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UK Student Union Votes Against Commemorating Holocaust

The student union at Goldsmiths College in London voted against commemorating the Holocaust this week by a margin of 60 to 1.

Education officer Sarah El-Alfy urged students to vote against the proposal, rejecting it as “Eurocentric” and “colonialist”.

One unnamed student added that, “The motion would force people to remember things they may not want to remember,” whilst another added argued that as the Union was “anti-Zionist” she couldn’t commemorate the Holocaust.

The proposal, which stated that “commemorating the victims of genocide, racial hatred and totalitarianism, and promoting public awareness of these crimes against humanity, is essential to sustaining and defending democratic culture and civil society,” suggested organizing commemorative events around Holocaust Remembrance Day, the European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism, Holodomor Genocide Memorial Day, and Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day.

The vote comes a day after Britain’s National Union of Students voted against a motion condemning ISIS, on the grounds that voting for it would be “Islamophobic.” Two months ago, that same union voted to boycott Israel.

[Photo: Alex Blandford / Wikimedia]