A bit strident and voluble, but I approve of her stridency and feel it ineluctable under the present circumstances. Here's fellow blogger, writer and columnist Sarah Islam on the hero-worship we are foisting post-November 26 on Adolf Hitler and his ilk. Imagine, how can we forget the holocaust that killed six million people, that too, in gas chambers and freezing prisons. How easily we forget the lessons of history!
"Many Indians who I spoke to after the ‘office episode of shock and awe’ said that they admired Adolf Hitler and a leader like him would surely help India on the right path. Sad, that we still think we need to be beaten black and blue in the name of discipline and exterminated if we show dissent. On a deeper level, perhaps Hitler’s handling of the Jews does induce wet dreams in many right wing Hindus and Muslims who think that ethnic cleansing would solve all our problems as it will automatically create a perfect nation consisting of citizens with the correct bloodline, the correct faith and the right ideals. Diversity, as we all know is the not a trait that any dictator, brainwashed hoodlum or inbred nationalist likes."
"On television these days, we have many Indians who are holding up Israel as an example of how a country should defend its borders against its enemies. No matter that apartheid is rampart inside Israel, we are again vacantly quoting from history and current affairs without understanding a damn word of it! It makes me sad that a country with so many global aspirations just fails to see what is really happening around them. Shame! Read more on Sarah Islam's blog.
voluble:-) yes I agree! Thing is that we really need to be more sensitive of other people's pain otherwise Kandhamal, Mumbai and Gujrat will happen again and again. As for Hitler his image in India really needs to be corrected. Makes me so mad!grr!
ReplyDeleteThanks again John. Peace!
Hi Sarah,
ReplyDeleteI understand. As some wise guy said if we ignore or forget history we are bound to repeat its mistakes. I guess that's what's happening. Auschwitz and Gulags are going to be repeated soon, it would seem.
Don't you think?
J
John, do you think this has something to do with the bilge that passes off for History education in India. I remember learning about the horrors of the Holocaust by reading on my own not from what was prescribed. because the history we read in school was India's struggle for freedom in and out- all the time- world history was rarely more than a few chapters.
ReplyDeleteAlankrita,
ReplyDeleteyes i think our whole education system is to blame. We do not teach world history and that's why bits and pieces are being picked out to glorify the likes of Hitler.
Bose went to Hitler for help not realizing that the Germans would have been a more tyrannic occupiers than the British. After all, the Nazis wanted to create a nation of white, blue-eyed Aryans and soon there would have been concentration camps in India where Indians who weren't fair would have been consigned to gas chambers. Most of the misguided people who hanker for Hitler do not realize this, as don't most of the fundamental elements.
so, in sum, Hitler isn't cool!
John