Why they deny the Holocaust
On top of nearly constant anti-Semitic propaganda,
much of the Muslim world hasn't even heard of it.
By Ayaan Hirsi Ali | Los Angeles Times |December 16, 2006
ONE DAY IN 1994, when I was living in Ede, a small town in Holland, I got a visit
from my half-sister. She and I were both immigrants from Somalia and had both
applied for asylum in Holland. I was granted it; she was denied. The fact that
I got asylum gave me the opportunity to study. My half-sister couldn't.
In order for me to be admitted to the university I wanted to attend, I needed
to pass three courses: a language course, a civics course and a history course.
It was in the preparatory history course that I, for the first time, heard of
the Holocaust. I was 24 years old at that time, and my half-sister was 21.
In those days, the daily news was filled with the Rwandan genocide and ethnic
cleansing in the former Yugoslavia. On the day that my half-sister visited me,
my head was reeling from what happened to 6 million Jews in Germany, Holland,
France and Eastern Europe.
I learned that innocent men, women and children were separated from each other.
Stars pinned to their shoulders, transported by train to camps, they were gassed
for no other reason than for being Jewish.
I saw pictures of masses of skeletons, even of kids. I heard horrifying accounts
of some of the people who had survived the terror of Auschwitz and Sobibor. I
told my half-sister all this and showed her the pictures in my history book. What
she said was as awful as the information in my book.
With great conviction, my half-sister cried: "It's a lie! Jews have a way
of blinding people. They were not killed, gassed or massacred. But I pray to Allah
that one day all the Jews in the world will be destroyed."
She was not saying anything new. As a child growing up in Saudi Arabia, I remember
my teachers, my mom and our neighbors telling us practically on a daily basis
that Jews are evil, the sworn enemies of Muslims, and that their only goal was
to destroy Islam. We were never informed about the Holocaust.
Later, as a teenager in Kenya, when Saudi and other Persian Gulf philanthropy
reached us, I remember that the building of mosques and donations to hospitals
and the poor went hand in hand with the cursing of Jews. Jews were said to be
responsible for the deaths of babies and for epidemics such as AIDS, and they
were believed to be the cause of wars. They were greedy and would do absolutely
anything to kill us Muslims. If we ever wanted to know peace and stability, and
if we didn't want to be wiped out, we would have to destroy the Jews. For those
of us who were not in a position to take up arms against them, it was enough for
us to cup our hands, raise our eyes heavenward and pray to Allah to destroy them.
Western leaders today who say they are shocked by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's
conference this week denying the Holocaust need to wake up to that reality. For
the majority of Muslims in the world, the Holocaust is not a major historical
event that they deny. We simply do not know it ever happened because we were never
informed of it.
The total number of Jews in the world today is estimated to be about 15 million,
certainly no more than 20 million. On the other hand, the world's Muslim population
is estimated to be between 1.2 billion and 1.5 billion. And not only is this population
rapidly growing, it is also very young.
What's striking about Ahmadinejad's conference is the (silent) acquiescence of
mainstream Muslims. I cannot help but wonder: Why is there no counter-conference
in Riyadh, Cairo, Lahore, Khartoum or Jakarta condemning Ahmadinejad? Why are
the 57 members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference silent on this?
Could the answer be as simple as it is horrifying: For generations, the leaders
of these so-called Muslim countries have been spoon-feeding their populations
a constant diet of propaganda similar to the one that generations of Germans (and
other Europeans) were fed — that Jews are vermin and should be dealt with
as such? In Europe, the logical conclusion was the Holocaust. If Ahmadinejad has
his way, he shall not want for compliant Muslims ready to act on his wish.
The world needs to be informed again and again about the Holocaust — not
only in the interest of the Jews who survived and their offspring but in the interest
of humanity.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI, a Somali immigrant who served in the parliament
of the Netherlands until earlier this year, is the author of "Infidel,"
an autobiography to be published in February, 2007. Copyright
2006 Los Angeles Times