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January 9, 2010
1. Goldhagen Examines the Roots of Mass Murder in the 20th Century
2. Voice of the Ecumenical Orthodox Patriarch Was Finally Heard Worldwide
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1. Goldhagen Examines the Roots of Mass Murder in the 20th Century
*By Daphne Abeel
Special to the Mirror-Spectator*
Daniel Goldhagen’s, a former professor of political science at Harvard
University, made an impact with his earlier book, Hitler’s Willing
Executioners, published in 1996. In it, Goldhagen argued that it was not
only the Nazi elite, the SS, the Einsatzgruppen which performed the killing
of millions of Jews, now known as the Holocaust. It was also the ordinary
German citizen who willingly participated in the attempt to eradicate Jews
in Germany, he says.
His new book, Worse than War, begins with a sentence that will shock many
Americans. He asserts President Harry Truman was a mass murderer by reason
of his decision to drop two atomic bombs on Japan. He does not argue that
Truman was a monster such as Hitler or Stalin, and he does not claim that
the atomic bombings constituted genocide – that is, a concerted effort to
eliminate a particular ethnic or religious group. Truman, presumably, would
have dropped the bomb on any nation with which we were at war. It happened
to be the Japanese who had attacked the US at Pearl Harbor.
However, he uses these bombings to launch a lengthy and detailed discussion
of the 20th century’s mass killings. He uses the word `eliminationism’
interchangeably with genocide and mass murder to describe these efforts,
which commence with the Germans’ attempts to extinguish the Herero tribe
in
South Africa in the early part of the last century. He proceeds with
discussion of the Armenian Genocide, the German Holocaust, the Hutu-Tutsi
conflict in Rwanda and the Serbs’ killings of the Bosnians in the former
Yugoslavia and probes the reasons why certain groups are willing to engage
in mass murder or eliminationism.
Goldhagen posits that it is the formation of states or national entities
that makes eliminationism possible. Leaders such as Hitler, Stalin and those
in the Ottoman Empire were able to marshal forces to work their will against
populations that were deemed a threat to the state, when certain conditions
exist. As he points out in his narrative, this was certainly true in the
case of the Turks’ massacre of the Armenians.
At nearly 600 pages (excluding the notes and acknowledgments) this is
something of a daunting read, and one looks in vain for something truly new
on the subject. At times, Goldhagen’s statements and arguments are muddled
by his underlying agenda, which is to demonstrate that all societies and the
human beings that populate them are capable of horrendous acts of mass
killing. Also, he is prone to making opaque pronouncements that are
difficult to decipher, for example, at the end of his chapter titled `Actual
Minds, Actual Worlds,’ he states, `Actual minds create actual worlds.’ Since
the word `actual’ has not been defined, the reader is left wondering what he
means.
In his first chapter, he posits five different elements regarding the act of
eliminationism, or `the desire to eliminate groups.’ They include:
`transformation,’ which involves `the destruction of a group’s essential and
defining political, social or cultural identities, in order to neuter its
members’ alleged noxious qualities;’ `repression,’ which entails
`keeping
the hated, deprecated, or feared people within territorial reach and
reducing, with violent domination, their ability to inflict real or imagined
harm upon others;’ `prevention of reproduction,’ which involves seeking `to
diminish numbers by interrupting normal biological reproduction.’ In this
last instance, widespread rape is a common tool for accomplishing this goal.
Fifth, in Goldhagen’s list is `extermination.’ He notes, `Radical as it is,
killing often logically follows beliefs deeming others to be a great, even
mortal threat. It promises not an interim, not a piecemeal, not only a
`probable,’ but a `final solution,’ giving this infamous euphemism
worldwide
currency, was the Germans’ mass murder of the Jews.’
Goldhagen points out that mass murders are usually initiated in a political
context and are perpetrated by the leadership, which deliberately awakens
hatreds and resentments in the populace at large. Hitler’s depiction of the
Jews as polluters of and parasites on the German state, according to
Goldhagen (and he lays out this argument in detail in Hitler’s Willing
Executioners) merely awakened long-simmering suspicion and hatred of the
Jews that had been extant in Germany for decades. Bosnians and Serbs lived
side by side as neighbors, friends and even intermarried until Dictator
Marshal Josip Tito’s communist regime, which kept a lid on seething,
subterranean conflicts, died. Immediately old ethnic and religious hatreds
emerged, expressing themselves egregiously in the murder of many Bosnian
Muslims by Catholic Serbs.
Goldhagen reviews the many heinous acts of various populations, notably the
hacking to death of hundreds of thousands of Tutsi by the rival tribe, Hutu,
the many rapes by Serbs of Bosnian women, the death marches and killings
carried out by the Turks against the Armenians, and, of course, the
annihilation of six million Jews in the course of World War II.
Perhaps most useful, although not exactly newsworthy, is Goldhagen’s focus
on the inaction and passivity of the international community in these
horrendous events. The United States, he argues, fought World War II
primarily to counter Hitler’s `lebensraum’ ambitions. The killing of
the
Jews concerned the American community very little. The Jewish community,
more successfully than any other, has been able to commemorate and bring to
light their tragedy through the publication of many books by those who lived
through the Nazi era and also films, such as `Schindler’s List,’ which have
received wide distribution.
And one cannot argue with Goldhagen when he says, `They [facts of mass
murder] should be at the center of security discussions in the United
Nations and in other international and domestic forums concerned with
security, the international order and justice. That they are not shows how
skewed are our depiction of the last century and the one just begun.’
Much of this book, no matter that many of the facts are known and have been
published in news accounts and other books, is painful reading. The oral
testimony of a woman in Darfur who has been raped and sexually mutilated is
particularly horrifying.
Goldhagen also points out that many domestic acts of mass murder, for
example in the Republic of Congo and in Darfur, Sudan, two places where such
killings are currently taking place, barely register on the radar screen of
the world community. Without some compelling factor of self-interest, oil,
or the taking of land, other countries are content to stand by and watch.
In his final section of the book, `Prologue to the Future,’ Goldhagen points
to political Islam as `today’s most dangerous eliminationist political
movement. It has eliminationist civilization’s hallmark features –
tyrannical regimes, eliminationist-oriented leaders, transformative
eschatological visions, populaces brimming with eliminationist beliefs and
passions, a sense of impunity, and eliminationism at the center of its
normal political repertoire and existing practice.’
Goldhagen calls upon the leaders of the world, and in particular, the
president of the United States, to articulate a moral vision that would put
an end to mass murders.
He concludes, `A serious international prevention, intervention, and
punishment regime to stop mass murderous and eliminationist states and
leaders from warring on their peoples and humanity and a devoted
international push for democratizing more countries to remove the
institutional and political and cultural basis for political leaders to even
see eliminationist policies as an option, are the basis for a more secure,
more global structure that would greatly end eliminationist politics’ mass
violence and vast destructiveness.’
One can approve Goldhagen’s pointing out the dereliction of attention on
the
part of the international community to mass murders throughout the past
century. And who could argue with his call for the international community
to cooperate to end these cruel and immoral acts?
Yet, there is something annoying about this volume – for one thing, its
length, which involves a certain repetitiveness. More troubling is
Goldhagen’s inability to clearly define his terms. `Eliminationist,’
which
may be a word he has coined, is used interchangeably with mass murder and
genocide and yet he presents the concept as though it were something new.
And there are other instances of both muddled reasoning and lack of
precision.
For a general review of the past centuries’ horrors, particularly for those
not familiar with them, this is a useful work. More informed readers will be
bemused if not irritated by a certain lack of clarity and verbosity in the
presentation.
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2. Voice of the Ecumenical Orthodox Patriarch Was Finally Heard Worldwide
*By Hagop Vartivarian*
Life in the patriarchate of the supreme heads of the Orthodox Church in
Istanbul was never easy during the past few decades, especially with the
closing of the Halki Seminary in Heybeliada in 1971.
The ecumenical Greek patriarch is the leader of the world’s 300 million
Orthodox, who live in Greece, the Balkan countries and Russia.
After the Roman Catholic Church, the Orthodox Church is the most
influential, and presently, although its patriarch lives abased in his
shell, under the thumb of the Republic of Turkey, he still remains rich with
the church’s past glory going back 1,700 years.
Coverage by American media of the minorities living in Turkey – the
Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians/Syriacs, Kurds, Alevis, etc. – had
traditionally been quite skimpy. However, for the past year or so, as a
consequence of Turkey’s foreign policy, whereby a chill has already become
palpable in relations with Israel, oddly enough, the press and television
stations in the US have widely expanded their coverage of these minorities,
in an attempt to convey a message to this country’s erstwhile and longtime
ally.
Then, the well-known journalist Bob Simon had a rather frank
interview/meeting with the ecumenical patriarch Bartholomew at the
patriarchate, which was broadcast on `60 Minutes’ by CBS, America’s
most-watched television network, last Sunday [December 19]. The viewers of
the program and, subsequently, those who read about the interview in the
papers, were veritably stunned by the patriarch’s forthright answers.
The stipulation in the Treaty of Lausanne, whereby the clergyman ascending
to the patriarchal throne had to be a Turkish citizen, already prevented the
expansion of the ecumenical patriarchate and its remaining open to the
orthodox world. Today, barely 4,000 Greeks live in the Republic of Turkey,
whereas their number was two million at the beginning of the past century.
In 1923, more than 1.5 million of them were deported, and the government
automatically threw another 150,000 Greeks out of the country, as a result
of the savage attacks and plunder committed by the anti-Christian Muslim mob
in Istanbul [September 6, 1955].
In his interview, Patriarch Bartholomew had the temerity to state that the
Greeks, like the other minorities, are considered second-class citizens in
the Republic of Turkey – a territory, in which these minorities were the
rulers of Asia Minor. Furthermore, in response to the question regarding the
number of Greeks today and why they don’t leave and go to Greece, the
patriarch said, `We love our country, we were born here and we shall die
here. We have lived and worked for 17 centuries, from here to the mountains
of Cappadocia, which till now give evidence of their past glory when Rome
was still ruled by Caesars.’ The patriarch was correct: Ataturk and his
successors tried to systematically reduce to nothing an entire Christian
civilization of the Greeks, Armenians, Assyrians/Syriacs and Chaldeans over
the past century.
Asia Minor is considered the continuation of Jerusalem, because while
Christianity was born in the Holy City, nevertheless during those initial
difficult days it spread in Asia Minor, where the first Christian people
were baptized in Armenia=85and thus Constantinople followed us when the
Orthodox Church was founded. It should also be noted that the Byzantine
Empire was politically the greatest power of that era.
Patriarch Bartholomew showed the sad state of the aforementioned seminary
and explained why the library and museum was in peril.
Now that the Russian Orthodox Church, which had been reduced to obscurity
after the October Revolution, is living its new golden age ever since the
fall of the Soviet Union, when new churches are being built in all the
villages of Russia and hundreds of youths are devoting themselves to service
in the church, it will surely be of assistance to the Ecumenical
Patriarchate, sooner or later, through political intervention on the part of
Russia.
Immediately following this interview, Turkey’s foreign minister, Ahmed
Davoutoglu, announced that crucifixion had never taken place on the
territory of Turkey. He forgot the dates of 1657 and 1821, when two
ecumenical patriarchs were hanged in front of the main entrance to the
patriarchate. Furthermore, he forgot the Adana massacres that occurred a
century ago, as well as the Armenian Genocide, which is considered the
greatest crucifixion of the Christian church. He also forgot 1923, when
Armenians and Greeks were dumped into the sea in broad daylight=85.
Although the ecumenical patriarch was able to make his voice heard, that
happened due to the freeze in the relations between Turkey and Israel. How
long will Europe and America, the Christian world as a whole, be able to
continue to maintain their silence? When will the time come, for them to be
able to defend the human rights of Turkey’s minorities?
Nevertheless, last weekend, hundreds of thousands of Americans became
informed about the injustices committed against Christians in Turkey,
America’s ally. For that, Bob Simon deserves our thanks.
(The original text of this article, translated here by Aris G. Sevag, was
published in the December 24, 2009 issue of Zartonk, the December 29, 2009
issue of Azg daily, and the December 31, 2009 issue of Nor Gyank weekly.)