Genocide: Never Again?

I've sometimes been loose in my use of the declaration, "Never again." I've used it to underscore our repeated national misjudgments of other cultures and our warring misadventures. But I know the use of those words has been forever conjoined with the inhumanity of genocide since the Holocaust. But it was not my purpose to further dilute its resolve and power, or its association with genocide. I recognize that genocide is the greatest horror of all, clearly. And I recognize that I might, by overuse, be adding to the dilution of the meaning and power of those words. But regrettably, that is unlikely.

You see, it is not as if there are fewer incidents of genocide to be concerned about, as if we have responded consistently and forcefully to stop it wherever it has lifted its shadowed, distorted face. If anything, the declaration, "Never again," is now bereft of power and moral authority primarily because there have been so many occasions to raise the signal call, occasions that have been allowed to run their course or run their course too long. And while the declaration continues, it most often falls impotently on jaded ears, and disipates into a collective sense of resignation.

In all its horror, genocide has continued undeterred since World War II: in the USSR, the killing fields in Cambodia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, in Rwanda, the Congo, Darfur, and too many other places in Africa. So frequent have the incidents of the ultimate inhumanity by man against man become, and so often have they been carried out with impunity, that we have become desensitized, numbed to the horrific accounts of them. Yes, there are international laws making genocide a crime—arguably since 1948, certainly since 1977—but who will enforce them, when and how?

In my more despondent moments, a cynical, resentful view emerges. All the impotent declarations appear more a dark charade of misleading, empty promises and false hopes played out against a cruel and denying reality. They are empty because no assurances are possible; they are false because all reasonable hope has been rendered futile by national and geopolitical realities. And that cruel, denying reality is perpetuated by the exploitive, populist demagoguery of those ultimately bent on the dominating regional power that enables "ethnic cleansing:" hatefully rationalized, unrepentant, ethnic or sectarian mass murder.

And, on the surface, at least, it also appears abided by the self-comforting rationalizations and the non-confrontational dispositions of the world's advanced nations and cultures. We know and express outrage without action, or blinker our eyes to the sinister truth standing boldly at the shadowed periphery of the international community. We all understand how it evolves and works; we've seen it again and again.

But this rant is merely the instinctive flailing of my savaged naivety, the resentment of my flagging hope. Most of the time, my views are more balanced, tempered by the realities and responsibilities of nations in world-wide society, and informed by the more difficult lessons of international relationships and my faith. I have learned that controlling or stopping the principals and agents of genocide is most often a frustratingly, dishearteningly complex matter.

Doubtless, there have been occasions when the world might have more timely, more effectively, limited or stopped the carnage. But more frequent have been the unsatisfying cases where the complexities, barriers to success, and the likely cost in lives lost of intervening forces, dictated caution, going slowly. In those cases, intervention is most often pursued through diplomacy, humanitarian aid, and the use of political or economic sanctions or incentives. Unsatisfying responses, yes, and often with limited effect.

And the underlying analyses are unavoidably cold, clinical critiques of trade-offs, costs and benefits, of national self interest. Inadequate and unresponsive as they may seem to human sensibilities and the humanitarian challenge, these analyses and limited-action approaches may noneltheless be the most responsible choices available. But unsatisfying, yes, and at the very least infused with pain, guilt and a sense of negligence or contributory culpability--sins of omission and the failure to act to defend the innocent.

I've become resigned to the episodic expressions of genocide. Steeped in the details and trade-offs of geopolitical considerations and national realities, passion gives way to practicality. For these horrific challenges seldom admit of resolutions as tidy, honorable and unsullied as our principles and passions. My eyes feel sad, tired when I reflect on the fact that genocide really is part of the human condition, the potential of man—that the ever-present dark side of man is really that dark. And given the continuing depth of ethnic and religious hatred, there will continue to be incidents of genocide in our world. Disheartening as it is likely, genocide may always be with us.

But if we must sometimes concede with resignation that there's just nothing more we can realistically do—however true it may be—we are still painfully and rightly aware that such resignation falls well short of lifting the burden on our individual and collective consciences. And although there are the few, the gifted ones, who are able to see or understand God even in these horrific circumstances, for most everyone else whose lives cross the path of genocide, it seems like hell on earth.

[Condensed and edited from my 2006 essay "Never Again," in my Cassandra's Tears site.]