Excerpt:
Genocide Denial is a radical variation on the theme of the old, frankly racist, bloodthirsty triumphalism. It was probably evolved as an answer to the somewhat patchy dual morality that arose in the 19th century, when Europe was developing limited but new forms of democracy and citizens' rights at home while simultaneously exterminating people in their millions in her colonies. Suddenly countries and governments began to deny or attempt to hide the genocides they had committed. "Denial is saying, in effect," says Professor Robert Jay Lifton, author of Hiroshima and America: Fifty Years of Denial, "that the murderers did not murder. The victims weren't killed. The direct consequence of denial is that it invites future genocide."
Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2008 16:29:55 +0000
Subject: [uttorshuri] Re: Arundhati Roy on Genocide
Thank you for bringing this very enlightening article to our
attention! I was debating whether to honor your request and commit
"copyright violation", but I finally decided to reproduce it in
uttorshuri in full so that our readers can catch up with it later in
case the original site makes it unavailable as most media sites tend
to do: http://groups.
Her portrayal of the human condition is disturbing, and depressing.
I invite others to comment on our own current situation vis-a-vis
issues that Roy discusses albeit in the context of India, Turkey, or
US. But I'll just comment on one matter that's been bothering me for
quite some time now: I could never understand how rational, highly
educated, apparently progressive people could support the idea of
systematically populating the Ctg Hill Tracts with "Bangalees" i.e. plains-people. Now I see it: It is our own Lebensraum!
I have said in this very forum before that what we are doing to the
adivasis there, viz. the Marmas and Chakmas and others, is comparable
to what the Pakistanis were doing to us in 1971. Now I can clearly
see it is nothing less than another genocide in the process, "in a
fish bowl in slow motion," as Ms Roy puts it when she refers to the
Israelis decimating the Palestinians on an annual basis.
How have we turned into the very monster we accuse Pakistanis and
their collaborators of having been? That answer is also provided by
Roy, I believe, where she touches upon the issue of "impunity" as
a "precursor" to genocides. Profound!
I cannot wait to read the full version of this article in print.
Ikram
--- In uttorshuri@yahoogro
>
> The article is worth being reproduced here.
>
> Listening To Grasshoppers
> Genocide, Denial And Celebration
>
> It's an old human habit, genocide is. It's a search for lebensraum,
a project of Union and Progress.
> Arundhati Roy
>
www.outlookindia.
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