The Future Holds No Room for Hate

 

Photo: Rhipsalis (similar to pencil cactus) with yellow flowers pendant from the tips. Small but striking bright yellow flowers seem to flow from the ends of stumpy green sticks.

   The middle of last week marked Holocaust Remembrance Day. One can hardly find ways to observe it because doing so means dredging up a truly horrific time in human history. And yet, it happened. And yet, we must remember lest we ever forget what some humans did to other humans, in seemingly modern times.

    If terroristic deeds that purposefully destroy life can be pinned onto a solitary person, then we can chalk that up to evil - the machinations and mayhem of madmen, but what can you call it when whole societies perpetrate the same evil under various names meant to deaden the senselessness of it?  What is it called when governments, leaders, and common people take up torches against others? Who are the people who turn in their neighbors, burn their houses, kill their children? Ethnic cleansing, civil war, lynching.

    My sister-in-law, who is Jewish, wants me to go to Auschwitz with her when we are once again able to travel. I want to go there, have always wanted to. It isn't the kind of vacation destination that you put on a bucket list or travel planner, but the idea of going to the place where so many innocents were murdered means that we have not forgotten the depth of the crime and that we will revere those who were killed there.

    Reading The Diary of Anne Frank as a child, I was appalled and hurt that such things could happen while there were "adults in the room". Where was their decency and compassion? Was there not one single person among them who was sufficiently shocked that they would refuse to participate? Were there not even a few who said, "no way, I'm not taking part in this!" Could that small group not grow into an uprising to tamp down the surge?

    It is 2021, nearly the span of a lifetime since the Holocaust. But humans are not quick to learn and are prone to repeat their crimes.

    Since the dawn of mankind, Earth-dwellers have fought with each other, over territory, over resources, because of jealousy or lust for power. Wars have raged and continue to, even though we've gotten more skilled at diplomacy and communication.  Is there no other way to solve a disagreement than to kill your opponent? But the heat of battle, the crimes of passion, are nothing like killing in cold blood, of feeling nothing when exterminating whole societies of people. 

    I, too, have hated. It is a human emotion. I have hated someone enough that I would like to punch them in the face. But could I continue punching them after they fell down? Even in a Hollywood fight scene, getting your opponent sufficiently punched that they know who you are is enough. But what makes someone hate a people enough that they want to murder all of them?

    I read recently that the other side of hate is fear. If you stoke up enough fear - of Native Americans, of Black people, of Mexicans, of so-called "socialists and libtards" then there is fuel for hate to conflagrate and consume. I have often thought of genocide as atrocities that happened in the past - but we know of the extermination of Native Americans to take their land, we know the Ottomans killed half the Armenians, we watched as Serbians murdered Bosnians, we witnessed Hutus killing Tutsis, we know of Darfur, of ISIS, and of the systematic killing of Black people in our own country under the banner of law and order. There are too many examples of genocide to even list here. 

    We saw this dangerous tinder box opened again on January 6 at our nation's capitol. Among those who participated in an insurrection hell-bent on destruction, retaliatory killing, even assassination, was a lone man in a Camp Auschwitz t-shirt. A t-shirt! A t-shirt likening the largest extermination of a peaceful peoples to a summer camp?? Many were shocked, but some shrugged it off. Ultimately, there will be hundreds of arrests, and hopefully those who wreaked the greatest damage will pay society for their misdeeds. But what punishment can you give someone who has such little regard for a group of people? Could that man wear that shirt if he suddenly learned that his son was engaged to a Jewish woman? Would he be able to explain that shirt to his granddaughter who was learning about Anne Frank in school? 

    How we reexamine our past in terms of our present is one indication of what we've learned. How will we explain to future generations our actions or inaction during a particularly terrible time? Will we be able to recall being outspoken and outraged, or will we remember just how powerless and complicit we allowed ourselves to become? Let us all strive to conquer fear by becoming fearless. Let us work to eradicate hate by spreading love. Because as Martin Luther King said, "Only light can drive out darkness" and a future where hate is extiguished is a world that will be ruled by love. Is that even possible? Not only possible, but essential.