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Not so
free in Germany
*Not so free in Germany*
*By JOSEPH QUESNEL
http://www.winnipegsun.com/News/Columnists/
Quesnel_Joseph/2007/03/03/3690101.html
I will forgo the pleasure of drinking German lager and eating
sauerkraut
for the foreseeable future and I ask freedom lovers to consider
joining me.
I am joining an international boycott of German goods because of
that
country's drift away from fundamental freedoms.
We in North America do not hear much much about Germany, as our
media
focuses on exotic hotspots, but I have noticed a discernible trend
suggesting people should pay attention to the loss of freedoms in
so-called advanced Western democracies, like Germany.
The most ominous example is the Busekros family. An online petition
is
calling for a boycott of German products due to their treatment.
The horrendous crime of this family, and others across Germany, is
they
chose to homeschool their children, a right taken for granted here.
Homeschooling is illegal there, and authorities seem out for blood.
It took 15 German officers to take 15-year-old Melissa Busekros from
her
home, as the German government began cracking down on these nasty
enemies of the state. By court order, school officials ordered the
breakup of a family with five children, after the state asserted its
belief that Christian homeschooling is a "parallel culture" that
Germany
can do without.
One child was even placed in a psychiatric ward and her parents
denied
the location.
Homeschooling parents in Germany have been imprisoned for teaching
their
children in a Christian lifestyle. The Home School Legal Defense
Association estimates there are 40 other ongoing cases in Germany
against homeschoolers.
Homeschoolers do not get much attention because they are a minority,
but
it is this minority that needs the most protection from a majority
willing to deny their rights.
The essence of a free state is the existence of pluralistic civil
society where different choices are permitted. The German
authorities
apparently do not respect the convictions of religious communities
which
believe family ought to be the first teacher, not the omnipotent
state.
My parents considered homeschooling me out of concerns over the
expunging of Christianity from public schools. I'm glad we did not
live
in Germany.
What is frightening is that the law forbidding homeschooling was
adopted
. on the grounds that the state needed to take control
over every aspect of life.
One German homeschool advocate said, "We are not far away from an
intolerant dictatorship. Parental rights are more and more
abolished. If
you do not educate the way the state wants, the so-called Judenamt
(youth welfare office) is quick to check out if they can take away
the
custody of your children."
If this was the only troubling sign from Germany, I would stop, but
it
is not. This attack on homeschooling comes on the heels of the
conviction of Holocaust revisionist Ernst Zundel, who was sentenced
to
five years in prison for "denying the Holocaust," which is
considered
seditious in Germany.
Call me a fool, but ideas and thoughts should be challenged in the
forum
of open debate, not through criminal sanction. The Holocaust is one
of
the most documented events in history, so there is a reason Zundel
is
marginalized. Freedom is nothing if it does not protect the most
vulnerable and reviled.
As for me, I will be throwing out my Kinder Surprise eggs and asking
the
German Embassy to help stop the harassment of German families.
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Visit the Canadian Association for Free Expression's website:
http://www.canadianfreespeech.com
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