[MGSA-L] Greek Deputy Minister of Education on the Holocaust and the Asia Minor Catastrophe

akis at sfr.be akis at sfr.be
Fri Sep 23 01:15:24 PDT 2016


The problem with such a reasoning is that we first establish an advantage of a certain political regime as an abstract idea, and then we use these credits in favor of its (supposed) implementation in contrete nation-states, in historical configurations of power. When a shortcoming is pointed out in these configurations of power, we can always reply, "oh, you know this is not the fault of the idea, it is a wrong implementation". 

In the same sense, one could argue that the failures of socialism is not the fault of Marxism, the failures of islamic states is not the fault of Islam etc.


---- Message d'origine ----
De : Kyriakos Nalmpantis <knalmpan at kent.edu>
À : Christos D. Katsetos <cd_katsetos at yahoo.com>
Objet : Re: [MGSA-L] Greek Deputy Minister of Education on the Holocaust and the Asia Minor Catastrophe
Date : 21/09/2016 17:48:37 CEST
Copie à : Study of the CIVILWAR in GREECE <eui-civilwar at list.cineca.it>;
   mgsa-l at uci.edu <mgsa-l at uci.edu>;
   Mike Sotiropoulos <mikysamurai at gmail.com>;
   socialhistory at uth.gr <socialhistory at uth.gr>


Again, "failure of democracy" is not democracy. Democracy failed in the interwar period (in Germany and many other European countries) because of multiple structural issues that we need not explore here. When it failed, it was replaced invariably by more authoritarian regimes that are the ones directly responsible for the horrors. 


And I certainly did not mean to in any way to imply that the atrocities perpetrated during this dark time did not have a great degree of popular support (and perhaps an "unofficial" mandate, though not official, since that would imply electoral support); not just in Germany but throughout the Nazi empire. These were the unfortunate wages of centuries of antisemitism, made stronger by lurid eugenic fantasies and streamlined and made more palatable by romantic nationalist discourse. Democracies have a way of blunting and defeating such populist excesses (constitutionally guaranteed rights of minorities, paying at least lip service to the concept of legal equality, etc.) -- authoritarian regimes do not.


So let's all hope democracy never fails in such a spectacular fashion again (although some believe that that is precisely what is happening today in the so-called advanced, industrialized world).


Kyriakos


On Wed, Sep 21, 2016 at 2:12 AM, Christos D. Katsetos <cd_katsetos at yahoo.com> wrote:

And yet, it could be argued that the abhorrent crimes perpetrated by Nazi Germany and the Axis Powers during World War II amount to a sheer failure of "Western" democracy.  These crimes were committed by regimes that enjoyed strong popular support and mandate. Not to forget the widespread network of collaborators and collaborationists across Europe. Apropos the military operations of the European Axis powers in the Eastern Front and the Siege of Leningrad, may I use, as a case in point, the SS-Freiwilligen Legion Niederlande and the infamous Gerardus Leonardus Mooyman of the 4th SS Volunteer Panzergrenadier Brigade Netherlands, the first non-German to be awarded the Knight's Cross (credited with destroying 23 Soviet tanks).



Christos D. Katsetos, MD, PhD, FRCPath, FRCP Edin 
http://www.drexel.edu/medicine/Faculty/Profiles/Christos-Katsetos/

http://www.stchristophershospital.com/find-a-physician/120  




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