SV: Closing remarks to Dr. Vassilkov (& Mr. Agarwal) (II)

[Lars Martin Fosse]

Robert Zydenbos [SMTP:zydenbos at BIGFOOT.DE] skrev 07. september 1999 20:34:
> Yet by Rajaram's own admission (cf. the closing words of  his
> article, if it is not clear already long before you  reach them), this
> rewriting of history is a political matter. In your [Koenrad Elst] own
convoluted 13-
> page item which you named after me you too say (in the final
> paragraph) that the AIT is a threat to India's unity and integrity.

> From my readings in Indigenism, it would seem clear that the "Aryan-Dravidian"
divide plays a very important role in the history-writing of the Indigenists.
In other words: because a certain interpretation of history seems to create
problems between the North and the South, it has to be rejected and replaced by
a less inconvenient theory. Given this overtly political motive, I think it is
relevant to ask if a discussion between hard-core indigenists and migrationists
is meaningful at all. If there is a political motive for adopting Indigenism,
then the hands of the indigenists are tied at the outset, and they CANNOT make
concessions. Their job is to manipulate history in the same manner as communist
and fascist historians manipulated *their* histories in order to use them as
political tools. So is a debate meaningful at all?

[BTW: Discreet manipulations of history took place both in Western Germany and
in France after the Second World War for similar reasons, so this is not
necessarily a practice confined to non-democratic regimes. But the best
examples, of course, come from the totalitarian regimes!]

Best regards,

Lars Martin Fosse



Dr. art. Lars Martin Fosse
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