2005-12-10

Human Rights Day 2005

On Friday, I went on a field trip to an event honoring Human Rights Day at the JFK Library. The theme was genocide. United Nations High Commissioner Louise Arbour gave the Keynote Address, and afterwards we were allowed to ask questions. I don't really remember what other people asked, other than one man who aggravated her by basically asking why do we believe we can stop it forever after looking at the Holocaust and other past failures. After him, it was my turn. There, standing in line, was a classmate of mine who is super intellectual and insightful, and I knew hsi question was better than mine, and I knew that was one question that would never be asked. Then my turn came. I felt dumb, because I wasn't planning on sprinkling my question with every smart-sounding thing I heard on public radio, but I wanted to ask her something I know we all needed.

I take Facing History and Ourselves, which is a class/organization that helped sponsor the event, and I was never interested in that weird, depressing class until they had a rally about the genocide in Darfur. I never knew there was still genocide. I thought it ended with Hitler. Boy was I misinformed, despite the fact that I went to a "smart school". Now imagine if I went to your average high school. I would still be oblivious to this, like you may even be right now. Thats when it hit me; we can pretend to be as intelligent as we want to be, but obviously nobody cares or knows about it because we aren't reaching out to people as human beings, but we just want to be wanna-be politicians. I asked what method would she use to hit the general public with this problem because there are only so many of us "intellectuals" who care. In the old days of U.S. History concerning slavery, everyone weighed in on the issue, and I wanted her to tell me how to do that today. If we put some votes behind this, it will start to emerge and possibly be the basis for a presidential election.

I sat down. People stayed to hear their answers but I didn't. i went back to my seat, with a lot of girls from other schools saying "good job" (yeah go me.). At lunch time I talked to some Amnesty International people, and took some literature. Then people from my school came up to me (including the super intellectual kid) and explained to me how their question was better or how I took the wrong angle with my question. What I thought was "I asked it, you didn't," but the thing is people were dying while I was asking that question and they still are as I am typing this and as you are reading this. Who cares how good my question was? A question is only as important as its answer and the answer would be a breakthrough, so I am satisfied.

Now after my harrowing lunch, actual genocide survivors talked about their experiences, and this was by far the most touching part, because they weren't political leaders, but simply humans who went through a lot.

Sonia Weitz is a Holocaust survivor and poet, and Educational Director for the Holocaust Center Boston North. Her memoir is the book "I Promised I Would Tell"

Jasima Cesic is a survivor of the Bosnian War. Her husband was killed in a mortar attack that critically injured her. Her memoirs are "The River Runs Salt, Runs Sweet: A Memoir of Visegrad, Bosnia."

Mardi Seng survived the "killing fields" in the genocide in Cambodia. He is the founder of "Plant Hope in Cambodia", helping subsistence farmers in Cambodia.

Richard Nsanzabaganwa actually spoke out against human rights abuse in Rwanda before the genocide there started. He is still working for human rights today.

Mohamed Yahya fled Darfur, which is still experiencing genocide today. Obviously, he was the most outspoken and desperate member of the panel, and gave heart-wrenching speeches throughout the discussion.

Now I want to remind you that this is a reconstruction of my notes and not a transcript.

Sonia Weitz was asked what students should hear about the holocaust and she shared a poem with us:

Her parents were killed during those six years of Nazi Poland. She said the worst part was being an alone and abandoned victim. She used to always say "never again". Now she doesn't say that anymore. After seeing more genocide, she is sad and sorry that her genocide did not end the line. She said they should have done better.

When confronted with the same question, Mardi Seng accounted that the world stopped when it was his family's turn to be uprooted from their home. he didn't expect to see daylight ever again. He was thirteen at the time, and he asked his mom, "How does it feel like to die?" She was delirious at this point and she told him that his brother would fly a helicopter behind the prison, and save him. Seng went to see a Holocaust film in Munich, and at the end, they said never again. He responded to that with this tearful sentence: "If that was true, my mom would be here right now."

Richard Nsanzabaganwa's response was that the only thing he hated was lying about his identity. He couldn't acknowledge his father because he was hiding. He tried to apologize for denying his identity, but he said that would diminish the genocide.

Jasmina Cesic's story was also extremely painful. She told us how her brother was killed. They threw him off a bridge and shot him while he was falling. When she and her husband were traveling, a grenade fell next to him. When it blew up, it killed him instantly and she also lost her arm. However, she is not hopeless, and she has rebuilt her life. She said that We need to punish crime to prevent it.

At the beginning of his response, Mohamed Yahya thanked the students who were so active in helping his people. His village was destroyed, fifty people were killed in one day. Seventeen of his relatives died. Millions flee from the country, and he feels a responsibility to stop the violence. After all, it had been going on for over thirteen years. He said it's painful to miss family, to see people die in front of you, and when five- and six-year olds are getting raped. And they are all being killed because they are blacks and not Arabs. He said "We learned that 'never again', but it is happening now in that hole." He is frustrated that nothing is happening to change lives there, and it is shameful and immoral. The activists give him hope, but once he turns back, he feels alone.

The next question was How might it have been prevented?

Mr. Nasanzabaganwa said that people are expected to understand and take action, and that the UN could have intervened. He feels, they should have been disarmed by UN forces.

Jasmina Cesic felt that the NATO peace agreement didn't help much. Once it was in effect, they left Bosnia with no protection, and they were complacent. She said the world waited for a big genocide to react. Not stopping when it needs to be stopped, and ten years later, we still haven't learned.

At this point during the program, they went to two answers at a time. The new question was,

Sonia Weitz started off by saying how hard it was for her to be on the panel. It was harder on her than she expected. She commented "We decided "never again" and it is obviously happening again." We are taking two steps forward and one step backward, and most of the time it's the opposite. How will we stop it at the beginning? When she was at the Holocaust museum in Washington D.C., she decided that what was going on in Darfur was genocide. She wondered, "Could we have stopped it before it became a bloody mess?" She said that when Hitler came, there were danger signals, and other countries did feel that the Jews were in danger.

Seng talked about how he looked it up. he used the constant example sentence bring so-and-so to justice. It is basically fairness, and his children teach him that, saying "That's not fair!" constantly.

Finally, Yahya was asked If there is a way of deterring genocide?

She put it simply; Justice should be treating humans equally, and all criminals should be punished.

This is all I took. Its all I remember. Remember this, and do something about it. Email me at efrancisque77788@gmail.com for more info on stopping genocide, and for defending human rights. After all, if PETA fights so hard for animals, who's fighting for each other?

digimonsterz at 10:30 p.m.

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