How Good is US/European Imperialism

Jeff Widener is "the American photographer who shot the iconic image of a man standing in front of tanks at the 1989 Tiananmen protests says it's time for the Chinese government to come clean about the bloody events of 30 years ago." ('Tell the truth about Tiananmen', AP/Sydney Morning Herald, 3/6/19)

Who could disagree? But it's the following commentary of Mr Widener's that's prompted this particular post:

"'The United States and European countries have made mistakes throughout history and they've reconciled those problems,' Widener says." (ibid)

Let us deal first with the obvious issue of German reparations to Jewish victims of the Nazi holocaust, shall we?

According to US scholar Norman Finkelstein, in his groundbreaking work The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering (2000), "The postwar German government provided compensation to Jews who had been in ghettos or camps," (p 81). He went on to clarify as follows: "The German government sought to compensate Jewish victims with three different agreements signed in 1952. Individual claimants received payments according to the terms of the Law on Indemnification... A separate agreement with Israel subsidized the absorption and rehabilitation of several hundred thousand Jewish refugees. The German government also negotiated at the same time a financial settlement with the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, an umbrella of all major Jewish organizations including the American Jewish Committee, American Jewish Congress, Bnai Brith, the Joint Distribution Committee, and so forth." (pp 84-85)

Finkelstein then points out that, despite "the final accord [calling] on the Conference to use the monies 'for the relief, rehabilitation on resettlement of Jewish victims' (p 86), "The Claims Conference promptly annulled the agreement. In a flagrant breach of its letter and spirit, the Conference earmarked the monies not for the rehabilitation of Jewish victims but rather for the rehabilitation of Jewish communities... Large sums were circuitously channeled to Jewish communities in the Arab world and facilitated Jewish emigration from Eastern Europe. They also subsidized cultural undertakings such as Holocaust museums and university chairs in Holocaust studies, as well as Yad Vashem showboat pensioning 'righteous Gentiles." (pp 86-87)

Now, back to Widener's assertion. If he could please provide us with details of all of the other US and European "mistakes throughout history," which have been "reconciled," I'll eat my proverbial hat.

Add to the stench of hypocrisy, the abysmal ignorance of these times, ironically referred to as 'received wisdom', and you've just about summed up where we are today.

(I note that, unlike Murdoch's Australian, the non/less-ideological account (Silencing the history of Tiananmen, Kirsty Needham) of the Tiananmen massacre featured in the Sydney Morning Herald of 1/6/19, cites China's Red Cross casualty figures as "likely around 2,600" killed.)