It is a rite of passage for major world leaders to tour Auschwitz and other Holocaust-related sites during visits to continental Europe; George W. Bush did in 2003. His father, Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, and other American presidents have made similar pilgrimages of contrition during or after their terms in office. George W., in fact, enjoyed it so much he went back a second time. These visits are as regular as they are pre-scripted, involving the usual combination of somber photo-ops, Formal Apologies, and earnest resolutions that these tragedies will happen Never Again.
The actual lessons leaders, nations, and people choose to take from their visits to Holocaust sites, in stark contrast to their solemn rhetoric, are shockingly superficial. If the lesson to be learned from the Holocaust is that nations should not elect leaders with toothbrush mustaches and swastika armbands, then we have learned it quite well. This terrible thing happened, and it serves as a reminder that we shouldn't elect Nazis.
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What neither George W. Bush nor most other Americans acknowledge is the actual lesson – that the Holocaust is an extreme example of what happens when societies, governments, and people decide to scapegoat, legislate against, and ostracize people based on political, religious, ethnic, or lifestyle differences.
No, instead we remind ourselves: Hitler bad, Nazis bad, "freedom" prevents Hitler and Nazis.
As cheapened, exploited, and distorted as the Holocaust has become, I can only imagine what the 10th, 20th, or 50th anniversaries of 9-11 are going to look like. Right now it has been seven years since that day, and what have we learned?
For most Americans, it seems that the lesson was Muslims are Violent and They Are Trying to Kill Us. The lesson is that They must be stopped. The lesson is that there is no lesson, just an evil, fanatical enemy to be destroyed before They destroy us.
The real lesson is that times like these test the resolve of nations (and their people) and if we respond by becoming what our enemies have always accused us of being, we have lost a lot more than two iconic buildings and 2,752 human lives.
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While the superficial lessons abound today and have done so for seven years, we patiently wait for our political leaders, media, and neighbors to indicate that they have learned anything at all from this event that so dominates their worldview. I am not holding my breath.
beau says:
perhaps – like the invasion of palestine in the forties – by the time the 50th anniversary of 9/11 rolls around, iraq war II will not even have ever happened…
jordan says:
Like the invasion of Palestine??? That never did happen, because there never was a Palestine, just Palestinians living in tents in a desert. The 50th Anniversary of 9/11 will be extremely similar to the memories of Pearl Harbor, which if you didn't know, actually happened.
peggy says:
Beautiful and moving post, Ed. I meditated on it during today's mandatory moment of silence.
j says:
Excellent observations–I agree wholly but could never express these thoughts as clearly as you have just done. The republican primary debates this year exemplified the positive feedback loop between xenophobia and terrorism, which thankfully has not come full circle yet. Certainly not, however, due to any success of our post-9-11 foreign policy.
I remember on the day after 9-11, I was walking to class with my Pakistani study buddy and I told him that I was afraid that Arabs in America would begin to be treated like Japanese-Americans during WWII. (Happily we haven't gotten to internment yet, but that's not saying much.) A devout muslim, his response was that Islam was a religion with a great love and respect for the beauty of life, and these terrorist factions have twisted and subverted Islam's message to control people. Would you ever hear a Christian describe right-wing America so objectively?
beau says:
jordan – one population displaced another. forcibly. call it what you like.
and yes, this was a great post, ed.
vghoul says:
INVASION
COLONIALISM
POTATO
POTAHTO
LET'S CALL THE WHOLE THING OFF
David says:
"The real lesson is that times like these test the resolve of nations (and their people) and if we respond by becoming what our enemies have always accused us of being, we have lost a lot more than two iconic buildings and 2,752 human lives." Yes.
On the tangent of Palestine, invasion, etc…I would just point out two things: 1) There are still "Palestinians" living in Israel. The whole "displaced" thing comes from a mindset that it must be "us or them". 2) It wasn't "I see that land and I will take it from you". It was "you 2 share the land"—Palestinian response "NEVER, they must all die." "Ok, then divide it this way". "No, we want it all". I don't know the resolution to the problems over there, but oversimplifying the history, reducing the perspectives to only 2 extreme views,…well that's actually what this article decries. It's intellectual laziness, and it results in maddening language subversion like "displace", "colonialism", and "spread freedom".
beau says:
ok, "invasion" is not the best term, semantically.
david – "Palestinians"? why the punctuation? do you, like jordan (apparently) think that "Palestinians" "living in tents" don't count as a people? or as people? and today, palestinians "living" in israel are "living" under occupation. the settlements continue to spread.
– "colonialism" and "displacement" do not belong in the same list as "spread freedom". the first two are real things, which have names. "spread freedom" is baby talk.
– and as for simplifying history and intellectual laziness, i am certainly guilty of laziness at times (see "invasion"). but please read your second numbered point again. you really think that's the way it went down?
i just wanted to make a glancing reference from ed's point that
"…the Holocaust is an extreme example of what happens when societies, governments, and people decide to scapegoat, legislate against, and ostracize people based on political, religious, ethnic, or lifestyle differences."
to what i see as an outstanding example of such – the treatment of palestinians in israel. there are – righfully so – always going to be arguments about who did what when, but it was the "official story vs dirty outrageous lies" thing i was trying to get at. thanks for the leg-up.
David says:
wow, that's a de-rail.
yes, that's the way it went down. But maybe I, too, have oversimplified.
Fine, take any alternate version you have, and tell me why you're only upset with Israel, and not Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt (or maybe I'm wrong—which population forcibly displaced another? You're mad at the British? I mean, do you want it to return to the Ottoman period (before British "occupation"—there's those nasty quote marks again?)
Colonialism and displacement and spread freedom can certainly belong in the same list, even if one of them is "gibberish". The list is one of words that don't apply in this context. Read your second paragraph, you say that a group of people has both been displaced, and is living under occupation.
I'll acknowledge that I'm befuddled by the Mid-East, and I won't claim to have the answers or precise history. But when other folks oversimplify and say things like your first post…well, that's scapegoating too.
beau says:
me too. befuddled, no answers, (over)simplifying. seems we have much in common.
but i don't think displacement and occupation are mutually exclusive, far from it. and the nakba did happen – did the people flee, or were they forced? dunno, but i'm thinkin probably a little from column a, a little from column b. and its kinda irrelevent, anyway.
the countries listed all have cases to answer, including colonial powers involved. we cant go back and fix leftover problems of empire, but i think acknowledgement is important to healing.
which gets me back to acceptable and non-acceptable narratives. in the narrative presented through MSM, etc, israel (like the U.S) is portrayed as blameless & just doing what they need to in order to defend truth, democracy, yadda, yadda, yadda. but its never that simple. wasnt in WWII, wasnt in Vietnam, isnt in the MidEast.
what lessons have we learned from the past 50 years of acceptable MidEast narrative? towelheads are crazy, cant trust 'em. i think we should try harder.