A friend, God love her, forwards me every internet piece of glurge and misinformation that comes her way. The latest is that the UK is dropping mention of the holocaust from the curriculum because it “offends Muslims who do not believe it happened”. Is there any actual shred of a story behind this?
I’ve never heard of it. And if it’s one of those stupid chain emails you get then it’s probably nonsense. It sounds incredibly unlikely. My mother’s a teacher, so I’ll ask her if she’s heard any such thing, but I’ll be amazed if she has.
Why not post the email here so we can see what evidence it purports to present?
Guys – how can Snopes not be your first stop when considering questionable e-mails?
The Brits have indeed done some stupid things in pandering to the jihadis (re-orienting toilets in prison, having that bearded weirdo Archbishop endorse sharia), but not so much here.
Without even looking anything up, the claim sounds absurd. WWII and Hitler is so much a part of UK history, that I don’t think that you’d be able to separate them out if you wanted to.
Like Huerta88, I’m surprised the OP didn’t look into this before posting it in GD. Not only that, it’s anything but a debate. “Great” or otherwise.
Why do people spread these ridiculous rumours? I don’t see the profit in it.
Oh, the profit is easy to see - if you’re a bigot, it’s a fine way to convince other people your bigotry is legitimate. “I’m not a bigot, but Muslims are, and if we let them enter our political culture, we’ll then have to accommodate bigotry. Therefore, we must ensure Muslims are excluded from the mainstream.” It’s a way to pitch hatemongering to those who think of themselves as tolerant and liberal.
That would explain “rumors”. But some, like this one, are just ridiculous. If the motivation is as you described, you’d be hurting your cause.
Moved to General Questions from Great Debates.
First rule of e-mail: if it’s
a) a forwarded email
b) about Islam, or abortion, or any kind of politically charged topic, or related to first page events
c) disparaging
it’s bullshit. 100%. No exceptions. That’s Rule 73, which I just made up.
Couple of things. Firstly, the archbishop of Canterbury speaks for no-one other than the Anglican church. The U.K. didn’t “have him” do anything (and no-one takes him seriously anyway)
and as for the toilet thing? well according to the BBC
Which seems to me to be perfectly reasonable. It neither breaks my bones nor picks my pocket wouldn’t you say?
I think much nonsense is spread by those that want things to be true, and can’t risk it being disproved by evidence.
So in order to villainize their perceived enemy, they slag off and lie about their greatest ally?
not sure what you mean here. Who is our perceived enemy and who our greatest ally?
There is no UK-wide curriculum, so that’s a red flag all by itself. Then there’s this news story from back in 2007 debunking it. And then there’s the obvious bigotry.
This sort of thing pisses me off when I think about it to any degree, but it’s not really possible to do anything about people believing this sort of cretinous rubbish, so you just have to move on past it.
I’m reminded of all the nonsense about how there was this widespread conspiracy in place to keep George W Bush in power after his second term expired; exactly the same rubbish was trotted out about Clinton!
The perceived enemy is the Muslims mentioned in the email and about whom the email seems designed to entice hatred against.
The greatest ally is the UK, which backs the US in military endeavours to a greater extent than any other country on the planet.
I don’t think the point is to slag the UK, rather to make the reader think “The UK is just like us, ergo if it happens over there it’s going to happen HERE if we let it ! OMG MUSLIMS RUN !”.
Which of course is silly on many levels beyond the niggling detail of the story being, y’know, bunk. But then again, xenophobes aren’t generally the brightest crayons in the shed.
I have neighbors who have rule #74. If it’s:
a) a forwarded email, or
b) about anything…
…then send it to everyone. It’s especially critical if it reminds you to SEND IT TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW.
The least important thing – and they will admit this (!?) – is truth. What’s important is to get it sent out quickly before it comes around again in 3 years.
:smack:
My father is a history professor at the University of Kentucky, where he teaches several courses about the Holocaust. He has to spend a fair amount of time responding to claims that “UK” is eliminating all mentions of the Holocaust due to intimidation by Muslims.
I think Kobal2 is suggesting many can be deleted without reference to snoopes. Others are too gullible to realize the need.