The gentleman from the Universite de Lille is simply wrong to assert that there the period 1936-1945 was universally unique in the way he argues. The policy of racial extermination was pursued in North America with all the deliberation and actually with greater efficiency in terms of the proportion of non-survivors. Moreover the policies that led to this present condition in North America have never been repudiated, instead they continue.

The policies pertaining to Germany are no longer policy, the government that developed and implemented those policies was utterly destroyed. The proportion of survivors (not to mention all those who were not even in the affected territories) remains substantially higher than in the case of the race policies of North America. If there is anything unique in the case of Germany it is because Germany is the only country whose racist policies were militarily defeated and whose state was destroyed and whose population was compelled to repudiate or suffer punishment for its acts. The destruction of Nazi Germany was a truly unique accomplishment. No other country has had to pay such a high price for its racist policies.

Yes the period was unique-- but only because all historical periods are somehow unique.

There is absolutely no reason to dwell on the historical period more than any other historical period. What is more the policies which are relevant today and which should be abhorred are those that affect other populations but NOT the population which many people like the aforementioned gentleman would have us dwell with exclusion. It remains the privilege of this gentleman to devote his energies to such issues of the past, even to the point of distortion or nostalgia, if that is his particular interest. This personal preference however has no binding effect on those historians or social scientists who feel that there are other more prescient and contemporary issues of injustice or even crime that have to be treated.

Just as there are scholars who believe that the most important subject of their work is the interpretation of stained-glass windows or ancient manuscripts, there is every legitimacy for someone to dedicate his/ her life's work to another historical period or artefact(s). It would be just as absurd for a scholar of ancient manuscripts to insist that this was the one and only important subject of academic research as it is for those who would have us believe we are compelled to study and examine something which genuinely can be of little interest to us today-- trying to study immediate history.

Mit freundlichen Grüßen/ Cordialement/ Cordiali saluti/ Yours sincerely

Dr. Patrick Wilkinson
Institute for Advanced Cultural Studies - Europe
Kirchstrasse 32
D-40227 Düsseldorf

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There are other problems which need our attention, they are historic and they comprise the collaboration of State functionaries and racially privileged people imposing a long-established and defended order of things. I am sure that the entire Western hemisphere can find examples of such miscarriage of justice that can only be understood if we are honest historians and social sciences and if we see our humanity and commitment to human dignity by explaining these to others and making the issues salient so that people may act and justice may prevail:

http://www.counterpunch.org/quigley07032007.html


Mit freundlichen Grüßen/ Cordialement/ Cordiali saluti/ Yours sincerely/

Dr. Patrick Wilkinson
Cognitive Consulting and Language Logistics
Kirchstrasse 32
D-40227 Düsseldorf