NO MORE EXCUSES
By Ed Fu, Daily Targum
Daily Targum , Rutgers Univ. NJ
December 5, 2006 Tuesday
When I was learning about the Holocaust in grade school, the underlying
subtext was always that we, as civilized human beings, could never
let such systematic violations of human rights happen again. We look
back and with that historical retrospective smugness ask, "How could
those people have let that happen? How could those people have been
so indifferent to the suffering?" We’ve watched "Schindler’s List,"
toured the Holocaust museum and took college seminars. We’ve learned
the lessons of this singular crime. Never again, we solemnly promise
– never again could such a crime against humanity happen. Not in our
world. We know better.
Or do we really?
It is strange the United States has never intervened to stop
genocide. It’s not as if the 20th century has had a lack of genocides
to intervene in – Armenia, Pol Pot, Bosnia, Rwanda, even Saddam Hussein
and his gassing of the Kurds. We were acutely aware of each of them
yet remained bystanders. At times, we even assisted. In 1988 Jesse
Helms sponsored a bill in the Senate that would have penalized Saddam
by cutting off the generous U.S. aid then being supplied (including
some of the chemical weapons being used). It failed, of course, thanks
to powerful lobbyists and the Ronald Reagan administration. So it is
too late now to save the Kurds, or the 2 million murdered Cambodians,
or the 800,000 Rwandan Tutsi or the 200,000 Bosnian civilians.
But it is not yet too late for another ongoing crime against humanity
– North Korea. In a world where certain basic freedoms are taken for
granted, North Korea is almost alone in its shocking oppression.
Though the country’s constitution contains clauses guaranteeing freedom
of speech and assembly, they are in practice nothing but a laughable
farce. The government dominates the media, to the point where citizens
are only allowed to own government-distributed radios and televisions,
which are hardwired to accept only the official propaganda broadcasts
(including tales of how General Kim’s military genius led to North
Korea defeating the Japanese to end World War II). Severe punishments
are meted out for even trying to open the sealed instruments in an
attempt to allow them to receive broadcasts from other sources. Each
party cell head in every neighborhood and village in the country has
been trained on how to verify that none of the seals has been broken.
Freedom of religion is likewise officially guaranteed and likewise
systematically trampled upon. Entire families (including children)
have been imprisoned in horrifying slave labor camps for a single
family member’s "crime" of practicing Christianity. Owning a Bible
is illegal – the only sanctioned houses of worship in the country
seems to be three Christian churches located in the capital that are
part of the official tour for foreigners, to demonstrate to the rest
of the world the ostensible religious freedoms that North Koreans
"enjoy." Independent reports indicate the sermons delivered, like all
other cultural works of the country, are almost entirely political or
devoted to Kim Jong Il, and most pastors seemed to have no interest
or training in religion at all.
It doesn’t even seem real any more. It doesn’t seem possible for a
country in today’s modern world to practice this kind of 1984-esque
wholesale deception and personality cult. The whole thing is almost
funny in a very dark sort of way.
But North Korea’s human rights record doesn’t end there. We have known
since 1998 that a government-induced famine, still ongoing throughout
the country, was killing at least 800,000 people every year. Escapees
tell heartrending stories of desperately trying to collect handfuls
of fertilizer leaking out of trains in order to sell on the black
market; when that fails, they have no choice but to turn to eating
tree bark to survive. The massive amounts of foreign aid supplied to
North Korea never seems to get to these people. One refugee reports
when UN ships arrive, the military dresses as civilians and comes to
claim everything.
Moreover, vicious prison gulags, similar to those constructed by
Stalin and Mao, routinely use torture, starvation, rape, murder and
forced labor and hold several hundred thousand inmates; many more
have perished over the years. Recent refugees have even told us the
government operates concentration camps, complete with suffocating
gas chambers and sadistic experimentation (including the effects of
poisoned food upon prisoners). And of course, North Korea is developing
nuclear weapons.
We blithely talk of the Holocaust as something that cannot happen in
today’s world because we know better. We smugly say to ourselves that
if something like it happened today, we would undoubtedly intervene
to prevent yet another humanitarian catastrophe. But something like
it does happen today. While it is no longer entirely clear what
differentiates Kim Jong Il’s rule from that of Adolf Hitler’s,
we continue to do little more than impose economic sanctions
and indifferently hold talks with their legendarily irrational
leadership. Do you think those sanctions would have been an adequate
response to the Holocaust? Would future generations think them an
adequate response to Kim Jong Il?
During World War II, Arthur Koestler described the frustrated few
who spoke up against Nazi atrocities as "Screamers." The Screamers
succeeded in reaching listeners for a moment, Koestler wrote, only to
watch them shake themselves "like puppies who have got their fur wet"
and return to the blissful place of ignorance and uninvolvement. "You
can convince them for an hour," Koestler noted, but then "their mental
half-defense begins to work and in a week the shrug of incredulity
has returned."
Surely we cannot give Kim as much reign as we did Hitler. Never once
have we shown that we have learned anything from the horrors of Nazi
Germany. And if we do not act soon, North Korea will become another
opportunity wasted, another crime against humanity left unaddressed,
another Rwanda or Cambodia or Armenia. The ongoing suffering of
millions will be reduced to just another historical statistic. What
will future generations think of this period in American history,
where we calmly stood by ignoring some of the most horrifying acts
against humanity? How many more victims we will allow Kim Jong Il to
claim before we cry out "never again!" – and mean it?