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 Meantime, in the 'homeland of human rights'...

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Salvia




Posts : 166
Join date : 2012-12-29
Age : 36
Location : Wales, UK

Meantime, in the 'homeland of human rights'... Empty
PostSubject: Meantime, in the 'homeland of human rights'...   Meantime, in the 'homeland of human rights'... EmptyThu Jun 06, 2013 2:31 pm

Sorry guys, I a going to kvetch a LOT here. It doesn't all pertain to Judaism, and if the admin thinks this post isn't apt for the forum, I won't in the least be offended if it will be removed.

But.
Today we heard the horrible news that a close relation of some of my pupils has been murdered in Paris. By neonazis. Why? Because he was an anti-fascist militant. They awaited him with a group and basically hit him dead...
I am very angry at this assault at the liberty of expression and at the life of a young man, 18 years old. It broke my heart to see my pupils cry. Killing an 18 year old boy because he doesn't agree with you? Overpowering a teenager with a group, in order to kill him? They brought baseball gloves filled with steel to hit him!
Yesterday I was going on about the Jewish Brachot and how the make you sensitive to the beauty of Creation and the miracle of Life. Today I have a hard time to feel awe at the greatness of it all...

I also got mailed this article: http://www.marianne.net/Antisemitisme-sur-scene-a-La-Rochelle_a229359.html
It tells about a revulsing antisemitic play that is staged at the...university of La Rochelle. It says to be anticapitalist but it is about a Jewish family trying to get world domination while speculating over the life of infants. It also features two 'orthodox rabbis' who hunt nazis, and who are told in the play that 'shoa business is still good business'. In the end, they accept a bunch of money of the nazi to leave him alone, and shake hands with him on good business. The whole thing is disgusting. One of the university's professors, mr. Goldberg, has alerted the Univeristy's president of the antisemitism, and got more or less laughed away. Of course, there is no antisemitism here, and the professor should learn to read between the lines, and there's liberty of expression.
Liberty of expression, one of the pillars of wester civilisation, should always be measured up against that other great pillar: tolerance and respect for the Other and their rights. And this isn't freedom of expression, this is hate speech and hate speech is for the moment still punishable by law.

Fascism and neo-nazism seem to become more and more common in France. especially since the great protests against gay marriage. There skinheads walked side by side with orthodox christians and showed their dedication to the cause by beating up a gay couple in such a way that now, two month later or so, they aren't fully recovered yet.
The Christians believe that gay marriage is anti-biblical. Now I'm not an expert on christian theology, but my mum, who fifty years after having learned them still knows all her Psalms by heart, is quite well grounded in it. She has always told me that the Bible can be brought down to two simple rules, namely that 1. You shall love G-d with all of your heart, soul and might and 2. you shall not do to the other what you don't want to be done to you. These extreme christians, walking side by side with fascists, apparently can't even live up to the second rule, so how can they expected to understand the first? If you can't respect your fellow-creatures, how can anyone expect you to respect the Creator?
And no, this is not against people who have their doubts about gay marriage. It is about those who want to impose THEIR view on OTHERS, where those others aren't objectivey speaking doing any wrong, just because your worldview is different. It is imposing religion, it is the negation of the freedom on conscience and the freedom of the adult to make his own ethical choices.

But religion shouldn't even be a question. We live in France, a country where, thanks G-d, religion has no right to intermingle in the public debate. So as long as there is no good secular argument as two why this particular law in the Code Civil governing a contract between two consenting adults about the sharing of property, regulating the division of this property and what should happen to it lest, G-d forbid, the contract should be ended, can't apply to two persons of the same sex, they have no case. Cause "Holy Matrimony" and a marriage contract just aren't the same thing!!
Sorry, ranting.

But I'm just so sad. I know, talking about politics is dangerous, but the extreme right is just destroying everything I hold dear about the western tradition:
-freedom of expression
-freedom of conscience
-separation of state and religion
-respect of the Other and their rights

And there seem to be more and more fascists and they just don't change, cause antisemitism is back too, as well grounded in reality as it always has been [/sarcasm].
It scares me and makes me sad.

And very angry, that too.

Sorry to kvetch. Please remove my post if inappropiate.
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