Thread: Never again!

Never Again Huh????

Really ???

I do believe that there are some serious gaps of historic information here guys..

Genocide Since 1945: Never Again? - SPIEGEL ONLINE

That is just the first link I found, there are many many more

Originally Posted by gssixgun

Never Again Huh????

Really ???

I do believe that there are some serious gaps of historic information here guys..

Genocide Since 1945: Never Again? - SPIEGEL ONLINE

That is just the first link I found, there are many many more

Glen:
I grew up listening to Survivor's stories, and the affected me deeply. When they would say "Never again!" they were referring to the attempted destruction of Jews specifically. I'm not quite clear as to the meaning of your post.

Glen is just pointing out that humanity as a whole has failed to adhere to the decree. Jew's were hardly the first to suffer such abuses either - one such event that is glaringly missing from the minds of most is the Armenian genocide (look it up). That points brings a good book to mind: 'The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East' by Robert Fisk - fantastic read. BTW let me stress im not trying to belittle Jewish suffering at all before someone jumps me.

Originally Posted by mapleleafalumnus

Glen:
I grew up listening to Survivor's stories, and the affected me deeply. When they would say "Never again!" they were referring to the attempted destruction of Jews specifically. I'm not quite clear as to the meaning of your post.

EisenFaust nailed the meaning, probably better than I could have,,, The genocide during WW2 was just one such occurrence, there were many before and they are still going on, we haven't done much to stop them either as "Civilized" countries..

I also agree with your outrage at the idiots painting Swastika's on a Temple, but I believe that your assessment is correct with the "Ignorant Kids" ..

For the OP of the thread, I'm sorry. I know this kind of thing can be difficult and infuriating. But it's my solid belief that the kid responsible is neither a nazi, nor a radical. He's just a bored kid, with less than adequate parental influence. Kids in general tend to be a bit impulsive and destructive. As an example, during my first week as an all grown up college kid, we managed to break every chair in my friends apartment, the dining room table, and the sliding glass door. We clogged the sink, put holes in the walls, broke doors off hinges, and generally wreaked havoc wherever we went. It's in the nature of young people to do a lot of stupid destructive things, for no other reason than there is nobody around to stop them. I wouldn't take this as an affront on anyone in particular. It's just a kid with too much time on his hands, and not enough maturity in his head just yet. Let's just hope he gets confronted with consequences, instead of a finding other youths to nurture his destructiveness.

As far as 'never again' goes .... I grew up in the immediate post war years and took that as a given. Then along came Pol Pot in Cambodia. In more recent years the genocide in Rwanda. Of course Hitler's genocide was mechanized and surpassed any before or since in sheer numbers. I've read that Stalin killed even more but I don't know if that is accurate.

As for the kids today, watch "Pulp Fiction" with its glorifying of violence. Entertainment featuring murder, homosexual sodomy, a scene in which a man is shot accidentally, spattering his brains all over the interior of an automobile, is added for comic relief. They say a society can be judged by its art. I use the phrase loosely. In "Silence Of The Lambs" a serial killer is portrayed as an attractive character. A sequel is made in which he is the featured character and again is portrayed in a heroic manner. Is it any wonder that we have what we have in this country today ?


Written in 1784 by poet Robert Burns;

Man was made to mourn: A Dirge ;

Many and sharp the num'rous ills
Inwoven with our frame!
More pointed still we make ourselves
Regret, remorse, and shame!
And man, whose heav'n-erected face
The smiles of love adorn, -
Man's inhumanity to man
Makes countless thousands mourn!

As with most things in our complex world, there is no one solution to the problem of occasional (and possibly growing?) outbursts of support for this kind of hatred. I don't know whether to blame a lack of understanding of history - and as an historian, I'm a little biased in favour of that viewpoint, the consequence of real or perceived lack of opportunity which is often closely linked to poverty, the manifestation of latent human fears of the 'other', or ignorance and plain old dumbassedness, or some combination of all the above and other factors.

There seems to be at best a bubbling undercurrent of hatred in most if not all modern human societies. And at worst there can be an extraordinarily destructive eruption of violence that results from that hatred. In western society, the Jewish community has of course long been the most horribly victimized. Not only during the 1930s and 1940s, but stretching back millenia. The holocaust stands out because of the sheer scale of the thing, the industrialization of mass murder, and the intent to destroy an entire people. The holocaust was humanity's greatest crime against itself and that should never ever be forgotten. But at the same time its exceptionality should not stop us from discussing other examples of bigotry, hatred, and genocide. And examining other events should never take away from the suffering of all victims of the holocaust which of course included others such as Romani, GBLT persons, and others deemed less than human.

So then, how do we deal with this? I would suggest looking at the root causes. It is not at all difficult to understand how the NSDAP came into power in Germany in 1933. Just read some contemporary newspapers to get a sense of the absolute desperation felt by the German people. Desperate people look to simple solutions, and the NSDAP came along with a simple explanation of why the people were suffering, whom to blame, and a programme laying out what needed to be done to fix the solution. I am much less familiar with other genocidal events (Armenia, former Yugoslavia, Rwanda for starters) and so cannot speak to those situations. But I suspect that one would probably find some combination of desperation, poverty, perception of the 'other' as a cause of suffering, and a simplistic populist 'solution' to the problem amounting to the subjugation and eventual expulsion/extermination of the 'other'.

Education alone cannot fix this. It can certainly help and I would suggest it is the best starting point. While it can help address the fear of the 'other', and allow people to gain a more nuanced understanding of a situation that will make them less susceptible to simplistic populist 'cures' for society's ills, education alone will not address the other root causes. Young people in particular have to see a way forward that does not depend on hatred and blame. They need opportunities, they need hope, they need an opportunity to focus on the positives in this wonderful world, and not to focus on a perceived need to apportion blame.

Hmm... I've just realized I've taken a very macro approach to this, but I think the same arguments still apply to individuals as well as larger groups/societies. Deal with fear of the 'other' through education. Deal with desperation and hopelessness by providing opportunity. I think that would go a long way to nipping this in the bud.

On a side note, for anyone interested in the history of the swastika and its original meaning, check out: Manwoman.net

Through a series of events far too long to relate here, my Dad got to know this artist and to say he's an interesting dude would be a serious understatement. But to make a long story short, one of his missions in life is to restore the swastika to its original (i.e. pre-Nazi) meaning. How's that for an uphill battle?