Arab and Muslim leaders need to come to terms with the legacy of the Holocaust in their own countries and follow the example of the King of Morocco, Warren Miller comments in The Philadelphia Inquirer:
The leader of an Arab Muslim nation recently made some remarkable statements about the Holocaust - remarkable for their courage and respect for historical truth. In a largely unreported speech at the Royal Palace in Fez, Morocco's King Mohammed VI called the Holocaust "one of the blots, one of the most tragic chapters in modern history." The king added, "Amnesia has no bearing on my perception of the Holocaust, or on that of my people."
The remarks offer a stark contrast to the willful amnesia now commonplace in parts of the Muslim world, where denial and distortion of the Holocaust have become widespread.
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.
The federal commission I head works to preserve the memory of the Holocaust - both the cultural legacy of the thousands of communities that were destroyed and the historical record of what happened to them. We try to preserve the lessons as well as the evidence of the event, so modern societies will understand that allowing prejudice and hatred to flourish can only lead to barbarity.
In both of these areas, King Mohammed's speech presents an important opportunity. It provides a starting point for Morocco and its neighbors to explore more fully the fate of Jews across North Africa during World War II. Some officials in the region still maintain that the Holocaust did not affect their countries. Although Jews in North Africa largely avoided the genocide their people suffered in Europe, they faced painful persecution.
King Mohammed's grandfather, Mohammed V, managed to diminish application of the Vichy government's racist laws toward Moroccan citizens of Jewish faith. But thousands of Jewish refugees from Europe were placed in French-controlled detention and slave-labor camps in Morocco, as they were in Algeria and Tunisia. Many of these Jews, as well as some Arabs and Berbers, were forced to work under cruel circumstances, with insufficient food and in unbearable climatic conditions. The nations of North Africa must come to terms with this legacy.
The king's speech also offers an opportunity to leaders of other Muslim nations: They can choose historical truth over falsehood, and the respect of civilized nations over ostracism.
Although I applaud the new King's acknowledgement of the European Shoah, he should have mentioned the sufferings of his grand father Jewish subjects...
ReplyDeleteI know that I should not be too critical of his Grand father dealings with Vichy Frane, because he was only a symbol of jewish protection, yet behind the scenes there were several anti-jewish close advisors and ministers who worked with the nazis willfully like the king's confidant Al-Mokri. The king himself was in no way capable to bring about a total protection of his jewish subjects, his protection was symbolic and found only in his speechs and discussions.... All French anti-jewish legislation documents were signed by him, under the wachfull eyes of his anti-semitic advisors...perhaps he did not know what he was signing.... What's the only reason why Moroccan Jews like him.... But who knows? maybe he was not genuine... as these new documents started to emerge.... The Moroccan magazine Tel Quel published a special edition just recently about his real behind the scenes dealings with Vichy France. The question is: was he really a protector of jews or was he really trying to protect his monarchy by sacrificing the moroccan jews.
Had the Nazi war machinery in North Africa been succesfull and dominant, the jews of North Africa would have experienced their own Shoah that would have made the European one look like nothing, because the mass of anti-jewish arabs would have been taken up the task to get annihilate every jews. The terrible pogroms of the 1910's in Morocco attest to that possibility. But I am glad it did not happened at that point...
What you say is very interesting. The Mroccan Jews may have an idealised view of the King, and believe certain myths like the fact he and his family insisted on wearing yellow stars!
ReplyDeleteIn the Spanish zone of Morocco, there was a pro-Nazi Arab nationalist movement. Consider personalities like Abdel-Khaleq Torres, etc. These pro-Nazis collaborated with Franco.
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