I have never thought you stupid. Plainly I have expressed frustration at your evasiveness.
To quote you: “I think there’s a great deal of value in reminding all of us that the Jews unfortunately have no monopoly on persecution.”
Frankly, I have difficulty understanding you. What does come across in your statements is that excess attention is paid to the Holocaust, and that referring to it without incorporating a laundry list of other tragic events somehow detracts from the amount of attention and sympathy available to other oppressed groups. And there is an implication that Jews are somehow to blame for the “ignoring” of these other groups.
I find all of this to be both groundless and offensive.
Pretty soon PETA will be here to protest abuse of an equine corpse.
Believe me, I’m not trying to be evasive. I simply can’t manage to get my point across to you. Is anyone else here having difficulty understanding my point?
I don’t think that “excess” attention is paid to the Holocaust. I do think that disproportionate attention is paid to the Holocaust, given the number of other instances of persecution and genocide which are rarely brought to public attention.
I said no such thing. I said that as is natural for various subgroups of the human race, Jews tend to call attention to the suffering of the group to which they belong. I wish that this were not so often the case, because I believe that if human beings as a whole paid more attention to and had more empathy for the suffering of groups that they do not belong to, they would try harder to prevent it. I believe that too little attention is paid to the human impact of wars, as opposed to which army controlled which territory as a result of which battle.
Since in modern American society, Jews are better represented and better organized than Hmong or Chechens or Sudanese, naturally their issues receive more attention.
I don’t understand why you find any of this offesnsive, and I certainly don’t understand why you find it groundless. I don’t know how else to lay out its basis any more clearly, short of writing a book.
I am going to talk out of both sides of my mouth here. But my point is that these two positions are not mutually incompatable.
I am already on record as agreeing with your basic point. (Although I think that you give Gibson way too much credit to believe that there is any possibility that he was thinking of that point, especially in that circumstance, but again, who cares? Why you and Jack are bickering over what Mel thinks is beyond me.) HaShoah was not an aberration, just notable for its brutal industrial efficiency.
But there are some things that are unique to the Jewish experience. No other people have been the target of such magnitude of persecution for so long. HaShoah was not a unique experience to Jews. To reference the Hillel quote: Being “for myself” I am very aware of that history and of its lamentable uniqueness. Since no one else “will be for me” I will be very active in defending my own against becoming such a target ever again. This history leads to some paranoia perhaps, but as they say, just because you are paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you. I am not so naive as to believe that Jew hating is gone, and that similar actions against my people are not possible, nay likely. It is just a question of when. “Christ-killer” back in popular parlance would be a worrisome development. The malice evinced by some in this thread is proof to me that the danger is never too far away.
But while HaShoah was not unique in the Jewish experience, it is also not unique in the human experience of us all. Nazis weren’t inhuman monsters. They were normal people who loved their kids and played games and picked their noses and were yelled at by their wives to put their clothes in the hamper. Others suffered at their hands and at the hands of many others, and many suffer today as well. Some have no one to remember or to advocate for them. I am “not for myself alone.” I believe that “never again” must not mean only never to me and mine (although it must mean that as well) it means that we must learn how to recognize this evil potential and control it, whether the victims are vocal or not, whether they are like us or not, whether we have self-interest involved or not. I have seen no evidence that we as a species have learned how to do that, and it saddens me. And in this regard I have no good answers, and barely can articulate the questions.
This is true, and I object to some of the ways in which Jewish groups have used the Holocaust. Then again, you have to expect a little vehemence given that some people deny it even happened.
You’re wandering into the ‘evil, manipulative Jews control the world’ stuff again, Alde.
[QUOTE=DSeid]
Why you and Jack are bickering over what Mel thinks is beyond me.
[QUOTE]
I was actually more interested in getting Eva to acknowledge what she thinks.
Awhile back I argued a related point with another (since banned) poster who claimed to be offended if members of any ethnic group took interest in their heritage, including violent acts taken against them. Eva has limited herself to disapproval of “disproportionate” attention given to “mainstream” minority groups (though she has talked only about Jews, leaving one to wonder if she thinks African-Americans have garnered a “disproportionate” amount of attention over slavery).
This still begs the question of why anyone would believe that attention paid to the Holocaust somehow empties the sympathy bank and prevents other events from receiving notice.
Members of groups that have faced oppression do not solely focus in on their own experience, but tend to become involved in civil rights causes in a larger sphere, and this certainly has been true for Jews as well as members of other ethnic groups.
And lastly there has to be acknowledgment of the role of Holocaust minimization in furthering the causes of bigots and people promoting certain Mideast agendas. If the Holocaust can be cast as just another event in history like many others, it can be removed as a stumbling block to the promotion of vitriolic anti-Semitism. Blind refusal to recognize this tactic for what it is, does no service to anyone.
Marley, care to give me some examples of what you mean? Then we can discuss it. For example, I don’t find Jack’s position objectionable. Do you?
Jack,
I personally cut Eva some slack here. Her big issue is the abuse of the Chechens and she is big on the under advocated of Europe in general. Therefore it is going to a hot button when other tragedies in Europe get short shrift because of the overwhelming shadow of the Holocaust, or just because we as a species haven’t yet learned to care. So much so that she can read good intent into Mel’s obvious non-answer. Of course you are right, as a group Jews have hardly paid attention to HaShoah to the exclusion of concern for others. The tradition, from the Pesach story on, is to resonate with the suffering of others and to work for the rights of others to make for a more perfect world. “I was in Egypt.” I was in Dachau. Because we know what it means to be oppressed, because it is our history, we are “not for ourselves alone.”
Mel Gibson is, in fact, an American. He moved to Australia when he was 12, but was born in Peekskill, New York. Since he is a natural born American and has spent the great majority of his life living in the United States, I would argue he’s more American than anything else.
Ask me a straight question, and you’ll get a straight answer. I’m a big believer in full disclosure.
We weren’t discussing slavery; we were discussing genocide and associated refugee issues. So I didn’t mention African-Americans. We were also talking primarily about the 20th century.
I simply think the sympathy bank should have larger reserves. Given the limited reserves it apparently has, I think its resources should be distributed more evenly among deserving recipients. I don’t think sympathy for the oppressed is a zero-sum phenomenon, but IMO too many other people do.
Oh, believe me, I know; there is a long tradition of that in my family in particular. But one can never have too much of that sort of thing.
Of course, but I disagree that this single out-of-context statement of Mel Gibson’s says much of anything at all about his agenda, anti-Semitic or otherwise. And please clarify what you mean by “certain Mideast agendas.” What do you think Mel Gibson’s “Mideast agenda” is, or how to you think it might promote other “Mideast agendas”?
I agree with Dseid that unfortunately, the only distinguishing features of the Holocaust were its scope and efficiency. It was another event in history like many others. Blind refusal to acknowledge that other groups have suffered equally awful horrors does no service to anyone, either.
But at least I think Dseid understands what I’m talking about:
Except that I would like to clarify that I tend to assume people mean well unless it’s plainly obvious that they don’t; absent clearer evidence, I am inclined to give Mel Gibson the benefit of the doubt. Why assume that he’s evil, when it’s more straightforward just to assume that he’s not particularly good at expressing his thoughts clearly?
Eva, not to beat a dead horse here, but because of clearer evidence: the context. His father has gone on record that the numbers of Jews killed during WWII was greatly exaggerated by Jewish forces. Given a chance to distance himself from his father’s statements he answered that “some” Jews died and that war is always tragic. He was asked your proverbial straight question. He answered by refusing to say anything that conflicted with his fathers statements. To me it is very clear.
I believe that your tactic is flawed. It ends up only insulting others. By minimizing HaShoah and dismissing what is unique of the Jewish experience you do not leave more reserves in the bank for others, you normalize the dismissal of concern. You merely diminish the bank for all. Instead keep up the efforts to build the bank up, to help us develop effective interventions and responses. To help answer about when concern over genocide and abuses are large enough to overcome the lack of strategic interests and to command intervention into internal affairs of a sovereign country.
I’m sorry if you, or anyone else, felt insulted; that wasn’t at all my intent.
I’m not at all saying anyone’s concerns should be dismissed or normalized; I’m just saying that given the limited attention span and resources that most people have and/or are willing to devote to human rights issues, I would rather use my own energies to promote an attitude of “we are all in this together.”
We are all sharing the same planet. Of course each group, persecuted and otherwise, has its own unique issues and history and concerns. In an ideal universe, we would be able to address everyone’s concerns equitably, but experience (especially in the M.E.) has shown us that’s not always realistic, and certainly isn’t a fast or linear process.
We should all be concerned about everyone. Human nature being what it is, most of us will be more concerned about some groups than about others; that’s normal. I happen to pay somewhat more attention to Jewish issues because of my own background, but in an attempt at even-handedness I try to pay more attention to Palestinian issues than, say, to Hmong issues. I pay more attention to Chechen issues for personal reasons which are too complicated to discuss here (although my master’s thesis will be cited in a soon-to-be-published book on the Chechens, which is part of the story). I’m sure in your average African high school, students are taught more about African issues; again, I don’t see anything wrong with that, because Lord knows there’s plenty to worry about in Africa.
Well, that’s a much larger topic of discussion. I would have liked to see the U.S. push Russia much more strongly over Chechen human rights issues, but given that we wanted Russia’s cooperation to fry some bigger fish, I knew it would happen slightly after Hell froze over. It’s frustrating, but what can we do? Wasn’t Rwanda a situation at least as deserving of violating a nation’s sovereignty as Iraq? These are all topics for a rather different thread. If I could formulate a decent OP right now, I would, but by all means do so if you feel the urge.
Eva, please do not misunderstand. I am not insulted, but only because I have read enough of your previous posts to understand where your are coming from. But I understand why others might misinterpret and take umbrage at your comments.
My point is that there is not a fixed amount of resources available to human rights issues; diminishing attention to one particularly horrific event does not leave more for others. This is a false presumption and it leads you to faulty action plan. The problem is not so much the shadow of HaShoah obscuring all else; it is that we haven’t learned to care, or at least how to evaluate and how to act. Increasing awareness of the capacity for any of these horrific events instead makes investments in building increased awareness for all of them. When I feel that my concerns are addressed, when I feel that I have adequately protected my own and am now relatively secure, I am more likely to work to help others.
Let me propose a different tactic. Acknowledge that HaShoah was particularly horrific and that the Jews have a history of persecution of greater duration than any other people. Acknowledge that Jews as a group have good and justifiable reasons to be scared of becoming such a target yet again. Acknowledge that we all must recognize our culpabilty in the historic persecution of the Jews, by both commission and ommission. And our responsibility to prevent its recurrance. Then pause. Allow Jews the chance to have been for themselves. Then ask Jews to continue their efforts to be for others as well. Then point out that there are other groups whose situations are perhaps of smaller scope but of equal horror and evil intent and who have no one to adequately advocate for them and of whom no one remembers. Point out to the world at large that genocidal capacity is inherent within us all and that constant vigilance is required.
But do not, even unintentionally, ask us to not be for ourselves because others have suffered too.
(Apologies if this is a doublepost, the server seems to have swallowed my first try.)
Eva, please do not misunderstand. I am not insulted, but only because I have read enough of your previous posts to understand where your are coming from. But I understand why others might misinterpret and take umbrage at your comments.
My point is that there is not a fixed amount of resources available to human rights issues; diminishing attention to one particularly horrific event does not leave more for others. This is a false presumption and it leads you to faulty action plan. The problem is not so much the shadow of HaShoah obscuring all else; it is that we haven’t learned to care, or at least how to evaluate and how to act. Increasing awareness of the capacity for any of these horrific events instead makes investments in building increased awareness for all of them. When I feel that my concerns are addressed, when I feel that I have adequately protected my own and am now relatively secure, I am more likely to work to help others.
Let me propose a different tactic. Acknowledge that HaShoah was particularly horrific and that the Jews have a history of persecution of greater duration than any other people. Acknowledge that Jews as a group have good and justifiable reasons to be scared of becoming such a target yet again. Acknowledge that we all must recognize our culpabilty in the historic persecution of the Jews, by both commission and ommission. And our responsibility to prevent its recurrance. Then pause. Allow Jews the chance to have been for themselves. Then ask Jews to continue their efforts to be for others as well. Then point out that there are other groups whose situations are perhaps of smaller scope but of equal horror and evil intent and who have no one to adequately advocate for them and of whom no one remembers. Point out to the world at large that genocidal capacity is inherent within us all and that constant vigilance is required.
But do not, even unintentionally, ask us to not be for ourselves because others have suffered too.
I’ve been trying to post this thing for about two hours now….aaargh! For the sake of linearity, I hope you don’t mind if I number your points:
Who are you asking to do these things? Mel Gibson? Jews? Everyone who ever comments on HaShoah? Society at large? Me personally? I’ve done part A here explicitly, and part B in other situations explicitly. If you believe that people should be for themselves first, then shouldn’t Mel Gibson, as a non-Jew, have somewhat less of an obligation to raise Jewish interests first than you believe you or I would?
No problem. I believe Mel Gibson has also done this, albeit indirectly, by acknowledging that a) there was a Holocaust, and b) lots of people, including many Jews, died in it.
Part A seems a bit over the top, unless you believe people are somehow responsible for the sins of their ancestors. My parents were small children at the time of the Holocaust. I don’t know exactly how old Mel Gibson is, but I don’t think he was in a position to do anything about the Holocaust, either.
Part B: again, no problem. I guess I’m just willing to believe that any given human being is anti-genocide until he/she shows otherwise.
Again, no problem. I’m not telling any Jew that he/she should not support Jewish causes.
This is the point I think we’ve reached, at least in modern American society. I’m not saying the struggle against anti-Semitism is over, by any means. And if you want to work for peace in Israel, of course, knock yourself out. But the details of the reasons behind the continuing violence there are rather complex, with much ugliness on both (or all) sides. Without hijacking further than we already have, I believe that promoting Jewish interests goes hand-in-hand with promoting justice for Palestinians. But let’s not turn this thread in that direction.
I guess I just disagree that the progression must necessarily be quite this linear. At this moment, the Jewish people are not in imminent danger of being wiped out. So why shouldn’t those of us who feel so inclined devote a greater proportion of our energy to those who need help more than we do right now?
Dammit, my post this morning was eaten. Here’s what I think, DSeid:
I was speaking from personal experience, not about Jews in general. (Alde seems to have trouble with the difference between disapproving of the behavior of individual members of a group and expanding that to disapproval of the group as a whole; it’s the latter that makes people sound like bigots.) When I went to Hebrew school, nobody ever talked about the millions of other victims of the Holocaust. You might ask “Why should they?” and you’d have a point. But I think the proper thing to do is acknowledge that it was a horrible ordeal for people of many types from many nations. Ignoring the suffering of others amounts to attempting to monopolize a tragedy, and that’s wrong. Again, I’m talking about a few individuals, not ‘the Jews.’
And it’s also true that some people do use the Holocaust to deflect criticism or as a scare tactic. I got a forwarded e-mail from a Jewish family member the other day. It urged everyone to boycott Norweigan goods (like what?) because of allegedly insensitive comments by some Norweigan official. The text explained the comments and quickly jumped to Norway’s role in the Holocaust. Stuff like that amounts to milking a tragedy for sympathy, and I wish it didn’t happen so often. Maybe this Norweigan guy is an anti-Semite and maybe he’s not. A singular incident is not evidence that the Holocaust could restart any moment, which is often the implication.
It’s not that a lot of Jewish groups do this. It’s that the few groups who do tend to make a lot of noise.
I was actually refering to you and others who want to get more world focus and attention on relatively ignored offenses. The particulars of HaShoah were seemingly getting downplayed by Gibson and by your defense of his statement. Again, I know that such was not your intent.
Group culpability is not ancestral sin. It is recognizing that we are units of a larger societal organism that has its own inertia and its own repetitive patterns. We must be aware that this creature is prone to certain pattens and do more to control it.
I have no problem with your put 100% of your energy on social justice for others. More power to you. It just isn’t a good tactic to try to tell people that the focus on antisemitism is any less important.
I think it is very few groups and even fewer individuals.
Using the op as an example. The official ADL line is appropriate. It expressesd concern that the movie had potential for repopularizing the Christ-killer myth, which could feed antisemitism. Individuals (including those in high positions in the ADL) went over the top, IMHO, and stated that the movie itself was antisemitic as was Gibson. May be he is, I dunno, his refusal to distance himself from his Dad’s POV and other statements he has made would make me suspicious, but we still should be very reluctant to make that charge. He could just be an idiot and insensitive.
Same with another event, the idiot Israeli ambassador and the stupid terrorist bomber “art” To express concern that such was inappropriate for that venue was very justified; to hysterically declare it antisemitic and react with even a mild act of vandalism in protest, was out of bounds.
It is fair to say that sometimes a few individual Jews go out of bounds with concerns over antisemitism, just as some Blacks overplay “the race card.” In both cases one must be careful to recognize that that doesn’t mean that the concern isn’t often justified. It is fair to disagree about whether or not a particular instance is over the top or not. It is malice to over-generalize from those few cases. The hatefulness expressed by some in this thread concerns me.
And yes, I agree that it is a mistake and an injustice for Jews to under-recognize non-Jewish groups targeted during the Holocaust. I do not think it is done with malice. The Romani in particular were just such a small group to start with, and their destruction so much more complete, that there was hardly anyone left to bear witness. When it comes to The Holocaust we can and should do a better job at being not for ourselves alone. But the only reason to discuss that as an initial comment in a thread about Jewish concerns about the effects of Mel’s movie is to set up the case to dismiss all Jewish concerns.
To respond to Eva’s earlier request to “please clarify what you mean by ‘certain Mideast agendas’ (benefiting from Holocaust minimization)”:
Here’s a good example from this site, which cites a Holocaust denial statement published on the official Hamas web site, including the following:
“…the so-called Holocaust, which is an alleged and invented story with no basis. . . . The invention of these grand illusions of an alleged crime that never occurred, ignoring the millions of dead European victims of Nazism during the war(boldface added), clearly reveals the racist Zionist face, which believes in the superiority of the Jewish race over the rest of the nations.”
(disclaimer - this is a translation from the Arabic, listed on a site run by an Israeli anti-terrorism think tank).
Holocaust denial has been a tool employed in the Middle East in other contexts, and has seen its adherents move into positions of power (i.e. Mahmoud Abbas, selected as prime minister by Arafat despite Abbas’ having written a book embracing Holocaust denial, which in part claimed that “Zionists” encouraged Hitler to kill Jews as part of a plan to get sympathy for the creation of Israel.
It should be possible to work for justice in the Middle East without promotion of lies and demonization.
I’d still like an answer from Eva regarding the question I posed earlier: "Eva has limited herself to disapproval of “disproportionate” attention given to “mainstream” minority groups (though she has talked only about Jews, leaving one to wonder if she thinks African-Americans have garnered a “disproportionate” amount of attention over slavery).
To give this more context, consider that by some estimates there are currently 27 million people living in slavery in the world today.
By continuing to remember their sacrifices and struggle against slavery (as in activities commemorating Black History Month, for example), are African-Americans “depleting the sympathy bank” for worldwide victims of slavery today? Should they, in Eva’s view, tone down remembrance of their experience with slavery so as to permit greater attention to be focused on slavery’s modern victims?
Well, somehow I may live to regret doing this pre-caffeine, but here goes:
The examples that you provide are, of course, extremely clear-cut; I don’t think Mel Gibson’s statement comes close. When I asked the question previously, I was trying to determine whether you were accusing anyone in this thread of Holocaust denial, or even minimization. I really don’t think anyone in this thread, or even on the SDMB that I remember seeing, is denying or minimizing that 6,000,000 Jews died in the Holocaust, and that the Jewish people came close to being completely wiped out. But 6,000,000 Jews is still a smaller number than the number that died in the Ukrainian famine and Stalinist purges, and that was in a single country. We shouldn’t forget them, either.
I think we can all agree that anyone who denies that the Holocaust occurred is lying. But I just don’t see how mentioning that other people have suffered, too, demonizes Jews or anyone else.
Well, as I mentioned, U.S. slavery was well outside the scope of the OP, which was why I didn’t address it. Since you are so insistent, I will do so briefly, but if you want to go into detail I suggest you start another thread.
Nowhere have I suggested that victims of persecution or their descendants “tone down” remembrances of their people’s experience. I have simply expressed the desire that a) they acknowledge those who have suffered similar persecution, and b) not accuse people of bigotry or lying if they choose to address the suffering of other groups either in addition to, or instead of a particular group. As I said before, I just want to increase the deposits to, and thereby the reserved of, the “sympathy bank.” And yes, I would like to see present-day slavery issues at least mentioned in Black History Month observances, just as I would like to see the non-Jewish victims of the Holocaust acknowledged in Holocaust observances. To me, there is a reason why Yom ha-Shoah translates to Holocaust Remembrance Day, rather than Dead Jewish People Remembrance Day.
The issue you do not address, of course, is whether minimizing the Holocaust in a nearly identical manner to those with a clear agenda of bigotry and/or political demonization (as in the bold-faced quote above) helps to serve those agendas.
Obviously when I was referring to demonization it was to examples like this: “Mahmoud Abbas, selected as prime minister by Arafat despite Abbas’ having written a book embracing Holocaust denial, which in part claimed that “Zionists” encouraged Hitler to kill Jews as part of a plan to get sympathy for the creation of Israel.”
If accusing “Zionists” of encouraging Nazi death camp activities doesn’t strike you as demonization, nothing will.
Falsely ascribing alternate meanings to my statements does not bolster your arguments.
You have not directly answered this question: “By continuing to remember their sacrifices and struggle against slavery (as in activities commemorating Black History Month, for example), are African-Americans “depleting the sympathy bank” for worldwide victims of slavery today?”
Yes or No will do.
The best response is in Eva’s own words:
There was a letter in the N.Y. Times magazine today from a self-described college activist describing the outrage she and her roommate felt after reading a previous Times magazine article on child sex trafficking. The letter states “But compared to the horrors described in your article, our usual concerns - abortion rights, affirmative action, the environment - seem almost petty”.
If that student and others now want to move away from their “usual concerns” and organize opposition to sex trafficking, that is a worthy goal and their privilege to do so. However, if they should turn on single-minded activists working for environmental protection and demand that every protest against rain forest destruction include a statement decrying the horrors of sex trafficking, I submit that that would do neither cause any good. It would just dilute the impact of both groups.
Or, what about the various organizations working to combat serious illnesses? When women’s groups seeking to raise awareness of heart disease had an event this past Friday, were they wrong not to have simultaneously talked about breast cancer, autism, diabetes, juvenile firearms-related killings and lead paint abatement? Add up human deaths from all other causes and they’d far exceed those due to heart disease in women.
At some point, I hope you will recognize the illogic of demanding that those making a stand against a particular evil must simultaneously talk about a host of other, even distantly related evils - or else be somehow complicit in denigrating the victims of those other evils.