The dark speeches of foreign dignitaries, including the UN secretary general and the heads of state, were interrupted by sobs and cries of thousands wrapped in the Amahora stadium in Kigali. It was in 2014 and we scored Kwibuka20, the genocide of Rwanda 20th birthday. The volunteers of the Red Cross climbed along the stands to keep the dozens away from vanishing around us. I was back in the stadium that I had visited for the first time in 1994 to meet the failure of the UN peacekeeping mission there. What can I hope to learn when I come back? The aim of learning is to impregnate the knowledge that creates an understanding, generates information and triggers empathy. In the end, this aims to improve individual and societal attitudes and behavior. It was the motivation, in this context, to listen to the survivors of the genocide. The same objective stimulated the growth in the education of the holocaust in the aftermath of the Nazi Germany program against the Jews during the Second World War. But at a time when anti-Semitism and other hatred and divisions are at record level, does it work?
Of course, it is inherent in the human condition to fail again and again. And so, the holocaust was preceded by the Armenian genocide of the Ottoman Empire and the helero and Nama genocide of German South West Africa. And that succeeded was Rwanda, Srebrenica, Cambodia, Yezidi and the Darfur genocides. Not to mention the atrocities of the genocide type against the Uighur in China and the Rohingyas in Myanmar, or in the region of Tray in Ethiopia and Gaza.
Meanwhile, for millions elsewhere, such as survivors who quickly transfer atomic attacks from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or Iranian and Iranian women today, and the record number of people mired in brutal conflicts, It is not a question of utility to discuss whether or not to know whether their suffering satisfies the legal definitions of the genocide. The proof is that the horrors that invite us to make serious vows of “never yet” always occur again and again. So why do survivors of abuse and atrocity take the trouble to relive their trauma by sharing their stories? For example, the former prisoners of Assad in Syria describing their horrible torture experiences.
Psychologists say that talking about their tests helps survivors to heal. This is probably during private or group therapy sessions. Presumably, this happens with liberated Israeli hostages, and perhaps with certain ex-Palestinian devices lucky to access mental support. But why do many victims disseminate their pain in the world, including intrusive intimate details? They say they try to console these suffering alone or in silence. Or they are expressed to prevent the suffering of future victims. These are noble intentions.
But there is also a worrying side to express themselves by the parallel growth of a culture of repair and remuneration. As if it could cancel all the insults and injuries endured. This can, instead, create a permanent victimization hampering rehabilitation and recovery. I obtained a more convincing answer from a woman from Sudan Blue Nile State a few years ago. While I was trying to preserve her private life the interviewer on the camera, she throws her veil aside to say: “Look at me and tell my story to the world. What is the point of being born here, to be raped and to die here, without anyone knowing? His challenge was a search for personal meaning for his suffering. Why have such bad things happened – and why for her? This is a much more difficult question to answer than the high abstraction of the prevention of global genocide.
The quest for meaning underpins Heidi Kingstone’s recent book on “Genocide: personal stories, big questions”. It is a captivating journey through space and time through the thoughts and feelings of those who found themselves on the front line of inhumanity. Fortunately, we are spared from banal responses or simplistic explanations around the mechanisms of the genocide which are loved by certain experts. Reality, as Heidi illustrates, is that evil descends in many forms and often unpredictable. Thus, taking into account the various voices of those who experience it is the best way to prepare. This is also the reason why the commemoration of genocides and mass atrocities has become a great activity, with many days of commemoration in our calendar.
These memories are well compared, but can be possibilities for signaling virtue by selfish politicians where they are poorly used by those who are determined to polarize public opinion even more. Thus, it is commendable that the Musée de la Poland Auschwitz asked the world leaders to be visited as the microphone at the Holocaust Memorial Day of this year on January 27. This marks the Historic 80th Anniversary of the release of the iconic Auschwitz concentration camp. Instead, Auschwitz survivors are at the center of the stage with an additional point because time and age quickly decrease their ranks. When they are all gone, who will have the credibility to inspire future generations so as not to repeat past horrors?
Fortunately, modern technologies arrive at the rescue, not only by the digitization of testimonies, but by giving them life to augmented and virtual reconstructions. It is a good stratagem to attract the passive observer in participation. As said by Auschwitz Survivor, Elie Wiesel, “when you listen to a witness, you become a witness”. Wiesel won a well -deserved Nobel Peace Prize in 1986 for his lifetime service as “messenger to humanity”. His living writings force people to look at evil in the face, as in this extract from his memories: “I will never forget the little faces of children whose body I saw in smoke under a silent sky”.
The fight against inexorable time of time which softens the memory and tries the denial of our worst misdeeds, this is what occupies the museums of the holocaust and the genocide. Like the Shoah Foundation of the University of South California, chaired by Steven Spielberg. His epic film, Schindler’s list, around the real case of a humanitarian Nazi, had a deep intergenerational impact. The enormous collection of testimonies from survivors of the Foundation – 56,000 stories in 44 languages in 65 countries – endeavors to inform a future that rejects prejudices, hatred, dehumanization and genocide.
Elsewhere, the survivors – and the authors – overcome the violence based on identity, train to reconcile and bring a little peace to the house by visiting the memorial of the genocide of Kigali, located at the final rest place 250,000 people slaughtered. With a similar intention, the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum in Cambodia preserves the vast records in a former prison and torture center. The Srebrenica Memorial Center organizes the personal stories of victims of genocide buried in common pits. The main museums of the genocide, as in Illinois, Washington DC, Paris and Berlin, maintain powerful information centers and carry out in -depth research and awareness. Most of us are personally unable to go to these sanctuaries to human cruelty. However, with virtual visits available, all can visit online. The excuse “do not hear harm, do not see harm” to avoid learning directly from the mouths of those who suffered the most, is no longer valid. This is an important consideration in our time of proliferation of disinformation.
Of course, these efforts do not stop the recurring inhumanities. But while we are struggling with this challenge, at least one signal is sent to officials who continue not to act. Also to passers -by who look away or pass the past and, therefore, tolerate reprehensible acts. None of them can benefit from the alibi of ignorance. Victims of mass atrocities say that this gives them a minimum of comfort even if, on current trends, their fight for responsibility and justice is largely frustrated. However, more questionable is whether the high voices of the victims are used to be ashamed and to verify the authors or, conversely, to feed their feeling of impunity.
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