All genocides should be commemorated

Re Ryerson ‘concerned’ about allegations of

anti-Semitism at student meeting, Dec. 2 I support the idea of marking Holocaust Education Week on Ryerson University campus. However it should not be exclusive and all ethnic cleansing episodes in recent human history should be highlighted, including the mass killing of aboriginals of the Americas, the Armenian genocide and Al Nakba (the 1948 Palestinian exodus, meaning literally “disaster”) that befell Palestinians.

Universities are places of learning and what could be better than to teach the students the bitter lessons of human history that brought catastrophe on people just because of their race, colour or religion.

Let there be no tolerance for discrimination. Anis Zuberi, Mississauga

Can Obaid Ullah, head of Ryerson University’s Student Union, explain why a proposal to broaden a motion to commemorate Holocaust education week to include other genocides was “not appropriate”?

Is Ryerson not an inclusive environment? Does it not recognize other atrocities that have been committed against identifiable groups?

Will it support a motion for an education week for each such historical event? Or will it tell a student who puts forth such a proposal at their meetings that it is “not appropriate”? Kevin Clink, Brampton

Holocaust week is the height of hypocrisy. It implicitly supports the State of Israel, which is currently committing a slow genocide (according to the Kuala Lumpur tribunal) against the 2 million Palestinians under its military occupation in Gaza. To object to it is not racist.

Publicly funded institutions should be commemorating genocides in general rather than the politically motivated and exclusivist Holocaust events, which imply that similar tragedies do not deserve the same international response.

A study of current genocides might lead to saving the lives of thousands of people. Karin Brothers, Toronto