Stop Trying to Please Everybody

Last week the University of Kentucky removed The Holocaust from its school curriculum because it "offended" the Muslim population which claims it never occurred. What is going on in in the US? Are Americans carrying this concept of separation of church and state to absurd lengths? How can you delete history simply because it "offends" a certain section of society? Are we not debasing the memory of the six million Jews, 20 million Russians, 10 million Christians and 1,900 Catholic priests who were murdered, massacred, raped, burned, starved and humiliated by the Nazis? Now, more than ever, with Iran among others claiming the Holocaust to be "a myth," it is imperative to make sure the world never forgets. Some would call it political correctness, but I would label it as craven cowardice.

History is replete with periods of atrocities. If one were to delete everything that is disturbing to some people, history books would be very slim indeed - not to mention boring to the point of numbness. And who are we trying to appease anyway? The Muslim population? Do the countries where Islamic governments are in power show a similar consideration for the sensitivities of people belonging to different faiths? Just recently, I read of a British schoolteacher in the Sudan who is threatened with imprisonment and 40 lashes. Her crime? She asked the youngsters in her class to come up with a name for the new class mascot, a teddy bear; and they chose Mohammed. Blasphemy!

The supreme irony is that the Muslims of America enjoy far greater personal and political freedoms in the US than they would in the countries they left behind. There was the recent shocking case, where a young Saudi woman was raped by seven men and, instead of her attackers being punished, she was imprisoned and sentenced to 200 lashes - because she had the effrontery to sit in a car with a young man who was not her husband. Incidentally, though the US State Department did register a protest against this gross miscarriage of justice, it was blithely ignored by the Saudi monarch - who George Bush proclaims is a staunch ally. With friends like these, who needs enemies?