Countering the Julius Streichers of our age

[struggle4progress]

by Abid Ullah Jan (Sunday July 31 2005)

The Nuremberg Tribunal convicted Julius Streicher for "crimes against humanity." He was later hanged to death. Interestingly, the prosecutors didn’t argue that Streicher killed anyone. He, in fact, didn’t commit any violent act personally. Above all, Streicher was not even a prominent official in the German government during the period when the Jews and others were persecuted and killed.

The sole offense for which Julius Streicher was ordered put to death was having served as publisher and editor of Der Sturmer in the early 1930s, years before the Nazi actually carried out the genocide. In this capacity he was accused of penning a long series of virulently anti-Jewish editorials and "news" stories, usually accompanied by cartoons and other images graphically depicting Jews in extraordinarily derogatory fashion.

These write ups, the prosecution asserted, had done much to "dehumanize" the Jews in the minds of the German public. In turn, such dehumanization had made it possible - or at least easier - for average Germans to later indulge in the outright liquidation of the Jews. The Tribunal agreed, holding that Streicher was therefore complicit in genocide and deserving of death by hanging.

Let us fast forward to 2005. We see two major types of Julius Streichers around: one, those who are trying to be politically correct and two, those who are so honest and sincere in their commitment to dehumanize Muslims that they don’t care about mincing words. The sum and substance of the work of these Julius Streichers is the same: discredit Islam and dehumanize Muslims. <snip>

http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/17288

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. history repeats itself

I'm wondering if some Nazis have reincarnated to this day and time.

[wli]

2. yes, the MSM members responsible need to be put on trial for this

[silverweb]

3. This is a timely article.

There is an e-mail going around right now that enumerates "Muslim extremist attacks" beginning with Bobby Kennedy's assassination and listing more than a dozen events over the years right up to the recent London bombings. It advocates profiling Arabic-looking males between the ages of 17-40. There are inaccuracies in the list to begin with, but that's not even the point. The point is to objectify an entire group of people based on their appearance and religion, and to create fear and loathing.

I sent the following comments to those who forwarded the anti-Muslim e-mail to me:

Disregarding the fact that some of the items below are inaccurate (for example, Sirhan Sirhan was Catholic, not Muslim), I believe that the objectification of any group of people is a terrible mistake. It is certainly xenophobic and does nothing to educate people about another religion or culture, or the causes of dissention between religions and cultures, but only serves to stir up greater fear and hatred.

I believe the following article addresses this problem well: http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/17288