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The Conversation, Australia
Jan 27 2012
Remembrance is the most powerful weapon against genocide
It's hard to imagine that a whole race of people can be forgotten. But
if no one chooses to remember them, genocide can mean just that,
leaving a large hole in our history and dooming future minorities to
be treated in the same way.
Before the invasion of Poland, Hitler is quoted as saying, `Who still
talks nowadays about the Armenians?' He was referring to the
annihilation of over one million Christian Armenians by the Ottoman
Government in Turkey in the early 20th century.
It is a solemn lesson that the failure to account for atrocity
inflicted on a people, let alone remember it, is harmful to more than
the affected communities. It is a message to future dictators and
tyrants that they may be free to do the same.
It is perhaps one reason why Hitler felt unconstrained in subjecting
the Jews and Gypsies of Europe to one of the darkest episodes in
modern history.
Holocaust Remembrance Day, on 27 January, marks the anniversary of the
liberation of the Auschwitz death camp. It serves to remind us of the
horrors that were inflicted by Nazi Germany, but its meaning is deeper
and broader still.
The Holocaust shocked the world and contributed significantly to the
development of complex, if not always - or often - respected systems
of international human rights and criminal justice.
Reference to the term genocide first appeared in the work of the
scholar, Raphael Lemkin, in 1944. It so succinctly and comprehensively
described the concept of the physical or biological destruction of
entire human groups that by the end of that decade it was the subject
of an international treaty expressing universal condemnation of any
state or person engaging in its practice.
The Holocaust was not the first atrocity we would now describe as
genocide; such crimes are really as old as humanity itself. Even in
modern history predating the Second World War, many episodes of mass
violence against human groups come to mind: Armenia, the extermination
of the Tasmanian Aborigines, the forced removal and extermination of
American Indians, the German extermination of the Herero in Namibia to
name but a few.
Neither was the Holocaust the last such atrocity. Despite the fierce
commitment of the international community following the Second World
War to develop international human rights and to seek to maintain -
under the umbrella of the United Nations - an international peace and
security, such mass atrocity has been occurring with disturbing
regularity.
The killing fields of Cambodia, the inter-ethnic wars in the former
Yugoslavia, the genocides in Rwanda and Darfur, are mere examples of
why remembering and taking action against such atrocities remain so
important.
Marking the Holocaust with a formal remembrance day has not been
without controversy. When it was introduced in the United Kingdom a
decade ago, it was criticised as focusing too much on one event as
reflecting the sum of such inhumanity. Why not mark the Armenian or
Rwandan genocides, or other atrocities and mass abuse?
It is true that there is a danger in singling out the Holocaust for
remembrance when so many other atrocities, genocides, mark the
landscape of modern history and the present. Rather, Holocaust
Remembrance Day should stand as a symbol of all such atrocities.
This is in fact what the United Nations General Assembly had in mind
when it adopted its resolution that all manifestations of religious
intolerance, incitement, harassment or violence against persons or
communities based on ethnic origin or religious belief, whenever they
occur, should be condemned `without reserve'. The Assembly called for
a remembrance of past crimes with an eye towards preventing them in
the future.
This is the key to such commemorative activities. Of course, they
should serve as remembrance for what has passed - we must never
forget. They should also serve to raise consciousness, to inform
policy and legal developments that can contribute to fighting the
impunity with which such horrific crimes are still committed.
In this way, Holocaust Remembrance Day belongs to the victims of the
Holocaust and to all victims of atrocity.
http://theconversation.edu.au/remembrance-is-the-most-powerful-weapon-against-genocide-5049
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
Jan 27 2012
Remembrance is the most powerful weapon against genocide
It's hard to imagine that a whole race of people can be forgotten. But
if no one chooses to remember them, genocide can mean just that,
leaving a large hole in our history and dooming future minorities to
be treated in the same way.
Before the invasion of Poland, Hitler is quoted as saying, `Who still
talks nowadays about the Armenians?' He was referring to the
annihilation of over one million Christian Armenians by the Ottoman
Government in Turkey in the early 20th century.
It is a solemn lesson that the failure to account for atrocity
inflicted on a people, let alone remember it, is harmful to more than
the affected communities. It is a message to future dictators and
tyrants that they may be free to do the same.
It is perhaps one reason why Hitler felt unconstrained in subjecting
the Jews and Gypsies of Europe to one of the darkest episodes in
modern history.
Holocaust Remembrance Day, on 27 January, marks the anniversary of the
liberation of the Auschwitz death camp. It serves to remind us of the
horrors that were inflicted by Nazi Germany, but its meaning is deeper
and broader still.
The Holocaust shocked the world and contributed significantly to the
development of complex, if not always - or often - respected systems
of international human rights and criminal justice.
Reference to the term genocide first appeared in the work of the
scholar, Raphael Lemkin, in 1944. It so succinctly and comprehensively
described the concept of the physical or biological destruction of
entire human groups that by the end of that decade it was the subject
of an international treaty expressing universal condemnation of any
state or person engaging in its practice.
The Holocaust was not the first atrocity we would now describe as
genocide; such crimes are really as old as humanity itself. Even in
modern history predating the Second World War, many episodes of mass
violence against human groups come to mind: Armenia, the extermination
of the Tasmanian Aborigines, the forced removal and extermination of
American Indians, the German extermination of the Herero in Namibia to
name but a few.
Neither was the Holocaust the last such atrocity. Despite the fierce
commitment of the international community following the Second World
War to develop international human rights and to seek to maintain -
under the umbrella of the United Nations - an international peace and
security, such mass atrocity has been occurring with disturbing
regularity.
The killing fields of Cambodia, the inter-ethnic wars in the former
Yugoslavia, the genocides in Rwanda and Darfur, are mere examples of
why remembering and taking action against such atrocities remain so
important.
Marking the Holocaust with a formal remembrance day has not been
without controversy. When it was introduced in the United Kingdom a
decade ago, it was criticised as focusing too much on one event as
reflecting the sum of such inhumanity. Why not mark the Armenian or
Rwandan genocides, or other atrocities and mass abuse?
It is true that there is a danger in singling out the Holocaust for
remembrance when so many other atrocities, genocides, mark the
landscape of modern history and the present. Rather, Holocaust
Remembrance Day should stand as a symbol of all such atrocities.
This is in fact what the United Nations General Assembly had in mind
when it adopted its resolution that all manifestations of religious
intolerance, incitement, harassment or violence against persons or
communities based on ethnic origin or religious belief, whenever they
occur, should be condemned `without reserve'. The Assembly called for
a remembrance of past crimes with an eye towards preventing them in
the future.
This is the key to such commemorative activities. Of course, they
should serve as remembrance for what has passed - we must never
forget. They should also serve to raise consciousness, to inform
policy and legal developments that can contribute to fighting the
impunity with which such horrific crimes are still committed.
In this way, Holocaust Remembrance Day belongs to the victims of the
Holocaust and to all victims of atrocity.
http://theconversation.edu.au/remembrance-is-the-most-powerful-weapon-against-genocide-5049
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress