New Trend Magazine Forum
(These two letters from Shoaib Qureshi, London, England, somehow got
published in the Times Literary Supplement, over an extended period of
time.
The first one is about the bombing of Dresden and the other about David
Irving's case last year that he was was being defamed by a Jewish
American
professor, Lipstadt, to stop the publication of his work in mainstream
media.)
{The first was a response to a recent book review about bombings in the
second world war.
The second about David Irving losing the court case.}
More than half a century after the end of the second world war, there
is still
an inability to deal maturely with the moral issues raised by the
bombing of
Dresden (Books, THES, May 25).
In particular, the trite way Sir Patrick Moore quotes Robin Neillands,
author
of
The Bomber War: The simple defence against the charges levelled against
the
air crew who destroyed Dresden is that there was a war on. It was the
war
that
killed... And who should be blamed for that? This is precisely the
argument
used by the Germans tried at Nuremburg.
And it is similar to the one used for the continued allied bombing of
Iraq and
the genocidal sanctions. Those who use it speak as though they are
bombing and
starving Saddam, not the unwitting population of Iraq. If this logic is
correct,
it is OK for terrorists to bomb United States embassies because they
are
attacking George W. Bush. It appears that the weight given to
arguments
depends
on whether you are a winner or a loser.
Admit it, might is right
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Should ruling about the
holocaust
be taught as part of history studies?
Yes.
Judicial processes themselves are subject to bias of period they are
in.
Irving and others have pointed this out witt Nuremburg war trials.
(Which to
me begs the question why, he should have approached a court in the
first
place.)
Interestingly your journal chose to print Lipstadt's response to the
verdict
but not Irving's, reflecting your own bias in favour of whatever the
current
norms (prejudices) are.
My prejudice: I don't like Irving at all.
However, it appeared that the trial focussed on exposing his personal
prejudices rather than the case he was presenting as a historian.
(i.e. we
don't have a law against holocaust denial, but we do have one against
anti-semitism. If we can prove he's
anti-semitic and link that to the concept of holocaust denial, we don't
need
to seriously examine the case for criticising the account given of the
holocaust.)
You don't reject the work of Alan Turing as a Computer Scientist
because he's
a homosexual.
Similarly, we don't reject Plato because of his views on women and slavery.
I read in a previous issue of your journal that its the job of
academics to
be a bit "transgressive" - well lets see you do it. Put the arguments
for
and against the historiographic evidence. Dont be scared someone will
call
you anti-semitic. Let
readers judge.
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2001-08-23 Thu 17:31ct