DALLAIRE EVENT OFFERS MESSAGE OF TOLERANCE
BY BESSIE BORWEIN, SPECIAL TO THE FREE PRESS
London Free Press (Ontario, Canada)
September 13, 2004 Monday Final Edition
There was an event of great importance in London in August, namely,
the Gen. Romeo Dallaire Summer Institute on Teaching the Holocaust
and Genocide.
It ran for five days in a room at the Ivey School of Business at the
University of Western Ontario. About 40 teachers were there to learn
ways of teaching the centrality of tolerance for the preservation of
our democratic society and its human rights.
The event was planned by the London Association for the Elimination
of Hate, with the collaboration of the Holocaust Literature Research
Institute at UWO founded by Alain Goldschlager and the London Jewish
Federation.
A major topic was genocide, what it is and what it is not. Genocide
is essentially the deliberate, organized, systematically planned
murder of a people, targeted for who they are with the intent to
wipe them out. It is not a term to be used casually and carelessly.
Genocide always involves hatred and is preceded by the indoctrination
of hatred of the targeted people, delegitimizing them as humans by
calling them cockroaches, pigs, apes, or caterpillars. Genocide is
a political ideological tool.
In the last 100 years, there have been, among others, the Rwandan
and Armenian genocides and the Holocaust. The study of these formed
a crucial component of the Dallaire summer institute. Other terrible
slaughters in that time have included those in Cambodia, the former
Yugoslavia, the Congo, the Iraqi gassing of the Kurds and the millions
killed by the former Soviet Union (the Gulag), in the Chinese Cultural
Revolution, and by the Japanese in China and Southeast Asia, and in
the rape of Nanking. A terrible century.
In Rwanda, there were at least four years of preparation by extremist
Hutus for the genocide of the Tsutsis, by the indoctrination of hate
by hate-filled language (the radio was important in this) and the
stockpiling of half a million machetes.
In the genocide, not only were more than 800,000 Tsutsis killed in
100 days (a greater rate of killing even than that at Auschwitz)
but they also murdered moderate Hutus (bystanders). They planned to
leave no witnesses and no evidence.
As he watched the horror unfolding, Dallaire, in Rwanda with a
UN peacekeeping mission, pleaded with Kofi Annan for permission to
intervene and for additional help. Dallaire disobeyed Annan and saved
40,000 Rwandans.
Canadian Maj. Brett Beardsley, who was Dallaire’s right-hand man
in Rwanda, gave a powerful address to the institute. He described
watching the unfolding of the horror of the well-planned genocide,
the impotence of the UN, and its unwillingness to give Dallaire the
authority and the means to stop the killing. He also referred to the
embedded corruption at the UN.
A few years ago, Londoners Elaine Pensa and Laila Norman persuaded
London city council to set up an informal committee to address the
presence here of hate-language, and assaults on persons, properties
and identifiable groups. From the deliberations of that committee
resulted the establishment of the Association for the Elimination of
Hate, supported by city council.
I would like to pay a tribute to Rich Hitchens and Debbie Lee for
their work in getting the institute going. It is hoped that it will
be a model for other Canadian cities.
The Dallaire summer institute will be held annually and there are
plans to build in London a tolerance education centre.
Teaching of tolerance is the best way to protect our liberty, democracy
and civil society. We cannot tolerate the teaching of intolerance,
which threatens our precious human rights and our freedom.