Coloroso speaks on genocide
By Graeme Morton, Calgary Herald
The Calgary Herald (Alberta)
April 28, 2007 Saturday
Final Edition
Noted author Barbara Coloroso will talk Monday at the Calgary Jewish
Community Centre, 1607 90th Ave. S.W.
The Colorado-based Coloroso will be speaking on her latest book,
Extraordinary Evil: A Brief History of Genocide.
While the topic seems a sizable leap from her previous work on
parenting issues and schoolyard bullying, the former Catholic nun
and educator begs to differ.
"It’s a short walk from contempt for another human person to a hate
crime and eventually to an ideology of hate in a government that
allows us to separate other humans from our moral concern," she said.
Coloroso has worked with orphans in Rwanda from the 1994 genocide
that killed an estimated 800,000. Her book also looks at the Holocaust
as well as the mass killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire from
1915 to 1917.
"This was a difficult book to write. But if we can’t begin to look at
how we treat one another, it will happen again and again and again,"
she said.
Coloroso says religion has played a role in every genocide.
"Religion can be a vessel or a tomb," she says. "It can be a tool for
us to keep looking at one another as an ‘I’ and a ‘thou’ or a ‘we.’
As long as we look at each other as sacred human beings, it’s hard
for me to hurt you. But once I make you an ‘it,’ I can do anything
to you and not feel any shame or compassion."
The event is at 7 p.m. with tickets $15 in advance or $20 at the door,
space permitting. Call 253-8600 for information.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
