Shaw: Genocide and Liberation

First, I am so sorry to post late I was mistaken and thought the weekly posts were due on Saturdays. It definitely won't happen again. 

The exploration of genocide in terms other than the Holocaust is a difficult journey. It seems much simpler to say that genocide existed as a singular, systemic mass extermination of European Jews and was an embarrassing stain on the history of human existence. It is much more difficult to acknowledge that genocide was carried out even after the world witnessed the atrocities committed by the Nazis. What is even more difficult is the reality that the Allies who fought tirelessly against Hitler’s regime, were fighting alongside an equally terrible leader. It is through ignorance and the concealment of truth that lessons are forgotten and liberation is sacrificed. In, Elie Wiesel’s autobiography, Night, and the film, A Soviet Story, we see how shrouding the truth in darkness is used to manipulate, control, and exterminate (physically and emotionally) the existences of countless populations.

From the concentration camps in Germany to the mass starvation of 7,000,000 Ukrainians, both stories portray how groups come to power and maintain control by limiting the dissemination of information and preventing dissent. It is by these methods that countless dictators and regimes have controlled societies and exterminated any groups that challenge or threaten the success of these “pseudo-sciences and sociologies” (A Soviet Story). In discussing these issues in retrospect, it is easy for an observer to ask “how” or “why” these atrocities were permitted, but what is easily forgotten is how quickly these communities were stripped of their freedoms and any tools they once had for liberation. When communities are prevented from learning, challenging, and debating ideas and concepts, they lose the cornerstone of freedom: the ability to choose. There was no choice in Soviet Russia or Nazi Germany, there was either survive or relent, and these methods have no place for informed opinion or democratic process.

The occurrence of genocide in a community is not only a horrific act of inhumanity, but also an opportunity to regain and solidify humanity.  Individuals devoid of ethics and morality will continue to exist and few will occasionally rise to places of supreme power, this cannot be controlled. What can be controlled is how the rest of society reacts to these occurrences, and how the legacy of these events is carried on. Do we let genocide become defined solely by one act in human history, or do we continue to educate ourselves on what is currently happening on our own planet. The reason that is is absolutely imperative to study genocide through literature is the human connection that is undeniable. To read another man’s experience and understand just how easily the most minutely and majorly terrible occurrences in one person’s life could have easily been our own, is not only terrifying, but simultaneously liberating. To view the emaciated corpses and tears of victims who choose to retell their stories through a medium we frequently use for entertainment, is not just a wakeup call, but a call to action. As a society of human beings, whose suffering is interdependent, it is imperative that all people are continuously exposed to the most evil actions in order to educate, prevent and liberate in the future.