Michael Gove wants to censor the Holocaust
IS the GCSE Religious Studies exam question “Explain, briefly, why some people are prejudiced against Jews” racist? Michael Gove, the education secretary says it is:
“To suggest that antisemitism can ever be explained, rather than condemned, is insensitive and frankly bizarre. AQA needs to explain how and why this question was included in an exam paper.”
Isn’t it better to examine why people don’t like Jews? Might the historical approach to so much persecution and murder undo the thinking that drives it? Anti-semitism, the imported Nazi sort, is rife in the Middle East. It’s good to ask why. To understand it might help many comprehend how much anti-Semitism is dressed up as anti-Israel rhetoric, the good liberals promoting the idea that one state should be more accountable for its actions that all others because it’s people have suffered. It’s the anti-Semitism that enables those on the Left to compare Israelis to the Nazis and South Africa under apartheid and get away with it.
Stephen Law writes:
It seems Gove doesn’t understand the difference between explaining and excusing. Hence, on Gove’s view, the AQA exam board were in effect inviting children to excuse antisemitism when they should have been condemning it.
It reminds me of the debate of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ. Gibson, with his history of anti-Semitism, produced a show that tapped into the Christian Church’s visual and oral history of anti-Semitism. One TV news report featured an American queuing to watch the guts and the glory. Talk turned to Jews and the Holocaust. Why had it happened? She replied that it was because Jews must have done lots of bad things.
So. Michael Gove, should we investigate why the Holocaust occurred, or just ignore it as one of those things we don’t discuss over tea at the vicarage or in class..?
Posted: 28th, May 2012 | In: Politicians Comments (2) | TrackBack | Permalink
