Remembering the Holocaust

Holocaust Memorial Day today.

The Muslim Council of Britain will once again boycott the Day.

MCB spokesman Inayat Bunglawala was asked on the BBC Radio 4 Sunday programme whether he was not sending a signal by refusing to attend. "We also send a signal by staying away from the Gay Pride march," he said. How could he compare the two, he was asked. "It is a religious principle," he replied.

Gays of course were also gassed, but that's hardly the point. The MCB's official line is:

The MCB has always denounced the monstrous cruelty and inhumanity that underpinned the Nazi Holocaust... After the world vowed "never again" at the end of the second world war, though, we have seen the same barbarism again, against peoples in Vietnam, Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, Chechnya and recently in Darfur. So we said that our common humanity called upon us to also recognise the crimes perpetrated against other people, and we called for the establishment of an EU genocide memorial day. Such a day would help dispel the - frankly racist - notion that some people are to be regarded as being more equal than others...

The "R" word, used presumably to close any further discussion, though I'm not sure what the EU has to do with the many other crimes against humanity it lists...

While it is a fair to say we should remember other crimes - including the Turkish slaughter of the Armenians, arguably the first "modern" genocide - it seems to me unbelievably petty of the MCB to continue their boycott.

To put it bluntly, I cannot understand why they don't figure: why not let the Jews have their day? To attend would demonstrate our commitment to interfaith dialogue and integration in UK society.

Unhappily they are not prepared to make this leap, leading one to the rather less palatable conclusion that this seemingly media-savvy organisation really cannot bear to be associated with the Jews and actually is the anti-semitic islamist attack dog other blogs often portray.

Given the MCB's sensitivity to any perceived criticism of itself or the people it claims to represent, it might do well to stand with the Jews, Christians, democrats and others who seek to fight injustice and defend minorites, which of course Muslims remain in the UK. Sir Iqbal Death-Is-Too-Good-For-Him Sacranie, might even recall these well-known lines...

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.

Pastor Martin Niemoller