THE MENTION OF JAPANESE INTERNMENTS in this post has produced a rather interesting response from Robin Goodfellow. Excerpt:

It’s interesting how the American internment of Japanese for 4 years during WWII is constantly used as an example of America’s unique evil and racism. When revisiting the subject rarely, if ever, is the Canadian example brought up. At least in America the internee families were kept together, in Canada (which also rounded up Japanese Canadian citizens) the men and women were separated from each other and the men were sent into forced labor. And we all know, I hope, how Italy, Spain, France, Germany, Japan, Russia, Denmark, Norway, The Netherlands, Belgium, and Austria scored on the racial sensitivity scale during WWII. I find the ability of Europe especially to “misremember” facts so as to paint themselves as lilly-white angels and the US as brutish and uncivilized thugs to be quite remarkable.

Well, you know, if the Europeans faced the truth, the pain would be unbearable.

UPDATE: Reader Byron Matthews says it’s worse than that:

The Canadian record is much darker than Robin Goodfellow’s post indicates. Japanese-Canadians were not only moved inland from BC and interned, their property was seized and sold off, the proceeds used in part to pay for their own internment. Worse, thousands were stripped of Canadian citizenship and deported (“repatriated”) to Japan, even after the war had ended.

He also sends this link to a Canadian history site on the subject. I was vaguely aware that there were Canadian internments, but no more. Fascinating stuff.

Maybe it’s because Europe and Canada were so much worse than the United States in the past that they are so sanctimonious now.