insult to the truth

[Otto]

Don't be too hard on him. What gives the Shoah its special quality, makes it
a historical singularity, isn't the number of murdered human beings only but
the way the Holocaust has been planned & committed.

By the way, the Guardian isn't right to call the Congo-past "Belgium's
forgotten skeleton" -- the time did make its impact on the Belgium
literature:
"Black Venus, which acts about the wild and erotic life of a Assistant
districs administrator, named Jef Geeraerts. A scandal bursts out (the press
and some critics are accusing him being a racist and pornographically),
Especially after two worth mentioning events, that are all the better
noticeable because the state - The system - each time is responsible for the
incident: in October 1969 the book is given the three annual 'Staatsprijs
voor Verhalende Proza' award, and almost a month later the book is taken out
of the Corman book shop (in Brussels) for a short time by the Belgian
justice department.
 Also Gangreen 2 - De goede moordenaar, which describes the adventures of
the commander of a peace keeping platoon in Congo, causes a row; the army
reacts furious mainly because of the alleged truth of te story and the
afterthoughts of the activities of the Belgium para troopers during the
liberation of the white people in Stanleystad, 1964. The press publishes the
first reactions, and again Jef gets the best and cheapest publicity for his
books. The moral objections against the army, which he got during the
writing of Gangreen 2, led furthermore to his exemption as reserve officer."
http://home.hccnet.nl/m.v.enckevort/biografie_engels.html
In the both Gangreen-books of Jef Geerarts (look for "Black Venus") you can
read what Pynchon writes on p. 317 of GR about colonies, here from a
perspective of a Belgium official, written somewhat strange.

But even impressive, though totally different, is Mireille Cottenjé telling
of that time as the wife of a Belgian settler in the Congo in the late
fifties, when it became obvious that the thing was doomed.

Otto

----- Original Message -----
From: <alfredjprufrock at club-internet.fr>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Saturday, July 13, 2002 11:43 PM
Subject: insult to the truth


>
> DM> http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,754499,00.html
> DM> Belgium exhumes its colonial demons
> DM> Historians vow to unearth truth about allegations of genocide in Congo
> "To compare it with the Holocaust or Auschwitz is an insult to the truth,"
Prof Vellut said.
>  "We need to put our history in perspective and be cautious."
>
> Many of the specific allegations cannot, he conceded, be disputed but he
argued that discovering
>  the precise scale of the atrocities would be difficult.
>
> "Statistics for that period are very unreliable. One hardly knew what the
population was.
> You can see figures which make the Jewish slaughter pale in comparison.
Who knows whether
> 10m or 15m Congolese were killed?"
>
> an insult to the truth? this is all about if we
> topped the guinness record of genocide, right. and if we didn't, then
> comparing it to the holocaust is an "insult to the truth". nothing
> compares to the holocaust. we're talking killing savages here, please,
> not westerners. so it's only comparable if you at least equal the 6
> million mark, you know.
>  thank you Prof Vellut.
> You 're just the example i was looking for. Sven Lindqvist's "Exterminate
all the
> brutes" (http://www.thenewpress.com/books/extermin.htm) was written
> about the long line of pigs that leads to your sorry ass.
>
> greg
>

__________________________________________________________________

Gesendet von Yahoo! Mail - http://mail.yahoo.de
Möchten Sie mit einem Gruß antworten? http://grusskarten.yahoo.dee