Wednesday, March 20, 2019
Elder of Ziyon
- Holodomor memorial, Kiev (Pensées de Pascal via Wikimedia Commons)
Washington, DC, March 20 - Millions of famine-related deaths in the largely-Christian Ukraine and Moldavia Republics of the Soviet Union that many scholars understand as an engineered policy by Stalin to destroy the Ukrainian nationalist movement has prompted Congressional Democrats to propose a sweeping condemnation of anti-Muslim bigotry.
Collectivization of agriculture and a poor harvest in 1932-33 led to the death by starvation of anywhere from 3-12 million Ukrainians and Moldavians, the outcome of what numerous historians and critics of the Soviet Union have described as a genocide, targeting as it did a specific ethnic group. While other regions of the Soviet Union suffered hunger during that time amid poor harvests and incompetent management of resources, Moscow's treatment of Ukraine involved disproportionate harshness as Stalin sought to suppress independence movements from his regime. Senior Democratic Party in the Senate and House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Senators Chuck Schumer and Bernie Sanders, responded to the horror with a resolution that denounces any manifestation of prejudice against Muslims.
"The Holdomor demonstrates the dangers of Islamophobia," declared Schumer (D-NY), standing next to Pelosi and Sanders at a press conference. "Other Congresses may have been lax about the proper reaction to such developments, but that must not serve as a pretext for similar inaction in the face of a genocide of Ukrainians of all stripes. Islamophobia has no place in our world."
The involvement of Senator Sanders (D-VT), a declared socialist, carries significance, observers note, in that the senator has seldom, if ever, chosen to criticize the Socialist paradise of the Soviet Union that he seeks to emulate. "Obviously in the hierarchy of groups with whom to show solidarity, Muslims rank higher than Stalin," remarked Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-MN), "as it should be, but I understand for Bernie it was a close-run thing. My only objection to the resolution in its current form is that it does not call out Israeli abuses against Palestinians." The Holodomor took place between two major Arab revolts against British administration in Palestine, both of which saw large-scale rioting and the targeting of Jews for violence and displacement from places they had lived for centuries, such as Hebron.
Ukrainian nationalists were unavailable for comment, as they were occupied with trying to trade trinkets, religious icons, sexual favors, and any merchandise they could get their hands on for food to give to their starving children at Kiev's main train station where foreigners disembark.
