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02/24/2005: "Auschwitz... Palestine... Iraq... ???..."

On a more serious note, here's the only post I made to the previous, failed blogs that is worth keeping. Originally posted on 27th Jan:

Auschwitz memorial day tomorrow. Just been watching a prog on tv about a survivor and her grandson going back to visit the site. Lots of horrendous images and emotion.

The boy asked some questions that sum up one of the common misunderstandings about how these things happen. He asked why the nazis had to degrade/humiliate/starve/etc their victims before killing them - why couldn't they just shoot them or whatever when they rounded them up. He also commented that the people who did these things were not human.

I would argue that the degradation of the victims before being killed was precisely because most of those carrying out the killing were as human as you or me. This seems so straightforward to me, but I never seem to hear it expressed on tv programmes. So I thought I'd take the coincidence of setting up this blog to ramble on about it. [Click on more.. below to read the rest]


The argument goes something like this. With a very few possible exceptions people will find it very difficult or impossible to kill someone who they can recognise as being similar to them - the same kinds of desires, emotions, weaknesses, strengths, etc - and who isn't an immediate threat to their own life, however much you hate the group that person belongs to. But to kill large numbers of people requires large numbers of people to actually do it and that rapidly becomes unworkable.

So, those (possibly truly evil) people who want to organise such killing need to make the killers feel little or no empathy with the victims - ideally loathing or disgust. So it becomes important to dehumanise the victims (at least in the eyes of the killers) as much as possible before the actual killing takes place. I think it would be a rare person who did not feel at least a glimmer of revulsion on seeing the images of people in those camps. Ok, while watching on tv, we can direct that revulsion at the perpetrators, but on coming face to face with a chronically starved, enfeebled adult needing more care than a newborn baby, I'm betting you'd find it a lot harder to provide that care than you would for the baby.

All this works to make it easier for the killers to turn off that part of their brain that says, "Hang on, these are people!" I know there are other factors at work too, such as the army training to follow orders, etc, but all this would come to naught without the dehumanisation.
The same argument works all the way back up the chain of that dehumanisation to the initial whispers of, "They're not like us." (And, in the case of anti-semitism, that certainly stretches way back). Each step puts enough distance between antagonist and victim to enable the following step to be carried out.

More importantly, a similar chain of dehumanisation is followed whenever one group of people are asked or encouraged to kill or mistreat another group. In recent years, muslims have been subject to much demonising in the press, particularly just before america invades yet another islamic country. Think carefully of what images you have in your mind of Palestinians and Israelis and which you feel more akin to. (The fact that Israel is involved is tragically ironic considering the holocaust). And, out of an Iraqi and a Russian, who do you feel is most like you? What comes to mind when I say, "Second World War Japanese soldier." Ok, I'm not trying to soften what the nazis did or say that more recent mass killings are as bad, just that they follow the same basic path - the nazis just took it to its sickeningly logical conclusion.

I think it's vital to understand when we are on the road that starts with highlighting differences between groups such that one is 'better' than the other. If you've ever been reticent about complaining at a racist/etc joke, don't be - it's on the same road.

Ok, first rant over - I'll read it again in a day or two and see whether to keep it or not.

[apparently, I did keep it ]