[Foundation-l] New project proposal: Soviet Repressions Memorial

[Phil Nash]

Kurt Maxwell Weber wrote:
>> On Wednesday 24 December 2008 18:43, Phil Nash wrote:
>>> Geoffrey Plourde wrote:
>>>>> Well where will it stop? If we have a project, we should have a
>>>>> memorial project for all disasters. I echo Mr. Bimmler in his
>>>>> concerns about the motives behind this proposal.
>>>
>>> I'm in some agreement here because my experience of UK charity law
>>> is that it is not generally permitted to have a "political"
>>> purpose, and certainly taking such a strong line on any
>>> "repression", "genocide" etc, would appear to be anathema to a
>>> charitable objective. It's OK, I suppose, if the United Nations has
>>> used such terminology, but I don't think we should be seen to be
>>> taking partisan sides in political disputes, because that dilutes
>>> the educational charitable status of the Foundation. It's entirely
>>> a different issue to support humanitarian aid to the victims,
>>> however, and I am open to the idea that such memorial projects
>>> might have that idea as a focus. However, the way it's been put
>>> forward seems to militate against that construction.
>>>
>>
>> I fail to see how simply presenting a list of peoples' names and
>> telling their stories constitutes "taking partisan sides in
>> political disputes."  It's educating people about the impact of
>> these events, plain and simple. --
>> Kurt Weber
>> http://blog.kurtweber.us
>> <kmw at kurtweber.us>

That would be fine, up to a point. On the other hand, putting all that under 
a POV title within the WMF umbrealls is quite a different issue, and not 
one, I think, which would be palatable to the WMF, for reasons I've already 
outlined. Kurt, as you now should realise, politics at any level is a subtle 
and complex business, and my personal opinion is that you should stick to 
marching bands.