Actions Speak Louder

These past couple of weeks, the world’s focus has centered around the country of Myanmar, what used to be known as Burma. There, peaceful activism had begun and been mainly led by the Buddhist monks in that country. Other than the military, monks are the largest majority group in Myanmar. They are also highly revered as religious leaders and are some of the most respected individuals. The military, however, has taken action against those monks as well as other protestors, shooting and killing many as well as blockading the monasteries so the monks cannot leave.
As most media is pointing out, the demonstrations are beginning to die out. Although many petitions have been started, and other groups are protesting around the world, it still doesn’t help if the military that have control over Myanmar is still blindly following orders from the leaders of that country. As this article points out, the greatest opportunity for change will only come if the younger generations of military officers begin to think for themselves and start to take action against the dictatorship.

What is newsworthy?

The situation in Darfur has received a disappointing and small amount of coverage from news organizations such as CNN, Fox News, and the New York Times in the past weeks, however this weeks' coverage has once again become plentiful with the tragic death of 10 peacekeepers when Darfur rebels attacked their base in Darfur. Although this is a very tragic event, it begs the question of why 10 people had to die for the media to continue it's coverage of a region that has no doubt seen countless deaths from within Darfur recently. The articles mentions peacekeepers that were taken and/or killed in Darfur, and although it is very important to talk about those who gave their lives trying to help, are the lives of those living in fear any less newsworthy?

The role of Distance

Genocide is based on distance. Distance from a particular group of people either physically, emotionally, or psychologically. Distance leads to the creation of the group as a separate entity altogether, as an “other”, different and segregated from one’s own. Psychological and emotional distance creates a sense of the other group being obsolete and this feeling leads to ordinary humans committing inhumane acts. The Germans took the help of cinema as propaganda, to spread the anti-Semitic feeling in their nation and to create a huge gap between Jews and Germans.

The cinemas that were shown inculcated a feeling of total pride of being German and a sense of total commitment and surrender to the third Reich. The cinemas the Reich used portrayed Hitler as god personified, as ruler of the people and capable of only doing good for his people. This played a huge part in the genocide that soon followed, by being one of the main means of providing a ground for conformity. A viewing of such movies, mainly Triumph des Willens, and Der Sieg des Glaubens portrays the group mentality of “Germans for the Germans”. The films show the people serving for their nation as kind, caring “individuals”, incapable of doing anything that will adversely affect their nation. They show Germans fighting some other entity with great courage to rouse a sense of pride, belonging and respect. When these films were shown, especially in Hitler Yuden camps, it is obvious that they created huge emotional barriers and enlarged the distance with the Jews.

Class speaker: Making genocide feel even closer

How richly do you know your history? How far back can you date your ancestors? Lake Forest College senior Martha Mekaelian spoke to our class on Wednesday about hers. I was so enthralled by her vivid knowledge of her family's past in the Armenian genocide.

Martha stated that she doesn't know all of her family's story because of the separation: able bodied men were sent to concentration camps while women and children were forced to walk the deserts in Syria. She also shared that she doesn't know any of her family's history before 1915 because only 1/3 of the Armenian population survived the genocide.

AYF-YOARF is an Armenian youth program that Martha participates in. Their goals are to unite the Armenian youth diaspora and work alongside the Armenian Revolutionary Federation. They hold protests each year, asking for their past to be recognized as a genocide.

She raised an excellent point in class: her history is never taught in American schools. Is a host nation responsible for providing the education of it's cultures? How can we teach all histories? It was evident that this was an issue that bothered her. I also found it very interesting that though Martha was born in the United States, she identifies herself as Armenian. I would call myself American from Polish descent. I found it intriguing that she does not do the same.

The Responsibility to Protect

Adam, I think, might find this particularly interesting.

While I was searching for a good news article to use for my blog post, I came upon this article discussing a document called the Responsibility to Protect Doctrine (R2P). The main theme expressed through this doctrine is that sovereign states and the international community have a responsibility to guard people from mass killing crimes (genocides and it extends to other related mass atrocity crimes as well).

To be honest, reading over this document has made me feel a little bit torn. In general I tend to identify myself as someone that would like the genocides of the world recognized. I also feel, however, that the United States should not have to take complete responsibility for saving other nations that might be in genocidal peril. The idea that we must 'act for the sake of our own humanity' (as is stated in the doctrine) made me feel as though my viewpoint was something to be ashamed of. Needless to say, the whole thing makes me pretty uncomfortable.

The doctrine points the finger at everyone sitting idly by in the face of genocide and labels them as 'inhumane'- essentially, monsters. This approach, while powerful in evoking an emotional response, is hardly the way to go about introducing legislation. All too often the cries and pleas of people calling for a stop to genocidal madness go completely ignored. In what way would simply slapping an official title on this same point of view help bring about future change? It's like putting pretty wrapping paper on a used Ipod and trying to pass it off as a shiny new birthday gift.

Sadly, while the principals of the R2P doctrine are widely accepted and acknowledged, spoken and written words are never translated into actions. (Or if there are actions, they are often meek and not nearly to the effect that is required by the doctrine that was accepted.) To recruit a sovereign nation even halfheartedly into something remotely like R2P, the world needs to put a different spin on the old ideas. (Maybe something less accusing, for a change.)

And those are my two cents.

Where’s The Line?

At what point does warfare killings cross the line from what is necessary to Genocide. Many countries have tried to use the excuse of necessary war tactics to justify mass killings. In the case of the Armenian Genocide , Most Turks say Armenians died during wartime fighting and that the killings were necessary because the Armenians sympathized with and many fought on the side of the enemy. Of course during a war killings will happen, but we must step back and look at the manner in which these people were killed. In under no circumstances is it okay to torture, rape or mass kill people. I believe that self-defense should be the main reason for killing another during battle. A soldier should never kill another person just because of what nationality, race, or gender they are. Moreover, it is the job of the leader to make it clear that it is not the identity of the group to mass kill. In the case of the Armenian Genocide, the Turks can’t be allowed to get away with their cover-up. They are the perfect example that there is a limit to wartime brutalities. Genocidal acts are being repeated today in the Darfur region of Africa. As the number of fatalities rise, the line between right and wrong gets blurred.

Disuse of power

A genocide did indeed occur in the period from 1915 to 1918 in Armenia by the hands of the Ottoman Turks. This is the entire truth and no political issues or circumstantial evidences or any other explanations can change it. All Turkish regimes, from 1915 till present have done so, and the rest of the world has not been able to do anything, but stand by as normal by-standards. Even the UN has not been able to touch this subject with much success. This denial issue has arisen quite recently and more prominently, due to Turkey’s want to enroll as a permanent member of the European Union. The French government, a prominent member of the EU, has passed a law stating that the denial of the Armenian genocide is punishable by law and anyone convicted of this denial can be sentenced to prison. Armenia, on the other hand, has tried to rally countries into registering the events which started from 1915 as “genocidal”.

The United Nations, the prominent figure in international politics and international relations, according to the 1948 genocide convention law, has deemed the massacre a genocide. What I do not get is why there is still dispute over “if a genocide did indeed occur.” To me, this situation makes no sense at all. If a higher authoritative power, with the inclusion of most of the countries of the world, has proved that the event was a genocide then shouldn’t the decision be absolute? Turkey has denied the claims as it cannot afford to call it a genocide. I look upon this as a failure of the UN to enforce its stature in the international community. There is still confusion around even after the UN has given its decision. The French are denying Turkey admission into the EU until they face their past and own up to their deeds. This would not have been the issue if the UN had made a strong statement regarding the judgment of the genocide of 1915. The UN, the organization responsible to stop wars, to stop genocides, has not been able to enforce its own decision. Then, how can it stop any acts of evil?