Remembrance day By Sankar Ray 30 Jan 08 (http://thestatesman.net/page.news.php?clid=4&theme=&usrsess=1&id=187855)
For peace-activists the world over, 30 January is a day to remember with grit: This year, 30 January is not only the 60th death anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, but is also the 75th anniversary of ascension of Adolf Hitler replacing Paul von Hindenburg as the German Chancellor.
The Nazi dictator in his maiden statement as the head of the State said: "I will employ my strength for the welfare of the German people, protect the Constitution and laws of the German people, conscientiously discharge the duties imposed on me, and conduct my affairs of office impartially and with justice to everyone."
But the Third Reich kept his real plan under wraps and the assurance was a false cover. His hidden plan was known to the Nazi rank and file whose joyous intent was reflected in the robot-like reception by members of the SA and SS in uniform; carrying torches and singing the Horst Wessel song to hail the new Fuhrer-Chancellor, they marched through the Brandenburg gate. Rhythmic pounding beats of jackboots, drums and blaring military parade music were heard in Berlin but the commoners failed to read the writing on the wall.
The rest is history. Violating every syllable of this assurance, in his 14-year nightmarish rule, Hitler made statesmen of leading countries shiver in their shoes.
The assassination of the Mahatma on the 15th anniversary of Hitler's assumption of power was repetition of history as a "farce". Hitler made a beginning of Aryan-racism on 30 January, 1933. Gandhiji's tragic end triggered communalism.
On the same day in 1649, King Charles I of England was beheaded and 12 years thereafter, Oliver Cromwell, who played the principal role in the trial and execution of Charles I and became the Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, was executed.
Exactly two decades after the Mahatma's assassination, the Vietcong forces launched the famous Tet Offensive in South Vietnam, with 19 suicide sappers who broke into the compound of the US Embassy in Saigon. Planned by the legendary General Vo Nguyen Giap, it was abortive but it triggered American public opinion against the belligerent US foreign policy.
Nonetheless, the 30th of January has not always been a day of tragedy throughout the history. The Library of Congress which was burnt to ashes by the British Army on 19 August, 1814, was reborn on 30 January, 1815 with Jefferson's personal library containing 1,500 titles. The Rhodesian whites voted to transfer power to the majority on the 31st anniversary of the Mahatma's martyrdom. It was significant that Bapu began his historical battle against apartheid in southern Africa.
On this date, several well-known statesmen were born like the 32nd American President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882), ex-Swedish Premier Olof Palme (1927), assassinated on 1 March, 1986. The 46th US Vice-President Dick Cheney, who has earned a lot of infamy, was born on 30 January, 1941.
Academics, particularly in the areas of history, historiography and archaeology, may frown at the endeavour to identify a particular date like 30 January this way. They have their rationale but are there any fixed criteria for defining a historical document or the historical value of a thing?
Well-known English historian EH Carr said that the 19th century is the age of fetishism of "facts" and "documents . But the empiricist stance exists in the domain of research in history, despite Carr's jibe at the 19th century historiography.
Unlike Carr, Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm has no anathema towards repetition in history and he lays importance on the aspect of inventing traditions and constructing a sense of continuity with the past in an essay Introduction: Inventing Traditions in 1983.
True, we should not artificially discover relations among random events and interpretation thereof. But similarity between events over time happens. One should not try to enunciate a law or theorem. There may be a break or end of it. Take the Solidarity movement that rocked Poland in 1980. Some political commentators, specialising in the now-defunct Sovietology, suggested over-enthusiastically that political turmoil has a 12-year cycle in Poland: 1956, 1968 and 1980. However, there was no upheaval in 1992 and 2004 in what was once the most formidable economy of East Europe.
For those who treat secularism beyond electoral politics, Gandhiji's martyrdom is a strong conceptual truth. I remember a Press conference of Dr Murli Manohar Joshi as the then BJP president in 1997 at the Press Club of Kolkata. He said that Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee was India's first martyr against communalism. When I asked him why was he not considering Gandhiji, he adhered to his statement and implicitly refused to regard The Mahatma as a martyr.
The RSS leaders deny involvement in the killing of Gandhiji but cannot deny that Nathuram Godse left the RSS shortly before killing the Father of the Nation. Was the severance a tactical step?
In future, 30 January may not witness tragedies like the ominous rise of fascism which, German historians crossing ideological lines say, has nothing in common with the German history or assassination of another Gandhiji. Let's hope so. And for that adherents of rationalism remember 30 January as a day of remembrance.
(The author is a freelance contributor)
__._,_.___
*****************************************
Sign the Petition : Release the Arrested University Teachers Immediately : An Appeal to the Caretaker Government of Bangladesh
http://www.mukto-mona.com/human_rights/university_teachers_arrest.htm
*****************************************
Daily Star publishes an interview with Mukto-Mona
http://www.mukto-mona.com/news/daily_star/daily_star_MM.pdf
*****************************************
MM site is blocked in Islamic countries such as UAE. Members of those theocratic states, kindly use any proxy (such as http://proxy.org/) to access mukto-mona.
*****************************************
Mukto-Mona Celebrates 5th Anniversary
http://www.mukto-mona.com/Special_Event_/5_yrs_anniv/index.htm
*****************************************
Mukto-Mona Celebrates Earth Day:
http://www.mukto-mona.com/Special_Event_/Earth_day2006/index.htm
*****************************************
Kansat Uprising : A Special Page from Mukto-Mona
http://www.mukto-mona.com/human_rights/kansat2006/members/
*****************************************
MM Project : Grand assembly of local freedom fighters at Raumari
http://www.mukto-mona.com/project/Roumari/freedom_fighters_union300306.htm
*****************************************
German Bangla Radio Interviews Mukto-Mona Members:
http://www.mukto-mona.com/Special_Event_/Darwin_day/german_radio/
Mukto-Mona Celebrates Darwin Day:
http://www.mukto-mona.com/Special_Event_/Darwin_day/index.htm
*****************************************
Some FAQ's about Mukto-Mona:
http://www.mukto-mona.com/new_site/mukto-mona/faq_mm.htm
****************************************************
VISIT MUKTO-MONA WEB-SITE : http://www.mukto-mona.com/
****************************************************
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it".
-Beatrice Hall [pseudonym: S.G. Tallentyre], 190
Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required)
Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch to Fully Featured
Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe
__,_._,___