The Inside Assyria Discussion Forum #5

=> 2 Hoaxes in 2 Press Releases

2 Hoaxes in 2 Press Releases
Posted by Tiglath (Guest) - Thursday, May 29 2008, 14:18:57 (CEST)
from 58.105.175.204 - d58-105-175-204.dsl.vic.optusnet.com.au Australia - Windows XP - Internet Explorer
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PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS EMAIL POSTED ABOVE IS THE SECOND HOAX SENT BY GEORGE IN THE PAST WEEK


See http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/holocaust.asp


I also found a similar report on Deborah Lipstadt's blog:
http://lipstadt.blogspot.com/2007/04/chancellor-gordon-brown-scotches...
Lipstadt, by the way, wrote the definitive book on the history of
holocaust denial.


There was a link to a very interesting article on this in Ha'Aretz
(copied below) and on the perils of being overly credulous about what
we get in our inbox and posting them or forwarding them before we
check them out.







Break the chain

By Esther Solomon


"Disgrace for England!" screams the subject of the e-mail circulating
the globe. "This week in England every memorial of the Holocaust has
been removed from the schools study programs arguing it hurts the
Muslim population that denies the Holocaust." The undated e-mail goes
on to assert that this act of appeasement is irrefutable proof that
anti-Semitism is alive and kicking, 60 years after the end of World
War II, and that this is a sign of an "upcoming world disaster." And
what is the author's recommendation to the shocked recipient? "Never
to forget," and no less important, to forward the e-mail on to another
10 as-yet-unenlightened friends.


You needn't be English to be alarmed by such a news flash, which seems
to suggest not only that history curricula are the latest casualty in
the advance of cultural relativism and the collapse of liberal values,
but also that it's British Muslims who are behind the onslaught.


The problem with such whipped-up indignation is that the e-mail is
based on falsehood, a malign reading of a report commissioned earlier
this year by the United Kingdom's Department for Education and Skills
to look at how the school system contended with the teaching of
sensitive subjects like slavery, the Crusades and the Holocaust.


In setting out the case for why such a study was needed, the report
noted: "A history department in a northern city recently avoided
selecting the Holocaust as a topic... for fear of confronting anti-
Semitic sentiment and Holocaust denial among some Muslim pupils."
Indeed, a shocking incident. But the whole point of the report was to
provide tools and support to all the U.K.'s 4,500 high schools, to
help them avoid precisely this kind of aberrant behavior when teaching
sensitive subjects.


In fact, never before has Holocaust education in the U.K. enjoyed such
support, in terms of both policy and finances. In 2001, the same year
as Holocaust Memorial Day was first observed in Britain, the subject
became part of the compulsory national curriculum. The government has
provided funding for a fixed number of 11th and 12th graders, from
every school in the country, to visit Auschwitz with the Holocaust
Educational Trust (HET). Thousands of school groups visit permanent
exhibitions on the Holocaust around the country, and specialist
programs offer teachers skills and materials to teach their pupils
about it.


The situation is a quantum leap from the low-key and poor-quality
education we received at school 20 years ago, where, as the token
Jewish pupil in my class, I was actually invited to give "the
Holocaust lesson," as the teacher had no materials, knowledge nor,
indeed, any special interest in the topic.


If the situation is so bright, then why does this bogus message, which
has been circulating in varied e-mail forms since April of this year,
refuse to die?


In the British context, one has to see the apprehension as one element
in the fervent debates currently under way regarding the status,
identity and agenda of the country's two-million-strong Muslim
community. In the context of open European borders giving rise to a
new scale of immigration, the phenomenon of home-grown Muslim bombers
in London and Glasgow, and a focus on the consequences of the U.K.'s
policies of multiculturalism, the tone of the debate ranges from
nuanced discussions on the meaning of citizenship to a far more
uncontrolled and undiscriminating swell of anti-Muslim feeling.


But those who forward such an e-mail are unthinkingly buying into a
characterization of the Muslim community as inherently hostile to
Western and Jewish memory, as if the two communities were engaged in a
zero-sum confrontation over cultural power which, if the Jewish
community were to lose, would lead again to its threatened
annihilation.


No less interesting, though, is why chain e-mails like these garner
such traction, especially as the Internet facilitates such easy
confirmation - or repudiation - of all kinds of spurious "facts." The
answer lies in the role of the Web and of e-mail in particular in
popular culture.


In an era of lethargy and of disillusionment with conventional
politics, but also at a time in which the unknown individual can
magnify his voice virally many thousands of times through e-mail, the
idea of alternative activism at the touch of a button is clearly
appealing. For those with ideological agendas, e-mail is a perfect
weapon. It offers anonymity, speedy and effortless diffusion, the
difficulty of a wholesale refutation - rebuttals never enjoy the same
reach as the original allegation - and the networked power of
distribution (and complicit endorsement) through one's peers.


But before forwarding a chain e-mail, out of an indefinite sense of
righteous indignation, resist the herd instinct.


Consider whether you yourself really stand behind the facts and
sentiments expressed in it, or whether you are allowing yourself to be
cynically manipulated into feeling a fleeting sense of purpose and
participation that overrides your better judgment. As a talkback on
the HET Web site put it, "save the mobilization for real causes."


At the same time, you might want to spare a thought for the hapless
University of Kentucky. It appears that in an earlier version of the
"Disgrace to England!" e-mail, someone in cyberspace "translated" the
"U.K." into the University of Kentucky as the location of the
educational pseudo-crisis. Hundreds of thousands of e-mails are now
circulating accusing the university of dropping Holocaust studies,
prompting frantic denials by university authorities, whose Web site
insists that their school "is not afraid to teach students about the
Holocaust."


Who's next? The universities of Kansas, Khartoum or Kerala? Is any
more proof needed regarding the integrity of the "brains" behind e-
mail panic campaigns, and the gullibility of chain e-mail forwarders?


Esther Solomon is a senior editor at Haaretz.com.



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