Auschwitz vs. Sudan
No one, really, should be surprised at the ironic juxtaposition of the 60th anniversary of the Auschwitz liberation and the U.N.'s attempts to find a euphemism for genocide in Sudan to avoid action.
While it is disappointing, it is also sadly unsurprising. The U.N. was not actually established to hold meetings and conferences and banquets; the purpose of the U.N. was to prevent tragedies such as Auschwitz from occuring again. Let us all agree it has been a dismal failure at that, from Prague in 1958 to the Suez Canal to Afghanistan in the 1980's to Pol Pot in the 1970's to Rwanda in the 1990's to Ethiopia in the 1980's to now Sudan. And the Congo and all those other little wretched places ruled by Hitler wannabes.
The point of this is supposed to be twofold: there is a lot of noise made about the suffering of the Jews in particular under Hitler- which I do not wish to deny or discount- to the point which anyone who at one point had even the most tenuous connection with him or the Nazi regime is immediately branded as evil. Witness the recent passing of the architect Philip Johnson who was impressed by Hitler in 1939- before most people understood the true horrors of what he was trying to bring about. Mr. Johnson had a lapse of judgement; a youthful confusion that a movie or Wagnerian opera was being enacted instead of actual events and was impressed. 65 odd years later, people still find it necessary to mention this bad taste in remembering him. Yet what is being done to stop the slaughter in Sudan?
It seems to me to be ridiculous to make a lot of noise about the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz when nothing -NOTHING- is being done to stop it in our time. The money being spent and the wind expended would surely be better put towards doing something about people suffering NOW.
Or the truth of it is that it's easier to spend money on dead white Europeans and make a lot of noise about them than it is about brown people in a more obscure hellhole.
While it is disappointing, it is also sadly unsurprising. The U.N. was not actually established to hold meetings and conferences and banquets; the purpose of the U.N. was to prevent tragedies such as Auschwitz from occuring again. Let us all agree it has been a dismal failure at that, from Prague in 1958 to the Suez Canal to Afghanistan in the 1980's to Pol Pot in the 1970's to Rwanda in the 1990's to Ethiopia in the 1980's to now Sudan. And the Congo and all those other little wretched places ruled by Hitler wannabes.
The point of this is supposed to be twofold: there is a lot of noise made about the suffering of the Jews in particular under Hitler- which I do not wish to deny or discount- to the point which anyone who at one point had even the most tenuous connection with him or the Nazi regime is immediately branded as evil. Witness the recent passing of the architect Philip Johnson who was impressed by Hitler in 1939- before most people understood the true horrors of what he was trying to bring about. Mr. Johnson had a lapse of judgement; a youthful confusion that a movie or Wagnerian opera was being enacted instead of actual events and was impressed. 65 odd years later, people still find it necessary to mention this bad taste in remembering him. Yet what is being done to stop the slaughter in Sudan?
It seems to me to be ridiculous to make a lot of noise about the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz when nothing -NOTHING- is being done to stop it in our time. The money being spent and the wind expended would surely be better put towards doing something about people suffering NOW.
Or the truth of it is that it's easier to spend money on dead white Europeans and make a lot of noise about them than it is about brown people in a more obscure hellhole.
posted by SavageATL at 9:49 AM
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