roachboy

if only things were so easy, so obvious that we didnt need to think about the many ways in which an entire political system can go entirely wrong...

people who object to idea that genocide or atrocities should not be forgotten like to pretend that they would not participate in something on that order---they like to pretend that something like the holocaust happened in an entirely Outside Space in which Everyone Was Explicit To Themselves about what they were doing--like the nazi final solution was carried out by a bunch of boys being naughty.


but it's more problematic than that.
see, the ideological conditions in place that would made genocide seem ethically unobjectionable--like it wasn't genocide--it was hygene or part of some destiny, a national destiny, or of a People blah blah blah....and there was an extensive administrative apparatus in place, in which perfectly nice ordinary people administered the extermination of another people as just another day in the office. they thought it was normal. they did their "job" they did their "duty"....they were nice little patriots.

they didnt see as the ideological framework they lived within started to slide--no, that's not true--it's worse: they saw it sliding, but they thought it was ok because they thought it was part of a national destiny. they approved of the slide because they thought that fascism would save them. world war 1, weimar...all this division and such--a Leader would Unify the Nation and Save it and to Save it Required that the Enemy Within be Exterminated.

it's a familiar story.
we haven't learned shit.

so obviously, it makes sense to get snippy when you're reminded that things can, have, and probably will go south.

this because nationalism is a powerful political fiction and defending that fiction from real and---more often--imaginary threats can result in very very bad things happening--that a segment of the population will approve of because they like that fiction and they like it being under threat because it gives them a sense of direction--and that most of the rest of the population will not complain about too much. we are all conditioned through the social reproduction system to imagine that there are such things as nations...so even if you dont really care about the idea, it's still a powerful meme. no, the far right can mobilize as the Salvation of the Nation and, under proper circumstances, those who oppose them won't complain too much. those that do are easy enough to quarantine--you call them a fifth column, you set them up as less than you ("socialists are diseased" remember...socialists are losers, they are lazy, they are less, less in every way than the righteous petit bourgeois who tend to rally round nationalist memes....it still happens.)


hell, the americans exterminated the native american population.
was it a genocide?
the nazis thought so.
the turks thought so.
they both used it as a model.
the americans dont think so.
maybe that's because they didn't lose a war.
it's funny how genocide becomes genocide only after you loose a war, isn't it?
if you dont loose a war, it can still be "manifest destiny" or something we dont really talk about. or maybe we feel vaguely bad about it all. "o the native americans. what we did to them. boo hoo. can i have another beer please"?

obviously, it is not given that folk will learn from their history.
it'd be better if they did.
but i wont hold my breath.
so in the meantime, the periodic reminder.
this is not, in fact, the best of all possible worlds.

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btw: on the op..i dont know if nanking is understood as being an aspect of a genocidal campaign or not--i generally see it described as an atrocity of considerable proportions, a terrible thing--but genocide?

who decides these things?

it is good to be reminded, even if what we are reminded of is not easy to process.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite