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Recognizing and Stopping the Curse of Genocide
By Rabbi Joel
R. Schwartzman
May 19, 2006 (lyar 21, 5766)
Biafra, Spain, Rwanda, America, Darfur, Armenia, Cambodia, Babi Yar, Bosnia, Guatemala, East Timor, Iraq, Croatia , Namibia, Nan-king, the Nazi Holocaust throughout Europe, the Ukraine, Somalia…there doesn’t seem to be any corner of the globe in which genocide has not occurred. We cannot point to any civilization, religion, or ethnic group and, as of today, be assured that they haven’t already participated in or will not one day participate in mass murder of their fellow human beings. It seems that the seeds of genocide lay dormant in the heart of humanity, and sprout when conditions are ripe for this evil to overtake the human psyche. But what is genocide? Genocide has been defined as the “systematic destruction by a government of a racial, religious, or ethnic group.” The term was thought to have been first used by Jurist Raphael Lemkin in 1944, in a proposal before the International Conference for Unification of Criminal Law. Lemkin himself was a refuge from Nazi Germany. ( Mizel Museum Pamphlet: “The Dead Weight of Complacency,” Page 6).
I want to quote from an exhibit pamphlet published by the Mizel Museum , “The Dead Weight of Complacency,” which helps to clarify just what I am speaking about:
Generally speaking, genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by mass killings of all members of a nation. It is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves. The objectives of such a plan would be the disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of the personal security, liberty, dignity, and the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups. (Page 6)
Exactly what are those seeds I spoke about earlier that sprout into genocide? Are there signs and signals that genocide is about to occur? How can we recognize an impending disaster? And if there are signs, how can we ourselves set about preventing future mass murders, one people of another?
Back on Monday, May 8 th, the Colorado Coalition for Genocide Awareness and Action, a group of concerned people led by Roz Duman and Ved Nanda, put on a conference here in Denver . As far as I know, it was the first of its kind. Included in the day long activities was the Coalition’s and Mizel Museum ’s exhibit on Genocide that I referenced earlier as well as a Keynote speaker and two panels of speakers with moderators. The day culminated in a march for action to the State Capitol. I shall more to say about that later.
I think it significant to quote the purpose or mission statement for this conference. It read: “Our mission is to challenge society to end complacency toward and raise awareness of genocides past and present, and take action to stop genocides present and future.” I do not think that there is a soul here tonight who would object to the purposes of the Coalition or to the conference itself.
During the course of the day, there were some very significant things that I learned. Among them is that there are the eight stages that lead to genocide, and I would like to briefly list them for you so that you, too, will begin to become aware of and sensitized to their progression and predictability. The first is Classification which enables the ruling group to distinguish between “us and them…those others”. The second is Symbolization. The forced wearing of the Yellow Star by Jews in Nazi Europe is such an example. Third, is Dehumanization wherein members of the hated group are denied their humanity and associated with animals like pigs, monkeys and dogs. (Sound familiar? It should. It is what the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hamas have compared us Jews to). Dehumanization is a huge step in overcoming the natural aversion to murder. Fourth is Organization. Genocide is always organized and never takes place spontaneously. Fifth is Polarization which involves driving people from the middle into extreme groups, thus enabling violence against “the other extreme.” Sixth is Preparation where the victims are separated out and isolated, prepared, as it were, for the slaughter. Seventh is Extermination which leads to genocide. The eighth and final stage is Denial which always follows genocide. (Mizel Pamphlet, pp. 4-5)
One key point is that anywhere in this progression, intervention and action can prevent genocide from occurring. For example, during the Dehumanization stage, where the potential victims are being denied their humanity, hate radio stations must be shut down, hate propaganda banned and hate crimes and atrocities, promptly punished. Religious leaders cannot be by-standers and need to constantly reinforce the idea that we are all created in the image of God and cannot be treated or treat others any other way….no exceptions! No exclusions! Responses to the urgency toward death must be life, and appeals to memory of past genocides must at all times be made.
One of the most salient points that I heard made at the conference stopped me cold in my thinking. It was that not one president of the United States has ever made genocide a cause and none, none!, has been held accountable for his stance on genocide, although we may be on our way to doing so with the present genocide occurring in Darfur . Clearly, Americans, as a nation, have not yet seen preventing genocide as a paramount cause. And that is probably the case because we haven’t felt it as a reality. We cannot fathom such vast numbers. We seem at a loss to do anything about what is happening somewhere else in the world, at such a distance from us.
But, there are things we can and must realize about genocide…and things that we definitely can do. First is to recognize and be on watch for the warning signs, those stages I spoke about. As soon as they begin to appear, we must raise the alarm. It is certainly the time to do so with regard to Iran as it seeks to classify, symbolize, dehumanize and polarize against Israel . The second is never to give in the tendencies, which demagogues and hate mongers play upon, to drive a wedge between us Jews as human beings and any other group. Certainly with all that we have faced in terms of the Holocaust, we have learned that bitter lesson…a lesson which stands us in good stead when faced by the provocations of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the other hate groups of the radical Islamic world. We must be very certain about our motivations for our actions vis-à-vis suicide bombings and missile firings.
It is against this back drop that I want to drive home one other salient point. It is that one does not stop genocide through discussions and negotiations. One stops the killing by the use of military intervention. One does not let the playground bully continue his rampage unabated and unchallenged. One stops the bully cold by using just enough aggression to get his attention.
We will not get a handle on genocide until we begin to recognize the humanity in each other. Hatred is a motivator for evil. In order to stop genocide, we all have to be on guard. We need to stay pace with our world and be attentive to different sources of information. We need to step up to our human duties of writing to the point of being annoying in our own eyes, ceaselessly pestering our elected officials until they move to do something about the killing. And we need to contribute to those agencies like the Joint Distribution Committee, Mazon and Jewish World Services which bring aid to the suffering. Lastly, we need to be creative in how we go about advocating.
One of the sweetest stories that came from the conference and was also repeated in last week’s (May 15 th) New Republic, was told by Mark Harris during lunch time. A product of four Holocaust surviving grandparents, Mark and some other college friends set about trying to do something about the genocide taking place now in Darfur . Being typical college kids…that is, not exactly being made out of money, they had to resort to unconventional tactics and stratagems. Being adept at the use of the World Wide Web, Mark and his buddies discovered that Richard Lugar, the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was being slow to send a bill to the full Senate that would tighten U.S. penalties against Sudan . They also discovered on the Web a list of Lugar’s top 200 donors. They then set about calling each one of those 200, asking them to call Lugar and urge him to move the bill along. Guess what happened. Senator Lugar not only moved the bill along, but also wound up voted for it himself!
Sometimes thinking outside the box can have wonderfully effective results. And something as devastating and ghastly as genocide requires us to use every trick that we can devise.
Our torah portion, Bechukotai, this week speaks of Blessings and Curses. Suffice it to say that we have, in our time, seen the curses of human barbarity and brutality unleashed that are every bit as horrifying as what God promises to do if we break God’s commandments. Ultimately, as humanity studies itself, and hopefully, learns from its history, we can cease to curse ourselves in the use of violence against ourselves. This Genocide conference was, in many ways, a first step in this effort. It gave me wonderful and powerful insights and lessons. And yet, during the march and the speeches at the Capitol steps not one media person, not a single media outlet was present. After endless attempts to attract coverage, after repeated calls and reminders, no TV station, no newspaper or radio recorded or reported. I guess that, in our attempts to end the greatest scourge in human existence, we’ll have to double our efforts and get a whole lot smarter about how to get the media’s, indeed, the whole world’s attention, and make this issue “priority one.” Genocide can be stopped and mass murder can be prevented…and we owe it to our Creator and to ourselves, given the race to develop nuclear weapons all over this globe, to vow to do this now, in our own time, before it is too late for us and all human kind.
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