Old Tyrannia wrote:"Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings." - Heinrich Heine
I immediately thought of that quote too.
I understand Trudeau's response, but I don't agree with it.
No matter what race they are, human beings are fallible and sometimes they are unreasonable. When someone is wrong, we need to be able to challenge them no matter what race they are. I think a lot of white people need to do a better job of listening and making sure someone actually
is wrong before shutting them down, and I think a lot of white people need to be less aggressive about saying "YOU'RE THE REAL RACISTS!!!" There are a lot of other ways to disagree like, "That doesn't make sense," "I disagree," or, "I don't think that's reasonable." In many cases those are more accurate than "YOU'RE THE REAL RACISTS!!!" But sometimes people are wrong, and you don't need to be indigenous to tell them they are wrong.
Burning Asterix books is not a reasonable step toward reconciliation. Book burning is not a healthy social phenomenon, and when it's combined with a fixation on racial identity, it does have a Nazi vibe. There are other historical precedents besides the Nazis, but book-burning is still strongly associated with political violence and totalitarian regimes. Rather than pretending that indigenous people are a bunch of ignorant children, let's treat them like responsible adults and assume they are smart enough to understand the meaning of their actions. Book burning is extremist bullshit. It's not cool.
Are they going to be opening a new Auschwitz tomorrow? No. We're not at that level of crisis right now. But book burning is still the complete opposite of reconciliation.
Necroghastia wrote:I do so wish that when we teach about Nazi book burnings, we say specifically *what* they burned - books about socialism and sex and gender studies.
Like, I'm not a fan of destroying books, but I also don't think every bigoted Tom, Dick, and Harry has a claim to whine about "censorship" either.
This is a fair point, but I think the number and variety of books here is problematic. It is not just a casual thing like one bored guy tossing a pamphlet from the local hate group in his firepit.