GOOD MORNING FROM LONDON
Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain from 10 Downing Street in a speech to the Nation said “And I have to tell you that no such undertaking has been received and that, consequently, this country is at war with Germany”
With those words, for the people of the UK, the Second World War began. It is always a sombre moment to recall families up and down the country huddled around the radio hearing such devastating news. Grandparents (three generations often lived in the one house) looking at their teenage grandsons + wondering whether they would be called up to serve King + Country.
The past echoes when reading a Special Report in the current issue of the Jewish News entitled “Campaigning for Uyghurs”. The strapline states “How China’s oppression of an ethnic group resonated with UK Jews and led them to mobilise”.
In the article, Barbara Borts who teaches a Holocaust module at Newcastle University says “People in power need to hear that we as Jews feel that there are similarities between what we went through and what’s going on today with the Uyghurs”.
Well, not all Jews. Two prominent Jews, in particular, Professor Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University, USA and Professor William Schabas of Middlesex University, UK have gone into print rejecting the allegation of Genocide against China. There are other Jews, myself included, who have challenged the leaders of the UK Jewish Community for asserting that there are clear parallels between the Nazi genocide against the Jews and the supposed ‘Chinese genocide’ against the Uyghurs.
There is no genocide in China. There are no race issues. Unlike the Jewish population which fell by 8 million during WW2, the Uyghur population has increased in the last 10 years. China, in Xinjiang, has been fighting Islamic extremists who are one-for-one with the Islamic extremists that killed 28 youngsters at the Manchester Arena. Their goal is to separate Xinjiang from China. Separatism, not Racism, is at the heart of the issues in Xinjiang.
NEXT POST – MONDAY 6 SEPTEMBER 2021
