Trevor Noah, the ratings-challenged host of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show, got in hot water when his shock appointment to replace Jon Stewart was announced last year with some archived tweets resulting in him getting slammed for anti-Semitism and racism.
Now the 32-year-old South African comedian’s new book, Born a Crime, a memoir of his life growing up in Johannesburg, could land Noah in trouble relating to a section of the book seen by Heat Street in which he questions how bad Adolf Hitler was compared with other historical figures including Christopher Columbus, President Andrew Jackson, and King Leopold of Belgium.
Born A Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood on sale November 15! Info @ https://t.co/OCUM8lq7ua #BornaCrime pic.twitter.com/tCN0FIIKeR
— Trevor Noah (@Trevornoah) September 6, 2016
In a chapter entitled Go Hitler! , Noah reminisces about the period in his life DJing at parties where he befriended a black South African dancer called Hitler. This leads him to write: “The name Hitler does not offend a black South African because Hitler is not the worst thing a black South African can imagine. Every country thinks their history is the most important, and that’s especially true in the West.”
Noah writes:
But if black South Africans could go back in time and kill one person, Cecil Rhodes would come up before Hitler. If people in the Congo could go back in time and kill one person, Belgium’s King Leopold would come way before Hitler. If Native Americans could go back in time and kill one person, it would probably be Christopher Columbus or Andrew Jackson.
Would Native Americans indulging in a spot of time travel historical assassination really choose to murder Columbus over Hitler? In any case, how would Noah, whose lack of political acumen is on view five nights a week on The Daily Show, know?
That doesn’t stop Prof. Noah then wading into the thorny waters of evaluating the historical significance of the Holocaust: “I often meet people in the West who insist that the Holocaust was the worst atrocity in human history without question. Yes, it was horrific. But I often wonder, with African atrocities like the Congo, how horrific were they? The thing Africans don’t have that Jewish people do have is documentation.”
He continues:
The Nazis kept meticulous records, took pictures, made films. And that’s really what it comes down. Holocaust victims count because Hitler counted them. Six million people killed. We can all look that number and right be horrified. But when you read through the history of atrocities against Africans, there are no numbers, only guesses. It’s harder to be horrified by a guess.
He concludes: “So in Europe and America yes, Hitler is the Greatest Madman in History. In Africa he’s just another strong man from the history books.”
We’re guessing that Noah will have some explaining to do regarding his historical musings when the book is out in November.
#CinnamonHitler https://t.co/tFRlQhzW18 https://t.co/GkdFFsvW9w
— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) July 29, 2016
