Erin Conroy
(June 8, 2006) Ha'aretz:
Prof. Israel Charny, director of the Institute on the Holocaust & Genocide: "History proves that among all the nations, there has not been a society that was incapable of the mass murder of unarmed innocents."
"The study of the Holocaust is not only learning about being the victims, but also about knowing that this potential exists in us, too."
"I think that 10,000 is genocide," said Charny. "If that's not genocide, what is?"
Paul Cantrell
@nosmaharba @chargrille
If I’ve learned one thing listening to the vitriolic, condescending fringe of the most militant atheists, it’s that atheists are absolutely capable of being fundamentalists. (I speak as someone with a “‘god’ is purely a metaphor” worldview most people would consider atheist.) Fundamentalism isn’t about religion; it’s about certitude, the belief that there is an absolute truth one one possess it. And anyone in that mindset can commit an atrocity.
abracadabra holmes
@chargrille I'm tempted to say 'maybe not atheists' but then I remember 50% of theists don't really believe any of their myths
Erin Conroy
"Oron says that what will determine whether there will be genocide in the future is neither the murderers nor the victims, "but rather the third party" - the majority of human society.
It is the third party that enables genocide, because the murderers understand that the rest of the world will stand idly by."
Erin Conroy
"Those of us who wanted an awareness of genocide of other peoples were often treated as rebellious & non-conformist," said Charny"
Oron says that genocide researchers claim that denial "is the final and 'ultimate' stage in 'successful genocide.'" In other words, the murderers will always want to deny the crime or at least its dimensions, to downplay its importance & terribleness and to lay the blame on the victims, all in order to deflect blame from themselves."
Erin Conroy
"Charny says that the Truman Institute at Hebrew University was founded in the 1970s to research the subject of genocide, but very quickly changed its goals. Throughout the world there are a number of university departments that grant degrees in the Holocaust & genocide. In Israel there are Holocaust studies, but the Open University is the only one that specializes in genocide studies. Charny says that initiatives to teach genocide at other institutes were quashed."
Erin Conroy
"In 1996-2004 the study's questionnaire was distributed among some 500 students in an elective course on genocide - students who had expressed an interest in this subject. The results were similar. Some 85-90% of the students said they knew nothing or very little about both the gypsy genocide & the Armenian genocide.
Also noteworthy is that the Education Ministry did not approve a curriculum on genocide that Oron prepared in 1994."
Erin Conroy
"Prof. Yair Oron...heads the staff of lecturers in the Open University's genocide course"
"What do Israelis know about acts of genocide? Oron writes about a study conducted among 800 Israeli students by researchers Eyal Naveh & Esther Yogev in 1996. The students were asked to assess their knowledge of the gypsy genocide, the murder of the gypsies by the Nazis... Some 85% answered that they had minimal or no knowledge at all. Only 1% (fewer than 10 students) said they knew the subject well."
Erin Conroy
"Prof. Rudolph Rummel of the University of Hawaii...estimates that a total of 174 million people were murdered in the 20th century in some 8,200 incidents of massacre & genocide."
Rummel "called regimes that murdered more than a million people "super-murderers." Fifteen such regimes murdered 151 million people in the 20th century."
"Man is a murderer by nature, to the point of genocide," said Charny. Otherwise, he asks, "Why would millions take pleasure in every instance of genocide?"
Esther Payne :bisexual_flag:
@chargrille We found this travelling in Turkey, when France pushed for recognition of the Armenian Genocide, the general populis even now deny it was a genocide. The locals felt the French were stirring up the Armenians.
This has geopolitical ramifications right now in Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Paul Cantrell
@nosmaharba @chargrille
Yeah, our human brains really crave answers, crave certainty, and we’re fighting biology when we choose to stay humble about the limits of our knowledge.
A good antidote to what you describe is to hang out around some anti-fundamentalist religious people, for whom religion is community and meditation and call to act for justice. Turns out they’re at least as numerous — just a whole hell of a lot less loud.
abracadabra holmes
@inthehands @chargrille no doubt. I fall into that category too often of late. Some days I'd happily kick every believer into a volcano...other days I figure needing only to kick around a hundred or so
Paul Cantrell
@nosmaharba @chargrille
Have a non-religious upbringing myself, meeting people like that smashed a lot of stereotypes I didn’t realize I was holding.
Paul Cantrell
@nosmaharba @chargrille
I don’t think it’s just lack of better alternatives. This whole family of spiritually-scaffolded structures is astonishingly and •uniquely• effective for community-building for a whole lot of people. And it’s not just that these Poor Benighted People don’t know better; it’s a structure that truly works. Again, as somebody for whom this is not the case, it took me an embarrassingly long time to see this.
abracadabra holmes
@inthehands @chargrille that's the rub. Churches are filled with good people that don't have many outside options for community relations and the gratification of belonging to a charitable co-op.
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