Images of the West
Holocaust Deniers
and the West’s Black Conscience
Petr Pelikán
regime), I gathered that he belonged to
the first or second generation of German
immigrants. At the end he asked a surpri-
sing question related to both opinions: “If
I was executed back then for not fitting in
with the Reich’s requirements, who would
use me as a martyr today? The Germans,
Turks, Muslims, or Shiites...?”
Western vs. Islamic Invectives
Up until the day when the Iranian ideo-
logists began to “deny” the Holocaust, Is-
lamic propagandists helplessly struggled
to find and attack a sensitive spot for the
West. Western invectives, often true and
often unintentional, touch on the inner-
most Muslim values to a far greater extent
than the Western mind can possibly com-
prehend. On the other hand, Islamic inve-
ctives of a similar kind only meet amuse-
ment in the West, from which it affirms its
European super-values and the basic pos-
tulates of freedom of thought and speech.
“How can someone kill just because
L
ast summer I took part in a theolo- tollahs. He did not receive the anticipa- of a caricature, even if it is a caricature of
gical conference in Iran and witnes- ted acknowledgement from his listeners, the prophet?” exclaims the West. “It is the
sed a spontaneous debate between just unreceptive silence. So he also added same as if we were to offend Christianity,”
participants from several states. Actually, that the extermination camps were just explains the East. “Well go ahead and do
I noticed the man who began the debate the invention of Zionistic propaganda; that, you have a right to do it,” answers the
on the first day of the conference. He was in his words, it would not be possible to West. “We can supply a plentitude of Je-
an Egyptian doctor from El Mansura. It round up so many people and keep them sus caricatures f