Artist Puts Comic in the Picture
Deaglán de Bréadún
This particular blogger has devoted much time and energy to the fall-out from the Holocaust “joke” from our own Tommy Tiernan. The responses have been fairly dispiriting by and large and have weakened my faith in human nature – at least in its blogospheric manifestation.
Tommy T likes to joke, so let’s hope he sees the funny side of an Irish artist portraying him as an Hassidic Jew. For more on this, click here. Incidentally, I believe artist Tom Byrne is mistaken in his belief that TT has apologised. I am not aware that he has done so: when he does, I’ll leave him alone.
And while I’m on the subject, it is not every day this Blog has a complimentary remark to make about our current Taoiseach. But full marks to him for attending the Holocaust Memorial Day ceremony. His remarks were apposite and the following extract is worth reproducing:
We come together this evening to recall one of the darkest periods of
European history.
We recall in particular the horrors revealed at the extermination camp at
Auschwitz- Birkenau 65 years ago, when the camp was liberated by the Soviet
army on 27 January 1945.
It is estimated that two thirds of European Jews perished in the Holocaust.
Millions of other victims were murdered by the Nazis and their
collaborators.
This ceremony seeks to cherish the memory of all of those who were
persecuted because of their nationality, ethnicity, disability, religious
belief, political affiliations or their sexual orientation. It serves as a
reminder of the dangers of racism and discrimination and provides lessons
from the past that are relevant today. We remember so that future
generations will never ignore history and, in turn, repeat its mistakes.
The Holocaust has left an indelible blemish on the landscape of history. We
in Ireland are very conscious of the need to learn the lessons. The Irish
Government is actively committed to promoting an inclusive society and to
eliminating all forms of racial intolerance in our country.
(To read the speech in full, click here)
10:56 pm
Isn’t it such a shame that after the horrors of WW2 and the Holocaust were revealed, the Arab/Muslim community couldn’t muster even the most basic humanity to acknowledge the Jewish people had as many links to the area they had settled in for decades and to welcome Jewish people to come live there in peace.
And to acknowledge, given what was revealed about the Holocaust, that it was only right and proper that the Jewish people be allowed to proceed with the creation of their own State to make sure they never suffered like that again.
Perhaps if the Arab/Muslim community had shown some humanity a few decades earlier the worst of the Holocaust could have been avoided as the Jewish people would have had at least one safe place to go to.
Instead what did the Arab community do? They immediately attacked the new state – imagine escaping with your life from Europe to have to fight for it again in Israel. There is already a Palestinian state – it’s called Jordan. Can anyone explain the difference between a Jordanian and Palestinian?
The scale of the horror of the Holocaust is so far beyond what any other people have ever suffered (worse than our famine or other genocides) that it ought to have resulted in a sea-change to the hatred stirred against Jewish people in the Middle East – but it didn’t and the hatred is bred still in today’s generation.
Better to focus the anger and hatred of your people on the successful Jewish state than have your own people focus their anger on the leaders of their own country whose corruption and failures are the reason they live in such dire straits.
Comment by Desmond FitzGerald