>Campbell – is dividing the academic community.
>
>Canterbury lecturer Thomas Fudge, who wrote the
>offending article, has resigned in disgust and said he
>planned to leave at the end of the year.
>
>Dr Fudge told The Press he could not remain at a
>university that suppressed academic freedom.
>
>"It made me a hypocrite trying to teach my students to
>think critically and ask the tough questions, all of
>the academic values that universities are about, and
>here my department was saying effectively we're going
>to `burn books'."
>
>The article revisits the firestorm that surrounded the
>1993 Masters thesis of former Canterbury student Joel
>Hayward, which questioned the validity of Holocaust
>history. The thesis:
>
>Questioned whether Hitler personally ordered the
>physical extermination of the Jews.
>
>Questioned whether gas chambers were used
>systematically to murder Jews in European
>concentration camps.
>
>Suggested while millions of Jews had died at the hands
>of the Nazis, it was impossible to know how many.
>
>Dr Fudge, who lectures on medieval religious dissent
>and witchhunting, explored what for Hayward became a
>career-ending controversy.
>
>He revealed in the article that Dr Hayward has been
>harassed and received death threats against his
>children. Dr Hayward suffered an emotional breakdown,
>and in June last year left his teaching post at Massey
>University. He now cannot get a job.
>
>Late last year, Dr Fudge says, a publishing firm
>canned a book on New Zealand airmen that Dr Hayward
>had co-edited "on account of the negative publicity
>surrounding him".
>
>A subsequent job ended the day it started, because
>employing Dr Hayward was considered to be "a very
>risky proposition", the article claimed.
>
>Dr Fudge's article, The Fate of Joel Hayward in New
>Zealand Hands: From Holocaust Historian to Holocaust?,
>played on the title of the thesis, The Fate of Jews in
>German Hands. The article appeared on May 6.
>
>Next morning, Professor Campbell was asked to appear
>before his editorial committee and history department
>head Peter Hempenstall. Professor Campbell said he was
>effectively pushed.
>
>"The fact is that board disapproved of my editorial
>decision and, as a result, I couldn't continue as
>editor."
>
>An embargo was slapped on the journal and 500 copies
>recalled. Staff were later advised that copies of the
>offending journal had been destroyed on the authority
>of Professor Hempenstall.
>
>Another May edition of History Now was printed without
>the Fudge article and an editorial discussing truth
>and martyrdom.
>
>Professor Campbell said the university's reaction to
>the History Now piece raised a central question: "Why
>does someone think that this story is worth
>suppressing?
>
>"I think the publicity for everybody involved is going
>to be costly. It's bad for everybody concerned and I
>didn't want to see this happen."
>
>On May 14, Dr Fudge defended his article and academic
>freedom at a special meeting of history department
>academics, calling the censorship "unconscionable".
>
>Last week, he confirmed to his students that he had
>resigned.
>
>He told them that suppressing the article contravened
>the Education Act, which upholds the academic freedom
>of university staff "to question and test received
>wisdom, to put forward new ideas and to state
>controversial or unpopular opinions".
>
>Professor Hempenstall declined to speak to The Press,
>saying the matter had now become an employment issue
>between the university and Dr Fudge. The university's
>human relations director, Bruce Jamieson, said he was
>now investigating Dr Fudge's references to the
>controversy in lectures.
>
>He confirmed Vice-Chancellor Roy Sharp had
>investigated the journal's withdrawal and upheld
>Professor Hempenstall's decision. Professor Sharp was
>unavailable for comment last night.
>
>So too was Dr Hayward, who now lives in Palmerston
>North.
>
>Many Canterbury students were "very agitated" by the
>censorship move, Professor Campbell said.
>
>One student told The Press that teachers should be
>able to research and write about any issue – "even if
>the subject is controversial, even if the truth may be
>offensive to those who do not want to hear it".
>
>Staff outside the history department were also
>becoming aware of what had gone on.
>
>"I would think that people will fall into two
>categories; some will think it's a storm in a teacup
>and others will say it's a matter of principle,"
>Professor Campbell said.
>
>A third group might say the department had no business
>commenting on the Hayward issue.
>
>
>
>
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>_______________________________________________
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Tom
Thomas J. Nagy, Ph.D.
Assoc. Prof. of Expert Systems
George Washington Univeristy Sch. of Business & Public Mgt.
Washington, D.C. 20052
home.gwu.edu/~nagy
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