The Calgary Herald (Alberta)
October 14, 2007 Sunday
Final Edition
How do we stop what we cannot comprehend?
by: Kris Kotarski, Calgary Herald
THE EDITORIAL PAGE; Pg. A14
Communication is never easy, so when we speak or write, we use
metaphors and analogies; or we tell fables to make others understand
unfamiliar situations.
Whether it’s a classroom, a marriage or a newspaper article, so long
as people are willing to speak and listen, understanding can follow.
It is not an easy or quick process, but comprehension is never
impossible.
Yet in my 15 years of immersion in the English language, I have never
come across a word as difficult to comprehend as genocide.
What is the analogy for genocide?
What metaphors can we use when telling the story of the Holocaust,
Rwanda or Darfur?
How can we even begin to understand an evil so singular and so
terrible that it defies the bounds of human imagination?
The only way genocide can be diluted to one truism, one statement, is
to say that it is a terrible evil, that it is mass murder and mass
death.
But, as we have learned time and time again, genocide is far more
than one statement, and it is both a collective and individual
failing for each one of us that we live in a world where genocide
continues to take place.
Is genocide a preventable crime?
Absolutely.
Genocide is man-made evil and not an inevitable calamity or an act of
nature.
Genocide is a process with identifiable signs of early warning, even
if our eyes, ears and international instruments are not always
fine-tuned to the message. Leading up to every genocide, the same
signs are always there: hate speech, branding, the loss of dignity,
and exclusion.
The perpetrators always follow the same patterns: they divide, they
incite, they vilify and eventually, they murder.
In every genocide, people cease to see the humanity of the victims,
and this process of dehumanization always exists both within the
genocidal state and in the external states that fail to act.
Long before the Second World War, dehumanization was present and
evident in Nazi Germany, through the use of yellow stars, through
posters and speeches inciting hate and, perhaps most famously,
through an entirely different set of laws and rules handed down to
the Jewish population. In Rwanda, in the years leading up to 1994,
Tutsi schoolchildren were singled out and called snakes or
cockroaches in front of their fellow classmates while in Cambodia,
"class enemies" were identified by the Pol Pot regime and sent into
camps.
In the states that watched idly as these events were taking place,
the same dehumanization took place, even if it took on different
forms. There is an important lesson for all of us in the fact that
many pets of western diplomats were evacuated from Rwanda, but not
the Tutsis themselves. We must come to terms with the fact that
someone, for some reason, placed a higher value on the life of a
Belgian dog than that of a Tutsi child.
In Canada, media and politicians currently lament the death of every
one of our soldiers with a sense of urgency and feeling that is
genuine and true. Yet, this same urgency is missing when they mention
the destitute human beings–millions of human beings!–in Darfur.
Why?
The problem with genocide is that we do not understand the crime in
its entirety — that while we clearly spot the victims and
perpetrators once the massacres are underway, we do not understand
our role or know how to act. On an individual level, when one sees a
crime on the street, basic human dignity dictates that one should
help, or call the police. Whether it is Canada, Russia or Egypt, the
actions and consequences are clear, and we have a good idea of what
action to take and who to turn to in a time of need.
However, who does one call about Darfur? How do we stop that which
many of us cannot even comprehend?
During the leadup to the genocide in Rwanda, General Romeo Dallaire
famously called on the United Nations.
Unfortunately, both the United Nations and the states it comprises
failed.
During the Holocaust, Jews called on the Allies to bomb the railroad
tracks to Auschwitz.
Here, too, the request was denied.
Trying to stop the atrocities that are underway in Darfur, even the
very cynical U.S. government has called to the international
community for action. They, too, — and we, too, — are failing.
Much more than boots on the ground, much more than politicians,
soldiers, relief workers or donation drives, preventing genocide must
begin with changing how we think.
Long before we get to the terrible point where military action is the
only solution, or where governments are using sanctions to stop
massacres in the "early stages" of a conflict, we must inoculate
ourselves to the idea of genocide, learn
to stop it in its tracks.
For some — like the Turks and Armenians — it means coming to terms
with the past. For some — like Canadians, Americans or Australians
— it means accepting our own place of privilege in the world and
recognizing that we owe our opportunities and lifestyles in part to
the mass extinction of our own Aboriginal people.
Within the genocidal state — such as Rwanda — genocide begins with
hate speech, with national identity cards that divide people by
tribe, physical traits or creed, and with ever-escalating violence
and humiliation of each group.
In societies like our own, it begins with our patterns of thinking,
in our naive, though often well-meaning attitudes that allow
dehumanization to take place.
There is no silver bullet that will rid the world of genocide, just
as there was no single reason for the almost complete disappearance
of slavery, or for the fact that women in Canada are legally equal to
men. In each case, there are multiple reasons, multiple arguments and
multiple strategies, that, over time, created a new and better
reality.
Creating a world without genocide is not an easy calling, but it is
possible.
It is hard to imagine through the tears of Rwanda and the blood of
Darfur, but a world without genocide can and must take shape.
This means not only support for intervention in Darfur, for
reconciliation in Rwanda, economic support for Cambodia, moral
support for Holocaust survivors or sympathy for those who perished in
Armenia during the First World War, it also means support for those
who fight hate speech today, and for all government, UN or civil
society initiatives that stress inclusion and common humanity in
every country around the globe.
A world without genocide needs support for the courts, for justice,
for reconciliation, for painful but necessary dialogue, and for a lot
of self criticism, both as individuals and as collective societies.
Each of us should ask what role we play in the system of genocide and
how we can choose another path. Each one should ask not only how we
can help, but also how we can be helped to understand a terrible evil
that remains beyond the grasp of our very imagination.
Usually at the conclusion of a good editorial, the author offers a
solution or one last metaphor to drive the point home. However, in
the case of genocide, there is no simple solution and no simple
metaphor to call on.
Still, we must think and we must try — we must imagine and, where we
can, we must act. In the end, there are steps that we can take to
prevent, to react and to reconcile, and while these steps are never
easy, we can never lose the sense of what exactly is at stake.
Some 60 years ago, the world said never again. For our own sake and
for the sake of our children and their children, we must never let go
of this statement as a central and unifying goal.
Kris Kotarski is participating in the International Young Leaders
Forum at the Global Conference on the Prevention of Genocide, at
McGill University in Montreal, October 7-13. He is a Master’s
candidate at the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies at the
University of Calgary and a frequent contributor to these pages.