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I am not kidding - but I am torn apart.<br>
<br>
Milton L Mueller wrote:
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<pre wrap="">-----Original Message-----
From: Avri Doria [<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="mailto:avri@psg.com">mailto:avri@psg.com</a>]
you have got to be kidding.
maybe it depends on the type of historiography one is partial
to and as far as i can tell unless one believes in the
relatively marxist historical moment sort of historical
explanation, one is stuck with the great man of history
explanation.
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In the communist German Democratic Republic, "internationalism" was
part of the official ideology, and there were a lot of students from
Africa and Asia in East Germany. After German "unification" there was
quite some racist violence against people "who look different" in
former East Germany. "No more communism - then no more solidarity" as a
person from another country in Eastern Europe told me. Who is then
responsible for beating-up people? Not the individuals who do it?<br>
<br>
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<pre wrap="">I think your view is incredibly unrealistic, even bizarre. Authoritarian monsters like Hitler, Mao, Stalin can only do what they do by playing groups off against each other, by claiming for themselves the ability to represent and enact collective ideals, and by seizing collective capabilities. No one who seriously studies that history can explain what happened in those societies by reference to a malevolent individual alone. </pre>
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Of course it is not only that one "malevolent individual alone" - but
the "enthusiastic masses" in Cambodia supporting Pol Pot disappeared,
when he lost control in most parts of the country, and the many many
violent killers of that time are now mostly unknown quiet "citizens"
all over the country. About 25% of the population did not survive the 4
years of Khmer Rouge governing. <br>
<br>
But we now have high level "Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of
Cambodia" (a complex, hybrid national-internatinal court set up because
the sovereign government of Cambodia wanted a trial, but did not want
an international trial like Rwanda/former Yugoslavia etc. but wanted UN
participation) - and this court, which costs by now around $100
million, is dealing with 5 (five!) people. The "leaders" are to be held
responsible. And those who actually did the torturing and the killings?
"We have to forget the past."<br>
<br>
Why has the "war on terrorism" been focused so much on trying to find
Osama bin Laden, or some other individual "leaders"? <br>
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<pre wrap="">They capitalize on and help to create group animosities and loyalties. How do you get people to massacre Jews without group loyalties and prejudices, us against them? How do you legitimize wars and get soldiers to fight and kill people they don't know without appeal to things like "patriotism," duty to society and the state, cultural or racial differences?</pre>
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Yes, how?<br>
<br>
The main "public transport" in Phnom Penh is on the back seat of small
motorcycles. A customer could not agree on the price with the driver at
the end of travel - probably less than one dollar - they argued, a
crowd assembles around - the customer was lynched - "he looks
Vietnamese" - later the dead body is identified being a pure Cambodian.
"He was killed by mistake." - Killed by whom? (This case happened some
years ago - but group related animosities, without a "leader" present,
lead often to violence.) Who is responsible? Not the one who actually
hits or shoots or stabs?<br>
<br>
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<pre wrap="">but without an individual in his very own individual voice or very own trigger finger nothing like WW2 or Vietnam or Iraq
or .... could ever happen.
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<pre wrap=""><!---->
Utter rubbish. those triggers get pulled because of tremendous social pressures, not to mention massive levels of state taxation and coercion. They operate at the group level. You and I can war against each other as individuals, but there is no way our feuds can reach the destructive scale of modern warfare unless we pull into the picture collective differences and animosities and collective capabilities.
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There are cases of tremendous social pressure, and - as we know looking
back at Nazi Germany - there were also those who did not accept it;
some survived, others did not and we remember some of them.<br>
<br>
Only one court case, of the five accused at the Khmer Rouge Tribunal,
is finished: the head of the most important interrogation,
water-boarding and other torture, and killing center: "S-21" or Tuol
Sleng. From 1975 to 1979, 17,000 to 20,000 people were imprisoned,
there are only twelve known survivors. Now Khang Khek Ieu, AKA Duch,
head of this center, while facing the court, referred to the political
pressure – he would have been “smashed” as the others if he had not
cooperated – but he also declared to take the full and absolute
personal responsibility for the crimes he committed and supervised.
Quite different from the four others: a former head-of-state, a
minister of foreign affairs, a minister of social affairs, and the head
of the people's assembly (and assumed chief Khmer Rouge ideologue): all
four deny any guilt. <br>
<br>
I know - we are here discussing other aspects - but I still dare to
share some historical observations. Which I still cannot handle
"properly."<br>
<br>
<br>
Norbert <br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Norbert Klein
Editor
If you want to know what is going on in Cambodia, please visit
The Mirror, a regular review of the Cambodian language press in English.
This is the latest weekly editorial of the Mirror:
The Law and the Environment of the Law
Sunday, 21.2.2010
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://wp.me/p2Gyf-1iJ">http://wp.me/p2Gyf-1iJ</a>
(to read it, click on the line above.)
And here is something new every day:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://cambodiamirror.wordpress.com">http://cambodiamirror.wordpress.com</a>
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