Sandwell remembers…

Via Bob Piper comes the news that at tonight’s full meeting of Sandwell Council, local councillors of all parties – but for the three BNP members present- voted to officially commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day in Sandwell, each year.

Well done, especially to Cllr Mick Davies, Bob and Tom Watson MP, whose efforts, support and good offices have taken this motion from a conversation on Bob’s blog, back in January, to a clear commitment to remember those who died in the Nazi death camps and those British servicemen who gave their lives in the cause of liberating the survivors of those camps.

I’m also intrigued by Bob’s report of the BNP’s efforts to move an amendment to the main motion that would have effectively blamed the Nazi’s for the deaths of Armenians, Iraqis, Iranians, White Christians and, apparently, “the indigenous people of these islands” – although quite what Hitler had against the Beaker people escapes me at the present time.

What else can one say – I can think of nothing, certainly, to match the words of the late Jacob Bronowski on the occasion of his visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau during the filming of ‘The Ascent of Man’… just watch the video.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mIfatdNqBA[/youtube]

If I possess anything that could be considered to be a personal ‘credo’, then it lies there in the words of Bronowski.

8 thoughts on “Sandwell remembers…

  1. Expat, you are wrong. Smith added the list of nationalities on to the end of a list of victims of the nazi holocaust. He specified in his short speech in moving the amendment, those who died at the hands of the “Jewish Zionist conspiracy”. Because the man is a holocaust denier and did not want to have to vote for a resolution that acknowledged its existence or condemned the nazis, he tried to insert words which would enable him to vote for the resolution by saying he was only voting for his bit of it. In doing so his amendment made the resolution incoherent.

  2. Thanks, a timely post. As Bob said on his blog, a number of moving personal experiences and the unanimous cross party support(well almost)was welcomed.With reference to Expat I presume he/she was present at the meeting? Bob is quite right and the Leader of the Council asked that the full amendent motion as moved by captain Freedom be read out, the motley crew could not see the flawed logic of the amended motion even then. Perhaps we should not be too hard after all he did say he was new to this debating procedure, he as only been a member of the Council for a year and he and his acolytes have not had much practice, last night was the first time the fascists had taken part in any debate. He also didn’t have much time to think about drafting his amendment,he only received the papers for the meeting last week.The captain is seen as the ‘brains’ of the local fascists after all he was a teacher.

  3. Yes it is, isn’t it.

    One of the finest documentary series ever produced by the BBC – and commissioned by David Attenborough during his time as controller of BBC 2.

    That is what quality public service broadcasting is and should be.

  4. Well, you really don’t expect someone to do something so obviously nonsensical. It would be entertaining to hear Nick Griffin’s explanation of what his comrades did.

  5. You’ve obviously never encountered the BNP in Sandwell, Expat.

    It’s a two for one deal – fascism and functional illiteracy.

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