In
December 1995, fifty years after the .end of World
War II, I sat in the very courtroom where the Nuremberg
trial was held. I was part of a BBC TV panel discussion
on the legacy of Nuremberg. Afterward I visited the
site of the former Nazi concentration camp at Dachau.
The Germans seemed determined to ensure that their
nation would never forget the atrocities that had
been committed for the sake of Hitler's obsession
with Aryanism. In Dachau there was a museum above
whose entrance the haunting words by George Santayana
were inscribed: "Those who forget the past are
doomed to repeat it."
The
compelling reason why we should learn about the Holocaust,
and the genocides committed against other peoples
as well, is so that we might be filled with a revulsion
at what took place and thus be inspired, indeed galvanized,
to commit ourselves to ensure that such atrocities
should never happen again. It is sadly true what a
cynic has said, that we learn from history that we
do not learn from history. And yet it is possible
that if the world had been conscious of the genocide
that was committed by the Ottoman Turks against the
Armenians, the first genocide of the twentieth century,
then perhaps humanity might have been more alert to
the warning signs that were being given before Hitler's
madness was unleashed on an unbelieving world. For
there are telltale signs, which those with eyes to
see can discern, that should make us more vigilant.
When tyrants feel insecure and under threat and personal
liberties are eroded, then our antennae should be
particularly sensitive. In times of rapid change and
flux or when there is turmoil and social and economic
upheaval and political unrest, then those in power
will usually be on the lookout for scapegoats to take
the blame for why things are going awry. The world
might have been a little more vigilant when such symptoms
began appearing in the Germany of the 1930s.
We
want to learn about the Holocaust and other instances
of genocide because we have so frequently been dazzled
by the remarkable technological strides that humankind
has made-space travel, landing on the moon, lightning-quick
communication-that these achievements have made us
not just properly proud but overweaning in a presumptuous
arrogance that has believed in automatic progress.
The sobering fact is that our technological achievements
have not been matched by an equal moral advance. We
are wonderfully intelligent but dwarfish in moral
stature. We spend obscene amounts on budgets of death
and destruction when a minute fraction of these huge
defense budgets would ensure that God's children everywhere
would have enough to eat, access to clean water, adequate
health care, and a good education in a safe environment.
We
have the capacity to feed the entire world population
many times over, but children die of starvation and
easily preventable deficiency diseases whilst we dump
excess food to maintain food prices. The instances
of genocide and the occurrence of the Holocaust are
stark reminders that we have an extraordinary capacity
for evil. Particularly devastating is the realization
that some of the most awful instances were committed
not by illiterate, barbaric savages but by some of
the most sophisticated, the most learned, those who
claimed to be Christian. It would give us reason to
pause as -we thought to preen ourselves-that these
things were done by what appeared to be normal, ordinary
human beings, the ultimate proof of the banality of
evil.
But
we have had wonderful accounts too in nearly all these
instances of evil of the capacity of people for good-extraordinary
examples of bravery, magnanimity, goodness. We learn
too that we do have remarkable capacity for good,
which we should harness to make this a better world.
It
should all awaken in us the desire to value human
life as precious, all human life, so that we would
refuse to demonize even adversaries. What makes genocide
possible is that the victims are seen as less than
human. In Africa we have something called ubuntu,
the essence of being human, when we recognize that
our humanity is bound up in that of others. We say
a person is a person through other persons. We are
created for dependence, togetherness, and complementarity.
Genocide happens people are intolerant of difference.
Ubuntu celebrates diversity. Our differences should
make us realize our need of one another. The completely
self-sufficient person is subhuman. Ubuntu speaks
about hospitality, generosity, caring, and compassion.
It
is important to note a very important lesson-that
ultimately those who are responsible for such atrocities
come a cropper. This is, in fact, a moral universe;
right and wrong matter; and evil, however rampant
and apparently unstoppable, does not have the last
word. In the end, good does prevail. Where are Hitler,
Amin, Bokassa, Pinochet, Pol Pot, et al.? The world
deprecates them. Those whom the world honors are in
the end good people. Good matters; right matters.
They have the last word. We learn about the Holocaust
and other genocides so that we can be more human,
more gentle, more caring, more compassionate, valuing
every person as being of infinite worth, so precious
that we know that such atrocities will never happen
again, and that the world will be a more humane place
that is hostile to such horrendous occurrences.
We
will remember them so that we are not doomed to repeat
them.
This
Encyclopedia of Genocide is an invaluable tool toward
that end. 1971 G
There
is hardly any part of the world that has not experienced
some kind of genocide at some point or another. Yet,
some genocides take the center stage and others are
ignored. In some cases, victim people of certain genocide
may have attained the power and clout to raise the
status and importance of their genocide to such a
height that everything else is partly or significantly
eclipsed.
In the following foreword to Encyclopedia of Genocide,
Nobel Laureate Desmond Tutu makes the case as to why
we have interest in learning about the Holocaust,
but not just the Holocaust. Rather, we should have
interest in learning about genocides of ALL peoples.
By the way, further adding to the theme of my essay
"Genocide 1971: What does the world know about
it?" [http://www.globalwebpost.com/genocide1971/articles/1971/farooq_world.htm],
there is only cursory coverage of that genocide in
the Encyclopedia of Genocide. This was pointed out
to me earlier by one of the leading genocide scholar,
R. J. Rummel at the University of Hawaii. [http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/PERSONAL.HTM]
He was right, as I browsed through the Encyclopedia.
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Courtesy:
Foreword to Encyclopedia of Genocide
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