1/11 Cambridge Centre for Geopolitics @CamGeopolitics is rightly criticised for holding an event tomorrow, which follows a pattern of genocide denial. https://www.varsity.co.uk/news/21265 

2/11 Many question the veracity of Judy Rever’s book In Praise of Blood, including British authors not invited as panellists to this British event, Linda Melvern and Andrew Wallis.

@philclark79 expressed his view on Twitter, though is hopeful there will be an open debate.

3/11
I signed this open letter to the Vice Chancellor of Cambridge University, opposing the event.

https://openletter294551678.wordpress.com/cambridge-university/

Here is why:

4/11 The Nazis stoked fear of Bolshevik crimes (code word for Jews), during the 1940s, convincing German soldiers and SS that Germans were under an existential threat and that extermination of Jews was justified.

5/11 Ultra Nationalists in Eastern Europe/Baltic States continue to peddle anti-Jewish narratives which

- imply the Nazis were liberators from Jewish oppression
- focus on crimes of Jewish partisans
- downplay anti-Jewish Nazi ideology
- downplay the Genocide against the Jews

6/11 Relativisation through such ‘double genocide’ narratives is widely accepted by scholars to be a form of Holocaust denial.

It also perversely infers the victims are to blame for their own mass murder.

7/11 Similarly, the radical Hutu government stoked fear of RPF crimes and Tutsi traitors, convincing many Hutus they were under an existential threat and that extermination of Tutsis was justified.

8/11 Judy Rever’s book ‘In Praise of Blood’:
- implies the 1994 Hutu government was reacting to a genocide against the Hutus.
- focuses on RPF crimes
- downplays anti-Tutsi ideology of the radical Hutu regime
- downplays the Genocide against the Tutsi.

See the pattern?

9/11 I agree that crimes of the Bolsheviks, also war crimes committed by the British in WW2 warrant acknowledgement.

But to do so alongside Holocaust commemoration plays in to the hands of deniers by relativizing the Holocaust - and is unimaginably hurtful to Jewish survivors.

10/11 Equally, focussing on RPF war crimes alongside commemoration of the genocide against the Tutsi plays in to the hands of deniers by relativizing the genocide - and is extremely hurtful to Tutsi genocide survivors.

11/11 @CamGeopolitics argue this is a freedom of speech platform.

But why plan this event in the month that Tutsi survivors are grieving their loved ones?

That’s either ignorant or heartless.