Thoughts
Warning: Contents are inappropriate for your seven-year-old. May contain some ranting.
I've been thinking a lot about the long-term effects of genocide, not just on the descendents of victims, but also of perpetrators. It's interesting and difficult work in part because most people are the descendents of victims, perpetrators, or both, if you go back far enough. How do you distinguish these effects, therefore, from other, inherent human qualities?
This has led me to think about more recent genocides. The US Supreme Court recently ruled, for example, that Native American groups waited too long to sue the Washington Redskins over their name and logo and that the team could therefore use the name. It disturbs me that they think there is a statute of limitations on incitements to genocidal thinking. How many of us have read in novels or other books such mottos as "The only good Indian is a dead Indian," and "Nits make lice," without the least bit of disgust or outrage? How many of us know or generally care about what happened at Sand Creek or Wounded Knee? We are regaled with accounts of "wars" between white settlers and Indians from earliest childhood, with a disproportionate emphasis on the fierceness and murderous intentions of aboriginal Americans, who were often retaliating for our blind slaughter of entire cities. American soldiers have been known to cut out Indians' hearts and parade around with the heart on a stick. You could receive money for each scalp you brought in to a town, including the scalps of infants. None of these people have ever been convicted, to my knowledge, of any crime.
We generally don't feel very remorseful, either. Why? It's not because we're monsters. Most people who commit genocide are not. In part, it's because everyone is responsible - and therefore no one is. It is not useful or even possible to prosecute entire societies. What is most worrying, however, is our unconsciousness of our own history, our unwillingness to face the past squarely, which leaves the seeds for future genocide in us. Native Americans are "lice," Tutsi are "inyenzi" (cockroaches), Jews are "rats" - pests to be destroyed. More subtly, Native Americans are "redskins" or "braves" (reinforcing the image of fierceness and a feeling of immanent danger); Cham are "not real Cambodians" (reinforcing nationalism); and once, when I was telling a Serbian student that I loved being Orthodox in part because we get our Easter candy for less money, she told me I "sound like a Jew" (reinforcing the idea that Jews are dishonest and greedy).
Yesterday, a guard was killed at the United States Holocaust Museum, which is a venue used by genocide scholars for conferences, workshops, book launches, and meetings. The job of protecting those who tell us the truth about ourselves will always be a risky one. Stephen Johns was his name. May his memory be eternal.
I've been thinking a lot about the long-term effects of genocide, not just on the descendents of victims, but also of perpetrators. It's interesting and difficult work in part because most people are the descendents of victims, perpetrators, or both, if you go back far enough. How do you distinguish these effects, therefore, from other, inherent human qualities?
This has led me to think about more recent genocides. The US Supreme Court recently ruled, for example, that Native American groups waited too long to sue the Washington Redskins over their name and logo and that the team could therefore use the name. It disturbs me that they think there is a statute of limitations on incitements to genocidal thinking. How many of us have read in novels or other books such mottos as "The only good Indian is a dead Indian," and "Nits make lice," without the least bit of disgust or outrage? How many of us know or generally care about what happened at Sand Creek or Wounded Knee? We are regaled with accounts of "wars" between white settlers and Indians from earliest childhood, with a disproportionate emphasis on the fierceness and murderous intentions of aboriginal Americans, who were often retaliating for our blind slaughter of entire cities. American soldiers have been known to cut out Indians' hearts and parade around with the heart on a stick. You could receive money for each scalp you brought in to a town, including the scalps of infants. None of these people have ever been convicted, to my knowledge, of any crime.
We generally don't feel very remorseful, either. Why? It's not because we're monsters. Most people who commit genocide are not. In part, it's because everyone is responsible - and therefore no one is. It is not useful or even possible to prosecute entire societies. What is most worrying, however, is our unconsciousness of our own history, our unwillingness to face the past squarely, which leaves the seeds for future genocide in us. Native Americans are "lice," Tutsi are "inyenzi" (cockroaches), Jews are "rats" - pests to be destroyed. More subtly, Native Americans are "redskins" or "braves" (reinforcing the image of fierceness and a feeling of immanent danger); Cham are "not real Cambodians" (reinforcing nationalism); and once, when I was telling a Serbian student that I loved being Orthodox in part because we get our Easter candy for less money, she told me I "sound like a Jew" (reinforcing the idea that Jews are dishonest and greedy).
Yesterday, a guard was killed at the United States Holocaust Museum, which is a venue used by genocide scholars for conferences, workshops, book launches, and meetings. The job of protecting those who tell us the truth about ourselves will always be a risky one. Stephen Johns was his name. May his memory be eternal.