The Simon Wiesenthal Centre in Los Angeles, an international centre to remind humanity of what the Holocaust did to Jewish people, also stands for the defence of human rights globally. The ‘Museum of Tolerance’ at the centre has what is known as the ‘Demagogue Wall’. The wall features portraits of individuals notorious for crimes against humanity. Sunil Aghi, an NRI and founder–president of the Indo-Americans’ Political Foundation, who visited the centre recently was ‘shocked’ to find our very own Union home minister, L.K. Advani’s portrait titled, ‘Hitler of Bombay’, in the company of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein and Uganda’s Idi Amin.

Advani’s portrait has been on the ‘Demagogue Wall’ since 1993 when the museum was inaugurated. That, incidentally, was not long after the demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya (December 1992) and the countrywide riots that followed in which well over a thousand people were killed. But Aghi, who obviously loves the sangh parivar, is convinced that Advani’s presence on the ‘Demagogue Wall’ can only be the handiwork of some NRI who is opposed to saffron politics and is unfairly ‘maligning’ Advani. He is now in touch with the centre’s authorities to get Advani’s portrait removed.

Others, however, will believe that Advani, whose 1990 ‘rath yatra’ left behind a trail of blood, deserves to stay on the ‘Demagogue Wall’. But why ‘Hitler of Bombay’? A case of confusing Advani with Bal Thackeray, who in January ’93 Bombay riots had issued an open call to Hindus to teach Muslims a ‘lesson’? And who, in a subsequent interview to Time magazine, had said that if India’s Muslims behaved like Germany’s Jews, then their was no harm in doing to Muslims what Hitler did to the Jews? But then, there may not be enough space on the wall to accommodate both Advani and Thackeray.

Early October saw the opening of the trial in Pretoria of a heart surgeon named Dr Wouter Basson, who is charged with some of the most horrific crimes against black people during the apartheid era while he was head of a government chemical and biological warfare programme in the 80s. Better known locally as Dr Death, the surgeon is charged with killing 16 people — including suffocation — and for allegedly supplying poison to kill 200 members of a rebel group that fought South African rule in what is now Namibia. Testifying before South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission last year, one scientist revealed that Basson had set up a military front company to produce cigarettes laced with anthrax, poison–laced chocolates and sugar containing salmonella.

Charges against Basson include supply of muscle relaxants, which caused victims to suffocate by paralysing their lungs, and setting up of clandestine forces to eliminate the opponents of apartheid. One former government official has revealed that the governments of US, Britain and Switzerland were aware of what Basson was up to.

The apartheid regime in South Africa is long gone, but the after effects of the racist past continue to linger. Realising the futility of settling old scores, the post-apartheid regime under Nelson Mandela came up with a unique formula to cope with the past — truth and reconciliation. The idea was simple – white supremacists guilty of crimes against black people would honestly own up to their excesses before a Truth and Reconciliation Commission so that the record of racist indignities is set right; the spirit to guide the search for truth will be, not retribution, but reconciliation.

But what if the truth is too devastating for the perpetrators to confess? And would all black people of South Africa be content with the long list of indignities against them being put on record? How difficult and painful this entire exercise can be has recently shown up in the open conflict between two individuals, both of whom have been with rewarded with the Nobel Peace prize for their exemplary role in seeing the end of apartheid — former South African president, F.W. De Klerk and Archbishop Tutu.

In his new book, the archbishop has described De Klerk as "a small man lacking magnanimity and generosity of spirit". In turn, De Klerk has accused Tutu with being "blinded by his own narrow perception of truth".

"If we as Christians and Nobel Peace laureates could not find reconciliation, what hope was there for our communities — or for our country?" De Klerk asked the archbishop in a recent letter. For his part, Tutu is extremely disappointed that by De Klerk’s failure in owning up his government’s role in anti–black excesses in the past, while deposing before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

"Greatness was his for the taking, had he said something like, "We didn’t want to know", or "I did the best I could in the circumstances", Tutu said in an interview to a newspaper. But De Klerk maintains that mavericks without his knowledge committed human rights violations under his regime.

Last month, the world’s biggest book fair, held in Frankfurt, welcomed Iranian publishers in its midst after a 10–year–long boycott following the fatwa against Salman Rushdie. The ban has now been lifted as the Iranian government has more or less distanced itself from the late Imam Khomeini’s ‘kill Rushdie’ call in 1989. Happy at being able to participate again in the Frankfurt Book Fair, some of the Iranian publishers maintained they had been unfairly kept out for so long. "I don’t know why publishers in Germany punished Iranian people", Shahla Lahiji, a leading women’s publisher told Reuters. "I never had the answer to this important question. We are people, not governments," she added. "Literature is for everyone all around the world and we are part of that world", added fellow publisher, Hassan Kiyaaian.

Five white racist youths pleaded guilty of having killed Nirmal Singh Gill, the keeper of the Guru Nanak Singh Gurdwara in Surrey near Vancouver on January 4, 1998. But taped conversation of the five youth belonging to a group called White Power has brought out the even more chilling designs of the skinheads. A part of their plan was to slaughter 100 Indo–Canadian children studying in an elementary school, the objective being to force the community to return to India. ‘Plan B’ of the group envisaged entering a gurdwara and killing everyone present there if the police tried arresting them. In view of the diabolical plans being placed before the Supreme Court in British Columbia province, the counsel for the state has asked for life imprisonment for the five youth. Not only was the manslaughter committed by them motivated by racist hatred, the youth have shown no remorse.

Xenophobic far right parties have made impressive gains in France and Germany in recent months. But the big cause for worry is the fact of Austria’s populist and anti–immigrant Freedom Party shooting up to second place after the polls held in early October. The capturing of 27.2 per cent of popular votes by the extremist party led by the controversial Joerg Haider has shattered the five-decade grip of centrist parties on Austrian politics. The surge of immigrants from the Balkans and Eastern Europe, who now constitute five per cent of the Austrian population, and the current unemployment level at 11 per cent explains the appeal of Haider’s populist demand of sending back the immigrants to ensure jobs for the Austrians. As everywhere else, Haider’s demagoguery does not take into account the fact that most immigrants are engaged in low–paying menial jobs which other Austrians are loathe to touch. Some of Haider’s critics compare him to Adolf Hitler, a native Austrian who founded the Nazi party. When he rose to political limelight four years ago, Haider caused a sensation by claiming that though he did not subscribe to the Nazi doctrine of National Socialism, he did not approve of the "wholesale disparagement of the older war generation". His father was a member of the Nazi party.