Dehumanising Humanity
All of us, with even the slightest interest in history and humanity,
have wondered at the tragedy and horror of the Holocaust of World War
II. We wonder how such cruelty could be inflicted at the hands of Man.
We wonder how people could stand by and let it happen. We wonder how
so many could have guarded their ignorance and not sought to discover
how and why these millions died.
All except the oldest in our societies can view these dark events as
"history". A world removed from us by generations. I would like to
imagine that if I was alive I would have sought to understand, to add
meaning to the incomprehensible events and do what I could to ensure
that this ultimate price at least bought the ultimate lesson to
safeguard the future of humanity.
However, in my lifetime such events have again befallen us in Bosnia and
Rwanda. Although I was only 13 they occured in my waking life, not some
conceptual "history". At the time my understanding was limited to news
headings; Tutsi and Huti, Bosnian Muslim and Serbian Croats, Srebrenica
and Nyarubuye. The names didn't illustrate the reality, rather they
formed barriers which contained these far away places and afflictions of
people I would never know. In early 2002 I visited Bosnia and Croatia to
try and develop an understanding of the histories and the people to try
an build the collection of facts into story I could feel.
The Rwanda genocides amplified my frustration. The decimation of a
people kept away from our collective focus largely because of the
concept we have built as "Africa". This perspective that seems to
underlie the western view; "Who can comprehend the savagery, the
foreigness, the senseless violence and disease of Africa?" And in Rwanda
we saw Africans killing Africans and thus further denied the
responsibility of our colonial history and our globalized present.
I could not piece together a story of Rwanda that I could understand.
Nor did a year spent wrestling with Apartheid in SA help me understand
this very different Africa. The single worst atrocity of our time; one
that tore the heart of humanity from a country and a people, machete
blow by machete blow, and claimed a million lives faster than the Nazi's
systematic slaughter of the Jews.
James Nachtwey, USA, Magnum Photos for Time. http://www.worldpressphoto.com
If we don't understand it, how can we prevent it reoccuring? If we don't
find meaning in how humans can dehumanize, if we only condem the
madness, than we are passing the cruelist of legacies to our children.
It is in this spirit that Philip Gourevitch travelled to Rwanda to build
a comprehensible story the world could understand. His book "We Wish to
Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories
from Rwanda"
the chaos by explaining the what, the how and the why of the genocides.
His insights portray a picture of the darker side of humanity; the crimes
of leadership, the cruel choices of individuals and the indifference of the
international community. He portrays a picture that is savage and
horrific, but a story that is human and all too possible.
Tomorrow night I shall see the film "Hotel Rwanda"
thoughts on this piece of history that has unfolded in our lifetimes.
Labels: war
posted by Arthur Josephson @ 3:36 PM
5 Comments:
Hi, Arthur:
I'm just starting to read "Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda" by Romeo Dallaire, a UN force commander in Rwanda at that time. He talks about a peacekeeping mission that seemed doom from the start. The majority of the world was indifferent-- after all Rwanda had no political or economic importance.
He came back to Canada, strickened and helpless over what he saw in Rwanda. This led to his breakdown and release from the army. It took him until 2004 to tell his story.
I will be picking up the book you mentioned to try to understand more.
Arthur, bud...love reading your enteries..so glad you are bloggin' the stuff that needs to be blogged!!
To quote a very amazing woman that I miss dearly,
"I think you are an excellent communicator and your past
Newsletters are simply wonderful"
hahaha i just remembered there is a video of us in Slovakia's "club 39" trash talking each others relatives...may that video be burning in hell somewhere..
well I agree with you. However, there is another genocide going on about which many argues is the worst in the history. And I'm convinced that our children would not undrestand how come a generation of their fathers did nothing about.
http://www.abortionno.org
Whether genocide or not, it is a complex issue that very few people understand the different perspectives on. I think this is largely because few sources really try to present the issue objectively and rationally to encourage people to make an informed choice. One site I'm very fond of for many religiously affected issues is http://www.religioustolerance.org/abortion.htm
ReligiousTolerance.org is run by an inter-faith group staffed by individuals who have diverse beliefs about these topics.
I don't think "Mino" is a real person, Arthur. Most likey its a 'bot which crawls around the web searching for the word "genocide" or "murder" and leaving the same, dumb comment.
We can try a Turing Test - hey Mino, what is six multiplied by the number of fingers on your hand? Although if you are a real person you are probably too stupid to know the answer anyhow, or at least too inbred to have a regulation number of fingers.
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