I've been loose in my use of the declaration, “Never again.” I've sometimes used it to underscore our repeated national misjudgments of other cultures and our warring misadventures. But I know the use of those words has been forever conjoined with the inhumanity of genocide since the Holocaust of World War II. It was not my purpose to further dilute its resolve and power, or its association with genocide. I recognize that genocide is the greatest horror of all, clearly. And I recognize that I might, by overuse, be adding to the dilution of the meaning and power of these words. But, regrettably, that is unlikely.You see, it is not as if there have been fewer incidents of genocide to be concerned about, as if we have responded consistently and forcefully to stop it wherever it has lifted its shadowed, distorted face. If anything, the declaration, "Never again," is now bereft of power and moral authority primarily because there have been so many occasions to raise the signal call, occasions that have been allowed to run their course or run their course too long. And while the declaration continues, it most often falls on impotent or jaded ears, and dissipates into a collective sense of resignation.
In all its horror, genocide has continued undeterred since World War II: in the USSR, the killing fields in Cambodia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, in Rwanda, the Congo, Darfur, and too many other places in Africa. So frequent have the incidents of the ultimate inhumanity by man against man become, and so often have they been carried out with impunity, that we have become desensitized, numbed to the horrific accounts of them. Yes, there are international laws making genocide a crime—arguably since 1948, certainly since 1977—but who will enforce them, when and how?
During the genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina, my daughter, then in middle school, came to me, indignantly, asking how this could be happening. After all, hadn’t the world said, “Never again?” Hadn’t I assured her that it should never happen again? She remembered my recounting of my first exposure to that humanistic declaration by way of my eighth-grade history teacher, Mr. Harrison. He was an American Jew and had been a soldier with the liberating U.S. forces that first reached the Auschwitz death camp. And he had taken an album full of pictures of the humanity-debasing horrors of that place. It was history—ugly history of the basest of man’s potential, but it was history. And he shared it with us as part of our studies of modern European history. Pretty heavy, disturbing stuff to share with 13 year-olds, I suppose. But the experience and the images have never left me. And like my daughter who had relied on my assurances, I had remained naively confident that the world had meant it when it collectively said, “Never again.”
But I have learned. And in my more despondent moments, a cynical, resentful view emerges. All the impotent declarations appear more a dark charade of misleading, empty promises and false hopes played out against a cruel and denying reality. They are empty because no assurances are possible; they are false because all reasonable hope has been rendered futile by national and geopolitical realities. And the cruel, denying reality is perpetuated by the exploitive, populist demagoguery of those ultimately bent on the dominating regional power that enables “ethnic cleansing:” hatefully rationalized, unrepentant, ethnic or sectarian mass murder.
And on the surface, at least, it also appears abided by the self-comforting rationalizations and non-confrontational dispositions of the world's advanced nations and cultures. We express outrage without action, or blinker our eyes to the sinister truth standing boldly at the shadowed periphery of the international community. We all understand how it works; we’ve seen it again and again.
But this rant is merely the instinctive flailing of my savaged naivety, the resentment of my flagging hope. Most of the time, my view is more balanced, tempered by the realities and responsibilities of nations in world-wide society, and informed by the more difficult lessons of my faith. I have learned that controlling or stopping the principals and agents of genocide is most often a frustratingly, dishearteningly complex matter.
Doubtless, there have been occasions when the world might have more timely, more effectively limited or stopped the carnage. But more frequent have been the unsatisfying cases where the complexities, barriers to success, and the likely cost in lives lost of intervening forces, dictated reasonable caution, going slowly. In those cases, intervention was most often pursued through diplomacy, humanitarian aid, and the use of political or economic sanctions or incentives. Unsatisfying responses, yes, and often of limited effect. And the necessary analyses are unavoidably cold, clinical critiques of trade-offs, costs and benefits, of national self interest.
Inaddequate and unresponsive as they may seem to human sensibilities and the humanitarian challenge, these analyses and limited-action approaches may nonetheless be the most responsible choices available. Unsatisfying, yes, and at the very least infused with pain, guilt and a sense of negligence or contributory culpability, sins of omission and the failure to act.
First there are questions to ask, facts to be gathered, assessments to be made. Are we sure it is genocide? Is there a sufficient opportunity and likelihood that those carrying out the genocide can be stopped, and stopped in time? And what if both sides are carrying out genocidal atrocities as part of what might otherwise be called war or civil war? And at what price military intervention, including especially the human lives of American, NATO or UN military troops?
Some of the likely assessments might include these:
(1) by the time multinational liberating forces can agree on strategy and tactics, exhaust reasonable efforts at negotiated settlements, marshal the necessary logistics, friendly base locations and troops, then engage the identified aggressors, much of the killing will have been carried out;
(2) even if timely intervention were possible, the terrain, cultures, issues, or the aggressors and the victims involved, may be such that success could be achieved only at a high cost in American and allied lives and resources lost—and still the killing may not be stopped; or
(3) even if successful in halting the killing, the continuing protection and peace for the victims may require long-term occupation and “nation building” in the region by American and international forces—and that against the likely backdrop of interminable guerilla warfare by one or more of the ethnic, sectarian, or ideological factions involved.
And perhaps we could expand on the unhappy scenarios. But are these good reasons, or just rationalizations? I most often conclude that there is nothing “good” about them—but neither are they rationalizations. They are most often wholly unsatisfying, but sadly realistic and pragmatic assessments. And while these occasions are never directly related to the security of our borders and people—to our self defense—aren’t those being killed rightly seen as our foreign brothers in humanity? Yes, of course they are, but the practical questions must still be asked, the wiser voices heeded, however unsatisfying the answers. Doesn’t it all make you sick with grief?
Of course, the other difficult question, a further injustice, involves why the leaders of genocidal aggressions so often evade being called to account by the UN, its International Court, or other ad hoc, but official, national tribunals. That registers like tacit approval, an open license for more genocidal horrors. Some have been prominently held to account, of course: the Nazi leaders after WWII, Milosevic after Bosnia and Herzegovina, and a few others from time to time. But the clear impression in most cases is that those genocidal leaders are not or cannot be held to account for their transgressions against humanity. Perhaps the new International Criminal Court will be more effective, but don’t hold your breath—especially with the U.S. pointedly refusing to be bound by it.
It is the practical, protective realities of national sovereignty in some cases. In others, it is the frustrating allied relationships among geopolitical, ethnic or sectarian factions that provide shelter. And sometimes it seems there just isn’t enough continuing rage and impassioned principle remaining to continue to press the issue. Rationalizations also abound: perhaps the death toll hasn’t reached some sufficient threshold for international outrage; or, perhaps it is dismissed as just an incorrigible part of the world doing what it sometimes does.
And so, I've become resigned to the episodic expressions of genocide. Steeped in the details and trade-offs of geopolitical considerations and national realities, passion gives way to practicality. For these horrific challenges seldom admit of resolutions as tidy, honorable and unsullied as our principles and passions. My eyes feel sad, tired when I reflect on the fact that genocide really is part of the human condition, the potential of man—that the ever-present dark side of man is really that dark. And given the continuing depth of ethnic and religious hatred, there will continue to be incidents of genocide in our world. Disheartening as it is likely, genocide may always be with us.
But if we must sometimes concede with resignation that there’s just nothing more we can realistically do—however true it may be—we are still painfully and rightly aware that it falls well short of lifting the burden on our collective consciences. And although there are the few, the gifted ones, who are able to see or understand God even in these horrific circumstances, for most everyone else whose lives cross the path of genocide, it seems like hell on earth.
First written: August 2006, edited January 2010
© Gregory E. Hudson 2007
