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Sarkozy’s proposal about
remembering genocide
victims a reminder for Sikhs
WSN Network
PARIS:
Repeatedly the victims of genocide, often the target of
brahmanisation’s forces and favorite target of majority’s muzzling
muscle, the Sikhs would do well to study the proposal of French
President Nicolas Sarkozy, who, despite facing a tide of criticism
over his call for schoolchildren to “adopt” Jewish child victims of
the Holocaust, dug in his heels and said without any ambiguity that
France had to raise children “with open eyes”.
 In a speech
praising faith that also drew fire from secularists, Sarkozy told
France’s
Jewish community last Wednesday that every 10-year-old schoolchild
should be “entrusted with the memory of a French child victim of the
Holocaust”.
There was some
protest from sections of teachers, psychologists and political foes
who claimed it would burden kids with the guilt of previous
generations. More than 11,100 French Jewish children were deported
from
France to
Auschwitz and other Nazi death camps in eastern Europe during the
German World War Two occupation.
Sarkozy,
brushing aside the noise, said: “It is ignorance that produces
abominable situations. It is not knowledge...Let us make our
children, children with open eyes who are not complacent.” He won
support from opposition Socialist leader Francois Hollande and the
president’s conservative UMP party rallied in support.
The French
president’s views should set the Sikh community thinking of ways to
perpetuate and preserve the memories of those lost in decades of
expression of aspiration in
Punjab and in
the 1984 genocide.
20
February 2008
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