Hard News: The Solipsistic Left
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Giving them Finland or Austria instead of Palestine might have at least been a more equitable payment
certainly would've been more humorous
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Hmm, Don, this is going way off the tracks.
I think I know a bit more than you do about Europe and discrimination and can honestly say that it's not the same now as it was a century ago.
You seem to think Finland persecuted the Jews as well, which isn't true.
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yes Finland doesn't have quite the same ugly hidden history from WW2 that neighbours like Sweden do for example.
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You seem to think Finland persecuted the Jews as well, which isn't true.
No I don't. That was supposed to pass as humour, dubious though it may have been. Fighting on the side of the Nazis, for whatever reason, was not a good sign though. You probably do know more about Europe than I but don't assume total ignorance on my part either.
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I'd wger that some of the left sympathy for Islam is more of an alliance of convenience - you know, they are clearly focused on their traditional enemies in the centre or right, and anyone who is not of the latter is a potential ally to be co-opted.
I don't have sympathy for Islam, any more than I have sympathy for Christianity. I have sympathy for people, especially if they personally haven't done anything to piss me off.
That's what guided my view on the Danish cartoons. I don't care a fig what a mad mullah thinks, but I thought it was unnecessary for a fellow New Zealander to have to open his or her morning paper to see something they'd find wounding and offensive. Or, I guess, sell that paper from their dairy ...
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You're right, I didn't get the joke. Can you warn me in advance before you let off any further such funnies?
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Juha's point - that there is no equivalent persecution of Muslims - is very sound. There is some nastily evocative rhetoric from certain quarters, but that's it. Comparisons to Europe in the 30s are hyperbole.
I think it's important to counter that rhetoric, mind.
On another note, I'd call being sandwiched between Hitler and Stalin a classic rock and hard place. As far as Finland's treatment of its Jews at that time goes they rank very well compared to many other countries in Europe -- hell, the Finnish army had field synagogues.
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PS: Uganda has a much nicer climate than Finland...
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Russell: that's a tricky kettle of fish. Where do you draw the line in terms of self-censorship and how do achieve consistency? It would seem the only way to do that is to avoid politics and religion altogether.
Obviously, the reaction to the Mohammed Cartoons was stronger than to say the Chocolate and Piss Christs, but that doesn't seem like a good reason to not print them.
If that was the right reason, Salman Rushdie should not have been allowed to publish the Satanic Verses either.
Be nice if blasphemy and irreverence was protected in law actually.
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Comparisons to Europe in the 30s are hyperbole.
Agreed.
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oh, and I think the Fins are nice too, some of my best friends etc...
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It's off topic for the discussion, but Finland fought against Nazi Germany after the peace treaty with the Soviet Union, a war that left the northern part of the country in ruins.
I'm also too young to have been in the war, or to have taken part in the politics of the time, but I note that the distant Jewish rellies made it through that unpleasant era in one piece.
One mentioned fighting next to German troops and then against them soon after. He said - and this is where Russell's point about people comes in, that the Germans were nice and polite. Should make contact with that side of the family again, actually.
I trust this deflects any war time guilt poo as flung in my direction by Don.
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Yeah, it was certainly an us or them situation for Finland at that time. Having Russia as a long term neighbour one side and Sweden on another is always going to focus ones mind in a particular way - throughout the ages.
Anyhoo...
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I was careful to say the 1930's not the 1940's.
If you look at a lot of the extremist rhetoric from that time you can see disturbing echoes today.
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Sonic, I suggest you extend that care to consulting a history text then.
What you said was:
"In the same way we defended Jewish people being persected in the 1930's we defend Muslim victims of persecution today."
Kristallnacht was in 1938. The Nuremberg laws were passed in 1935. The first laws restricting Jewish civil rights in Germany were passed 1933. The Stormtroopers were actively putting the boot in as early as 1925.
I have already agreed that some ugly and untrue things are being said, and I hope the things I've said upthread make it clear where I stand. However your comparison is simply. plainly wrong.
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I can't hear any such echoes, and it's not because I'm deaf to them.
Making spurious comparisons like that really isn't helpful. That's Kiwiblog comments section territory so it'd be good if you didn't do it.
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merc,
Yes you can. The book, A Distant Mirror by Barbara Tuchman I cannot plug enough, everything echoes through time. I am part German, so I have had to do alot of reading and soul searching, more than perhaps those of the usual English, Scots, Irish.
It ain't easy to be drawn to dark forests and Wotan, black, red and white, but it has given me a different perspective than some. We don't really get Europe here, we are Brit-centric.
Having a bit of French as well (I'm 5 times a mongrel), I notice that we take the Brit line on the French Revolution and Napoleon, for me 1815 was the pivotal year.
All this to say, 1930's Europe is not too great a stretch for what we have now. -
What have we now then? Pogroms and extermination camps for muslims?
Muslims have to wear crescent insignia on their clothes?
They have their property confiscated by fascist regimes?
If that's what Tuchmann says, she's stretching her credibility paper thin.
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merc,
Phew, I should have read the thread more carefully, it's a hot one and I really havn't got a handle on the issue, sorry. I broke a personal rule here and should have thought before a wasted some kb's.
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Ok, now I'm interested - what is the European view of the F.R and Napoleon? That 1815 was a travesty because the monarch was restored?
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Tuchman's idea (and I say this without ever having read her, so could be off completely here) sounds interesting, and it's probably true in the sense that we compare with what recent history we can recall (but not always verify, for obvious reasons).
However, Sonic clearly stated that muslims are being persecuted today like the Jews were in the thirties. No matter how one twists that, it's simply not correct.
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Apart from a few dusty and mildewy academics, I don't think most Europeans have any view of 1815 beyond it being a year very far away in the past.
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Damm, I was hoping it would be more exciting, perhaps with pirate gold and a wise talking crow.
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merc,
I have and will again, lived and worked for extended periods in France, and speak French, as do I have family there as I do in Germany, phew. I have read reasonably well I think, studied at University, and discussed politics with so called terrorists, real US Senators, us folk, dissidents, exiles and the insane. All of them had an opinion on Napoleon and subsequently, 1815. I think it's still too close to tell the affects.
As for Muslim persecution today, it's a sticky one because it calls into question America's motives in Iraq, i.e. is this a religiously motivated war?
I have heard WW2 described by Jung as a Christian war, this is seen as very controversal, though all soldiers who fought for Britain were asked for their denomination, and if none were proferred, automatically imposed with C of E, because they fought for the King as Head of the Church of England, they died for same.
God and My Right, no war has been fought successfully without it, now a revolution is an entirely different matter...cue the French Revolution.
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