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... Unique Place
C O M M E N T S
"You may forgive the wrong done to you but you have no right to forgive the wrong done to others"
Some people have chosen the denial path in regard to the Holocaust. Most victims had been Jews therefore, Jewish communities everywhere invested what some may consider humanly impossible feat to hunt and bring to justice the perpetrators of these heinous crimes against their siblings or members of their congregations whose descendents became founders of the nation known as Israel. The crime is commonly referred to as holocaust, crime against humanity. A person, in full possession of one's faculties, must neither deny nor tolerate a denial of such crimes. Regardless who does it at whose expense. A recent denial by a prominent person has triggered this reaction.
I wondered why the word holocaust is never used to describe the exterminations related to slavery. No other human stock survived slavery and its consequences. The use of a special terminology shouldn't create a prejudice or deprive others from using the same word to define their suffering. Therefore, I think the word slavery is more than enough to explain it all. Twelve million people who had been peacefully tilling their land or minding their daily affairs or children playing had been uprooted from their continent after being hunted, herded, shackled, tortured, whipped, maimed, thrown as feed to sharks and the remaining had been made to row all the way across the Oceans to be sold as objects of production or disposed off according to the whim of the ones who owned them.
A simple expression of wishing to learn reading or writing had been considered as a punishable act. If the criminal masters had not raped women and daughters, they had been forced to mate with fellow slaves to secure future labour force. By doing so the bigots assured that every new generation had grown feeding on the shame, humiliation, degradation and ignorance. Such dehumanization practices had been kept for over twenty generations. Religious and government leaders gave their blessing and made an institution that flourished on the misery of the uprooted. The World had become a concentration camp. Only few took the risk and opted to help the deprived and abused.
This dreadful indoctrination took place before, during and after the creation of Nazi Camps and their likes. Similar mistreatments were happening in different forms and places. Children of the survivors became vibrant Civil rights movement leaders. The victims have never claimed a special word to describe what they had to undergo. On the contrary they expressed their dream: that their children will go hand in hand with those of the perpetrators!
During the Apartheid era, leaders of a specific nation who claim a particular place in the chronicle of human history, have been one of the best allies of the Apartheid regime that had set laboratories aimed at exterminating and annihilating a given group, the Blacks! One becomes a perpetrator by association. Such a choice disavows one's purpose especially when the collaboration is a denial of ones cause.
No African claims a special terminology to describe his people's suffering
in-order to secure "a unique place in the chronicles of human history".
Neither have we heard any South or North American native making such a
demand.
Neither from the Asian continent, where over two million Cambodians perished
in the Killing Fields under the Pol Pot regime.
As we all know there are hate-groups and regimes that keep on denying the extermination of innocent people. The fact that there are two distinct groups-advocates and deniers- seems to have become an accepted norm. And everyone knows who camps where and with whom. What is not clear is why one group adamantly advocates to be described in such a manner that one's suffering serves as a basis for denying or belittling of the same act suffered by others. Something is wrong. Very wrong.
Recently, during his visit to Turkey, the Israeli Foreign Minister and Nobel Peace Price winner Mr. Shimon Peres has been quoted down playing the Armenian holocaust, by saying "Armenian allegations are meaningless...we reject attempts to create a similarity between the Holocaust and the Armenian allegations. Nothing similar to the Holocaust occurred. It is a tragedy what the Armenians went through but not a genocide" (Turkish Daily News, April 10th 2001).
Defenseless Gypsies, Serbians, those who had different sexual orientation and others had perished with Europeans of Jewish faith. Then, whose suffering gives Holocaust its meaningful sense and why should it be an exclusively appropriated word? The answer is clearly spelt out by the prominent Israeli government official.
The word Holocaust has been reserved as a terminology to designate the massacre committed by the Nazis; by doing so according to Mr. Peres quoted in other previous instances "... the Holocaust will occupy a unique place in the chronicles of human history".
What he shamelessly calls "meaningless...allegations...a tragedy...not a genocide" is the massacre or genocide or holocaust carried by the Turkish regime 86 years ago. One and half million Armenians perished, those who survived fled the country and a substantially bigger part of Armenia is still under Turkish domination.
He found the courage to reduce a crime similar to the one suffered by his
citizens into a tragedy and degrades it further into meaningless
allegations!
No other denial can match or rival Mr. Peres'.
Normally, deniers are brought to justice for a mere denial. Opinion makers go around the globe lecturing about human rights while denying help and recognition to the ones who need it. It wouldn't be suprising if a new Nobel is awarded for championing denial. They shift shapes to the extent of raising the status of deniers to the level of President Nelson Mandela and Bishop Tutu, victims of deniers and their collaborators, as Nobel Laureates! The latter have never used public forums either to claim a special terminology to describe the uniqueness of their people's sufferings or to deny the pain suffered by others. On the contrary their relentless advocacy for reconciliation and peace makes their history self-explanatory.
In the past, diplomats from the specific nation, used their influence and managed to block several instances in different places leading to the recognition of the Armenian Genocide or Holocaust, for that matter. This month, by his denial, the Israeli Foreign Minister has unambiguously and successfully managed to place his country in the camp of the perpetrators and deniers. This is an unfortunate major set back. Objective and rational Israeli citizens are forcefully denouncing it and are openly disassociating from the denial expressed by their Foreign Minister. As a veteran diplomat he could have subtly recognized the Armenian Holocaust or at worse he could have diplomatically bypassed the trap question. He lacked neither ability nor diplomatic arsenal. His wisdom dictated to deny an issue similar to the raison d'jtre of the State of Israel, what I believed has been his cause.
"You may forgive the wrong done to you but you have no right to forgive the wrong done to others". Jewish wisdom, obviously Mr. Foreign Minister doesn't adhere to.
Asghedom Tzeggay-Tefery contributed and has sole responsibility for the
content on this page.For any comments, the writer can be contacted by
email: Asghedom Tzeggay-Tefery
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