Monday, September 13, 2004
Read the transcript, or better yet, watch the actual video of this Egyptian television program in which denial of the Holocaust is discussed as something as ordinary and accepted as whether the earth is round and the sun rises every day. Let me rephrase that. It's not that Holocause denial is discussed, it's that the non-existence of any such thing is taken as a simple given that everyone understands. It is surreal. Think, as you watch this clip, how alien the world-view is compared to what one would find in America, or even Europe still, and ask yourself, the next time someone starts talking about how it's our fault that "they hate us," or that we need to do a better job of selling ourselves to the greater Middle East, or that we should be a more neutral broker between both sides - think about how long a row that's going to be to hoe, about what sides you're being asked to be neutral between exactly, and about who you're being asked to get into bed with.
Sayyd Ali, host: "Or whose truth is in doubt…"
Rif'at Sayyed Ahmad: "Or whose truth has been in doubt for sixty years, while today a true Holocaust is occurring from Rafah to Jenin, Nablus, Baghdad, and Nafaj. This is the Holocaust that our nation and our region is experiencing today, and the West does not pay attention to it and doesn't feel the same level of pain that it feels concerning the old Holocaust. When this article was published, the Zionist MEMRI organization in America and the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which is also Zionist, translated the article and then disseminated it and sent letters to the American Congress, to the American Embassy in Cairo and to the Egyptian Foreign Ministry, and other places."
On the Phone - Muhammad Al-Zurqani, former editor-in-chief of Al-Liwaa Al-Islami: "I agree with what Dr. Rif'at Sayyed Ahmad wrote and I accept full responsibility. I think, Dr. Sayyed, that you and I are of the same generation, colleagues who worked together. We were educated from childhood that the Holocaust is a big lie."
Sayyd Ali:"Of course." [...]
In order for there to be real change, there needs to be a pull as well as a push. We can push our ideas and our culture through our commerce and outreach in broadcast media, but there needs to be a corresponding pull as well, or it will amount to nothing more than trying to shove a bunch of wet spaghetti. Totalitarian governments are naturally conservative and suspicious of the pull of new ideas, and without a change at the top, there's very little chance of success. At least, it hasn't worked thus far, has it? If these societies open up, might there not just be a better chance of the widespread curiosity of human nature being unleashed to provide the pull we need to start changing these attitudes? Well, that seems to be the current plan. I think it's worth a go.
[Update: It occurs to me that many people out there with somewhat isolationist tendencies may wonder why we have to care about these attitudes existing in the Arab/Muslim World. Well people weened on these views are responsible for mass immigration in Europe, and are finding their political voice here in the United States, too. Think about it.]
(P.S. Back to posting - spent the weekend assembling my new Athlon64 system, and then...well...there's a copy of Doom 3 sitting there...and we can't let all that horsepower go to waste...if I'm going to go right back to blog posting, I may as well be using an IBM Selectric...and nobody does that anymore!)
