Never again?
MeTheSheeple lives in a town with a number of Armenians, who have spent the last 90 years trying to get Turkey to admit it committed genocide when it wiped out maybe a million Armenians.
Last night, MeTheSheeple watched the stunning film "Conspiracy," a superbly acted movie. It looks a lot like a company board meeting, with the principals talking about making tweaks to their products. Instead, they're talking about best way to dispose of millions of people, in this case, Jews.
"Never again!" cry those who want to mark the Holocaust, which killed some 6 million Jewish people. Often lost in the debate is the idea that the Holocaust also killed some 6 million other people deemed "undesirable." Ignored, too, are the millions who perished under equally barbaric-but-organized efforts by the Japanese that killed 9 million civilians in China alone. "Never again!" the cry grew.
Yet even as the Jewish Holocaust of World War II is marked as something that can never be repeated, and has been unprecedented in its scope, the cry of "Never again!" rings more and more falsely.
Just a few minutes ago, MeTheSheeple walked past a sign advertising a "Dollars for Darfur" campaign at a local grocery store. "Never again!" In Darfur, it's three years and counting.
Surely after things quiet down in Darfur -- or, simply and sadly, die out -- someone will make a movie about it. Likely, it'll involve an outsider, possibly white, through whom we can interpret the events.
"Never again!" Just like the time a Nazi traveled east, hung out with the Dalai Lama, and witnessed the start of another crackdown that at least hints of genocide. It's a good thing we had the white guy to help us tell the story, regretable as it was. Maybe people came out of the movie theaters thinking "Never again!"
Not so many years after that movie, the world witnessed another genocide, but all-but-failed to act to stop it. Then, too, we got a movie with an outsider to tell us what it was like. At that point, of course, a million people were dead, many killed by machete or fire.
"Never again!" came the belated cry. And yet, just the next year, thousands of people were slaughtered.
"Never again!" rose the cry.
You guys ever hear that joke about languages? The great linguist is up at the lectern and says that, in every language a single negative makes the sentence negative. In most languages, two negatives make the sentence a positive. In a few languages, such as Russian, two negatives leave the sentence as a negative. But, he says carefully, in no language does a double positive ever make a negative. Then, from the back of the room, a kid piped up: "Yeah. Right."
"Never again!" Yeah, right.
Last night, MeTheSheeple watched the stunning film "Conspiracy," a superbly acted movie. It looks a lot like a company board meeting, with the principals talking about making tweaks to their products. Instead, they're talking about best way to dispose of millions of people, in this case, Jews.
"Never again!" cry those who want to mark the Holocaust, which killed some 6 million Jewish people. Often lost in the debate is the idea that the Holocaust also killed some 6 million other people deemed "undesirable." Ignored, too, are the millions who perished under equally barbaric-but-organized efforts by the Japanese that killed 9 million civilians in China alone. "Never again!" the cry grew.
Yet even as the Jewish Holocaust of World War II is marked as something that can never be repeated, and has been unprecedented in its scope, the cry of "Never again!" rings more and more falsely.
Just a few minutes ago, MeTheSheeple walked past a sign advertising a "Dollars for Darfur" campaign at a local grocery store. "Never again!" In Darfur, it's three years and counting.
Surely after things quiet down in Darfur -- or, simply and sadly, die out -- someone will make a movie about it. Likely, it'll involve an outsider, possibly white, through whom we can interpret the events.
"Never again!" Just like the time a Nazi traveled east, hung out with the Dalai Lama, and witnessed the start of another crackdown that at least hints of genocide. It's a good thing we had the white guy to help us tell the story, regretable as it was. Maybe people came out of the movie theaters thinking "Never again!"
Not so many years after that movie, the world witnessed another genocide, but all-but-failed to act to stop it. Then, too, we got a movie with an outsider to tell us what it was like. At that point, of course, a million people were dead, many killed by machete or fire.
"Never again!" came the belated cry. And yet, just the next year, thousands of people were slaughtered.
"Never again!" rose the cry.
You guys ever hear that joke about languages? The great linguist is up at the lectern and says that, in every language a single negative makes the sentence negative. In most languages, two negatives make the sentence a positive. In a few languages, such as Russian, two negatives leave the sentence as a negative. But, he says carefully, in no language does a double positive ever make a negative. Then, from the back of the room, a kid piped up: "Yeah. Right."
"Never again!" Yeah, right.
posted by MeTheSheeple at 7:29 PM
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