The Need to Remember
The most basic of human rights is the right to live. It is fitting that the day before Human Rights Day is the anniversary of the signing, on Dec. 9, 1948, of the UN’s Genocide Convention.
That convention recognizes genocide as a crime committed against members of a national, ethnic or religious group solely because they are members of that group. Such crimes stem from an intent to exterminate a particular group.
There is no motive that can justify genocide. It can grow out of greed, hatred, a sense of entitlement, or political or religious convictions.
Genocide is when “you are being killed not for what you have done, but for who you are,” Adama Dieng, the UN Secretary-General’s special adviser on prevention of genocide, said this past week as he emphasized the need to end genocide while paying tribute to the millions of men, women and children who were victims of past and current genocides.
“We owe to them and to ourselves and future generations to realize a world free of genocide,” he said.
The anniversary of the signing of the convention was recognized elsewhere around the world, especially among Armenians who are still haunted by the memory of the 1915 Armenian massacre by the Turks. That massacre has yet to be recognized as genocide.
It is a struggle the Armenians share with the Nama and Herero who are still fighting for global recognition of the genocide they endured in 1904 at the hands of the Germans.
To keep the past – and the victims – from being forgotten, the Armenian National Assembly is proposing declaring Dec. 9, from here on out, the Day of Remembrance of victims of all genocides.
Every “war comes to an end when the page of the past is turned and when the guilty repent," Vadim Rabinovich, president of the All-Ukrainian Jewish Congress and co-founder of the European Jewish Parliament, said in speaking in favor of the Day of Remembrance.
There are those who don’t want to remember. Who don’t want to repent the sins of their ancestors. They say the only way to move forward is to forget the past, that yesterday doesn’t matter. That was a different time, and the world was a different place then.
But yesterday teaches tomorrow. If the genocides of the past continue to be ignored, denied or forgotten, they will give birth to more genocides in the future.
While we can’t allow ourselves to be crippled by events of the past, we must recognize our history for what it was in order to heal and embrace tomorrow. And we must learn from it.
As Dieng said, no country is immune from genocide.
That convention recognizes genocide as a crime committed against members of a national, ethnic or religious group solely because they are members of that group. Such crimes stem from an intent to exterminate a particular group.
There is no motive that can justify genocide. It can grow out of greed, hatred, a sense of entitlement, or political or religious convictions.
Genocide is when “you are being killed not for what you have done, but for who you are,” Adama Dieng, the UN Secretary-General’s special adviser on prevention of genocide, said this past week as he emphasized the need to end genocide while paying tribute to the millions of men, women and children who were victims of past and current genocides.
“We owe to them and to ourselves and future generations to realize a world free of genocide,” he said.
The anniversary of the signing of the convention was recognized elsewhere around the world, especially among Armenians who are still haunted by the memory of the 1915 Armenian massacre by the Turks. That massacre has yet to be recognized as genocide.
It is a struggle the Armenians share with the Nama and Herero who are still fighting for global recognition of the genocide they endured in 1904 at the hands of the Germans.
To keep the past – and the victims – from being forgotten, the Armenian National Assembly is proposing declaring Dec. 9, from here on out, the Day of Remembrance of victims of all genocides.
Every “war comes to an end when the page of the past is turned and when the guilty repent," Vadim Rabinovich, president of the All-Ukrainian Jewish Congress and co-founder of the European Jewish Parliament, said in speaking in favor of the Day of Remembrance.
There are those who don’t want to remember. Who don’t want to repent the sins of their ancestors. They say the only way to move forward is to forget the past, that yesterday doesn’t matter. That was a different time, and the world was a different place then.
But yesterday teaches tomorrow. If the genocides of the past continue to be ignored, denied or forgotten, they will give birth to more genocides in the future.
While we can’t allow ourselves to be crippled by events of the past, we must recognize our history for what it was in order to heal and embrace tomorrow. And we must learn from it.
As Dieng said, no country is immune from genocide.
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