A Sobering Day

I watched the commemoration of events at Auschwitz yesterday and in particular the shocking accounts by survivors. You could not fail to be hugely moved by the occasion. To me it is unimaginable who would perpetrate such horrific acts and particularly that it was state sponsored and organised. As I listened to the speeches there was a common theme from today’s leaders, I heard particularly Prince Charles. The sentiment was that we couldn’t allow such events to happen again.

This is like motherhood and apple pie, you cannot fail to agree with this. Of course no one wants to see a repeat of the Holocaust. Indeed even one death in the name of bigotry is one death too many. In reality though there have been frequent terrible genocides since the Second World War, and in truth we often do not have the stomach or the means to do anything about it.

First of all some of these genocides seem more acceptable than others. There is relatively little comment concerning Stalin’s purges in Russia or genocide by famine in China by Mao Tse Tung. A case could be made for widening out the commemoration of Holocaust day to remember other genocides.

Can we do anything about genocide? Frequently there are no practical solutions, let us not forget that there was nothing that could have been to prevent the Holocaust. Indeed the existence of the extermination camps was not common knowledge until the end of the war. Genocide in Central Africa and the former Yugoslavia was by contrast well known. In the latter after some time and the publication of harrowing footage NATO found the means to form a barrier between the different factions and some of the perpetrators have been brought to book. However in Central Africa there was no intervention, would indeed there have been the political will to send western troops to Central Africa? Of course there would not have been.

So it is very easy to say that the Holocaust must not be allowed to happen in the future, but our leaders should think more about what this means. I suppose that after the Second World War the United Nations was going to be the organisation that would police the world and bodies like the International Criminal Court would ensure that any perpetrators of genocide receive justice. Such bodies relied on a utopian world order and popular will that simply does not exist. Indeed the only practical way of preventing genocide has proven to be the use of overwhelming force by a super power, the US or an alliance in NATO. The perils of this are obvious from history, Saddam Hussain practiced the genocide of the Kurds, however we all know too well the impact of subsequent western intervention.

So while we agree with the sentiment, we must be very aware of the limitations of power, and practically what we have a will to undertake. This is a really difficult question that deserves careful consideration, not trite speech making.