Steven

I want to clarify, do you mean teaching about the Holocaust as a separate subject from WW2 history?

If that is the case, then no, it is not appropriate.

But as a part of History it is very important and never should be forgotten, for the same reason Pol Pot's holocaust needs to be taught in any studies about the history of Cambodia.

I'm curious as to what your agenda is with this question, please explain.

Boazy, as usual your paranoid ravings don't actually resemble the facts very much. With respect to Muslim students requesting that the lecture timetable take into account their Friday times:

* University timetables routinely take into account Christian religious festivals like Easter and Christmas, not to mention Sundays.

* In every university at which I've been, Fridays are traditionally the day with the least classes scheduled. I was Faculty timetabling officer for a brief stint, and I don't imagine that the students' request would be all that hard to accommodate.

* Universities are (unfortunately) businesses these days, and students are their customers. If universities wish to increase the numbers of students they attract from particular demographic groups, then it may well be in their interests to accommodate their preferences, including lecture times and the provision of other facilities.

And so on... this is a bit like your outrage over the absence of ham sandwiches at a council do - i.e. exaggerated, ridiculous and ultimately hateful.

Besides which, what on earth does it have to do with the inclusion of the Holocaust in History curricula? As I've suggested to you before, I think you'd really benefit from the formal study of History. You clearly have little idea about how real historians work, or the historiographic process by which History is written - and you haven't a clue about how universities work.

Interesting observation kartiya jim.

>>Boazy ,I think I read an almost identical post 2 years ago. Some things never change<<

I have often wondered whether there is an element of recycling in Boaz's offerings, or whether they're just the result of a mind that only travels along the tramlines of its prejudice.

There is a definite element of déjà vu here.

>>Islam is out for our hearts, minds wills and taxes (Jizya) and to subjugate us TODAY and NOW<<

This is the sort of war-cry that I would expect from the man with the megaphone at the head of the rabble, on their way to a redneck version of Kristallnacht. Note that it doesn't condemn "a few small but violent factions", just "Islam".

>>Tours and Vienna are viewed by most historians (from what I gather) as 'pivotal' for Western culture and life<<

References? "from what I gather" doesn't sound very definitive.

>>Muslims are trying to re-construct our culture 'in terms of' Islamic values. There is no point arguing this, its a plain fact.<<

Sorry, I will argue with this. It is not "a plain fact". Even your example is, to say the least, extremely thin. Take another look.

>>I read of the attempt to re-structure our whole higher education timetables to suite Muslim Prayer times. I freaked!<<

The article you point us to does not support your story. There are examples such as "several students had approached the Bundoora institution about rearranging class times", but the response is equally consistent "the university was not planning to change any timetables... it is not institutionally viable"

So, freak away, Boaz. The fact that individuals, groups and even sects frequently ask for dispensation for their various fads and rituals doesn't indicate an attack on fundamental values.

It took a while to get permission from the controlling religions for us ordinary folk to work on Sundays if we want (we still can't buy newspapers or get to go to the supermarket on Good Friday, I notice), so I suspect it's highly unlikely that we will allow other factions to reverse this trend.

As I cast off the first petals of my youth, I can look back over the elapsed time with a sense of perspective . . . (ah I feel an uncharacteristically sensitive-awareness moment coming on, at this moment testing ones gag-reflex is appropriate)

What we learn at school is insignificant to the learning we do later. School is there to instill in us the processes of learning, not to comprehensively indoctrinate us with all the skill and knowledge we need to acquire for life.

In terms of history and social education, school should equip us to be able to distinguish the truth from the lie, between right and wrong and to give us the confidence to challenge the less than truthful, be it a David Irvine or a Global Warming Zealot.

That is a far better deployment of the limited time available for such things, between other syllabus subjects, than learning the particular chronology of specific events.

However, those events do act as important examples of what happens when moral and honest standards are ignored and expediency, avarice, hate and envy are deployed in their place.

Good old CJ, if you can't come up with an intelligent argument, resort to insults. On another thread you wrote that you 'oppose laws that prohibit denial of the Holocaust in Europe.' Maybe you forgot.
On that same thread I asked Vanilla why she thought that Dr. Franciszek Piper, senior curator and director of archives of the Auschwitz State Museum, was not a good source. Instead of replying, she sneaks in a little jibe on this thread about an 'unnamed poster' and

'1. half a brain
2. a, say, Year Ten knowledge of history, and, most importantly
3. a rudimentary understanding of how historians collect and collate and analyse historical evidence.' being all that was required to question the holohoax. Then she went on to write 'for the vast majority of the time I forget about all this stuff and watch TV shows from the UK on YouTube and think about my boyfriend'.

I nearly fell of my chair laughing at that.
After writing how moronic I am for my beliefs, she watched some telly, thought about her boyfriend and got out her Barbie dolls (not Klaus Barbie).
This site gets funnier by the minute. Oy Vey!

Dear Steven,

World War II produced tens of millions of victims. Some were combatants, some civilian casualties of the war. Others were victims of genocide planned by the warring powers, primarily, at least for the purpose of this post, the Nazis and the Bolsheviks.

Both the Nazis and the Communists had committed unheard of cruelties.
Concentration camps -- on both sides of the front -- operated at a high pitch prior to and during the war years. Whilst the USSR policy of mass murder preceded that of Nazi Germany, most notably with the artificial Ukrainian Famine of 1932-33, the wholesale destruction of the Russian peasantry, and later of the peasantry and intelligentsia in the occupied territories as well, the Nazis soon matched Soviet terror with their wholesale slaughter of Jews, Gypsies, and others, in equal numbers, if not proportions of their populations.

As stated in 'The New KGB':

"There is no dispute about the enormity of Hitler's holocaust. But it is equally important to be aware of the accomplishments of the Soviet secret police, which brought death to at least four times as many Russians, Poles, Jews, Latvians, Lithuanians, Estonians, Japanese, Koreans, Chinese, Gypsies, and Romanians as Hitler did in his eleven years as a leader of the '1,000-year Reich.'"

History is clear that in 1939, Stalin and Hitler were allies against the free people of Europe. They were both, by then, accomplished killers, even though Stalin led the score in victims tortured, starved, and massacred. Each created panic and chaos throughout Europe. Each produced millions of refugees and homeless. Each was expanding and building concentration camps in which millions of innocent victims would perish.

The two dictators used the same methods to deal with their domestic opposition --terror.

Should Holocaust studies be compulsory at school? Of course. But if students are to be taught about the victims and villains of World War II, they must be presented the full picture - which must include
not only Hitler, but Stalin as well!