Writing to Combat Ignorance: Why the West Needs Stories of Genocide Survivors.
As a writer, I know, stories are status. Really, there are no “important” writers, only important stories.
The question is: which stories do readers and writers give status to?
Stories are everywhere. Writers’ capture them. But what if we’ve been capturing all the wrong ones?
The social world is created by the stories we tell. Not just the stories writers tell, but the stories the media tells, the movies tell, and the advertisers tell.
The news media tells the story of fear. The entertainment media tells the story of pleasure. Advertising tells the story of human inadequacy.
Stories that combat ignorance are hard to find. It seems we prefer stories as tranquilizers.
Stories that summon us to a collective responsibility for building a collective future, stories where people care for each other and the land, seem lacking today.
So, where ought we look for stories that summon us to take collective responsibility for the future?
I’ve been asking myself this question for the better part of a month and the answer that came was somewhat shocking to me.
The answer was: the stories we need now, more than any other, are the stories of Genocide survivors.
The stories of genocide survivors allow us to reflect on many things, three of which I will highlight here: humility, evil, and witness.
Humility
Have you ever had the opportunity to speak with a genocide survivor? If you have, you’ve probably experienced what if feels like to be humbled.
Growing up in the affluent West, I’ve had very few chances to feel humbled in the presence of another. It’s a hard feeling to describe.
It’s a feeling honored by religions the world over, yet many of us have never actually felt humbled in the presence of another person.
As a younger person I sought this feeling without realizing it.
I sought out great teachers, writers and philosophers hoping to be humbled by their presence. I’ll never forget when I got to meet Canada’s preeminent philosopher and thinker at an event. I thought to myself, surely, I will feel humbled in the presence of such a celebrated master thinker and writer.
Instead, I left the event feeling bitter, confused and disappointed. I felt nothing but contempt for the man.
In another instance, I had the opportunity to go to Thunderbird stadium on the University of British Columbia campus to see the Dali Lama. I knew from a friend who visited Tibet, a simple scarf, said to have been in the presence of his holiness, elicits religious awe and ecstasy in Tibetans.
In my heart, I knew that I would not feel the love and awe for his holiness the way Tibetans do, after all I’m a Western Christian, but at the very least I hoped to be humbled in his presence.
To my shock, instead of feeling humbled, I was completely distracted by my feelings of contempt for the people around me (a feeling you shouldn’t be experiencing in the presence of his holiness).
In the middle of his discourse, hundreds of people in the stadium were coming and going with soft drinks, nachos, popcorn, candy and chocolate, as if they were watching a hockey game. I felt deeply ashamed and hateful towards these people and towards our collective culture of entertainment and consumption.
Looking back, I’m ashamed of my feelings. I hope the Dali Lama will forgive me. He continues to shine and illuminate the world with stories of compassion and hope. His presence in Vancouver was still a divine blessing, even if many in the stadium, including myself were ignorant to it.
The first time I experienced real humility, and it landed, wasn’t until my thirties when I met a Rwandan women named Pauline. I asked Pauline to speak to my Genocide Studies 12 class one Spring. Pauline lost many relatives in the Genocide including, tragically, her 5-year-old son.
As she drew the map of Rwanda on the white board, showing us how every path to escape for the hunted Tutsi was blocked off by geography or unfriendly boarder guards, I held my breath. The people, essentially trapped, were thrust into the arms of their murders. Both the UN and the Catholic Church were action-less in the face of the atrocities. It was awful, unimaginable. And then, she talked about forgiveness, a love of life and smiled a lot! I was flabbergasted.
My only regret is that I didn’t ask more people to come to my classroom that day. We were such as small group. I invited the vice principle and principle, but they didn’t come. Many said they weren’t ready to hear or couldn’t bear to listen.
Listening and hearing Pauline’s story was one of the greatest blessings of my life. I feel this way every time I listen to a survivor of the holocaust or other mass atrocities speak. I know we need to offer more people in our culture, in our world, the experience of feeling humbled in the presence of the other.
I don’t think any of us should be in our thirties by the time we have an embodied experience of humility. I want to offer this experience to youth. But then, there’s the problem of evil. Ought we really teach children about Genocide?
Evil
One question that often comes up when I advocate for Genocide Studies in school is: “When are children old enough to learn about evil?”
I think this is a great question. I think it stems from another, even deeper question: “Are we a society that still believes in evil?”
Public schools have adopted secular humanism as their philosophical stance for talking about matters of morality. In other words, we teach children that it is up to individuals to decide whether an act is moral or immoral. If that individual gets stuck, we tell them to seek further understanding through scientific or philosophic investigation.
Explaining hate and acts of Genocide through the limited lens of secular humanism fails children. Little in science or in philosophy can explain hate and genocide in a way that children can understand. Ethics and moral codes derived from philosophy including utilitarianism, evolutionary ethics or even ethical naturalism are incommunicable ways to teach children about hate and genocide.
I wonder if the only way, adults can talk about hate and genocide, with any authority to children, is by invoking the concept of evil? Does anything less do a disservice not only to children, but to survivors of genocide also?
A holocaust survivor said in order to prevent another holocaust we “need to know how to tell the difference between Good and Evil.”
It seems like, in the 21st century, we don’t worry much about the distinction between good and evil, but instead spend our time arguing about whether the concepts of good and evil exist at all. This breeds what author Shoshana Zuboff calls “radical indifference” which she defines as the freedom to forgo moral judgement by viewing good and bad, right and wrong as moral equivalents.
If the concept of evil brings understanding to children about hate and genocide than ought educators be able to use it?
Witness
My mom, who is a woman of German descent, and my Dad, who is of Scottish/Irish descent, raised me on the land of the Dene Nation. My family taught me how lucky the Dene children were to be raised with the help of their grandmothers. I witnessed how Dene people spoke with openness, honesty, love and wisdom when public speaking. And, my family often said, we ought to learn from their ways.
Despite the of the dividedness between outsiders and the Dene Nation, my mom always spoke of the people, especially of the Elders with love and admiration.
It wasn’t until we settled in Coast Salish Territory, that my families teachings of love and learning were juxtaposed by a calculated racism on behalf of the upper middle class white girls that played on my high school basketball team.
Their hateful behaviors were not just reserved for demeaning the new, junior members of the team, but showed in full force when we played all-Native teams. After the games, the girls on my team would quickly shower to wash off the “dirty filth of brown skin that rubbed off on them during the game.”
I waited for my coaches, the power-holders of the team to say something, to correct their behavior, to stand up to them, but it never happened. To my shame, I too remained a bystander.
It wasn’t until I took history courses in university about historical Genocide, that I made the decision never to be a bystander again. I realized that by listening to my teammates and saying nothing, I was in someway participating in their racist practice.
I decided then, to change my behavior, and choose to be an Upstander and advocate. I now teach Genocide Studies to high school students and I’ve publicly told my story of bystanding to teach others what not to do. I’ve publicly apologized for what I did, and vowed to make amends for my lack of advocacy that day.
Something in me changed the day I witnessed the pure, unadulterated hate of racism. It made me feel sick in my skin. It made me feel ashamed of who I was and who I was associated with. The day I learned in history class that I had choice to stand up against racial hatred in my life, I took it.
It’s time we teach students about the power of witness and what they can do when they become witness to acts of hatred. Students must feel empowered to act, but first they must be taught that acting in the face of hate is possible.
Circles of Concern
I want to conclude this reflection by talking about circles of concern. In difficult moments in our individual or collective lives, it’s normal to retreat. In a pandemic, isolation and retreat will save our lives and the lives of others.
But I don’t want us to mis-read the public health messages of the pandemic as a free pass to ignore or hide from bigotry, racism and hate. We must continue to work against those forces through acts of hope, faith and love.
I won’t give up on humanitarian work during the pandemic and nor will countless others. It’s difficult to maintain hope that the Syrian refugee families who were on their way to a new life in Canada, will make it here. It’s difficult to believe that Genocides continue today. It’s difficult to believe that race-based violence is killing black men, women and children everyday in the United States.
Yet, retreat from the pandemic doesn’t mean retreating from advocating against future genocides and teaching individuals to be Upstanders in the face of hatred.
I think we can act motivated by a desire to see a collective future for our children that is bright and full of promise.
After listening for an hour or two to the news, its easy to feel hopeless. It’s clear that hate and intolerance are on the rise around the world. It’s clear we have not learned the lessons from the past. It’s clear we need to hear and share the stories of Genocide survivors with our children. It’s clear we need education to prevent future atrocities. And it’s clear we need each other to cultivate love and goodness in our lives and the lives of others.
