2011 US Tour
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Incommemoration of international Holocaust Remembrance Day, please join Dr. HajoMeyer in sharing the lesson of his experience in Auschwitz: Never Again forAnyone. Dr. Meyer will be joined in several locations by UC Berkeley professor,Dr. Hatem Bazian, chairman of the American Muslims for Palestine, and othersocial justice and Palestinian activists to discuss the urgency of this messagein the United States and Canada today.
In the faceof the on-going ethnic cleansing of Palestine, attacks and persecution ofMuslim and Arab communities in the U.S. and Canada, and on-going attacksagainst the rights of other communities and immigrants, we assert a commitmentto uphold the rights inherent to all people against the application of “never again” to only a few.
"Thememory of the Jewish Holocaust should not be kept isolated from otheratrocities in history. To remember what happened to the six million Jews …serves no important purpose unless it arouses indignation, anger, actionagainst all atrocities, anywhere in the world." ~ Howard Zinn
DR. HAJOMEYER + DR. HATEM BAZIAN
Otherspeakers included in this tour are Osama Abu-Irshaid, Hedy Epstein, and more.Please visit ampalestine.org to find out in which events Dr. Bazian will beparticipating.
TOUR SCHEDULE
Washington DC: Jan 25, 2011
New York: Jan 27, 2011
New Jersey: Jan 29, 2011
Toronto, Canada: Jan 31, 2011
Toronto, Canada: Feb 1, 2011
Milwaukee: Feb 3, 2011
Chicago: Feb 4 & 5, 2011
Twin Cities: Feb 8, 2011
Atlanta: Feb 10, 2011
New Orleans: Feb 13, 2011
Sacramento: Feb 16, 2011
SF Bay Area: Feb 17, 2011
Los Angeles: Feb 19, 2011
2010 Europe Tour
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InJanuary 2010, IJAN launched its Never Again for Anyone Tour with events infourteen cities across Europe. Dr. Hajo Meyer, an 86-year old survivor of Auschwitz and member of IJAN Netherlands, spoke to hisperspective on the Zionist "Misuse of the Holocaust for PoliticalPurposes." For most of the tour his talkwas accompanied by a video presentation or live discussion with Dr. Haidar Eid,professor and activist with the One Democratic State Group in Gaza. Drawing on his experience in NaziGermany, Dr. Meyer identifies many parallels in the role of dehumanization anddiscrimination in the preparation of the German citizens to participate in theNazi genocide of many and the preparation of Israeli society to accept and participatein the ethnic cleaning of Palestinians.
OnJanuary 27, Holocaust Memorial Day, IJAN UK organized an event in the Houseof Parliament with Dr. Meyer. Dr. Eid joined us via teleconference andrepresentatives from historic and current day struggles – from the PotatoFamine to the Armenian genocide and the Roma to the Atlantic Slave Trade – againstgenocide shared their stories and resistance. Then, in France, IJAN France brought together activiststo challenge the exceptionalizing of the Nazi genocide through sharinghistories of colonization and resistance from Algeriaand the Americas.In addition to London and France, the tour included three cities in Scotland, Dublin,Belfast, Liverpool, Sheffield, three cities in France, Vienna, Geneva, and Berlin.
BELOWARE VIDEOS, IMAGES AND PAPERS FROM MULTIPLE STRUGGLES AGAINST GENOCIDE THATWERE PRESENTED ON THE TOUR.
TheNever Again for Anyone campaign is an educational and media campaign meant tochallenge the misuse of the Nazi Genocide of Jews ("The Holocaust") thatexceptionalizes this massacre and the Zionist exploitation of it to justifycolonization, displacement and apartheid in Palestine.
This exceptionalizing of "The Holocaust," and the use of it to justify colonization and stateviolence, is a dishonor to its memory. Firstly, it invites racism by Jews and incentives for individual andinstitutional collusion in racist policy and practice. Secondly, by claiming its acts in the nameof all Jews, Israelisolates Jewish experiences of mass murder, discrimination and displacementfrom other historic and current struggles against racism and genocide. Far froman exception, the racism, fascism and dehumanization that facilitated the Nazigenocide and European collaboration has long roots in Europe’shistory of colonialism, slavery, and Christian supremacy. For us, the memory of the Nazi Genocide ofJews is a lesson that we must not stand by when people face such violence. Any people.
Therefore, working in partnership withRoma, gay and lesbian, communist/socialist, Polish and disabilityorganizations, this campaign aims to challenge the Jewish-only remembrance ofthe Nazi genocide. It also hopes to organize with those who share their ownhistories of resistance to genocide and with those currently struggling againstgenocide including indigenous people of the Americas, African people and theAtlantic Slave Trade, and the Armenian genocide.
For more detailed (and different) analyses, click HERE for English and HERE for French.
In January 2011, we will once again workwith these communities/struggles and others to continue the work done in Europeand to bring this perspective to the United States with a tour of Dr.Meyer. The US tour hopes todraw parallels between the misuse of the Nazi genocide, US support for Israel,Islamophobia and the rising tide of anti-immigrant sentiment in the US within thecontext of a deepening economic crisis.
If you are interested in participating inthe tour, contact us at; ijan@ijsn.net.
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Flyer for “Never Again for Anyone” posted under plaque markingHerzl’s place of birth
Videos of Presentations on the Never Again For AnyoneTour
Below are videos of two of the presentations made on the tour, one by Haidar Eid, one by Hajo Meyer. There bios are below. Meyer presented at each of the locations on the tour. Eid is in Gaza and was unable to travel or to join the tour in person. His presentation was taped because video conferencing was also not feasible. The video below is one of four that were pre-taped and shown on the tour – despite power outages and disruption to internet access. The other videos will be available soon.
The tour reached over 1200 people-most audiences were100-150 per a night. Eid and Meyer received a standing ovation at each.
Hajo Meyer
Speaker Bios
{image_1} Dr. Hajo G. Meyer wasborn in 1924 in Bielefeld, Germany.Not allowed to attend school there after November 1938, he fled to the Netherlands,alone. In I944, after a year in the underground, he was caught and subsequentlysurvived 10 months at Auschwitz.He lives in the Netherlands,where he works as publicist and essayist. A member of IJAN, Hajo Meyer is onthe board of the Dutch group "A Different Jewish Voice", part of thecoalition of European Jews for Just Peace. He is the author of three books, onJudaism, Holocaust and Zionism.
"My great lesson from Auschwitz is: whoever wants to dehumanise any other, must first be dehumanisedhimself. The oppressors are no longer really human whatever uniform they wear."
{image_2} Dr. Haidar Eid is a refugee whose parents were expelled from the Zarnouqavillage in 1948. Dr. Eid is a member of the PACBI Steering Committee and aco-founder of the One Democratic State Group. He currently lives in Gaza,where he is an Associate Professor of Cultural Studies at Al-Aqsa University.
"Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa said, "If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.’ The UN, EU, Arab League and the international community by and large remained silent in the face of the atrocities committed by Apartheid Israel. &
nbsp;They are therefore on the side of Israel."
Remembrance and Responsibility
Acampaign to rejoin the Jewish history of resistance to genocide with those currentlystruggling for survival, self-determination, emancipationand liberation
TheInternationalJewish Anti-Zionist Network’s Remembrance Campaign aims tochallenge thepresentation of the Nazi Genocide in which the history of thedecimationof Jews is disconnected from the millions of other victims whoperished in the same war, even in the same camps. It also challenges theexceptionalizing, falsifying and exploiting of this memory in an effort tojustify and dismiss the colonization, ethnic cleansing and apartheid inPalestine. Such exceptionalizing, along with the violence committed by asanctified Israel in the name of all Jews, isolates the Jewish experiences ofracism, displacement and mass murder, and separatesEurope’s history of Jewishpersecution from other peoples’ experiences with-and strugglesagainst-persecution, racism and genocide. In opposition to this separatism, forus the history of the Nazi genocide demands that we never stand aside as anypeople faces such violence. And,far from an exception, the racism, sadism anddehumanization that facilitated the Nazi genocide, and governments’collaboration with it, has long roots in Europe’s history of imperial conquest,slavery, genocide and Christian supremacy.
Click here to read the rationale for IJAN’s Remembrance Campaign, which the Never Again UK/Ireland tour is kicking off.
Massacres de masse au XXème siècle Par Rudolf Bkouche
D’abord quelques remarques terminologiques.
Pour éviter toute discussion juridique inopportune, nous proposons de parler de massacres de masse au XXème siècle plutôt que de génocides ou decrimes contre l’humanité. Ces deux derniers termes ont été l’objet de définitions juridiques après la seconde guerre mondiale, le terme "crimecontre l’humanité" ayant été défini dans le cadre du procès de Nuremberg . S’il peut être intéressant d’avoir une intervention sur les aspects juridiques, cela ne nous semble pas ici le point le plus important.
Cliquez ici pour lire la logique derrière le IJAN France Never Again tour.
Dates pour Paris, Lyon, et Strasbourg qui sera annoncée bientôt.
Mass murders of the 20th century
By Rudolf Bkouche
First off, some remarks on terminology.
To avoid unnecessary juridical debate, we propose to speak of mass murders of the 20th century rather than genocide or crimesagainst humanity. These two last terms have been the object of judicialdefinitions since after the Second World War; the term "crime against humanity" was defined during the Nuremberg Trials. While it might be interesting to intervene on these judicial debates, this seems to us to not be the most important point for the moment.
The use of the terms "genocides" and "crimes against humanity" leads to interminable debates between those who support the legal definitions in place and those who want to rely on the facts, the latter group divided between those who try to stick to the facts and those who would add their political or ideological interpretation, hoping that the use of a particular term would reinforce the political condemnation.
The Armenian Genocide of 1915 is an example. Speaking of "genocide" means for some that the Turks had planned this massacre, while for others it means less a planned massacre than a consequence of adeportation that the Turkish government had organized for security reasons, Armenians being considered potential allies of the Russian enemy. The question, then, is less to find the best term than to focus on the fact that there was a massacre.
Read the rest of the IJAN France rationale for the Never again tour
Roma Testimony fromHolocaust Remembrance Day at the House of Commons