A little late on this but worth flagging all the same. Pickled Politics had an interesting discussion yesterday on the news that the Muslim Council of Britain has reversed it's long standing boycott of Holocaust Memorial Day. Opinion in the comment thread seems divided as to whether the MCB deserves credit for this or whether it's too little too late.
I'd always thought the boycott was indefensible anyway so I'm not minded to be too gushing in praise for the MCB just for finally doing the right thing. Having said that, any suggestions that the MCB shouldn't be made welcome now is unhelpful at best and, at worse, tantamount to the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust being guilty of the very thing they've criticised the MCB for in the past - let's just get on with remembering what the 27th January is all about.
Despite disagreeing with them on their boycott as well as some other issues I do have some sympathy for the MCB. As the comment thread at PP illustrates they're held up as some sort of oracle of Muslim opinion and expected to be able to respond instantly and with perfect nuance to any story relating to Islam anywhere in the world. Any attempt to add context or qualify their comments tends to get labelled appeasement which, of course, it sometimes is but not always. It's worth noting the speed with which they condemned the treatment of Gillian Gibbons in the Sudan over the 'teddy bear' row and the pleasing lack of any such qualifications or excuses.
I'd always thought the boycott was indefensible anyway so I'm not minded to be too gushing in praise for the MCB just for finally doing the right thing. Having said that, any suggestions that the MCB shouldn't be made welcome now is unhelpful at best and, at worse, tantamount to the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust being guilty of the very thing they've criticised the MCB for in the past - let's just get on with remembering what the 27th January is all about.
Despite disagreeing with them on their boycott as well as some other issues I do have some sympathy for the MCB. As the comment thread at PP illustrates they're held up as some sort of oracle of Muslim opinion and expected to be able to respond instantly and with perfect nuance to any story relating to Islam anywhere in the world. Any attempt to add context or qualify their comments tends to get labelled appeasement which, of course, it sometimes is but not always. It's worth noting the speed with which they condemned the treatment of Gillian Gibbons in the Sudan over the 'teddy bear' row and the pleasing lack of any such qualifications or excuses.
Labels: Religion
1 Comments:
This is the second positive in as many days, the other being Mohammed Bear.
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