Talk:Tomislav Sunić

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Contents 1 Extremism 2 claims about articles deleted 3 edited section on views 4 edited views again 5 Biography 6 Resume 7 Recent Edits 8 References Needed

[edit] Extremism

My edits were re-written by an anonymous editor so I am starting this talk page.

1) I am assuming that the editor objected to my characterization of Dr. Sunic's views as "anti-immigrant" so I have removed any characterization of his views and let them speak for themselves.

2) I also removed the new qualiyfing language about the two cited groups where Dr. Sunic expressed his views:

-- The National Alliance has an undisputed Wikipedia article on this group that characterizes it as "white separatist" and "white nationalist" which I have cited. I think there is no question that these are positions consistent with the use of the term "far right extremism." It makes no sense to qualify this term with adjectives such as "some people consider to be" since this is a truism. If expert references for this classification are needed, I will provide them.

-- The NPD in Germany is classified by the German government as right-wing extremist and close in views to Nazism and I have re-written the section to indicate this.

However, I did add the qualification that the characterization of these groups as "Far Right Extremist" is made by critics, governments, and NGO's. I could add scholars but lets see how this works out. Of course, the groups themselves and their supporters object o to this term but that goes without saying and is noted in the Wikipedia articles on this subject which are linked to.

3) I removed the language that asserted without evidence that Dr. Sunic was motivated by his "concern to preserve European peoples and their traditions." If this is how Dr. Sunic views himself, then we need some references for this. Also the assertion that that the National Alliance and NPD are classified as rightwing extremist because of their corresponding concern is not supported by any evidence nor by the existing Wikipedia articles on these groups. All evidence suggested they are so-classified because of the views which they espouse.

3) I also have removed the addition of the term "Revisionism" to that of "Holocaust Denial." The Wikipedia article on Holocaust Denial already explains that Holocaust deniers prefer the use of this term and that scholars refers to this movement as "Holocaust Denial." Therefore, it is unecessary to add the term "Revisionism."

Sgmiller 19:00, 31 May 2007 (UTC) sgmiller

[edit] claims about articles deleted

I just did a search of both FACTIVA and LEXIS/NEXIS for anything written under the name Tomislav Sunic or Tom Sunic and there was nothing found for the Wall Street Journal, Le Monde, or the Frankfurter Allgemeine. In fact , other than numerous "letters to the editor", I could find nothing writtten by Mr Sunic in any major newspaper or magazine. The databases cover these publications beginning in 1979-81, so it is possible, although unlikely given his age, that something was written before those years. So, until such time that it can be referenced, I have removed the statement that Dr. Sunic has written for the above publications.

Sgmiller 08:27 1 June 2007 (UTC) sgmiller

[edit] edited section on views

I edited and combined the sections on Dr. Sunic's views. Instead of the unreferenced characterization of the "New Right", I substituted a definition from the Wikipedia article on the subject and provided a better transition from the though of Benoist to the topic of Dr. Sunic's speaker appearances. I think the opening description of Dr. Sunic's views could be improved a bit and I will work on that sometime later.

I also added a futher decription of the National Alliance from the Wikipedia article on that group.

Sgmiller 10:02 1 June 2007 (UTC) sgmiller

[edit] edited views again

After some thought, I rewrote this section again, combining some of the original descriptions of his work, with references this time, and providing a more seamless transition from this description to Dr. Sunic speaking appearances. It would be possible to provide a more indepth analysis of his writing, but this is a short article and frankly, Dr. Sunic is not a major figure in European political thought, so I think a short article is ok.

Sgmiller 01:19 2 June 2007 (UTC) sgmiller

[edit] Biography

This article has turned out to be a bit of a disaster. I discovered that Dr. Sunic's biography as it wass originally written was taken word for word from the website of Noontide, a well-known publishing company connected to the Institute for HIstorical Review, a Holocaust Denial organization. I therefore have a hard time seeing it as a reliable source and it was un-referenced to boot. I didn't know what else to do, so I linked to the source as well as cut out some of the claims of the bio which I think are exaggerated based on what I found out earlier with respect to the Wall Street Journal and other newspapers. Unfortunately, there is no other easily available source for biographical details on Dr. Sunic so I guess this will have to do for now. If anybody has a better source or a better idea about how to handle this, feel free to let me know.

Sgmiller 02:09 2 June 2007 (UTC) sgmiller

[edit] Resume

Today I found Dr. Sunic's online resume and did some re-writing of his bio accordingly. From this resume, and other similar resumes from Sunic online, it seems clear that his claim to have made contributions to major newspapers have been exaggerated. This resume describe such contributions as "Journalist - For foreign editors" while others state "contributions." Somehow this language got changed in other biographies to "Articles, reviews and essays" but, as I have said before, since searches of media databases can nothings other than Letters to the Editor written by Dr. Sunic for major publications, I will leave this out of his bio. The same goes for interviews with CNN and MacNeil Lehrer.

Also, the resume mentions that he worked as a "lobbyist" in Algeria for a company known as Sequipag - Ingra. It seems a bit odd to be working as a lobbyist in Algeria and I also want to find something more about the company but so far no luck. If anybody knows about this company, I would be interested. I also want to know why Dr. Sunic left teaching positions in America and who he was lobbying for in the U.S. The resume only mentions "various organizations." I suspect that these might be the same kind of organizations that he has spoken before such as IHR but this needs to be confirmed and referenced. If he was enaged with Holocaust Denial or or other such activity, its possible that as a foreign national and untenured academic, he got into trouble of some kind and was asked to leave the Universities and/or the U.S. The fact that he subsequently got a diplomatic position might indicate this he was seeking immunity of some kind related to these activities. In an ideal world, his claim for having taught at various universities and to having been a diplomat would be verified but this is beyond the scope of Wikipedia I guess.

[edit] Recent Edits

A large number of edits were made without explanation or references. I a requesting that references be provided for these edits or I will remove them in the near future. Also, an attempt was made to qualify right-wing extremist groups by adding qualifers such as "considered by liberal politicians." Groups such as the National Alliance are considered by academics, ngo's, etc to be rightwing extremist without controversey so I will remove these qualifiers. I have also once again removed the claim that Sunic has published numerous articles as I found no such articles in a search of LEXIS/NEXIS. Having written Letters to the Editor does not seem noteworthy so I removed this as well. Please reference any such articles before adding this claim again.

Sgmiller 01:47, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

I went ahead and removed the recent edits involving Dr. Sunic's speaking appearances. The material that was added was not referenced nor could I find any verifiable information that confirmed the edit. I edited and re-added the material which characterized the talks and the "anti-immigrant" remarks at the Eurofest. Ideally, I would like to have a full transcript of the talks rather than just the "sound bytes" but given that these were events sponsored by a neo-Nazi group, the remarks seems consistent with the nature of the event. It was hard to decide whether or not to add the quotations themselves (Turks "enslaving" Germany for example) but for now, I just characterized the remarks as "anti-immigrant." If this become controversial, I will reconsider and perhaps directly use the cited remarks. If a more complete public transcript of the talks becomes available, I will consider rediting this section again but until that time, this is all we have.

[edit] References Needed

I reformatted the article to put in proper footnotes and also indicated in the references section where references are needed. I will wait for a bit for such references but will remove the associated material if they are not provided because I cannot find anything on these subjects. I also added a "Speaking Appearances" section and move some of the opening material to this section.

Sgmiller 13:03, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Ok, since no references have been forthcoming, I am removing the corresponding statements. Sgmiller 11:30, 8 July 2007 (UTC)