Ms. Chahla Chafiq

My awareness and understanding of anti-Semitism and the significance of the Holocaust began when I left Iran in 1983 to live in France. Back in Iran, I grew up in a well-educated middle class family in Tehran and studied and worked there, but never came across anti-Semitism in my everyday life experiences in all those years. At school, for example, I had several Jewish classmates, but there were never any problems over religion.

I have come to the conclusion, on the basis of my research into Islamic fundamentalism since I left Iran, that extremists use religious strife and demonize the followers of other religions as a means of consolidating their power in society. For them, anti-Semitism has a special role in this effort. They thus engage in extensive propaganda against the Jews and demonize them, even though Islam as a religion recognizes Judaism as a monotheist religion.

In France, where I have been working on issues related to immigrants from Muslim countries, I have come across an interesting phenomenon: wherever there is a fight for human rights, civil liberties, and freedom, Jews are always among its most ardent advocates. I found this interesting, because it stands in sharp contrast to the stereotypes of Jews commonly portrayed in Muslim countries, depicting Jews as a powerful and wealthy clique plotting to take over the world.

This issue made me interested to read about the mass murder of Jews in the Second World War. In that human catastrophe, the Nazis set out to liquidate all the followers of a religion by branding them as an "impure" race. When it becomes permissible to wipe out an entire group of people regardless of the pretext, then this is no longer the concern of one religious or ethnic community, it is the concern of all human beings and the entire humanity.

I don't think it is a coincidence that in advanced societies, the struggle against anti-Semitism has become inseparable from the struggle for freedoms, for civil rights, for minorities' rights, and for secular values. It is the duty of all intellectuals and those who campaign for human rights and freedom not to cherry pick when it comes to the fight against all forms of racism and discrimination: the struggle for human rights must include the struggle against anti-Semitism. It is only in seeing these causes in parallel that we can truly defend human dignity.

In some countries, such as Iran, anti-Semitism has become a government policy. Whipping up hatred of the Jews and denying the historical truth of the Holocaust are being used to provide further justification for repressive policies, just as the Arab-Israeli conflict is being manipulated to consolidate the radicals' grip on power.

Freedom-loving Iranians who believe in the true values of their country and its rich civilization must regard anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial as anathema to their culture and history. We all have a duty to reject anti-Semitism. It is unfortunate that our intellectual movement has completely turned a blind eye on this scourge, as the issue has been inextricably linked to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Each one of us has a duty, however, to put an end to this unacceptable apathy through our actions and our writings.