Remembering Genocide

I wonder if the 20th Century will be remembered as the century of genocide. The power of ideology to move one group to think that they can somehow cleanse the population of some kind of perceived impurity motivated the Turks to kill Armenians, the Nazis to kill millions of Jews, Poles, Gypsies, disabled and GLBTQ folks, and the Khmer Rouge to kill millions in Cambodia. All believed they were doing their society a favor by eliminating undesirable people, thinking they could somehow construct a better society. They practiced killing with an ideological purpose whereas in the past, the killing was more indiscriminate and practical. Submit to my power or I’ll wipe you out said Genghis Khan. Send me tribute. I don’t care what you think but I do care about the wealth you’ll be generating for me. The more contemporary version isn’t economically driven but motivated by a (flawed) vision of a good society.

I was reminded of this by watching the obituary of Dith Pran on the New York Times web site. Pran, a translator for a NY Times journalist in 1972 got caught up in the genocide in Cambodia and became the source for the movie, The Killing Fields. He recently died of cancer. On his death bed he wanted to tell the story of the genocide one last time hoping to have people continue to remember what happened. He reminded me of the Nazi concentration camp survivors, and the Armenians who do not want the world to forget what happened.

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