Of Concord and Discord

Submitted by Genghis Cohen (United States), Jun 8, 2015 at 19:52

In a rare instance of concord, the U.S. Senate, on June 5th, unanimously passed a resolution condemning anti-semitism in Europe. It was authored by Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) and co-sponsored by 60 other senators to encourage :greater co-operation with governments in the European Union, and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe to prevent and respond to anti-semitism."

"In light of the rise of anti-semitism in Europe, this resolution calls on European governments to not only stand against anti-semitism, but to work to end it," said Sen. Menendez in applauding the unanimous passage of the bill.

Meanwhhile, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) refused to use the word terrorist in connection with the killers at Charlie Hebdo and the kosher market in Paris. Mr. Tarik Kafala, head of the BBC Arabic Service explained, :Terrorism is such a loaded word. The UN has been struggling for more than a decade to define it and they can't . . . people see it as value-laden."

Gee, Tarik, this may be just a case of mistaken identity. The UN was created at the end of WW II in the belief that it would be the venue where civilized folk would meet to resolve their differences verbally, rather than by terrorizing one another. Do you see now, Tarik? Verbal is good and terror is bad, and the UN was supposed to be value-laden against terror. Or, was the world foolishly in error about the UN? As for the BBC, since this is a corporation dedicated to verbal deliveries for news-consumers, the BBC should be most closely aigned with the talkers of the world rather than with the clandestine bombers and machine-gunners. The wonder is why either of these institutions struggles to avoid using a word that was naturally selected generations ago to express humanity's revulsion of fossilized deeds long believed abandoned with lawless barbarism.

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