Real or Rigged “International Conference on Fascism and Antisemitism” in Vilnius on 9 November?

Yet again, a conference here in the Lithuanian capital dedicated to combating fascism and antisemitism is announced, without there having been a public call for papers, without a single speaker from among those who actually combat fascism and antisemitism in the country, with nobody from the democratically elected Vilnius Jewish community (not even the long-time editor of Jerusalem of Lithuania who has exposed and combated antisemitism for decades). No Holocaust survivors. None of the nationally relevant questions of the day can be found on the conference program. As ever, outstanding academic personalities from abroad are recruited to lend the gravitas and provide serious papers on an array of topics (which they admirably do), as long as these have little directly to do with the actual contemporary issues here in Lithuania (but the conference introduction by Prof. Dovilė Budrytė does indeed touch on some of the issues, which seem, however, to be largely absent from the actual conference program). The last such event, in 2015, resulted in the Norwegian Embassy withdrawing support and launching an inquiry on behalf of the EEA (European Economic Area) funders of that event.

To make matters worse, the program is skewed to provide further glory for various leaders (and their relatives) of the current rigged-election bosses of the “official” Jewish community that is largely state-sponsored (indeed, the restitution-controlling “Good Will Foundation” is itself a major conference sponsor). The community’s election rules were changed last spring mid-campaign (an act found to be prima facie illegal by the courts) to disenfranchise the 2,200 Jews of Vilnius while gifting electoral power to a roomful of oligarchs (and that was carried out with a small army of security guards that kept members of the community out of their own community premises). Given the official leadership’s condemnation of the Vilnius community’s honest elections as one of “Russian speakers who call themselves Jews,” the goings-on in the hijacked official Jewish community (which allegedly include letting go of Jewish employees in higher admin positions) themselves merit a research paper at an academic conference on antisemitism (more on this by DH, JTA, Pinchos Fridberg, Leonas Kaplanas, Josifas Parasonis).

Shockingly, not a single representative of the democratically elected Vilnius Jewish Community board, comprising 21 elected members, is on the program, even to deliver a one-minute greeting. There is still some time to fix this, and perhaps at long last the Israeli Embassy, itself on the program, will intervene diplomatically to avoid being seen yet again as improperly propping up a kangaroo-election ersatz Jewish community leadership. The ethical conundrum is all the more evocative given that the conference is financed in large part by the “Good Will Foundation” restitution monies deriving from the religious properties of the annihilated Jewish population of Lithuania. In addition to shirking the issues of the day in local antisemitism, the conference shuts out the legitimate representatives of the living remnant Jewish community. This is something for the august foreign scholars flown in, hoteled, and wined and dined, to reflect upon.

But the major issues are known to all, and attendees at the conference might want to bring some of these up at the conference:

Annual neo-Nazi parades that often glorify actual local Holocaust collaborators, permitted by the authorities for the center of Vilnius on March 11th independence day, and the center of Kaunas on February 16th independence day.
Ongoing alleged “national” neo-Nazi blog, abounding in racism and antisemitism, by Mr. “Zeppelinus” who is alleged to still be a high official in the Economy Ministry. He is known for his photoshop “artwork” that features racist and antisemitic invective.
Ongoing glorification of Holocaust collaborators via street names, university lecture hall names and an array of events.
Harassment, defamation and disemployment of those who dare speak up on these topics, most recently the campaign of personal and professional destruction against author Ruta Vanagaite (materials in English in Weekly of Vilnius and Defending History). Only recent did the campaign by prosecutors and police against Evaldas Balčiūnas let up (for perspective, please scroll to bottom of section and peruse upward in chronological order).
Ongoing impact of the “red-brown law” that criminalizes dissent to Double Genocide politics.
Requests for relevant state agencies to issue apologies to the defamed Jewish Holocaust survivors whose names have been marred for history for their (a) heroism in fighting Hitler with the anti-Nazi partisans in the forests of Lithuania during the Holocaust or (b) for their speaking up on issues of Holocaust history.
Policies of defiling Jewish cemeteries via commercial convention centers when such desecration would never even be contemplated for a historic Christian cemetery of medieval Grand Duchy of Lithuania vintage.
Holocaust denial, downgrading, and obfuscation, particularly via state-sponsored projects to distort history in line with the ultranationalist Double Genocide movement.
Alleged cases of East European governments using restitution payments to effectively hijack weak and remnant Jewish communities, with efforts at denationalization, manipulation of opinion on issues relating to Holocaust history and antisemitism and delegitimization of extant Jewish communities (“they are all just Russian speakers”), sometimes with campaigns against legitimate local communities that function democratically.
An array of issues arising in the field of antisemitism, bias and racism, and more generally, Human Rights in the country and the region. See Defending History’s sections on antisemitism, Christian-Jewish issues, dignity of the dead, free speech, glorification of collaborators, Holocaust Survivor rights, LGBT rights, Litvak rights, freedom of the media, neo-Nazi marches, racism, Roma issues, Russian speakers’ issues, women’s rights, and DH’s Prophet Amos Awards.

Turning from issues to personalities, it is curious to see if any of those who have locally stood up against antisemitism, fascism and the related forms of hate have been invited to this conference. The list includes Vytenis Povilas Andriukaitis, Kristina Apanavičiūtė Sulikienė, Mausha Bairakas, Evaldas Balčiūnas, Chaim Bargman, Ruta (Reyzke) Bloshtein, Milan Chersonski, Aleksandrs Feigmanis, Pinchos Fridberg, Simon Gurevich (Simonas Gurevičius), Leonas Kaplanas, Vilma Fiokla Kiurė, Rachel Kostanian, Andrius Kulikauskas, Julius Norwilla (Norvila), Josifas Parasonis, Jacob Piliansky, Rūta Vanagaitė, Nida Vasiliauskaitė, Lina Žigelytė.

Modern Lithuania is a successful vibrant democracy featuring robust and respectful dialogue at many levels. What a shame that an international conference on antisemitism and fascism seems, once again, to be misconceived in the spirit of covering up the issues that need to be discussed and excluding the voices that dare discuss them, all in a misguided effort to present some smug PR in place of a table of honest and frank discourse. And, unethically financed by a misnamed “Good Will Foundation” from the funds of the religious property of the massacred Jewish population.

Residents of Vilnius who might be inclined to come and politely speak up are invited to register for this Thursday’s conference.

Originally published on 2017-11-07

Source: Difending History

Origins of images: Facebook, Twitter, Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google, Imageinjection, Public Domain & Pinterest.

Read our Disclaimer/Legal Statement!

Donate to Support Us

We would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth on history, global politics and international relations.

[wpedon id=”4696″ align=”left”]

Save

READ MORE!

Exporting Jihad: Bosnia and Kosovo

Bosnia and Kosovo are two of the biggest exporters of jihadists joining the Islamic State (ISIS) and al-Nusra Front (al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria) from the Balkans. As The Cipher Brief reported last month, legacies of the Communist era and the wars of the 1990s – presence of foreign fighters, economic and physical destruction, a lack of funding to rebuild, and the near eradication of moderate Islamic institutions – paved the way for Islamic extremist groups to establish a foothold in both countries. Now, ISIS recruiters are targeting Bosnia and Kosovo, and many Bosnians and Kosovars have left to fight in Syria and ...

George H. W. Bush: The Man Who Embodied What Putin’s Accused of Being

The passing of former President George H. W. Bush over the weekend prompted a lot of reflection about the influence that he had on America’s role in the immediate post-Cold War era. Notorious for literally proclaiming the “New World Order”, Bush Sr. also has the ignoble distinction of being one of the US’ few one-term presidents, dramatically losing then-Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton in the 1992 election. More interestingly for most foreign observers, however, is that Bush Sr. literally embodied much of what Russian President Vladimir Putin is accused of being, even if the Western Mainstream Media will never recognize this ...

Jonas Noreika: Nazi Collaborator or National Hero? A Test for Lithuania

For the tiny village of Sukioniai in western Lithuania, the exploits of General Storm, a local anti-Communist hero executed by the Soviet secret police in 1947, have long been a source of pride. The village school is named after him, and his struggles against the Soviet Union are also honored with a memorial carved from stone next to the farm where he was born. All along, though, there have been persistent whispers that General Storm, whose real name was Jonas Noreika, also helped the Nazis kill Jews. But these were largely discounted as the work of ill-willed outsiders serving a well-orchestrated ...

The Communist Party of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union in WWII

IntroductionThe aim of this article is to shed new light on the question of how the configuration of post-war Central and South-East Europe was shaped during WWII by the USSR through its relations with the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (the CPY). Relationships between the CPY and the Soviet Union in 1941−1945 depended on the concrete military situation in Europe, and on the diplomatic relationships between the Soviet Union and the other members of the anti-fascist Alliance. For that reason, the Soviet Union and the CPY were cooperating in two directions during WWII. The concrete military situation in the battleground of ...

A Brief History of Fascism in the United States

“We could become the first country to go fascist through free elections.” — William Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third ReichGenerally, we avoid using the word “fascism” in polite company, and until recently, a person pointing out parallels between Nazi Germany and the current United States would invite elevated eyelids along with the outworn charge of sounding like a “conspiracy theorist“. The current electoral cycle seems to be changing that, so I will trust that now is the right time to convey some ideas I’ve been marinating regarding fascism in my US Homeland. The ruling plutocrats are clearly ferrying the ...

Croatian Ministers Salute Criminals and Dishonour the Dead

Last week was marked by the moral acrobatics of two Croatian ministers – War Veterans’ Minister Tomo Medved and Defence Minister Damir Krsticevic – who publicly endorsed two convicted Croatian war criminals, Tomislav Mercep and Mirko Norac. A WWII Independent State of Croatia in which 700.000 Serbs were brutally killed Croatian news site Index reported last week that Mercep, who is serving a prison sentence, spent a total of 45 days at a spa instead of in jail this year and last year. As Mercep is a Croatian war veteran, Medved said he vouched for him as worthy recipient of the spa ...

Video: The Dirty War on Syria – Prof. Tim Anderson on GRTV

Government propaganda and NGO misinformation have coloured the story of the war on Syria from its inception. Stepping in to set the record straight, Dr. Tim Anderson explores the real beginnings of the conflict, the players behind it, and their agenda in his new book, “The Dirty War on Syria: Washington, Regime Change and Resistance.”The Dirty War on Syria has relied on a level of mass disinformation not seen in living memory. In seeking ‘regime change’ the big powers sought to hide their hand, using proxy armies of ‘Islamists’, demonising the Syrian Government and constantly accusing it of atrocities. In ...

Politics is Above Common Sense in Latvia

The painful issue of using the Russian language in Latvia appears on the agenda once again. Ethnic Russians “knock at the doors” of international organizations trying to defend their rights to speak and get an education in their native language. Their hope for understanding in Latvia is melting every day.It has become known that the Russian Community in Latvia sent a letter to the Council of Europe about the violation of human rights. The message addressed to Secretary-General Thorbjorn Jagland also calls for a request from the Venice Commission to amend the two Latvian language laws which were adopted by ...

Anglo-America: Regression and Reversion in the Modern World

What does it mean when the US and British financial systems launder hundreds of billions of dollars of illicit funds stolen by world leaders while their governments turn a ‘blind eye’, and yet the very same Anglo-American officials investigate, prosecute, fine and arrest officials from rival governments, rival banks and political leaders for corruption?What does it mean when the US government expands a world-wide network of nuclear missiles on bases stretching from Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, the Gulf States to Japan, surrounding Russia, Iran and China, while the very same US and NATO officials investigate and condemn rival defense officials from Russia, China ...

Kosovo’s Mafia: How the US and Allies Ignore Organized Crime

PRISTINA, Kosovo — It was the fall of 2000, just over a year after the end of the war in Kosovo, when two NATO military intelligence officers produced the first known report on local organized crime, painting the former political leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), Hashim Thaci, as having “established influence on local criminal organizations, which control [a] large part of Kosovo.” The report, the existence of which has not been previously reported, was widely distributed among all NATO countries, according to former NATO sources interviewed by GlobalPost. And year after year as the nascent democracy of Kosovo struggled ...

Can Russia Survive Washington’s Attack?

It is not only American generals who are irresponsible and declare on the basis of no evidence whatsoever that “Russia is an existential threat to the United States” and also to the Baltic states, Poland, Georgia, Ukraine, and all of Europe. British generals also participate in the warmongering. UK retired general and former NATO commander Sir Richard Shirreff, Deputy Supreme Allied Commander in Europe until 2014, has just declared that nuclear war with Russia is “entirely possible” within the year. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3596977/The-outbreak-nuclear-war-year-West-Putin-entirely-plausible-says-former-NATO-chief-promoting-novel-2017-war-Russia.html My loyal readers know that I, myself, have been warning for some time about the likelihood of nuclear war. ...

Understanding Genocide and our Remembrance as Greeks

Last week Pontian Greeks throughout the world justifiably recognized a tragic day in their history that has come to be known as the Pontian Genocide.I wrote about the anniversary, obscure to most people around me who are not well-versed in Greek history and even had to repeatedly change my auto-correct on my computer, which insisted on changing the word Pontian to Pontiac.This anniversary was followed by another recognition of yet another genocide of Greeks— officially commemorated on April 6 and recalling the tragic events targeting the Greeks of Eastern Thrace— the region known today as European Turkey or the lands ...

From Cyprus to Syria: Turkey’s Continued Invasions

On January 20, the Turkish military began an invasion of the Kurdish-controlled Afrin region in northern Syria. Turkey’s government has declared that its operation aims “to preserve Syria’s territorial integrity,” remove “terrorist elements,” and protect civilians.The Independent, however, published the first Western media report from Afrin, and Robert Fisk reports that the list of dead includes infants. “One-year old Wael al-Hussein, a refugee…was killed on 21 January, six-year old Moussab al-Hussein from Idlib (clearly from another refugee family) on the same day,” he writes.Many journalists in Turkey, in the meanwhile, are rubbing their hands. Necati Doğru, a columnist with one ...

Crimes against Humanity: Britain’s Complicity in Saudi Arabia’s Terror Campaign against Yemen

The ‘mainstream’ Western media is, almost by definition, the last place to consult for honest reporting of Western crimes. Consider the appalling case of Yemen which is consumed by war and an ongoing humanitarian catastrophe.Since March 2015, a ‘coalition’ of Sunni Arab states led by Saudi Arabia, and supported by the US, Britain and France, has been dropping bombs on neighbouring Yemen. The scale of the bombing is indicated in a recent article by Felicity Arbuthnot – in one year, 330,000 homes, 648 mosques, 630 schools and institutes, and 250 health facilities were destroyed or damaged. The stated aim of ...

Luring Trump into Mideast Wars

Donald Trump entered military terra incognita on Thursday by launching an illegal Tomahawk missile strike on an air base in eastern Syria. Beyond the clear violation of international law, the practical results are likely to be disastrous, drawing the U.S. deeper into the Syrian quagmire. But it would be a mistake to focus all the criticism on Trump. Not only are Democrats also at fault, but a good argument could be made that they bear even greater responsibility. For years, near-total unanimity has reigned on Capitol Hill concerning America’s latest villains du jour, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Syria’s Bashar al-Assad. Congressmen, senators, ...

Macedonization of Macedonia

As a matter of historical fact, a separate Macedonian ethnonational identity did not exist until the second half of the 19th century. This is partly due to the fact that Macedonia was ruled by Ottoman Empire for a longer period of time: from 1371 to 1912. It is known that Ottoman authorities did not recognize any kind of ethnonational or ethnolinguistic identities but rather only the confessional (millet-system). Therefore, the Christians of Macedonia were not differentiated between themselves on the ethnic bases. Furthermore, Macedonian territories were inhabited by different ethnic, linguistic and religious groups (Slavic- and Greek-speaking Christians, Turkish- and ...

What America’s Aristocracy Want

The American aristocracy want inequality of rights, with two basic polar-opposite classes: the ‘elite’, with themselves at the top of everything, and everybody else below them, as subjects to be ruled by them, in such ways as they (themselves, and their fellow ‘elite’) can agree to do. They are convinced that they have earned their high status, in one way or another, and they compete ferociously amongst themselves, to rise even higher within the aristocracy.Many of the aristocrats think that they are ‘elite’ because they are the richest; many think instead that the ‘elite’ are the smartest or the most ...

The Myth of “Aggressive Russia”

Recently I went on a 15 day visit to Russia organized by the Center for Citizen Initiatives. The group visited Moscow, the Crimean peninsula, Krasnodar (southern Russia) and St. Petersburg. In each location we met many locals and heard diverse viewpoints. CCI has a long history promoting friendship and trying to overcome false assumptions between citizens of the USA and Russia. The founder Sharon Tennison has focused on making people-people connections including the business community, Rotary clubs, etc.. This delegation was organized because of concern about escalating international tensions and the danger of a drift toward world threatening military conflict. We ...

Greece and Slavo-Macedonians (1913-1993)

After the division of Macedonia in 1913 (according to the Bucharest Peace Treaty) neither Serbia, Bulgaria nor Greece recognized the existence of a Macedonian ethnolinguistic nation and, therefore, an assimilation policy of Macedonia’s Slavs was carried out by the state’s authorities of all those three countries. Greece referred to Aegean Slavo-Macedonians as Slavophone Greeks or Macedoslavs (the region was and is today officially called as “North Greece”), Serbia referred to Vardar Slavo-Macedonians as Serbs from “South Serbia” while for Bulgaria Pirin Slavo-Macedonians were Bulgarians. When the WWI started in 1914, Bulgaria sided with Central Powers and in the fall of 1915 ...

The Idea of Pan-Slavic Ethnolinguistic Kinship and Reciprocity in Dalmatia and Croatia, 1477–1706

Abstract: This paper sets out to examine and clarify the historical development of the ideological concept of Pan-Slavism, which was created by the writers of Dalmatia and Croatia at the time of the late Renaissance and early Baroque (from the end of the 15th century to the very beginning of the 18th century). The literary works of that time by many of Dalmatia’s and Croatia’s writers deal with the ethnolinguistic aspect of Pan-Slavic unity, solidarity, kinship and reciprocity. Their writings established an ideological framework for making both Pan-Slavic common national identity and program of the united single national state of ...