[INDOLOGY] Hitler and MLBD

[Jean-Luc Chevillard]

Dear Robert,

I don't have to read Mein Kampf in order to know what Nazis and their 
followers (such as the French régime of Vichy) did.

I just have to walk the streets of Paris and to see what is written here 
and there, such as in the "plaque" (see the two attached files) which 
stands in "Rue Alibert" outside a School, in the 10ème arrondissement of 
Paris, less than 500 meters from the place where I currently live.

Our indian friends never have the occasion to see such things. For them 
NAZISM is an abstraction and, as Jan Houben pointed out, about the name 
"Hitler", « it seems to have become lexicalized in the sense of "severe 
person" ...»

I don't know a single person in Europe who is proud of the crimes 
committed at the time of Nazism.

I don't want to prevent people from reading /Mein Kampf/, I don't want 
to "moralize", I just want to send the message to our Indian colleagues 
and friends that:

« WE (in Europe) ARE NOT PROUD OF this segment of our past. »

And I am sure that those members of my family who are German would be 
happy not to see the topic of Hitler and Nazism come up automatically, 
while travelling in India, whenever the people they meet detect that 
they are German (To me, a Frenchman, they would of course talk about 
Napoleon ...)

This thread is not ABOUT INDIA:
it is a thread ABOUT EUROPE (and about the stereotypes concerning 
Europe, which we DON'T HAVE TO ACCEPT).

This is a thread for making statements about who WE are
(the WE being intended as "inclusive" [Tamil நாம் (nām)], if I adress 
someone who perceives oneself as having European roots and as 
"exclusive" [Tamil நாங்கள் (nāṅkaḷ)] if I adress someone else.

And the statements are especially important when they are adressed to 
OUR CHILDREN (I myself have two boys)

And I agree that this thread does not concern INDOLOGY (and INDIA)

BUT I have just signed the petition, online at:

"http://www.change.org/petitions/motilal-banarsidass-stop-publishing-and-selling-hitler-s-mein-kampf#share"


Best wishes from Paris

-- Jean-Luc

"https://twitter.com/JLC1956"


On 20/05/2014 15:50, Robert Zydenbos wrote:
> How many of the prudishly politically correct critics in this thread
> have actually read it?

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