Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-04-21-Speech-1-097"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20080421.15.1-097"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
".
Mr President, the two most cruel totalitarian regimes of the 20th century, German Nazism and Soviet- and Chinese-style communism, committed heinous crimes. The total number of victims probably exceeds 100 million dead and martyred in the Holocaust and through mass executions and deportations, artificially generated hunger, in death and concentration camps.
The Nazi system murdered people on racial grounds; the communist system for reasons of social class. The ideologies which provided the foundations of these systems excluded whole groups of citizens from the rule of law and designated them for death or for physical and social degradation in order to construct a new, allegedly better society. A special kind of hatred was held towards religions. Within these systems not only was there a monopoly of power, but also one of language, which was turned into a tool of propaganda and terror.
Today, more than 60 years after World War II ended, more than a dozen years after the fall of Soviet communism, it is amazing that within the European Union there are still people who refuse to recognise that communism was a criminal system. Many ruses are being used to relativise communism’s past. What moral argument is there to support the contention that the victims of Nazism are more important than those of communism? Why are we unable to produce some common resolution on this?
Commissioner, this is not a matter for individual Member States only. If the Union considers itself to be responsible and competent to deal with racism and xenophobia, it should muster sufficient courage to deplore communist crimes too. I say this not only as a politician, but as a historian. The similarities between both these systems do not necessarily lead to arguments about their compatibility. To stress the uniqueness of communist crimes does not diminish the Nazi crimes at all, and vice versa. Put simply, common decency and remembrance of the countless victims of these regimes requires condemnation of both. The working group we have set up in Parliament, called
which already has some 50 Members, will be soliciting just such a condemnation."@en1
|
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata |
"United Europe United History"1
|
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples