Canadian freethinker Jordan Peterson has joined anti-Communist groups in slamming EU boss Jean-Claude Juncker for unveiling a statue in honour of Karl Marx.
The President of the European Commission marked the 200th anniversary of the Communist Manifesto author’s birth by opening a series of exhibitions honouring his memory in Trier, and claimed he was not responsible for the actions of his bloodsoaked acolytes — figures including Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot, Fidel Castro, and the Kim dynasty.
Dr Peterson, who frequently speaks out against Communist ideology and promotes The Gulag Archipelago, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s classic memoir of life in the Soviet Union and its oppressive labour camps, tweeted that Juncker’s actions were “shameful and appalling”, and linked his thousands of followers to an open letter which had objected to the eurocrat’s participation in the celebrations.
The letter was signed by Tomasz Wróblewski, President of the Warsaw Enterprise Institute in Poland, Máté Hajba, Director of the Free Market Foundation in Hungary, Roxana Nicula, Chairman of the Foundation for the Advancement of Liberty in Spain, Gia Jandieri, Vice-President of the New Economic School in Georgia, Radu Nechita, of the CISED organisation in Romania, and John Suárez, of the Free Cuba Foundation.
EU Chief Jean-Claude Juncker Defies Protests to Deliver Heartfelt Defence of Karl Marx https://t.co/LXTrmbYpGX
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) May 5, 2018
“As defenders of individual liberty, we consider this event to be cruel and disrespectful towards millions of European Union citizens who suffered Communist dictatorships for over half a century,” they wrote.
“We remind you that even today there are still many countries in the world where the population suffers from the ideological abomination created by Karl Marx. More than one hundred million people died as a direct consequence of Communism in the past century all over the world.
“A President of the European Commission is not allowed to forget this when acting on behalf of the European Union and representing all of its citizens,” they insisted.
“Entire societies in the Eastern part of Europe were starved, exploited and denied basic human rights, even to the extent of systematically forcing children out of school to work in the fields every year.”
They noted that President Juncker would “certainly refuse to participate in an anniversary of the Nazi ideologist Alfred Rosenberg”, but said his decision to celebrate Marx was no different.
“It is today more necessary than ever to debunk Karl Marx’s wrong theories,” they concluded, requesting he “make a formal apology to the victims of communism for this mistake.”
President Juncker does not appear to have issued any sort of response.
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