AN UNCOMFORTABLE TRUTH

A suspected Nazi death camp guard has been accused of helping to kill nearly 28,000 Jews in World War Two, according to Sky News on Monday 13 July 2009.

"State prosecutors in Munich have charged the 89-year-old John Demjanjuk as an accessory to murder in a total of 27,900 cases," prosecutors said.

The suspect, who has been held in a jail in southern Germany since May 12 after he was deported from the United States, will be tried at a court in Munich. The report on Sky's website triggered much debate in its comments section on whether the 89 year old should stand trial. It also revealed people's feelings of forgetting the past of an 89 year old man who was "following orders" when we compare that to American soldiers following orders today in Iraq and the like.

It is interesting to see how the topic of the Holocaust makes people feel awkward and uneasy. It leads to a natural reaction of distancing oneself or denial. Some try to under-state it to make it less applicable to their lives.

The fact that Jews were marched to gas chambers in a mass assembly like a killing factory is the darkest chapter of modern history. If people feel uncomfortable about it today, or try to downplay it, then the shame of the previous generations continues with them. 6 million Jews died, not as POW's or collaterals but as musicians and teachers.

ANIMAL FARM
The New Hawks Unit replaces the Scorpions

So with grand announcement, the Scorpions have returned in a new shape and form. On Tuesday 6 July, the Hawks, the police's newly launched crime-fighting unit and successor to the disbanded Scorpions, kicked off with a symbolic ceremony.

It is a move that can be summed up in one word - Bravo! Jacob Zuma, the former prey of the Scorpions managed to out-manoeuvre Mbeki's agents in all the venomous allegations against him. He emerged as the leader of the ANC, and now leader of the country without charges.

Now with his seat in power, Zuma has the strength and audacity to re-invent the beast that almost killed him by domesticating it and renaming it as a friend instead of foe. This was done all under the auspices of the threat or need for a national-crime fighting innitiative.

It is a brilliant play by Zuma - reminiscent of the time when Lenin's Checka was replaced by a more Stalin friendly KGB. Now Zuma has his own private security or perhaps even secret security. It seems the predators are now the lap-dogs of the prey.

BURN THE BURKA?

Choosing between Two Liberties

Nicolas Sarkozy’s comment two weeks ago has caused quite a stir amongst Europeans who live in a continent that is becoming less European every year. In an address to Parliament, the French President attacked the Muslim women's dress, the burka saying,

"We cannot accept to have in our country women who are prisoners behind netting, cut off from all social life, deprived of identity"

The French National Assembly announced on 23 June, one day after Sarkozy's address, the creation of an inquiry into whether women in France should be allowed to wear the burka.

This problem stems from the decades long policy of opening Europe’s borders to "the tired, the poor". Coupled with this, the veiling of women from a liberal society has isolated them further and limited their chances of getting out of an economic rut.

Yet in a country that has no problem with topless sun-bathers and tolerates Eurotrash couture, the knee-jerk impatience when seeing a Muslim woman in a veil seems to be on the complete opposite spectrum of liberty and contrary to the idea of letting people live in the pursuit of their own destiny.

A disdain for people’s beliefs and dress is a trademark of Arab countries and nations from where these very immigrants come. Surely Europe does not want to emulate the Saudi’s and Iranians? Some say that if one chooses to dress in a burka then one should return to their home countries where it is acceptable. Yet is this what the founders of the French Revolution envisioned their revolution to be? Is the mother of the modern world turning its back on people who do not fit into the classic European mould?

What will be next? Will circumcision be considered too barbaric and wearing symbols around one’s neck too aggressive as an expression the right of freedom of association? Already, in 2004, France banned the Islamic headscarf and other conspicuous religious symbols from public schools, triggering heated debate in the country and abroad.

There is a fine line and the burka is on the extreme end as a symbol of imposed male repression that should be frowned upon in society, and discouraged by true libertarians. But this is a catch 22 as these very libertarians have a duty to fight for the right of those who choose to wear a Burka, Armish hats or high heels.

The way to remove the burka from French society is to do what Napoleon did and drown it out with emancipation and fraternity rather than with the constriction of freedom which is the trademark of governments of the Arab world.

It is not whether a choice is right or wrong in the end but it is the process of choice itself that defines the liberty. While the burka is the symbol of repression, we cannot use repressive means to deny people of their choices.