Discrimination on grounds of race, colour and disabilities is wrong
Tuesday, 9 November 2010
Iftu Ahmed
Adolf Hitler wrote that the Germans were the highest race on earth. They would stay pure by avoiding marriage to Jewish and Slavs and thus German children would be the image of the Lord and not monstrosities halfway between man and ape! His ideas of racial purity were based on the notion that nature had created a superior Aryan race, an elite with the quickest mind and most able bodies.
Hitler's ideas about the able body came from the ancient Greek and Roman ideas of the "Body Beautiful" -- the perfect physique of the classical sculpture of a discus-thrower.
Hitler created a league table of races where the Aryans were at the top and the Jewish, black people and people with disabilities were at the bottom. He mentioned these bottom people as inferior or weak and considered them to be a threat to the purity and the strength of the German nation. Hitler dismissed people with disabilities as "useless eaters."
Jesus Christ (5 BC-30 AD) of Nazareth was Jewish. Albert Einstein (1879-1955), also Jewish, was one of the most influential scientists and intellectuals of all times. Time magazine nominated him as the Person of the Century.
About 181 Jewish people have been awarded the Nobel Prize -- 53 in physiology or medicine, 47 in physics, 31 in chemistry, 28 in economics, 13 in literature and 9 in peace -- between 1901-2010. The Jewish philanthropists, George Soros and Walter Annenberg, donated $4 billion as aid to scientists and universities around the globe and $2 billion for building hundreds of libraries. Henry Kissinger, Joseph Lieberman, Madeleine Albright and Alan Greenspan, among others, are prominent Jewish figures in the United States.
Retired Indian General J.F.R. Jacob, a Baghdadi Jewish, born in Calcutta, was the architect of the surrender of the Pakistan occupation forces in Dhaka during the Bangladesh War of Independence. So, Hitler's view of the Jewish people as inferior is not correct.
In the 1936 Games of the XI Olympiad, Germany got the first place by winning 89 medals, including 33 golds, 26 silvers and 30 bronzes, while the United States got the second place by winning 56 medals including 24 golds, 20 silvers and 12 bronzes. Hitler's racial fantasies were shattered by Jesse Owens, the African-American athlete who stunned the world by winning 4 gold medals in the 100 meter-sprint, 200-meter run, 4 x 100-meter relay and long jump. The performance of Owens, a black American athlete must have embarrassed the racist Hitler.
In 1976, President Gerald Ford awarded Owens the highest US civilian honour, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and in 1990, President George H. W. Bush (senior) posthumously awarded Owens the Congressional Gold Medal.
In the 1984 Games of the XXII Olympiad, Los Angeles, USA, Carl Lewis, another black American athlete, matched Owens' legendary feat of winning four gold medals in the same track and field events.
President Barack Obama, President Nelson Mandela, Dr. Martin Luther king Jr. (1929-1968), Malcolm X (1925-1965) and Muhammad Ali are the famous black personalities. So, Hitler's view that the black people were weak is also not correct.
In the 21st century, people with disabilities have gained access to many academic and working fields around the globe. People with disabilities deserve dignified treatment like all others. Believers should be caring about mentally and physically challenged people. Thus we say: "Focus on ability, not on disability."
Charles Jules Henry Nicole (1866-1936), Sir Charles Scott Sherrington (1857-1952) and Sir John Warcup Cornforth (age 93), the three Nobel laureates, were deaf. So we can say, "Deafness can't hold us back from greatness."
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945), the 32nd President of the United States who was paralyzed in both legs by polio at the age of 39, used to say, "Our handicaps exist only in the mind." He was the contemporary of Hitler. So, Hitler should have knowledge about the abilities of the people with disabilities.
John Milton (1608-1674), the English poet and political writer, became totally blind at the age of 44, but his epic Paradise Lost made him one of England's greatest poets. Milton would mentally compose verse upon verse at night and then dictate them from his memory to his aides in the morning.
Ludwig Van Beethoven (1770-1827), the German composer, was one of the greatest in of the world. His works immortalised classical European music. At the age of 20, he began to lose his hearing and eventually became totally deaf. His deafness did not hinder him from scoring music. He composed much of his finest music after deafness.
Helen Adams Keller (1880-1968), an American author, political activist and lecturer, was born with full sight and hearing. When she was only 19 months old, she contracted a fever that left her blind and deaf. She was the first deaf-blind person to attain Bachelor of Arts from Radcliffe College based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.
(E-mail: iftuahmed@sbcglobal.net)
Adolf Hitler wrote that the Germans were the highest race on earth. They would stay pure by avoiding marriage to Jewish and Slavs and thus German children would be the image of the Lord and not monstrosities halfway between man and ape! His ideas of racial purity were based on the notion that nature had created a superior Aryan race, an elite with the quickest mind and most able bodies.
Hitler's ideas about the able body came from the ancient Greek and Roman ideas of the "Body Beautiful" -- the perfect physique of the classical sculpture of a discus-thrower.
Hitler created a league table of races where the Aryans were at the top and the Jewish, black people and people with disabilities were at the bottom. He mentioned these bottom people as inferior or weak and considered them to be a threat to the purity and the strength of the German nation. Hitler dismissed people with disabilities as "useless eaters."
Jesus Christ (5 BC-30 AD) of Nazareth was Jewish. Albert Einstein (1879-1955), also Jewish, was one of the most influential scientists and intellectuals of all times. Time magazine nominated him as the Person of the Century.
About 181 Jewish people have been awarded the Nobel Prize -- 53 in physiology or medicine, 47 in physics, 31 in chemistry, 28 in economics, 13 in literature and 9 in peace -- between 1901-2010. The Jewish philanthropists, George Soros and Walter Annenberg, donated $4 billion as aid to scientists and universities around the globe and $2 billion for building hundreds of libraries. Henry Kissinger, Joseph Lieberman, Madeleine Albright and Alan Greenspan, among others, are prominent Jewish figures in the United States.
Retired Indian General J.F.R. Jacob, a Baghdadi Jewish, born in Calcutta, was the architect of the surrender of the Pakistan occupation forces in Dhaka during the Bangladesh War of Independence. So, Hitler's view of the Jewish people as inferior is not correct.
In the 1936 Games of the XI Olympiad, Germany got the first place by winning 89 medals, including 33 golds, 26 silvers and 30 bronzes, while the United States got the second place by winning 56 medals including 24 golds, 20 silvers and 12 bronzes. Hitler's racial fantasies were shattered by Jesse Owens, the African-American athlete who stunned the world by winning 4 gold medals in the 100 meter-sprint, 200-meter run, 4 x 100-meter relay and long jump. The performance of Owens, a black American athlete must have embarrassed the racist Hitler.
In 1976, President Gerald Ford awarded Owens the highest US civilian honour, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and in 1990, President George H. W. Bush (senior) posthumously awarded Owens the Congressional Gold Medal.
In the 1984 Games of the XXII Olympiad, Los Angeles, USA, Carl Lewis, another black American athlete, matched Owens' legendary feat of winning four gold medals in the same track and field events.
President Barack Obama, President Nelson Mandela, Dr. Martin Luther king Jr. (1929-1968), Malcolm X (1925-1965) and Muhammad Ali are the famous black personalities. So, Hitler's view that the black people were weak is also not correct.
In the 21st century, people with disabilities have gained access to many academic and working fields around the globe. People with disabilities deserve dignified treatment like all others. Believers should be caring about mentally and physically challenged people. Thus we say: "Focus on ability, not on disability."
Charles Jules Henry Nicole (1866-1936), Sir Charles Scott Sherrington (1857-1952) and Sir John Warcup Cornforth (age 93), the three Nobel laureates, were deaf. So we can say, "Deafness can't hold us back from greatness."
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945), the 32nd President of the United States who was paralyzed in both legs by polio at the age of 39, used to say, "Our handicaps exist only in the mind." He was the contemporary of Hitler. So, Hitler should have knowledge about the abilities of the people with disabilities.
John Milton (1608-1674), the English poet and political writer, became totally blind at the age of 44, but his epic Paradise Lost made him one of England's greatest poets. Milton would mentally compose verse upon verse at night and then dictate them from his memory to his aides in the morning.
Ludwig Van Beethoven (1770-1827), the German composer, was one of the greatest in of the world. His works immortalised classical European music. At the age of 20, he began to lose his hearing and eventually became totally deaf. His deafness did not hinder him from scoring music. He composed much of his finest music after deafness.
Helen Adams Keller (1880-1968), an American author, political activist and lecturer, was born with full sight and hearing. When she was only 19 months old, she contracted a fever that left her blind and deaf. She was the first deaf-blind person to attain Bachelor of Arts from Radcliffe College based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.
(E-mail: iftuahmed@sbcglobal.net)