Symposium Cum Exhibition On Holocaust And Genocide
04 March 2014
By Saeed Qureshi
Let me first of all warmly compliment Mike Ghouse and
his companions for holding the Seventh Exhibition cum
Symposium on a crucial phenomenon that we all know as
holocaust. This august event took place on January 26
in the spacious hall of the Unity Church of Dallas.
Holocaust is a dreadful and ghastly dimension of human
civilization that has been happening since the dawn of
civilization and perhaps even earlier than that. Let
me quote one important episode from the known history
preserved in Bible and also in the holy Quran. When
Prophet Moses liberated the Jewish nation from
centuries old stranglehold of the Pharaohs who were
the mighty emperors of their own time, they marched
into the Sinai desert and settled there for 40 years.
Thereafter they perpetrated the first distinctly
documented genocide of the peaceful population in the
land of Canaan. They killed the inhabitants including
the infants indiscriminately and with savagery that is
beyond description.
The Jewish nation itself suffered terrible genocides
at least four times in history: one at the hands of
Babylon Empire, second under the Roman Empire, third
in Spain and fourth in Nazi Germany. The Muslims too
faced the similar appalling genocides. Apart from
other cities of Muslim rule, the Mongols, laid waste
the capital of the Islamic caliphate Baghdad in 1258
and killed 1.6 million Muslims. This mass annihilation
of Baghdad is recorded as the most heinous genocide
carried out during the Middle Ages.
Besides the Muslims suffered terrible genocides in
Jerusalem, Alexandria and Spain at the hands of the
victor Christian crusaders. In Spain where they ruled
for seven centuries, they were entirely massacred and
expelled along with the Jews. Those left somehow were
finally deported in 1609. In history the Muslims, the
Christians and Jews have been alternating in killing
each other adopting a parched earth drive and ethnic
cleansing policies. England passed through a spell of
genocides at the hands of Romans and Vikings in early
times.
Holocaust and genocide can be treated as synonyms
carrying the diabolic connotation that implies the
wholesale massacres and extermination of a race of
segment of human beings. During the last two centuries
several grisly genocides have taken place.
The British colonial armies in their frantic onslaught
to expand the abominable colonialism marched on the
vast continent of America. Those who arrived first
were called pilgrimages. Their beastly annihilations
of the local population have no parallel in history.
They kept on wiping off the local population called
native Indians with such a diabolic obsession that
continued till it culminated into a civil war between
the federalists and the co federalist.
The native inhabitants called red or native Indians
and now American Indians were easy prey to their
superior weaponry and fighting tactics. The natives
fought back with primitive arrows, batons and swords
against the merciless pogroms of the invaders who were
more like bounty hunters. The natives' mainstay of
living, cattle and buffaloes were totally wiped off.
They were infested with deadly epidemics of diseases
like small pox to die if left alive from the
pointblank shooting of the well armed and disciplined
killers. Even children sucking their mothers' breasts
were not spared. The slogan of the British generals
was that "only good Indian is dead Indian".
Approximately 100 million native Indians perished in
this the most macabre genocides in the human history
after Mongols' curse.
The exhibition of the Indian genocide displayed
extremely heart wrenching and harrowing scenes making
the onlookers wonder how human beings could be as
callous and barbaric as to slaughter a helpless,
primitive and defense segment of human race.
The exhibits and graphics showed huge piles of dead
bodies with killer soldiers standing aside with
devilish smiles on their faces after performing this
hideous job. The copies of the scrolls, orders and
parchments issued by the British commanders were also
displayed. In those documents reflects the hate and
obsession to kill the local population without any
compunction. The exhibition continued from 3p.m.to 7
p.m. when the whole program came to close.
I was thrilled and rather entranced by the
presentations and speeches' during the two hours
session conducted in the main hall of the church. The
speakers' spoke about the Native Americans holocaust,
the 2002 Gujarat massacre and the 1984 massacre of
Sikhs in India. The Jewish holocaust at the hands of
the Nazis in Germany was portrayed in video clips,
prepared by Christiana Amanpour, the celebrated CNN
anchor. Mike Ghouse, the principal organizer of this
phenomenal yearly event told his side of the story
about the genocide.
The keynote speaker and host of this memorable evening
Mary Ann Thompson-Frank expressed her empirical
impressions about the Rwandan genocide in which
800,000 humans were killed. Mary is immensely
knowledgeable, highly articulate with flair of
oration. She was eloquent, vocal and gave an excellent
account and grasp of the subject and kept the audience
riveted to her discourse. I was personally greatly
impressed by fluency and candor in dishing out her
thoughts and observations. This highly fruitful and
greatly enlightening session included a peace pledge
by Mike Ghouse followed by a poignantly sad and moving
Native American Mourning Song.
This distinctive and remarkable seminar would add
another feather in the cap of Mike Ghouse and his
associates in highlighting and rekindling an issue for
the civilized nations to reflect and ponder how to
foster love and harmony among the people of this
planet mother earth. It should serve as a grim
reminder and resounding lesson for the human race that
never again any genocide or holocaust be allowed to
happen.
Such seminars and symposiums emit the divine and
cardinal message that the age of barbarians and beast
is over and we should all live in harmony and peace
and work in unison for the collective good of the
entire human race. Those who voluminously collaborated
and sponsored in this effort among others were
‘Muslims Together', ‘American Indian Genocide Museum',
Mnemosyne institute and Foundation for Pluralism. A
sumptuous dinner was served at the end to all, the
speakers and the spectators alike.
The writer is a senior journalist, former editor of
Diplomatic Times and a former diplomat. His blog is
www.uprightopinion.com
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EsinIslam.Com
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