The Past Repeats!
March 25, 2008 by palmeral
“Yes, we even doubted his resolve to exterminate us. Annihilate an entire people? Wipe out a population dispersed throughout so many nations? So many millions of people! By what means? In the middle of the twentieth century!” Night by Elie Wiesel
The previous passage came from the memoirs of Elie Wiesel in Night. This memoir described the devastation of millions of Jews being held in concentration camps. Much like Maus by Art Spilberg this novels displays how most Jewish communities did not comprehend what was occurring until it was too late. In class, we were left questioning whether enlightening people about the past would prevent the recurrence in the future?
Our professor addressed issues such as the book Night and if it has educated people not to display such cruel actions upon others. Well, I would love to state that “keeping history alive” through novels, memoirs or comic books have ended murder in the masses due to a person’s ethnicity, race, or religion, but then I would be wrong. Genocide occurred prior to World War II and will continue to occur. Sudan for an example had a mass killing spree for a hundred days, leaving 80,000 dead.
In part, genocide remains due to government policies, which make it difficult to become involved in other nations affairs. Moreover, many nations’ governments are struggling to define what consists of genocide and what action should take place to either prevent it or stop it. In my opinion, the United Nation is afraid to respond to acts of genocide in fear of starting something they cannot control.
An article in CNN, September 9, 2004 Powell calls Sudan killings genocide by stating that genocide consists of:
• Specific acts are committed — killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about physical destruction of a group in whole or in part, imposing measures to prevent births or forcibly transferring children to another group;
• Such acts are committed against members of a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, and;
• Such acts are carried out “with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, [the group] as such.”
Sadly genocide still occurs and will repeat itself in many third world countries until a superior power will work with those national government to prevent such actions from taking place. Therefore, when you think Night and Maus has aided the human race in understanding the horrors of genocide and will prevent such occurrences from repeating itself please think of
BOSNIA
RWANDA
SUDAN
CAMBODIA
Or May 4, 2007, CNN article Cheadle acts to stop Darfur genocide explains his experience and opinion in Darfur during his travels
“There is one image from Darfur that haunts Prendergast. He was traveling through the desert with a colleague when they came across the bodies of about 24 young men left to rot in the 130-degree heat.
“No amount of time in Sudan or work on genocide ever prepares anyone sufficiently for what Samantha and I saw in a ravine deep in the Darfur desert,” Prendergast writes.
“One month before, they had been civilians, forced to walk up a hill to be executed by Sudanese government forces. Harrowingly, this scene was repeated throughout the targeted areas of Darfur.””
And if words are not enough youtube.com video on Genocide might enlighten you
So although the government will be to involved with money that they may not take action, Please DON’T forget
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I think you are right about how governments do nothing. I think part of it is how there is no personal threat on their behalf. It a sad fact that you point out very well the governments act on their own self-interest. Bosnia NATO got involved why because it threatened the nations of Eastern Europe I imagine if Rwanda had some type of resources it would have been help the Sudan has been help more then others why OIL they have it so they are seen as a viable nation. It said to think that in this day and age one life is not as important as another Genocides on any city, country, or continent is wrong
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I don’t think people have much difficulty in remembering genocide (particularly the Holocaust), but remembering isn’t enough. We can build a museum or monument in every town to remind people of the horrors of genocide, but they won’t do much to prevent another one.
History has shown that knowledge of mass killings is not enough to persuade a nation to help. As early as 1934, the US Senate had introduced a resolution expressing “fear and pain” at the German treatment of the Jews, but the State Department, perhaps wary of angering Germany, had the resolution buried in committee. After America entered the war (remember, Germany declared war on the US, not vice versa) there was an opportunity in 1943 to rescue 60,000 Bulgarian Jews, the opportunity was ignored because there were “not enough ships to handle them.”
The allied powers in WWII did little to help the Jews during the Holocaust, but it is still talked about as a great human tragedy that must not be forgotten. I suppose the logic goes something like this: by remembering how we ignored the Holocaust as it was happening, we can figure out the best way to ignore present and future genocides. Excuse my cynicism, but it is a bit ridiculous how today’s governments decry the genocides in Rwanda and Darfur, then do nothing about them.
First, I found your connections to go far beyond anything that I have made throughout the class. I have had difficultly in connecting the news stories that I recieve on my google reader with things were are discussing in class. I don’t want to say enjoyed, but was glad that you attached the articles that your did. In addition to reading those, I recently saw a movie about Rwanda – Behind the Gates. I cannot explain the feeling that I had while watching the movie, especially the feeling when it is over and the viewer realizes this is true — this is not some hollywood made-up story. I am telling you this because while I agree that it may not all together change history and prevent something this horrific from happening again it does do one thing – create awareness. Movies like this and Hotel Rwanda and the attention that these third world areas are getting is helping because of the news, movies, advoates, charities, governmental actions. It isn”t happening in a day, but it is slowly happening. I am going to admit that without those media outlets I would not have given it much thought – but having seen it and read articles creates a whole new world. A strive to want to help to achieve that difference to try and make sure history doesn’t repeat itself. Thanks for adding the articles and videos. They do make a difference — a very small difference, but a difference non the less.
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