Friday, February 02, 2007

thing to keep one's eye on

According to the Telegraph this morning

People who question the official history of recent conflicts in Africa and the Balkans could be jailed for up to three years for "genocide denial", under proposed EU legislation.


Unbelievable? All too believable, but good to see Deborah Lipstadt still fighting the good fight in the article. One of the great unexpected boons of my regular writing here is that she once left a comment on something I posted.

Compare and contrast the EU proposal with the undisputed fact the the Belgian UN peacekeepers stood by and did nothing during the actual Rwandan genocide. They're two sides of the same coin. What on earth have we done to deserve such prissy ball less wonders in our international institutions?

In a healthy society citizens need sufficient confidence to act as moral agents on their own responsibility not to see themselves as emasculated servants of power always having to seek permission. That is how to kill bad things before they grow. Every initiative of the establishment these days seems to attempt to destabilise that, by demanding that they grant us permission on what to think never mind what to do and, let's be clear, whom we may hate.

The ancient folk wisdon of this island race says "sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me."

What I wouldn't give for an Orwell these days:
These things really happened, that is the thing to keep one's eye on. They happened even though Lord Halifax said they happened. The raping and butchering in Chinese cities, the tortures in the cellars of the Gestapo, the elderly Jewish professors flung into cesspools, the machine-gunning of refugees along the Spanish roads — they all happened, and they did not happen any the less because the Daily Telegraph has suddenly found out about them when it is five years too late.

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