An Open Letter to the Late Izzy Asper

Dear Mr. Asper,

Forgive me for interrupting your eternal slumbers, but I thought you should have an update about what's been happening with what is turning out to be your most controversial legacy, the Canadian Museum for Human Rights.

I realize that you had your heart set on a stand alone Holocaust museum, and you were forced to settle for a "human rights" museum in which the Holocaust would play a large part, but, sadly, that's not how it's working out. How could it, when two things that have no business being in bed together--the Holocaust and the laughingstock that is contemporary "human rights"--were forced by the "shadchans" into an arranged marriage of two incompatible partners? And, as sometimes happens in such impossible arrangements, one partner ends up killing the other one--which, sadly, is what happened here. The "human rights" side of things--the side that insists on "equality" in all things at all times for all peoples--ganged up on the Holocaust receiving what it saw as "special privileges" (its own permanent gallery,  instead of the miscellaneous "mass atrocities" zone into which all the others--including the Ukrainians and their Holodomor--were consigned). The result: polls were conducted, votes were tallied, and Canadians made it known that they objected to the "unfairness" of the Holocaust getting more space than everyone else. And even though some have stepped up to defend the Holocaust's singularity (one wishes that, as the same time, they had also noted the absurdity of having to do so, of having been placed in such a position because of the museum and its own internal illogic), their plaints seem destined to make little headway in the face of overwhelming demand for "genocide equity."

In other words, the Holocaust has been hoist--and savaged--on the "human rights" petard.

How grimly ironic is that?

I know that in your current condition, there's not much you can do about the insanity that, with the best of intentions, you have set in motion. However, I would like to ask you one question: If you knew then what you know now (now that I've filled you in, I mean) would you have agreed to the shotgun arrangement, or would you have packed it in then and there?

Me? I think Kenny Rogers said it best: "You gotta know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, know when to walk away and know when to run..." Would that you had had the foresight to heed that sage advice.