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May 29, 2009
Signs of Hope?
Warren L. Miller (pictured above) reports that Morocco's King Mohammed VI is bucking a trend in the Muslim world by condemning the refusal to accept the Holocaust as a historical fact.
In a piece published in the Philadelphia Inquirer, Miller, chairman of the U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad, reports that King Mohammed VI recently gave a speech at the Royal Palace in Fez in which he called the Holocaust "one of the blots, one of the most tragic chapters in modern history. According to Miller, King Mohammed VI also stated that "Amnesia has no bearing on my perception of the Holocaust, or on that of my people."
Miller, who does not provide an exact date for the king's speech, reports that it "offers a stark contrast to the willful amnesia now common place in parts of the Muslim world, where denial and distortion of the Holocaust have become widespread."
Miller writes:
Among the most notorious examples is Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has called the systematic murder of six million Jews a "myth," and whose government sponsored a conference of Holocaust deniers in 2006. Meanwhile, through Arabic translations of revisionist literature and the indulgence of much of the state-sponsored Arab press, some Muslim Arab leaders have sought to make Holocaust denial a tool against Israel and the West.
But in a few places in the Islamic world, there is now a willingness to look truthfully at the past and comprehend what befell European Jewry more than six decades ago. Last year, the predominantly Muslim European nation of Albania commemorated its first Holocaust Remembrance Day. And now King Mohammed has shown real leadership by publicly acknowledging the Holocaust. He should be emulated as well as applauded.
A cursory search of the official website where King Mohammed's speeches are published indicates this speech has not yet been posted. Hopefully, Morrocco's Ministry of Foreign Affairs will publish the full text of this speech.
Posted by dvz at May 29, 2009 12:24 PM
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