Never forget - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

Gilda · 08-10-2006, 10:53 AM

Most of the time this phrase is associated with the Nazi genocide of WW2, in which six million Jews, and another six million other undesirables including gypsies, homosexuals, and Poles were systematically executed as a part of the "final solution".

It is important to remember this, no doubt. However, we should also not forget that this sort of dehumanization leading to mass slaughter is not unique. It's easy to say that it won't happen again, it can't happen again, especially if we can keep it distant and unique.

What I'd like to do in this thread is have people post historical events that you think it is important to remember, along with an explanation why they are important. I know I can't dictate what posters do, and there will have to be some political content, but I'd prefer that this be something more along the lines of a primer of historical events that still have some importance, or that you believe should have some importance, rather than have it devolve into a political debate of the issues involved in any individual event.

My contribution is the Ukranian famine of 1932-1933.

Short version: In 1932-1933, Soviet Russia systematically starved to death between 5 and 10 million Ukranians. They did this by setting grain quotas artificially high, confiscating grain supplies, destroying infrastructure, closing the borders to prevent food supplies from coming in, and confiscating aid sent from Europe and North America. At the same time, Russia was selling "surplus" grain to raise money for modernization. Between 15 and 30% of the Ukranian population died.

This was done primarily as punishment for resisting collectivism and attempting to retain a national identity. It's known as the Holodomor, and to a person of Ukranian descent is likely to evoke many of the same feelings as the Holocaust does for Jews.

Longer, more detailed version.

What do you want people never to forget? Remind us here.

Gilda

Destrox · 08-10-2006, 11:13 AM

Being a good friend of mine was heavily influenced by this, I'll share it.

The Bosnian War

Bosnia and Herzegovina both were split into multiple ethnically based factions, each feeling they are the one and only one to represent the people. To make matters worse, they all "flip-flopped" around with their ideals as we like to say here in the states.

The precedence to this war stems around the issues in Croatia and Yugoslavia, but it still is not officially stated whether this was a Civil war or simply a outright attack of war from within.

Either way over 100,000 people died in a matter of 3 years, and over 1.8 million people and families displaced from their home country.

A good friend of mine and her entire family were forced to move here out of fear, and her father was placed into concentration like camps that were no different then that of the Hitler days.

This all took place between March 1992 and November 1995.

This is recent history to prove what Gilda spoke of.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosnian_War

Bosnia today still is not what it use to be, but it is peaceful enough to be visited. My friend and her family still go back about twice a year to visit the family members they had to leave behind.

What a sad world....

BadNick · 08-10-2006, 11:30 AM

I have an Armenian friend so I hear about it once in a while, their widespread slaughter by the Turks ranks right up there with some of the worst atrocities. I'm not even up to speed as to the motivations, but I'm sure it relates to maintaining power and concepts of ethnic cleansing the "homeland".

Another one that crosses my mind occasionally is how the mostly European settlers slaughtered, subjugated, and dehumanized the American Native Indians, basically so they/we could take over and control all the land and resources for our own purposes. In spite of the fact that I often oppose such "welfare programs", in this case my feelings about what was done to them makes me much more open minded about even huge government "hand-backs" or payments, even if only as a symbol of compensation for something that can never be compensated.

abaya · 08-10-2006, 11:58 AM

Quote:

"I think if people see this footage, they'll say Oh, my God, that's horrible. And then they'll go on eating their dinners." -- Hotel Rwanda

A short list...

The Killing Fields... the reign of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia from 1975-1979. There were at least 2 MILLION people murdered, from a population of 8 million... that's a horrendous percentage of the population. The actual number is unknown, and has been reported as being closer to 3 million. And no one talks about it. Did I mention the 10 million landmines left behind by the Khmer Rouge?

The Sudanese civil war and the conflict in Darfur, Sudan. Hundreds of thousands killed (if not millions), and no one cares because it's in Africa. Just like in Hotel Rwanda... no one cares about Africans killing each other, in the end. On a website, I found this description to be fitting for explaining just about every conflict described in this post:

Quote:

The main cause of this conflict is the widespread feeling of being consistently socio-economically marginalized and the sense of being left out of the peace negotiations particularly in the context of self-determination and power sharing. --http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/para/darfur.htm

The Lebanese civil war, from 1975-1990. Followed by what is going on right now in Lebanon. It boggles me that for most of my childhood, I was growing up in a nice rural/suburban area of Seattle, and my love

was growing up in the middle of a civil war on the other side of the world. And no one seemed to care much at the time... just as few seem to care much about Lebanon right now, beyond the fact that Israel is involved.

The Iraq Civil War, going on right now. It's already being forgotten or ignored by so many people, it's unbelievable. Hundreds dying every single day. Does it only matter if Americans die? Or does that not even matter anymore?

CaliLivChick · 08-10-2006, 12:01 PM

Well, I'm going to go with 9-11. It shook me to the core, and still does to this day. I was in living in California at the time, but visiting my bf's family in Rochester, so it affected me on both coasts. I remember that a call went out over the radio all the way up in Rochester that the emergency workers needed socks to cover their hands and feet, as well as blankets and pillows so they could catch a few hours of sleep before going back to work. A few hours later, the call went out that they had enough, and to stop sending stuff. The way people pulled together just amazed me.

When I got back home, I found out that the CEO of Thoratec, who was one of our clients at the time, was Tom Burnett, one of the leaders who brought down Flight 93. They renamed the street that Thoratec is on "Tom Burnett Lane". They sent out a press release, and for the longest time, whenever something was on TV about 9-11, I'd have to watch it. Now, I'm just the opposite, and would like to move on, and remember in my head. I'm tired of watching the towers fall, the image of it is burned into my memory.

Gilda · 08-10-2006, 12:49 PM

Thank you for your contributions everyone, and for not getting into a political debate. [crosses fingers]

Gilda

aberkok · 08-10-2006, 01:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BadNick

I have an Armenian friend so I hear about it once in a while, their widespread slaughter by the Turks ranks right up there with some of the worst atrocities. I'm not even up to speed as to the motivations, but I'm sure it relates to maintaining power and concepts of ethnic cleansing the "homeland".

My family and many of their friends are Turkish. I encounter a lot of pride and nationalism (and for the most part, rightly so). Let's not forget about the Armenian genocide. For lack of a better source, here's some Wiki:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Genocide

Quote:

The Armenian Genocide (Armenian: Հայոց Ցեղասպանություն, Turkish: Ermeni Soykırımı) – also known as the Armenian Holocaust, Great Calamity (Մեծ Եղեռն) or the Armenian Massacre – refers to the forced mass evacuation and related deaths of hundreds of thousands or over a million Armenians, during the government of the Young Turks from 1915 to 1917 in the Ottoman Empire. Some main aspects of the event are a matter of ongoing dispute among the academic community and between parts of the international community and Turkey. Although generally agreed that events said to comprise the Armenian Genocide did occur, the Turkish government and several international historians reject that it was genocide, and claim that the deaths among the Armenians were not a result of a state-sponsored plan of mass extermination, but of inter-ethnic strife, disease and famine during the turmoil of World War I.

Despite this thesis, most Armenian, Russian, Western, and an increasing number of Turkish scholars believe that the massacres were a case of genocide. For example, most Western sources point to the sheer scale of the death toll. The event is also said to be the second-most studied case of genocide,[1]" and often draws comparison with the Holocaust. To date 21 countries, as discussed below, have officially described it as genocide.

Daniel_ · 08-10-2006, 01:22 PM

Never Forget.

Great idea for a thread.

My own "Mever Forget" having riden on a bus past the Cenotaph in London today, is to never forget the conscript armies of all wars.

Those men, and women, who were called up all over the world, and killed for wars that they didn't ask for, and often didn't support.

The "glorious dead" is a phrase that appears on many memorials in this country, and I always shudder. They are not glorious, but they are dead.

We should never forget their coerced sacrifice in conflicts that with hindsight were wrong.

abaya · 08-10-2006, 01:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daniel_

We should never forget their coerced sacrifice in conflicts that with hindsight were wrong.

Pretty much my thoughts every time I walk by the Vietnam Memorial in DC. What a terrible, terrible sin on the American conscience.

snowy · 08-10-2006, 01:40 PM

An event most people don't know about is one of my never forgets--the Hunger Winter of 1944. My grandparents were living in Haarlem at the time, in the Netherlands, and both suffered through the rampant famine.

Quote:

After the landing of the Allied Forces on D-Day, conditions grew worse in the Nazi occupied Netherlands. The Allies were able to liberate the southern part of the country, but their liberation efforts came to a halt when Operation Market Garden, the attempt to gain control of the bridge across the Rhine at Arnhem, failed. After the national railways complied with the exiled Dutch government's appeal for a railway strike to further the Allied liberation efforts, the German administration retaliated by putting an embargo on all food transports to the western Netherlands.

By the time the embargo was partially lifted in early November 1944, allowing restricted food transports over water, the unusually early and harsh winter had already set in. The canals froze over and became impassable for barges. Food stocks in the cities in the western Netherlands rapidly ran out. The adult rations in cities such as Amsterdam had dropped to below 1000 calories (4,200 kilojoules) a day by the end of November 1944. Over that winter, which has been etched in the Dutch peoples memories as the Hongerwinter ("Hunger winter"), as the Netherlands became one of the main western battlefields, a number of factors combined to starve the Dutch people: the winter itself was unusually harsh and together with the widespread dislocation and destruction of the war, the retreating German army destroyed locks and bridges to flood the country and impede the Allied advance, which ruined much agricultural land and made the transport of existing food stocks difficult.

In search of food people would walk for hundreds of kilometers to trade valuables for food at farms. Tulip bulbs and sugarbeets were commonly consumed. Furniture and houses were dismantled to provide fuel for heating. From September 1944 until early 1945 approximately 30,000 Dutch people starved to death. The Dutch Famine ended with the liberation of the western Netherlands in May 1945. Shortly before that, some relief had come from the 'Swedish bread', which was actually baked in the Netherlands but made from flour shipped in from Sweden. And shortly after that, the German occupiers allowed coordinated air droppings of food by the Royal Air Force over German-occupied Dutch territory in Operation Manna. The two events are often confused, even resulting in the commemoration of bread being dropped from airplanes, something that never happened.

My grandparents had to eat their neighbor's cat in order to survive. My grandpa told us stories growing up about how he and neighbors would take the one wheelbarrow they had among them and venture out into the country in search of food. He said that tulip bulbs weren't bad, as long as you cooked the hell out of them (his words).

It is my never forget because it is a reminder that given the right conditions, famine can happen anywhere, at any time.

Gilda · 08-10-2006, 02:30 PM

Off topic factoid: Actress Audrey Hepburn was a teenager in the Netherlands at that time where she was attending private school and sometimes attributed her being almost unnaturally thin in part to nearly starving to death in her early teens.

Gilda

cookmo · 08-10-2006, 04:07 PM

Gilda-If this sounds to political I am sorry, I do not mean it to sound that way. It is just something that I feel very passionate about, and sometimes my soul wont be silenced. However, if need be, pm me and I will edit it.

My never forget event is of the genocide, which occurred in the African country of Rwanda, in 1994. One of the two main tribes of the Rwandan people, the Hutu, tried to ethnically cleanse the whole population of the other tribe, the Tutsi. Over the span of 100 days, 800,000 Tutsis’ were systematically murdered, often by being hacked to death with a machete.

I was only thirteen when this happened, and I don't remember hearing anything about it. I had thought that this was due to my age, but I was disgusted to learn however, that the world purposely and collectively turned its head and ignored the brutal decimation of almost a million people. Although now, with my jadedness its not hard to understand why nothing was done to aid the Rwandan people.

And my own country, one built on the bases of human rights, did nothing as hundreds of thousands of people were stripped of their most basic right, the right to live.

Because Rwanda is a poor African country with nothing economic to offer, the United States had no reason to give aid. I find the idea that America should only offer aid to those countries that it has a vested economical interest in disturbing. But if you look at past and present foreign policy, especially in the case of Iraq, money does seem to be the governments’ motive.

I don’t agree with helping only those countries that we can extort something economical from, regardless if it is in the form of dollars, oil, or territory. I believe that because we are a nation that has so much, we should freely give to others in times of need. I don’t understand how the government can equate the value of a human life with a dollar sign. I wonder what mathematical equation the government uses, and what a persons net worth must be to deserve to live?

dksuddeth · 08-11-2006, 03:25 AM

This will delve a bit in to the political arena as well, so my apologies, but my 'never forget' moment is the christmas truce of world war 1, where german and british troops came out of their trenches and exchanged gifts, sang carols, and even played a game of soccer. It's a never forget moment because it should remind everyone that if the people only reminded themselves that they were the ones in power, people wouldn't have to die in wars based on government decisions.

Gilda · 08-11-2006, 03:31 AM

cookmo, dksuddeth, those are both fine. I just didn't want people nitpicking the politics of other peoples entries in this thread when we have politics for that sort of thing. Both of those are the type of think I was looking for, thank you.

Gilda

The_Jazz · 08-11-2006, 05:28 AM

My contribution I think fits the bill, although my spin on it may not be popular.

In the summer of 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union in a surprise attack that never should have been a surpise given the amount of intelligence coming out of Germany into Soviet hands. The Germans quickly pushed past the borders of the recently-absorbed Baltic republics and surrounded Leningrad by the beginning of September. Over the next 900 days (or so), the siege continued as the German were unwilling to expend the men and materiels necessary to take the city and the Soviets were unable to dislodge the Germans. Resupply became possible only during the winter months via the ice roads of Lake Lagoda. Best estimates put the civilian casualties at about 1.1M, mostly from starvation and/or exposure, although many were killed in the continual shelling that the city endured over the 3-year siege. Enough shrapnel remains in the trees surrounding the Peterhoff palace that it is dangerous to be in the gardens during a thunderstorm because of the increased lightening strikes. There are still signs in place on the Nevski Prospekt (a major street) directing pedestrians to cross to the other side of the street during shelling. For more, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Leningrad

Obviously the Soviet Union bore the brunt of the German assault and suffered more casualties than any other country or group, including European Jews (not to diminish their suffering, but they were a numerically smaller group to begin with). Red Army estimates for WWII are about 18.5M, which is probably low considering the Soviet's penchant for arresting and executing their own. Civilian casualties are an additional 12M, which again is probably low. Personally, I give the majority of the honors for defeating the Nazis and Germans to the Soviets and the Red Army since they bore the brunt of the fighting and had turned the tide well before D-Day in 1944. The citizens of Leningrad are a great example of those who sacrificed to beat the German war machine.

Gilda · 08-11-2006, 08:12 AM

The_Jazz: I personally don't have any problem condemning the policies of the Russian government and its leaders at that time while at the same time recognizing the sacrifices Russia's people made in fighting WW2, and your observation regarding the role of the Russians in WW2 is, so far as I know, not a controversial one among historians.

Gilda

BigBen · 08-11-2006, 08:19 AM

I never forget that every child I see might someday change the world.

I think everyone else should remember that, too.

roachboy · 08-11-2006, 11:06 AM

all of us are transient, fleeting.
nothing is stable.
no-one will save us.
we have to save ourselves.

events are not self-contained.
if you want to remember genocide, remember too the conditions of possibility for them.
work to change them.
if the extermination of a group of people is taken as an administrative goal, an apparatus can be created that will carry out that task with great efficiency. people will adapt to it. the goal will seem to them normal. professional duty, administrative rationality, the distancing of oneself from ethical considerations...all are routine, all are present all around you.
all that is required is political consensus around the desirability of the end.
you can create that consensus through any number of means.
the elimination of political opposition is one of them.

the problem, then, is the nature of the end, and whether that end is taken to be legitimate.
contestation of a particular administrative end is political.
without political contestation, what possibility do you have of changing anything?
and without the possibility of change, what is the point of remembering?

Bill O'Rights · 08-11-2006, 12:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

and without the possibility of change, what is the point of remembering?

Because. We...do.

Because. Without remembering...there is no possibility of change.

roachboy · 08-11-2006, 12:40 PM

i dont see any disagreement bor.
i think this thread quite interesting and am pleased to see it developing.
at the same time, i find it strange in its focus and problematic in its relationship to questions of judgment in real time, which i take to be an eminently political question.
i do not understand the separation between the actions/events listed here and the political. i dont understand it conceptually (putting on my historian's hat for a moment) and i dont understand it practically.

allow me to be cynical for a moment.

without politics, remembering the past is like collecting rocks--so you have another atrocity sitting on your self--you get to take it down and play with it from time to time. perhaps you can congratulate yourself on having a better atrocity collection that someone else has. perhaps having an adequately large atrocity collection makes you that you have somehow resolved a moral dilemma.
personally, i find it kinda creepy, like a kind of naive rememberance makes you into a consumer of atrocity.

this is parallel to proust's lovely description of reading the newspaper:

Quote:

That abominable and sensual act called reading the newspaper, thanks to which all the misfortunes and cataclysms in the universe over the last twenty-four hours, the battles which cost the lives of fifty-thousand men, the murders, the strikes, the bankruptcies, the fires, the poisonings, the suicides, the divorces, the cruel emotions of statesmen and actors, are transformed for us, who don't even care, into a morning treat, blending in wonderfully, in a particularly exciting and tonic way, with the recommended ingestion of a few sips of cafe au lait.

the other function of an atrocity collection is to provide triggers for speculations about how the collector would have reacted in that situation from the past.
of course, looking at atrocity x or y from within a fundamentally different frame of reference makes the question of judgment simple--sitting in my chair in my livingroom in the u.s. in 2006, i am sure that i would not have participated in atrocity x or y. and i am fairly sure that this same response would be shared by every spectator. closing a book on stalin's attempt to subdue the ukraine through famine, you say "whoah. that was bad. i would not have done that."
but this is to fundamentally mis-state the problem: if everyone at the time viewed genocide from the vantagepoint of an expost facto spectator, there would in all likelhood have been no genocides. so the above says everything about ex post facto spectatorship and nothing at all about how one might make judgments--or might have made judgments--from within a shifting ideological context within which the objective of genocide would have been normalized.

Baraka_Guru · 08-11-2006, 04:13 PM

I recently viewed the documentary Tibet: Cry of the Snow Lion and I learned a great deal about what the Chinese have been doing to Tibetans for years. For those who don't know much about this issue, I strongly suggest you read or otherwise educate yourself, and you will soon learn its tragic concequences.

So far, many of the posts in this thread have brought up instances of genocide, including the Holocaust, the Armenian Genocide, Rwanda, and several other terrible events. There aren't mass numbers of Tibetans being slaughtered at a rate indicative of genocide (however, over 1 million people have been killed over a period of 50 years), but what is especially at stake is the culture--the very essence of what is Tibetan. What is happening in Tibet is "cultural genocide." The term itself is problematic because it is argued that China does not actively seek the genocide of Tibetans... but it is also argued that China is ultimately causing this, regardless.

The challenges facing the situation in Tibet includes the international community's reluctance to do anything about it. (This is clearly the difficulty of other occurances of genocide as well.) And the longer it goes on, the more it becomes a political mess. China, being the growing power it is, will soon have global influence that rivals America.

For a sample of the complexity of the situation, read this article originally published in the Globe and Mail.

I implore you to learn more about Tibet. It won't take long for you to see the beauty of its culture (what's left) and why we should never forget its value. You will also see why that railway being built into Tibet could introduce a devestating acceleration of Chinese dominance.

As sample of the way things once were, consider this: an independent Tibet used to allocate 80% of its budget to its monastic system (through which every family had at least one member study)... that's like the U.S. taking its guargantuan military budget and plowing it into education.

And that was Tibet.

dlish · 08-13-2006, 03:55 AM

two 'never forgets' for me

the subjugation of the african people and the raping of its lands at the hands of the colonialists. as well as the slave trade introduced to the world as a consequence of this. I'm sure youve all seen the movie 'Roots'.

the chechen war - regardless of whos' side your on, the chechen people have been through life of misery at the hands of russia for over a decade now. hundreds of thousands killed or missing, complete destruction of the entire city of grozny, total displacement of the chechen people. UNHCR has numerous instances of war crimes by the russian army against the civilian population

ktspktsp · 08-15-2006, 07:08 PM

One picture that is always stuck in my mind (I wish I could find it online..) is of a bunch of about 15 people, all facing a wall, with their hands on their heads. They're all wearing 70's clothes (this is at the beginning of the Lebane civil war, in the late 70's), bell bottoms, jackets with elbow pads, etc.. They look ... normal, they're just civilians that were rounded up. But they're being checked for IDs, one by one. And the ones that are not from the proper sect are about to get killed (at that time, in Lebanon, IDs listed your religion and sect).

The concept of 'killing by ID', as it is called, is very simple.. And brutal. It is yet another representation of human madness. I think about that as I see the unfolding sectarian madness in Iraq.

08-10-2006, 10:53 AM	#1 (permalink)
Gilda 32 flavors and then some Location: Out on a wire.	Never forget Most of the time this phrase is associated with the Nazi genocide of WW2, in which six million Jews, and another six million other undesirables including gypsies, homosexuals, and Poles were systematically executed as a part of the "final solution". It is important to remember this, no doubt. However, we should also not forget that this sort of dehumanization leading to mass slaughter is not unique. It's easy to say that it won't happen again, it can't happen again, especially if we can keep it distant and unique. What I'd like to do in this thread is have people post historical events that you think it is important to remember, along with an explanation why they are important. I know I can't dictate what posters do, and there will have to be some political content, but I'd prefer that this be something more along the lines of a primer of historical events that still have some importance, or that you believe should have some importance, rather than have it devolve into a political debate of the issues involved in any individual event. My contribution is the Ukranian famine of 1932-1933. Short version: In 1932-1933, Soviet Russia systematically starved to death between 5 and 10 million Ukranians. They did this by setting grain quotas artificially high, confiscating grain supplies, destroying infrastructure, closing the borders to prevent food supplies from coming in, and confiscating aid sent from Europe and North America. At the same time, Russia was selling "surplus" grain to raise money for modernization. Between 15 and 30% of the Ukranian population died. This was done primarily as punishment for resisting collectivism and attempting to retain a national identity. It's known as the Holodomor, and to a person of Ukranian descent is likely to evoke many of the same feelings as the Holocaust does for Jews. Longer, more detailed version. What do you want people never to forget? Remind us here. Gilda __________________ I'm against ending blackness. I believe that everyone has a right to be black, it's a choice, and I support that. ~Steven Colbert Last edited by Gilda; 08-11-2006 at 05:02 AM..

08-10-2006, 11:13 AM	#2 (permalink)
Destrox Metal and Rock 4 Life Location: Phoenix	Being a good friend of mine was heavily influenced by this, I'll share it. The Bosnian War Bosnia and Herzegovina both were split into multiple ethnically based factions, each feeling they are the one and only one to represent the people. To make matters worse, they all "flip-flopped" around with their ideals as we like to say here in the states. The precedence to this war stems around the issues in Croatia and Yugoslavia, but it still is not officially stated whether this was a Civil war or simply a outright attack of war from within. Either way over 100,000 people died in a matter of 3 years, and over 1.8 million people and families displaced from their home country. A good friend of mine and her entire family were forced to move here out of fear, and her father was placed into concentration like camps that were no different then that of the Hitler days. This all took place between March 1992 and November 1995. This is recent history to prove what Gilda spoke of. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosnian_War Bosnia today still is not what it use to be, but it is peaceful enough to be visited. My friend and her family still go back about twice a year to visit the family members they had to leave behind. What a sad world.... __________________ You bore me.... next.

08-10-2006, 12:01 PM	#5 (permalink)
CaliLivChick In Transition Location: Sanford, FL (between Daytona and Orlando)	Well, I'm going to go with 9-11. It shook me to the core, and still does to this day. I was in living in California at the time, but visiting my bf's family in Rochester, so it affected me on both coasts. I remember that a call went out over the radio all the way up in Rochester that the emergency workers needed socks to cover their hands and feet, as well as blankets and pillows so they could catch a few hours of sleep before going back to work. A few hours later, the call went out that they had enough, and to stop sending stuff. The way people pulled together just amazed me. When I got back home, I found out that the CEO of Thoratec, who was one of our clients at the time, was Tom Burnett, one of the leaders who brought down Flight 93. They renamed the street that Thoratec is on "Tom Burnett Lane". They sent out a press release, and for the longest time, whenever something was on TV about 9-11, I'd have to watch it. Now, I'm just the opposite, and would like to move on, and remember in my head. I'm tired of watching the towers fall, the image of it is burned into my memory. __________________ Don't trust anything that can bleed for a week and not die. Oh wait, that's me... nevermind... you can trust me.

08-10-2006, 01:22 PM	#8 (permalink)
Daniel_ Evil Priest: The Devil Made Me Do It! Location: Southern England	Never Forget. Great idea for a thread. My own "Mever Forget" having riden on a bus past the Cenotaph in London today, is to never forget the conscript armies of all wars. Those men, and women, who were called up all over the world, and killed for wars that they didn't ask for, and often didn't support. The "glorious dead" is a phrase that appears on many memorials in this country, and I always shudder. They are not glorious, but they are dead. We should never forget their coerced sacrifice in conflicts that with hindsight were wrong. __________________ ╔═════════════════════════════════════════╗ Overhead, the Albatross hangs motionless upon the air, And deep beneath the rolling waves, In labyrinths of Coral Caves, The Echo of a distant time Comes willowing across the sand; And everthing is Green and Submarine ╚═════════════════════════════════════════╝

08-11-2006, 03:25 AM	#13 (permalink)
dksuddeth Junkie Location: bedford, tx	This will delve a bit in to the political arena as well, so my apologies, but my 'never forget' moment is the christmas truce of world war 1, where german and british troops came out of their trenches and exchanged gifts, sang carols, and even played a game of soccer. It's a never forget moment because it should remind everyone that if the people only reminded themselves that they were the ones in power, people wouldn't have to die in wars based on government decisions. __________________ "no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

08-10-2006, 11:30 AM	#3 (permalink)
BadNick Riding the Ocean Spray Location: S.E. PA in U Sofa	I have an Armenian friend so I hear about it once in a while, their widespread slaughter by the Turks ranks right up there with some of the worst atrocities. I'm not even up to speed as to the motivations, but I'm sure it relates to maintaining power and concepts of ethnic cleansing the "homeland". Another one that crosses my mind occasionally is how the mostly European settlers slaughtered, subjugated, and dehumanized the American Native Indians, basically so they/we could take over and control all the land and resources for our own purposes. In spite of the fact that I often oppose such "welfare programs", in this case my feelings about what was done to them makes me much more open minded about even huge government "hand-backs" or payments, even if only as a symbol of compensation for something that can never be compensated.

08-10-2006, 12:49 PM	#6 (permalink)
Gilda 32 flavors and then some Location: Out on a wire.	Thank you for your contributions everyone, and for not getting into a political debate. [crosses fingers] Gilda

08-10-2006, 02:30 PM	#11 (permalink)
Gilda 32 flavors and then some Location: Out on a wire.	Off topic factoid: Actress Audrey Hepburn was a teenager in the Netherlands at that time where she was attending private school and sometimes attributed her being almost unnaturally thin in part to nearly starving to death in her early teens. Gilda

08-10-2006, 04:07 PM	#12 (permalink)
cookmo Insane Location: Ohio	Gilda-If this sounds to political I am sorry, I do not mean it to sound that way. It is just something that I feel very passionate about, and sometimes my soul wont be silenced. However, if need be, pm me and I will edit it. My never forget event is of the genocide, which occurred in the African country of Rwanda, in 1994. One of the two main tribes of the Rwandan people, the Hutu, tried to ethnically cleanse the whole population of the other tribe, the Tutsi. Over the span of 100 days, 800,000 Tutsis’ were systematically murdered, often by being hacked to death with a machete. I was only thirteen when this happened, and I don't remember hearing anything about it. I had thought that this was due to my age, but I was disgusted to learn however, that the world purposely and collectively turned its head and ignored the brutal decimation of almost a million people. Although now, with my jadedness its not hard to understand why nothing was done to aid the Rwandan people. And my own country, one built on the bases of human rights, did nothing as hundreds of thousands of people were stripped of their most basic right, the right to live. Because Rwanda is a poor African country with nothing economic to offer, the United States had no reason to give aid. I find the idea that America should only offer aid to those countries that it has a vested economical interest in disturbing. But if you look at past and present foreign policy, especially in the case of Iraq, money does seem to be the governments’ motive. I don’t agree with helping only those countries that we can extort something economical from, regardless if it is in the form of dollars, oil, or territory. I believe that because we are a nation that has so much, we should freely give to others in times of need. I don’t understand how the government can equate the value of a human life with a dollar sign. I wonder what mathematical equation the government uses, and what a persons net worth must be to deserve to live?

08-11-2006, 03:31 AM	#14 (permalink)
Gilda 32 flavors and then some Location: Out on a wire.	cookmo, dksuddeth, those are both fine. I just didn't want people nitpicking the politics of other peoples entries in this thread when we have politics for that sort of thing. Both of those are the type of think I was looking for, thank you. Gilda

08-11-2006, 05:28 AM	#15 (permalink)
The_Jazz Asshole Administrator Location: Chicago	My contribution I think fits the bill, although my spin on it may not be popular. In the summer of 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union in a surprise attack that never should have been a surpise given the amount of intelligence coming out of Germany into Soviet hands. The Germans quickly pushed past the borders of the recently-absorbed Baltic republics and surrounded Leningrad by the beginning of September. Over the next 900 days (or so), the siege continued as the German were unwilling to expend the men and materiels necessary to take the city and the Soviets were unable to dislodge the Germans. Resupply became possible only during the winter months via the ice roads of Lake Lagoda. Best estimates put the civilian casualties at about 1.1M, mostly from starvation and/or exposure, although many were killed in the continual shelling that the city endured over the 3-year siege. Enough shrapnel remains in the trees surrounding the Peterhoff palace that it is dangerous to be in the gardens during a thunderstorm because of the increased lightening strikes. There are still signs in place on the Nevski Prospekt (a major street) directing pedestrians to cross to the other side of the street during shelling. For more, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Leningrad Obviously the Soviet Union bore the brunt of the German assault and suffered more casualties than any other country or group, including European Jews (not to diminish their suffering, but they were a numerically smaller group to begin with). Red Army estimates for WWII are about 18.5M, which is probably low considering the Soviet's penchant for arresting and executing their own. Civilian casualties are an additional 12M, which again is probably low. Personally, I give the majority of the honors for defeating the Nazis and Germans to the Soviets and the Red Army since they bore the brunt of the fighting and had turned the tide well before D-Day in 1944. The citizens of Leningrad are a great example of those who sacrificed to beat the German war machine. __________________ "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin "There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush "We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

08-11-2006, 08:12 AM	#16 (permalink)
Gilda 32 flavors and then some Location: Out on a wire.	The_Jazz: I personally don't have any problem condemning the policies of the Russian government and its leaders at that time while at the same time recognizing the sacrifices Russia's people made in fighting WW2, and your observation regarding the role of the Russians in WW2 is, so far as I know, not a controversial one among historians. Gilda __________________ I'm against ending blackness. I believe that everyone has a right to be black, it's a choice, and I support that. ~Steven Colbert

08-11-2006, 08:19 AM	#17 (permalink)
BigBen Comedian Location: Use the search button	I never forget that every child I see might someday change the world. I think everyone else should remember that, too. __________________ 3.141592654 Hey, if you are impressed with my memorizing pi to 10 digits, you should see the size of my penis.

08-11-2006, 11:06 AM	#18 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	all of us are transient, fleeting. nothing is stable. no-one will save us. we have to save ourselves. events are not self-contained. if you want to remember genocide, remember too the conditions of possibility for them. work to change them. if the extermination of a group of people is taken as an administrative goal, an apparatus can be created that will carry out that task with great efficiency. people will adapt to it. the goal will seem to them normal. professional duty, administrative rationality, the distancing of oneself from ethical considerations...all are routine, all are present all around you. all that is required is political consensus around the desirability of the end. you can create that consensus through any number of means. the elimination of political opposition is one of them. the problem, then, is the nature of the end, and whether that end is taken to be legitimate. contestation of a particular administrative end is political. without political contestation, what possibility do you have of changing anything? and without the possibility of change, what is the point of remembering? __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

08-11-2006, 04:13 PM	#21 (permalink)
Baraka_Guru warrior bodhisattva Super Moderator Location: East-central Canada	I recently viewed the documentary Tibet: Cry of the Snow Lion and I learned a great deal about what the Chinese have been doing to Tibetans for years. For those who don't know much about this issue, I strongly suggest you read or otherwise educate yourself, and you will soon learn its tragic concequences. So far, many of the posts in this thread have brought up instances of genocide, including the Holocaust, the Armenian Genocide, Rwanda, and several other terrible events. There aren't mass numbers of Tibetans being slaughtered at a rate indicative of genocide (however, over 1 million people have been killed over a period of 50 years), but what is especially at stake is the culture--the very essence of what is Tibetan. What is happening in Tibet is "cultural genocide." The term itself is problematic because it is argued that China does not actively seek the genocide of Tibetans... but it is also argued that China is ultimately causing this, regardless. The challenges facing the situation in Tibet includes the international community's reluctance to do anything about it. (This is clearly the difficulty of other occurances of genocide as well.) And the longer it goes on, the more it becomes a political mess. China, being the growing power it is, will soon have global influence that rivals America. For a sample of the complexity of the situation, read this article originally published in the Globe and Mail. I implore you to learn more about Tibet. It won't take long for you to see the beauty of its culture (what's left) and why we should never forget its value. You will also see why that railway being built into Tibet could introduce a devestating acceleration of Chinese dominance. As sample of the way things once were, consider this: an independent Tibet used to allocate 80% of its budget to its monastic system (through which every family had at least one member study)... that's like the U.S. taking its guargantuan military budget and plowing it into education. And that was Tibet. __________________ Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing? —Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön Humankind cannot bear very much reality. —From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot Last edited by Baraka_Guru; 08-12-2006 at 07:28 AM..

08-13-2006, 03:55 AM	#22 (permalink)
dlish Currently sour but formerly Dlishs Super Moderator Location: Australia/UAE	two 'never forgets' for me the subjugation of the african people and the raping of its lands at the hands of the colonialists. as well as the slave trade introduced to the world as a consequence of this. I'm sure youve all seen the movie 'Roots'. the chechen war - regardless of whos' side your on, the chechen people have been through life of misery at the hands of russia for over a decade now. hundreds of thousands killed or missing, complete destruction of the entire city of grozny, total displacement of the chechen people. UNHCR has numerous instances of war crimes by the russian army against the civilian population __________________ An injustice anywhere, is an injustice everywhere I always sign my facebook comments with ()()===========(}. Does that make me gay? - Filthy

08-15-2006, 07:08 PM	#23 (permalink)
ktspktsp Addict Location: Reykjavik, Iceland	One picture that is always stuck in my mind (I wish I could find it online..) is of a bunch of about 15 people, all facing a wall, with their hands on their heads. They're all wearing 70's clothes (this is at the beginning of the Lebane civil war, in the late 70's), bell bottoms, jackets with elbow pads, etc.. They look ... normal, they're just civilians that were rounded up. But they're being checked for IDs, one by one. And the ones that are not from the proper sect are about to get killed (at that time, in Lebanon, IDs listed your religion and sect). The concept of 'killing by ID', as it is called, is very simple.. And brutal. It is yet another representation of human madness. I think about that as I see the unfolding sectarian madness in Iraq.