I always find it really strange when I talk to people about the political situation in the middle east and they talk as though this battle between jews and muslims has been going on for centuries (as opposed to the few decades since the establishment of Israel) and somehow see it as parallel to, and even an extension of the holocaust. So intolerance towards the jews in now something that muslims should be dealing with, as opposed to the holocaust having been a very typically European affair. 

“You have to admit it, you’re a bloodthirsty lot you muslims” said a friend of mine a while ago, after some minor act of violence in the news. It was said with a laugh, a friendly remark, the bloodlust wasn’t being attributed to me personally, and it would never have occurred to her that she was prejudiced. It was just matter of fact, and I guess what amused her was the strangeness of my unrepentant association with such a barbarous lot.

I’m not sure that I quite turned her perceptions around when I mentioned the two world wars originating in Christian Europe in the last century alone, but she did stop me short as I started to elaborate on the assorted brutalities of our colonial history. Unsurprisingly, we humans like to judge ourselves not by atrocities we have committed in the past, but by the fact that we haven’t committed them recently. We would rather look for someone else to blame for the world’s current problems.

Yesterday Tony Blair confirmed plans for a Holocaust Memorial Day every year on January 27^th. Let us hope that the memorial does indeed turn into what Jonathan Sachs suggested be a day of reflection on what it is to be human, recognising the humanity of those “who do not live as I live or believe as I believe”.

Nowadays, in the light of recent history, most people think twice before abusing the jews. Yet as a general rule, muslims are seen as fair game, and deserving whatever they get. Remember that the gas-chambers were an invention of a nice European country like us, however. The past will never be expunged by finding a new focus of blame in the present.

Long before the events of Bosnia and Kosovo and now Chechnya, it was suggested that the next European gas-chambers would be for muslims. Remembering the millions of Jewish dead will have little purpose if it just brings a tear to the eye and a sense of regret, but doesn’t change the way we ourselves look at the world.

Qur’an says: “And We shall not change a people until they change themselves.”