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PROPORTION AND REALITY IN AN AGE OF MASS SLAUGHTER
Patheos
Sept 10 2014
September 10, 2014
by Rebecca Hamilton
I started to use the phrase "age of genocide" in the title for this
post. But, on reflection, I decided that the word genocide, horrible
as it is, is actually too small.
Do we have a word to describe the organized mass slaughters of millions
of people by governments, and in the case of ISIS, wannabe governments?
It is not "just" genocide" because, in the case of some of these
mass slaughterers, such as Stalin, Lenin, Pol Pot and Chairman Mao,
it was not a slaughter aimed at a discreet group of people so much as
it was aimed at anyone they could kill. Then we have the slaughtering
dictators such as Idi Amin, who certainly aimed much of his killing
at Christians, but also killed quite a few others, as well.
In fact, finding a "pure" genocide anywhere is way past difficult. The
Armenian genocide, which wiped out most of the Christian population of
Turkey (did anyone every wonder why that country is 99% Muslim?) and
the holocaust the Nazis perpetrated against the Jews, are the closest.
But the Nazis, even though they clearly stated, intended and nearly
accomplished the total annihilation of the Jewish people in their
conquered territories, also murdered whole seminaries of Catholic
priests, gypsies, homosexuals, Communists, liberals and the disabled.
The murder of Muslims in Bosnia (which United Nations troops,
including a lot of Americans, brought to a halt) is another example
of what might be at least an attempt at pure genocide.
What we are seeing in the Middle East today is, once again, a lot
bigger than "just" genocide. Like most genocidal murderers, ISIS is, at
base, just a bunch of murdering thugs. What that means in terms of what
they do is that they don't stop at "just" murdering every Christian
and Yazidi they can kill. They also kill Muslims who don't fit their
idea of what a "true" Muslim is, and they kill journalists in attempts
to extort ransom money, and they kill a lot of other people, as well.
They kill because they are cold-blooded murderers who have created
a religious excuse for being what they are.
That's why the term genocide is too small for the organized slaughter
of innocents that has been taking place all over our globe since the
turn of the 20th Century. If we limit it to the organized attempts
to wipe out specific and discreet groups of people within a given
population, we will ignore the murderous destruction of millions of
other lives.
That's how Stalin gets through the genocide sieve. He killed everybody.
Genocide as a word has a meaning that is too small for the organized
murdering that we are dealing with in today's world. If that doesn't
scare you, you probably don't understand it.
Alongside this murdering fury that is the true hallmark by which our
times will be remembered in history, are the emotional reactions to
this savagery from its bystanders.
Members of the groups which are being slaughtered are often themselves
under attack or at least somewhat marginalized in the less murderous
societies in which they live. That was the case with Jews around the
world when the Nazis were gearing up their killing machine. Even
American Jews suffered social discrimination in terms of club
memberships and the names they were called.
That leads to a frozen-in-place non-response by those who should be
most equipped to help. Instead of rallying support for their persecuted
brethren, members of the same group often turn away and ignore their
plight. That certainly happened with the Jews.
Then, we have the subtle collaboration of news media and groups
who do not like their own neighbors who are members of groups being
persecuted in other lands. That fits the situation with Christian
persecution. I've experienced myself the aggressive bullying whose
motive is to silence anyone who talks about Christian persecution.
I've also witnessed the relative silence about it in the mainstream
media.
This is coupled with a group emphasis on anyone who does something
that can be used to either weaken concern for persecuted Christians
or to increase public dislike of them.
Witness the extraordinary emphasis given to the Westboro Baptist
Church, which is in fact, just about a dozen (or less) individuals
with signs. You would think, based on what has been written and said
in certain Christian-bashing circles, that they were the pope speaking
ex cathedra.
The same goes for one lone blog post which was written by a grievously
wrong Christian calling for the classic run-up to genocide against
Muslims. I'm going to write a full post on that alone as soon as I
finish writing this one. But before I do that, I want to discuss the
lack of proportion and reality with which it is being dealt.
First, in some Christian-bashing circles, their outraged coverage of
this one blog post from an obscure blog site is the only commentary
they've made about the mass slaughter of Christians in the Middle
East. These are often the same people who attack anyone who tries to
talk about Christian persecution.
I don't take their outrage seriously because I see it as a targeted
outrage, designed to create prejudice against Christians and provide
tacit support for worldwide discrimination against and persecution of
Christians. I see these bloggers as enablers of violent persecution
of innocent people.
Second, we have the reaction of Muslim people who feel beleaguered
because of the hideous behavior of their co-religionists. See? They
seem to say. It's not just us.
No. It's not just them. Psychopathic murderers with government or
quasi government backing are a widespread phenomena that cross all
ethnic, religious (or non religious) groups. In light of this reality,
I think it's time for us to lay down the "It's them!" "It's not just
us!" nonsense and simply acknowledge that murderers walk among us
and they will use any excuse to ply their trade.
And that this the point of this post. Genocide as a word is too small
for the mass murders we have seen for the past 100 years of human
history. There is no group of people innocent of these murdering
rampages.
If we are going to deal with these mass murders effectively and end
them, we must begin by looking at them with a sense of proportion
and in the light of reality. ISIS is nothing more than a gang of
extortionists and mass murderers. They can dress up in Halloween
costumes and claim that god is on their side all day long, and it
will not change the fact that they are cold-blooded, murdering savages
who have damned themselves before the real God.
Ditto for every other gang of murdering savages we've seen. Ted Bundy
we can execute. But when the Ted Bundys of this world get their hands
on philosophies and government, it takes a bit more than a flip of
the switch to end them.
Proportion, applied to ISIS and all their murdering type, requires
that we stop playing games with mass murder. There are some crimes
that have to be stopped, and the organized mass murder of innocents
is one of those crimes. We must not equate everything with this
one thing. Blog posts can be argued and their ideas scuttled. But
blog posts, however upsetting, are not the same thing as the actual
organized murder of innocents on a mass scale.
Reality requires that we acknowledge that there is no group of people
who can point their fingers at someone else and claim moral superiority
in this. Organized mass murder of innocents has become part of the
human story. If the history of this bloodshed has shown us anything,
it is that any group of people is capable of it.
I've referenced the wisdom of Alcoholics Anonymous before when I was
discussing the self-lies we tell. I will probably do it many times. AA
has a wisdom in dealing with self-lies that kill.
You must accept reality on reality's terms.
That's AA advice for recovering alcoholics and co-dependents. It is
wisdom for our time.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/publiccatholic/2014/09/proportion-and-reality-in-an-age-of-mass-slaughter/
From: Baghdasarian
Patheos
Sept 10 2014
September 10, 2014
by Rebecca Hamilton
I started to use the phrase "age of genocide" in the title for this
post. But, on reflection, I decided that the word genocide, horrible
as it is, is actually too small.
Do we have a word to describe the organized mass slaughters of millions
of people by governments, and in the case of ISIS, wannabe governments?
It is not "just" genocide" because, in the case of some of these
mass slaughterers, such as Stalin, Lenin, Pol Pot and Chairman Mao,
it was not a slaughter aimed at a discreet group of people so much as
it was aimed at anyone they could kill. Then we have the slaughtering
dictators such as Idi Amin, who certainly aimed much of his killing
at Christians, but also killed quite a few others, as well.
In fact, finding a "pure" genocide anywhere is way past difficult. The
Armenian genocide, which wiped out most of the Christian population of
Turkey (did anyone every wonder why that country is 99% Muslim?) and
the holocaust the Nazis perpetrated against the Jews, are the closest.
But the Nazis, even though they clearly stated, intended and nearly
accomplished the total annihilation of the Jewish people in their
conquered territories, also murdered whole seminaries of Catholic
priests, gypsies, homosexuals, Communists, liberals and the disabled.
The murder of Muslims in Bosnia (which United Nations troops,
including a lot of Americans, brought to a halt) is another example
of what might be at least an attempt at pure genocide.
What we are seeing in the Middle East today is, once again, a lot
bigger than "just" genocide. Like most genocidal murderers, ISIS is, at
base, just a bunch of murdering thugs. What that means in terms of what
they do is that they don't stop at "just" murdering every Christian
and Yazidi they can kill. They also kill Muslims who don't fit their
idea of what a "true" Muslim is, and they kill journalists in attempts
to extort ransom money, and they kill a lot of other people, as well.
They kill because they are cold-blooded murderers who have created
a religious excuse for being what they are.
That's why the term genocide is too small for the organized slaughter
of innocents that has been taking place all over our globe since the
turn of the 20th Century. If we limit it to the organized attempts
to wipe out specific and discreet groups of people within a given
population, we will ignore the murderous destruction of millions of
other lives.
That's how Stalin gets through the genocide sieve. He killed everybody.
Genocide as a word has a meaning that is too small for the organized
murdering that we are dealing with in today's world. If that doesn't
scare you, you probably don't understand it.
Alongside this murdering fury that is the true hallmark by which our
times will be remembered in history, are the emotional reactions to
this savagery from its bystanders.
Members of the groups which are being slaughtered are often themselves
under attack or at least somewhat marginalized in the less murderous
societies in which they live. That was the case with Jews around the
world when the Nazis were gearing up their killing machine. Even
American Jews suffered social discrimination in terms of club
memberships and the names they were called.
That leads to a frozen-in-place non-response by those who should be
most equipped to help. Instead of rallying support for their persecuted
brethren, members of the same group often turn away and ignore their
plight. That certainly happened with the Jews.
Then, we have the subtle collaboration of news media and groups
who do not like their own neighbors who are members of groups being
persecuted in other lands. That fits the situation with Christian
persecution. I've experienced myself the aggressive bullying whose
motive is to silence anyone who talks about Christian persecution.
I've also witnessed the relative silence about it in the mainstream
media.
This is coupled with a group emphasis on anyone who does something
that can be used to either weaken concern for persecuted Christians
or to increase public dislike of them.
Witness the extraordinary emphasis given to the Westboro Baptist
Church, which is in fact, just about a dozen (or less) individuals
with signs. You would think, based on what has been written and said
in certain Christian-bashing circles, that they were the pope speaking
ex cathedra.
The same goes for one lone blog post which was written by a grievously
wrong Christian calling for the classic run-up to genocide against
Muslims. I'm going to write a full post on that alone as soon as I
finish writing this one. But before I do that, I want to discuss the
lack of proportion and reality with which it is being dealt.
First, in some Christian-bashing circles, their outraged coverage of
this one blog post from an obscure blog site is the only commentary
they've made about the mass slaughter of Christians in the Middle
East. These are often the same people who attack anyone who tries to
talk about Christian persecution.
I don't take their outrage seriously because I see it as a targeted
outrage, designed to create prejudice against Christians and provide
tacit support for worldwide discrimination against and persecution of
Christians. I see these bloggers as enablers of violent persecution
of innocent people.
Second, we have the reaction of Muslim people who feel beleaguered
because of the hideous behavior of their co-religionists. See? They
seem to say. It's not just us.
No. It's not just them. Psychopathic murderers with government or
quasi government backing are a widespread phenomena that cross all
ethnic, religious (or non religious) groups. In light of this reality,
I think it's time for us to lay down the "It's them!" "It's not just
us!" nonsense and simply acknowledge that murderers walk among us
and they will use any excuse to ply their trade.
And that this the point of this post. Genocide as a word is too small
for the mass murders we have seen for the past 100 years of human
history. There is no group of people innocent of these murdering
rampages.
If we are going to deal with these mass murders effectively and end
them, we must begin by looking at them with a sense of proportion
and in the light of reality. ISIS is nothing more than a gang of
extortionists and mass murderers. They can dress up in Halloween
costumes and claim that god is on their side all day long, and it
will not change the fact that they are cold-blooded, murdering savages
who have damned themselves before the real God.
Ditto for every other gang of murdering savages we've seen. Ted Bundy
we can execute. But when the Ted Bundys of this world get their hands
on philosophies and government, it takes a bit more than a flip of
the switch to end them.
Proportion, applied to ISIS and all their murdering type, requires
that we stop playing games with mass murder. There are some crimes
that have to be stopped, and the organized mass murder of innocents
is one of those crimes. We must not equate everything with this
one thing. Blog posts can be argued and their ideas scuttled. But
blog posts, however upsetting, are not the same thing as the actual
organized murder of innocents on a mass scale.
Reality requires that we acknowledge that there is no group of people
who can point their fingers at someone else and claim moral superiority
in this. Organized mass murder of innocents has become part of the
human story. If the history of this bloodshed has shown us anything,
it is that any group of people is capable of it.
I've referenced the wisdom of Alcoholics Anonymous before when I was
discussing the self-lies we tell. I will probably do it many times. AA
has a wisdom in dealing with self-lies that kill.
You must accept reality on reality's terms.
That's AA advice for recovering alcoholics and co-dependents. It is
wisdom for our time.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/publiccatholic/2014/09/proportion-and-reality-in-an-age-of-mass-slaughter/
From: Baghdasarian