Guillermo Barreto gave an excellent analysis of the situation in Venezuela in the context of how an economic boycott has led to the death of 40.000 people. Barreto is director of International Centre for the Study of Decolonization in Venezuela and former Vice-minister of Science and Technology in the Ministry of Popular Power for University Education, Science and Technology.

His presentation followed by discussion is now on video. See: https://www.handsoffvenezuela.nl/index.php/2020/02/02/genocide-memorial-day-2020-amsterdam-thema-venezuela-economic-boycott-video/. Many thanks to George Jansenz for all the work.

A socialist mayor from a small Walloon town (Lessines) filed a complaint against Nordine Saïdi, a founding member of Bruxelles Panthères, a Belgian political antiracist organization which is part of the DIN – Decolonial International Network.

What is the complaint about? It is actually about an e-mail sent by BP to the mayor and his town council back in September 2018 that was requesting that the local authorities take all the necessary actions to remove the BLACK FACE part of their traditional annual carnival which take place in “Les Deux Acres”, a part of the previously mentioned town, Lessines. The local authorities considered and still consider today that this racist show known as “the Negro parade” is a harmless folklore that has no racist roots.

Long story short, even if they keep denying the racist character of their party, the letter sent by Nordine Saïdi and BP had the positive effect to push the carnival organisation committee to cancel the traditional racist “Negro parade”.

Nevertheless, if they surprisingly cancelled that part of their show, they also filed a complaint against the e-mail’s author.

Following the work that we accomplished against Belgium BlackFace traditional practice, some politicians, as the socialist Bourgmestre of Lessines in the present case , are trying to put an end to our denunciation of racism by having a politically use of the Justice.

We are calling on you to support us, to pay the lawyer fees by making a donation via Paypal : https://paypal.me/pools/c/8lEEZW69Zk

Houria Bouteldja, Member of the Parti des Indigènes de la République (PIR) and a founding member of DIN, has published an article in which she provides a decolonial analysi of the relationship between, race, class, gender and sexuality.

She argues that progressive, neoliberal morality, dependent on a linear vision of history stripped of any form of political materialism, only serves to resolve the contradictions of class, gender, and sexuality among whites, to reinforce their unity at the expense of non-whites.

In 2010 Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC), a founding member of the Decolonial International Network organized the first Genocide Memorial Day. It is a day focused on remembering man’s inhumanity to man. It takes place on the third Sunday of January each year. For the GMD project, the act of remembrance is not limited by the background of either the victims or the perpetrators of any of the genocides.  It aims to raise awareness of genocide in order for new generations to understand the causes and recognise the warning signs of such atrocities.

IHRC has developed education material that can be used by teachers who want to educated students on genocide. There is a list of twenty genocides committed during the last centuries. It includes the Nazi Holocaust and the Zionist assault on Gaza. There is a lesson plan for the age group 10-12 years specifically on remembering the Holocaust. It comes with an instruction manual for teachers.

The material has been used in some schools in the UK. The Zionist news website The Jewish Chronicle has published an article that distorts the nature of the educational material, because the suffering of the Palestinians are included in the slides. It now calls upon the UK government to stop the distribution of the material.

DIN has endorsed a letter to IC protesting this move. Below is the text of the letter. If you want to support this protest by signing the letter, send an email to gmd@ihrc.org.

Open Letter to the Jewish Cronicle

We, the undersigned, are writing to condemn in the strongest possible terms your article dated 22 January 2020 headlined “Government pledges to act over teaching material that compares Gaza to the Holocaust”.

We attach the three resources you specifically attack here, here and here.

The article is slanted, misleading, unfactual, racist and Islamophobic. In fact it so greatly distorts the actual situation that it is hard to see the piece as anything other than the lowest kind of gutter journalism.

By misrepresenting and undermining Genocide Memorial Day, the article also displays a staggering level of insensitiveness, effectively belittling the suffering of millions of victims of genocides past and present including and especially the victims of the Holocaust, whom you treat as a political football.  It is deeply offensive to all those who have worked on and supported GMD including the Jewish participants in the project, including those who are Holocaust survivors or children or close relatives of survivors.

As usual it appears the cause of your ire is IHRC’s support for justice and equality for Palestinians, but more particularly the GMD project’s listing of other genocides and genocidal acts before and after the Holocaust. 

The Jewish Chronicle is free to support Israel in whatever it does, including its violations of international law.  However your abuse of Holocaust memorialisation and teaching in this way to attack an organisation and a project which specifically works on genocide awareness and prevention, is a new low.

We await some sort of editorial leadership offering in the very least an apology and retraction of the article.