Never Again!!! Never Forget!!! Oh, Never Mind

     This year Holocaust commemoration events flood the calendar. So, you talk about what happened before the victims were freed and during their confinement and the indifference of the people who should have cared and not about the difficult approaches necessary to accomplish their freedom nor really what you’ve got to do to prevent its recurrence in a universal sense in the future.

     Probably the most refreshing recognition was at the United Nations session. Was it a positive approach to teach so that people will learn what happened and not actually why it happened and why hate-driven humans were stand-ins acting in the stead of the most vicious animals in the forest? Our moral sensibilities are now supposed to intervene and endow purity on all people. We remembered—we didn’t forget—we didn’t do anything to prevent it from happening again.

     Now we are coerced by an undefined formula that all good people will be good…All bad people will be good…unless, of course, you live where the understanding of the slogans does not exist.

     The tsunami is a forceful example of one form of action which does not involve the directions or the actions of a human being—we can easily then afford to help and support those devastated since mother nature spanked us while very carefully ignoring the same result of human devastation which was not created by human power…as going to help Indonesia while ignoring genocide in Sudan or even, in our country, where nature caused the excessive water damage in California and western state areas. The help which is presented becomes the indicia or some sort of universal compassion for our fellow man. It lasts as long as the media have not gone on to something else—like steroids in baseball.

     I had just seen a movie called Hotel Rwanda—not necessarily a class A or even a C movie. But, I was struck by one very small segment which lacked sloganeering—really a wee bit of dialogue between a United Nations protector who, in line with universal concern and protection, is being ordered out, leaving the refugees open, helpless and unprotected. Devastating as it is, a freedom to massacre and murder is accomplished in the midst of well-rehearsed speeches.

     Of course, this happened and was present during the 60-year period we now commemorate, as it happened in Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Cambodia, Iraq, Syria, and a number of other areas which had European economic interest so—what else—use diplomacy until you can corral your investments—an appeasement to negotiated insanity.

     But, since we claim to have dibs on the word “holocaust” and its slogans, we have to use words like genocide, racial profiling, ethnic cleansing, etc.

     So, here goes the language, which I took from a movie review, spoken to a Rwandan hotel manager by the UN Protector who was ordered to evacuate, leaving Rwanda open and naked to extinction:

“You’re dirt, we think you’re dirt. The West, all the super powers, they think you are dirt. They think you are dumb…You are worthless…You’re black…You’re not even a nigger, you’re African.”

     How simple amorality can be used as a simple defense by degrading the victim.

• Do you overcome it with education, and whom do you educate, the victim or the tormentor?

• Do you negotiate from strength or weakness, and how do you accomplish anything if you only have just one or the other?

• Do you turn the other cheek, or do you blow the hell out of the tormentor?

    Unfortunately, most assume a position from which you can never get them to vary, and this is especially so when they have a classy slogan to back them up.

    They create their own moral imperative. Thus the same solution must apply in all cases…if you’re a negotiator, you negotiate while the beheading continues…if you take no prisoners, you push forward no matter what the result may be.

    The ultimate resolution is, Hell, you have a slogan to help you remember that the victims are really dead. Your slogan will foster impressive commemorative annual events in the community, the nation or wherever, or the insipid bleating of “Never Again” or Never Forget” or ultimately, the well spoken apathetic who makes sure to be appointed and return to the committee preparing for next year’s vacuous commemoration event.

    Really, it is very strange how strange can be strange.