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MIDLANDS VOICES: GENOCIDE AND NARROW NATIONALISM
Omaha.com, Nebraska
March 18 2015
There is a responsibility to protect. The rules are clear.
By David Forsythe The Omaha World-Herald
The writer is a political science professor emeritus at the University
of Nebraska-Lincoln.
This year is the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide, the
first widely recognized genocide of the 20th century. Unhappily,
it was not the last. Genocides followed in Nazi Europe, Bangladesh,
Cambodia, Rwanda, the Balkans, Sudan and elsewhere. Pogroms -- small
genocides -- took place in Russia and the Soviet Union.
We kept saying "never again" -- again and again.
A conference beginning Thursday at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln
(Crossing the Centennial: The Historiography of the Armenian Genocide
Re-Evaluated) will examine under-researched aspects of the genocide,
such as its influence on modern humanitarianism and its similarities
to other genocides of the past century.
In 1915, many Americans knew about the killing of Armenians living in
the Ottoman Empire. The death total eventually was about 1.5 million.
American Red Cross leaders and Henry Morgenthau Sr., then the U.S.
ambassador in Istanbul, tried to respond to the atrocities occurring
at the hands of the "Young Turk" regime. Yet the Woodrow Wilson
administration and Congress were not moved to intervene. The United
States, carefully watching the First World War and not used to
being actively involved in world affairs on a daily basis, turned a
blind eye.
Turkish authorities continue to contest the use of the term "genocide"
to describe what happened to the Armenians. We should not get
distracted by legalistic hair-splitting. The Ottoman authorities
adopted policies that killed more than a million civilians, mainly
women, children and the aged. Does it matter to the victims if we
call it a massive war crime, a crime against humanity, mass murder
or an atrocity? It does not.
America moved on from isolationism, although it took the Second World
War to put the final nail in that coffin. Even now, after long and
disappointing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the country supports
airstrikes against the Islamic State and other violent movements in
places like Yemen and Somalia. It is negotiating a new trade agreement
concerning the Pacific basin.
Some libertarians flirt with renewed isolationism in quest of a
smaller, cheaper federal government, but that view will not prevail
in a globalized, interdependent world.
Yet 15 years into the 21st century, some things have not changed.
Chief among these is a narrow nationalism or parochial patriotism. We
are roused to action when the Islamic State kills a few Americans. We
are not so moved when it slaughters Syrians, Iraqis or Kurds. We
watched the Rwandan genocide unfold on our TV screens in 1994. But we
were not moved to action because we had just lost American military
lives in Somalia in the "Black Hawk Down" incident in Mogadishu. It
was clear in Rwanda we did not want to sacrifice for "others." Narrow
nationalism trumped international solidarity.
The actor George Clooney reminds us of atrocities in the Darfur region
of Sudan, including systematic rape as a weapon of terror and control.
We are not moved to decisive action because we see little self-interest
in doing so. It is "others" being harmed, not us.
We have a shaky economy at home, not to mention a long list of other
domestic problems. The time of American dominance of the world has
passed, if it ever existed. America cannot police the world, certainly
not with American boots on the ground. Iraq has given that kind of
intervention a bad odor.
Governments know what should be done to prevent future atrocities,
but they lack the political will to do it on a systematic basis. In
2005, at a United Nations summit, all states agreed that claims to
state sovereignty are not a license to commit or allow atrocities. If
a state is unwilling or unable to prevent genocide, crimes against
humanity or major war crimes, other states have the duty to act. There
is a responsibility to protect. The rules are clear.
The U.N. Security Council recently authorized cross-border humanitarian
relief into Syria regardless of what the Bashar Assad regime might
say. The council also authorized a U.N. combat force to stop attacks
on civilians in the eastern Democratic Congo. Americans recently
intervened in northern Iraq to save certain Yezidis threatened by
the Islamic State. The French have taken the lead in heading off more
atrocities in places like Mali and the Central African Republic. There
has been some progressive change since 1915, both in legal theory
and practice.
It will not be easy to turn these encouraging examples into systematic
protection of fundamental human rights. Narrow nationalism remains
strong in the hard cases like Darfur, where China supports a terrible
government and the Obama administration is preoccupied with lots of
other issues, like Vladimir Putin in Ukraine and Benjamin Netanyahu
on Iran.
But that is the long-term challenge. To ensure no more genocides as
in 1915, we have to shrink the gap between narrow nationalism and
the universal human rights we so loudly and proudly proclaim.
http://www.omaha.com/opinion/midlands-voices-genocide-and-narrow-nationalism/article_d9f27966-f9cf-5ae0-9afb-52c46d340f0f.html
Omaha.com, Nebraska
March 18 2015
There is a responsibility to protect. The rules are clear.
By David Forsythe The Omaha World-Herald
The writer is a political science professor emeritus at the University
of Nebraska-Lincoln.
This year is the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide, the
first widely recognized genocide of the 20th century. Unhappily,
it was not the last. Genocides followed in Nazi Europe, Bangladesh,
Cambodia, Rwanda, the Balkans, Sudan and elsewhere. Pogroms -- small
genocides -- took place in Russia and the Soviet Union.
We kept saying "never again" -- again and again.
A conference beginning Thursday at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln
(Crossing the Centennial: The Historiography of the Armenian Genocide
Re-Evaluated) will examine under-researched aspects of the genocide,
such as its influence on modern humanitarianism and its similarities
to other genocides of the past century.
In 1915, many Americans knew about the killing of Armenians living in
the Ottoman Empire. The death total eventually was about 1.5 million.
American Red Cross leaders and Henry Morgenthau Sr., then the U.S.
ambassador in Istanbul, tried to respond to the atrocities occurring
at the hands of the "Young Turk" regime. Yet the Woodrow Wilson
administration and Congress were not moved to intervene. The United
States, carefully watching the First World War and not used to
being actively involved in world affairs on a daily basis, turned a
blind eye.
Turkish authorities continue to contest the use of the term "genocide"
to describe what happened to the Armenians. We should not get
distracted by legalistic hair-splitting. The Ottoman authorities
adopted policies that killed more than a million civilians, mainly
women, children and the aged. Does it matter to the victims if we
call it a massive war crime, a crime against humanity, mass murder
or an atrocity? It does not.
America moved on from isolationism, although it took the Second World
War to put the final nail in that coffin. Even now, after long and
disappointing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the country supports
airstrikes against the Islamic State and other violent movements in
places like Yemen and Somalia. It is negotiating a new trade agreement
concerning the Pacific basin.
Some libertarians flirt with renewed isolationism in quest of a
smaller, cheaper federal government, but that view will not prevail
in a globalized, interdependent world.
Yet 15 years into the 21st century, some things have not changed.
Chief among these is a narrow nationalism or parochial patriotism. We
are roused to action when the Islamic State kills a few Americans. We
are not so moved when it slaughters Syrians, Iraqis or Kurds. We
watched the Rwandan genocide unfold on our TV screens in 1994. But we
were not moved to action because we had just lost American military
lives in Somalia in the "Black Hawk Down" incident in Mogadishu. It
was clear in Rwanda we did not want to sacrifice for "others." Narrow
nationalism trumped international solidarity.
The actor George Clooney reminds us of atrocities in the Darfur region
of Sudan, including systematic rape as a weapon of terror and control.
We are not moved to decisive action because we see little self-interest
in doing so. It is "others" being harmed, not us.
We have a shaky economy at home, not to mention a long list of other
domestic problems. The time of American dominance of the world has
passed, if it ever existed. America cannot police the world, certainly
not with American boots on the ground. Iraq has given that kind of
intervention a bad odor.
Governments know what should be done to prevent future atrocities,
but they lack the political will to do it on a systematic basis. In
2005, at a United Nations summit, all states agreed that claims to
state sovereignty are not a license to commit or allow atrocities. If
a state is unwilling or unable to prevent genocide, crimes against
humanity or major war crimes, other states have the duty to act. There
is a responsibility to protect. The rules are clear.
The U.N. Security Council recently authorized cross-border humanitarian
relief into Syria regardless of what the Bashar Assad regime might
say. The council also authorized a U.N. combat force to stop attacks
on civilians in the eastern Democratic Congo. Americans recently
intervened in northern Iraq to save certain Yezidis threatened by
the Islamic State. The French have taken the lead in heading off more
atrocities in places like Mali and the Central African Republic. There
has been some progressive change since 1915, both in legal theory
and practice.
It will not be easy to turn these encouraging examples into systematic
protection of fundamental human rights. Narrow nationalism remains
strong in the hard cases like Darfur, where China supports a terrible
government and the Obama administration is preoccupied with lots of
other issues, like Vladimir Putin in Ukraine and Benjamin Netanyahu
on Iran.
But that is the long-term challenge. To ensure no more genocides as
in 1915, we have to shrink the gap between narrow nationalism and
the universal human rights we so loudly and proudly proclaim.
http://www.omaha.com/opinion/midlands-voices-genocide-and-narrow-nationalism/article_d9f27966-f9cf-5ae0-9afb-52c46d340f0f.html