Honor the victims of communism
Posted by Richard on November 14, 2005
Pejman Yousefzadeh, writing at RedState.org, urged readers to contribute to the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation:
It won’t bring back the dead and it will do nothing to erase the memories of torture that continue to burden the lives of the living. But it will show that we remember, that our outrage against the perpetrators of this depravity is eternal and that our support will never flag for those who labored and labor to show the world the bankruptcy inherent in communism and who fight to free all those who remain enslaved to it.
Remember, after all, that the fight against communism is not over. Communist parties continue to vie for influence in Europe, they continue to restrain the near-limitless potential of the Chinese and they make life a nightmare in North Korea. Merely because the Cold War is over does not mean that this pernicious ideology has died out or that people don’t continue to suffer at its hands.
Last month, the National Capital Planning Commission, gave its preliminary approval to the design. It’s a pretty modest memorial, really, considering that it’s intended to commemorate the deaths of 100 million people and the enslavement and dehumanization of billions:
The 90-square-foot monument would be built on National Park Service land one block west of the Capitol. A central feature will be a bronze Goddess of Democracy statue similar to the papier-mache and Styrofoam statue erected by pro-democracy students in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square during 1989 demonstrations.
If the design gets final approval in December, construction could begin in the spring. The foundation estimates it needs $700,000, and it’s already raised almost two-thirds of that — much of it from donors with ties to current and former communist nations. Now, it’s received "challenge grants" of $125,000, which means it has to raise that much from small donors in order to get the matching funds. By my reckoning, that would be more than enough to complete the memorial.
I’ve kicked in a few bucks. How about you?
The fall of the Communist empire was an event on the same scale of importance as the fall of the Roman Empire.
— Vaclav Havel
Hat Tip: GOPininon, which I heard of from Perry Eidelbus.
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