Re: Killings, evil and pictures to assure accountabillity L3

[Sonja van Baardwijk-Holten]

Dan Minette wrote:
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Sonja van Baardwijk-Holten" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Sunday, August 29, 2004 7:55 PM
Subject: Re: Killings, evil and pictures to assure accountabillity was, Re:
The Mercies of The Vatican

 

Gautam Mukunda wrote:
   

Sonja, I'll make you a deal.  If you stop making
excuses for people who participated in the Holocaust,
I'll stop calling you on it when you do it.

     

No deal. Your basic presumption is flawed. Not every German during the
holocaust was automatically and without exception a participant in the
holocaust and a jew murdering nazi.
   

Not every one, probably not.  But, it was common knowledge and there was no
indication of public horror at it.  As Gautam said, it wasn't accidental;
it was deliberate policy from on high.
 

My point is that the lack of public horror wasn't contained or even 
exclusive to Germany. Europe, the US and the rest of the world were 
similarly disinterested in the stories of persecutions that did the 
rounds. I hold that it is too easy to dismiss a horror story (perhaps 
also because of the fact that the scope and magnitude these crimes were 
perpetrated on, up untill then, were totally unheard of) when you 
haven't got physical evidence as in f.i. pictures, portraying the actual 
magnitude of violence happening. I mean would you have believed Abu 
Graihb or believed that it was that severe if you'd not seen pictures of 
it? Would there have been a similar outcry? Up until a point in the war, 
the world simply didn't have an interest and without physical proof and 
ready available pictures/physical proof there was no incentive to change 
this attitude in what happened because it was convenient, not on their 
doorstep and basically at the time without solid irrefutable widespread 
proof.

I've read your arguements on this type of subject for a while, and I've
seen a pattern that I'd like some feedback on.  Consistancy, you lump all
bad outcomes together.  What happened in Abu Ghraib was wrong.  People
should be punished; and that includes officers who were derelict in their
duty to provide the proper environment.  You saw my opinion expressed in my
recent post.
Having said that; there is no comparison with this and genocide.
Genocide starts with that first murder, the first act against a fellow 
human. So I feel that there is room for thought experiments and comparison.

One was, IMHO, a criminal neglect to establish a proper prison environment, where the 
long established procedure was not enforced.  The second was a
systematic, well planned slaughter of millions of innocent humans that
gained momentum as new, more efficent murder techniques were developed.
Information about this, according to documentation from the time, was
readily available to the average citizen.
Actually here we differ considerably. It wasn't mere neglect that caused 
it, to me it was a premeditated and consiously carried out policy of 
establishing superiority toward what are considered inferior peoples, at 
all cost. So the intent factor and the underlying potential for worse, 
to me makes it really bad.

In the US, there was a hue and cry about the crimes.  It may very well be
that we will not sufficiently punish people far enough up the chain of
command, but it is also clear that a number of pro-military people in the
US are mad as hell that things were not done right.
 

As always only some, not all. There are those that are even madder at 
the story getting out in the first place, and I'm not so sure that the 
displayed outrage for some isn't a mere saving face gesture. Of course 
there are those that are truely outraged so there is still hope for the 
future, although the edict to forbid camera's in the army isn't exactly 
inspiring much confidence. :o)

I have not seen an acknowledgement of the multiple order of magnitude in
the difference between these two things.  To me, its like comparing a
mother who yells at her kids when she shouldn't because she is upset about
something else and a mother who burns her kids with a cigarette.  Both are
wrong, but the order of magnitude of the wrongs are enormously different.
 

There is a magnitude of difference, but do I have to acknowledge that 
everytime I breach the subject. To me it is just as offensive to lump 
all people on the BAD&EVIL heap each time something controversial on US 
behaviour is mentioned on Brin-L. If I'd wanted I could construe that 
into something along the lines of being a denyer and defender for 
massacres committed in the name of the US and it's believes. But I don't 
since I do understand there is a difference.

It seems to me that you differ with this idea.  Bad is bad, wrong is wrong,
and there is no worse.
 

Indeed, bad is bad and wrong is wrong. To me the *only* difference is 
the magnitude and the scale. Maybe that's what's offensive, I don't know.

The difficutly with this is that it lumps all non perfect things together.
I can't see the validity of this.  Let me give a personal example.  My
Zambian daughter was stopped with two of her friends for DWB (driving while
black) in the Woodlands. It followed the typical DWB pattern, cop car is
beside a car, sees that black people are in it, slows down and follows the
car for a while and then pulls it over.  They were asked why they were in
the Woodlands (which has very few blacks).  After 10 minutes, they were
given a verbal warning for one of two liscence plate lights being out, and
were allowed to go on their way.
I realize that there is racism in the police up here.  I realize that the
association of blacks with criminals results in unarmed black and Hispanic
kids being shot from time to time.  One or two die in an average year this
way.  It is wrong, and I feel we need to adress this.
Yet, this is nothing like what I would feel if I knew Neli was in Sudan.
There, there is a deliberate policy, given a wink and a nod by the UN, to
commit genocide against the black majority by the Arab minority that runs
the country.  If she were there, there would be a good chance that she
would be killed.  In Houston, there is a small chance; its still too big
mind you, but it is small.
 

Granted. I understand your point of view. But lets pull this example a 
little further down. Here it is unthinkable that black people regularly 
would be pulled of the street without due cause, let alone that fearing 
for their lives or getting shot for being different is considered a 
normal hazard of life and to me it is rather unthinkable, immoral 
actually. When it happens here it is such a rare event that the whole 
country stands on it's head. So compared to that attitude would you say 
you still hold the moral high ground over Sudan? Is my moral high ground 
over the US higher or lower then your's over Sudan? The difference still 
is only one of magnitude and position, on the scale of horror. One is 
bad, the other is worse, but that doesn't excuse one in light of the 
other. And that seems to me what some very vocal US citizens regularly 
tend to do when confronted with one thing in light of another worse one. 
I hold the view that given the right set of circumstances Houston 
probably could turn into Sudan. If enough hatred exists or is installed 
due to whatever intrinsic or external circumstance and enough people 
look away when such acts are carried out it just might become that 
nightmare you now abhore so much. It might turn into a firmly 
established reality.

From what I've read of your post over the years, I have gotten the opinion
that until we clean up our act concerning the racism in Houston, we have no
right to comment on the genocide in the Sudan.  People dying is people
dying, so make sure your own house is in perfect order before pointing out
problems in another's house.
 

Nope, and I'm glad you bring this up. The sentiment is correct. Bad is 
bad and evil is evil, but the conclusion you draw from that is simply 
wrong. It is what some of the listees make of my comments in order to 
defend each and every action of the US, and I'm sorry that I have to say 
this, it is a typical US sentiment. Fortunatly over the years I've 
gotten better at recognising what is worth responding to and what is a 
mere waste of time and energy. I do find that other nationalities are 
much more gracious in discussing critisism of their countries. I'm 
merely comparing what happens now to what previously happened in 
history. Because of this I get labelled a Nazi without fail everytime. 
This already makes me wonder why I am not entitled to comment on actions 
of the USes current or past behaviour in light of historical precedents, 
that were (granted) a big order of magnitude up the scale of bad and 
evil. But that doesn't make the current problems as excusable or 
insignificant as some listees want to make it seem.

The problem I see with that is that humans are not perfect.  We will never
have perfect justice.  Thus, if perfect justice is required for genocide to
be stopped, it will never be stopped.Its as if we cannot stop a mother
 

from burning her children until we never ever parent imperfectly.
 

If this is not your view, then it would be helpful for you to clarify it.
It is a flawed conclusion, since the premise is flawed. I recognise the 
difference in magnitudes, but I differ in judgement of the actions in 
question. They might be different in magnitude but they are evil and 
should be punished severely non the less. As such I judge them equally 
harsh. And that is not because it's the US or the Germans, current or 
past or whatever else gets slung at me. It's because HUMANS, and 
defenseless humans at that got hurt _intentionally_ and _premeditatedly_ 
and the ones doing it would like to deharmefy these incidents into 
insignificance. _That_ is what I take issue with.

For example, a contrast and compare between the magnitude of AG and the
Holocaust would be helpful.  Either data that refutes the documented claim
that the Holocaust was common knowledge in Germany, or acceptance of that
would also be helpful.
 

I think there is a difference between common knowledge and irrifutable 
proof substantiated by pictures. The human mind can easily dismiss the 
former when the knowledge becomes inconvenient, while it is nearly 
impossible to ignore the latter. For me the thought experiments don't 
serve as an excuse for what happened but are an attempt at understanding 
how situations can get that badly out of hand real fast. As such this 
understanding will always be somewhat flawed since I'll never be able to 
recreate in my mind the exact conditions people live or lived under. 
However to me understanding how things can get so badly out of hand, 
lets me weapon myself against becoming a tool in promoting those 
abominations of the human behavioural scale as mere minor evil.

I realize that this involves a switch in worldview because most of us were
taught a convenient fiction in school.  I certainly believed that the
Nazi's had a police state, even for the Ayrians, from the start.  I thought
the Holocaust was very secret.  But now, I accept the evidence that Nazi
Germany was not a police state and the Holocaust was not all that hidden.
 

I wasn't taught any of it in school, I have first hand accounts of what 
it was like in WWII and what happened afterwards.

If you differ with this, then I'd be very open to evidence to the contrary.
An example of this was Nick's arguement concerning the fraction of the
French Jewish population that was killed. He provided solid data to
convince me that he had a reasonable point.
 


Are you also opened to being convinced? If so, what is insufficient in the
evidence that has been provided?
 

Nope, not really. Basically it's lacking the overall picture of a state 
of mind where credence is given to what it was like living in an 
impoverished, defeated state where all of the outside world was 
considered to be 'the enemy'. Also it lacks the conviction and the 
urgency of the fact that it _can_ happen again in different guises, in 
different orders of magnitude, with other populations in other countries 
under similar if not identical circumstances.
At the time the Nazi stance offered a way out of a desperate situation. 
Exterminating Jews, killing and sterilising handicapped people, Roma, 
Sinti, and others classified as inferior, where the price for it. And 
bitter as it may be, the world, and not only and exclusively Germany or 
even Europe, but the world, was readily willing to pay that price. Just 
as we now are willing to sacrifice other nations/convictions/believe 
systems and ultimatly moral values. So my world view is even more 
cynical and darker then you try to hold me accountable for. And it is 
even less forgiving at that. I'd simply love to see all crimes against 
humanity/humans out in the open, fully acknowledged and eventually 
punished up to the very top of the pecking order. Instead it seems those 
crimes are being weighed according to severity and then discussed into 
insignificance in light of a much bigger evil. *That's* what we *should* 
have learned from what happened. If you haven't, all deaths during the 
holocaust truely were meaningless.

Sonja
GCU: Microscopic and macroscopic views
ROU: No such thing as a lesser evil
PS: And thanks Dan for acting normal, I simply love to discuss this.
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