Saturday, September 20, 2008

When Does Grief Run Out?

I glanced at an article from the Israeli paper Haaretz this morning, titled Tutu: World doesn't criticize Israel because of the Holocaust According to the article, no one is criticizing Israel for shelling a Palestinian town, and the reason is that the West is still feeling penitent for the Holocaust. The article goes on: Tutu later told a news conference: "I think the West, quite rightly, is feeling contrite, penitent, for its awful connivance with the Holocaust....The penance is being paid by the Palestinians. I just hope again that ordinary citizens in the West will wake up and say 'we refuse to be part of this'," he said. It got me to thinking, just a bit: how long do you have to be emotionally tied to an event?

It varies with the nature of the event, and the effect, and whether you're part of it. I don't worry particularly about the people in New Orleans who still haven't gotten back to their homes; it was an act of nature, the effect on me was zilch, and I'm up here in the northeast, with no relatives or friends down there. I'm sorry for them, and angered at the inept response of our government, at multiple levels -- but thats it. I don't continue to dwell on it. The Holocaust is greater than that. It was man-made; the effect was the decimation of a major part of two generations, and to the people who were involved, even tangentially, the effect was long lasting. Still -- I'm not Jewish, and the effect on my family was zilch. So, I'm sorry it happened, I wouldn't have wished it on anyone -- but I don't agonize over it. It happened; its done. Effects linger on, but at some point, they trail off. People stop having the event as a touchstone of their lives.

When?

It's been sixty years since that part of our history. Nations have risen and fallen; people have lived their whole lives. For Katrina, its been a couple of years, and attention moves on to more immediate things. Even 9/11 is drifting into vague memory -- I understand that the thought now is that memorial services will no longer be held every year. The more immediate the effect, as I say, the more likely you are to remember it -- I still recall falling and breaking my hip, but I doubt anyone else does unless they think of it -- and you can maintain the thought as part of your core as long as you want. But how long can you reasonably expect that other people will care?

Here's my guess, and it comes from politics. John McCain was a POW in the Vietnam war. He was treated horribly, brutally, viciously. He didn't choose to be in that state, but when he was, he acquitted himself honorably, and he deserves lifelong recognition for it. Yet when I noticed that in the current political arguments, his time as a POW was becoming part of the common jokes -- Aide: Senator, I think you're in danger of playing the POW card too often ... McCain: Well, you know, in my 5 1/2 years as a POW, I wasn't allowed to play cards -- I realized that for most people, the Vietnam war, and all of it, is history. We're aware of it (generally), but we've continued on with our lives. The war was a touchstone of our lives, but no longer. Now, its just the tagline of a joke.

When people joke about simply renaming New Orleans 'Atlantis'; when they joke 'Hey, why should I wait for a cab, my people have been waiting six thousand years!' -- the grief timer has run out.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Wow. I'm not quite sure what to make of the last bit. An unattributed joke - not one I've ever heard, by the way - and you're saying the grief has to come to an end?

(It definitely comes across that you're painting an entire religion because of a single, tasteless, joke!)

Full disclosure: My wife is Jewish, and I know more Jews than Christians at this point in life.

The Holocaust was a crime against Jews - and many other groups. It was also a crime against humanity. Sending 6M to their deaths, and a further 1.5M were shot as part of an "ethnic-cleansing" effort. When we, as humans, lose our compassion and grief for what happened all those years ago, we lose a bit of ourselves.

I'll admit that the horrors of the past can fade over time; there have been other massacres, and history is replete with demonstrations of man's inhumanity to man. But nowhere in history has such an organized effort been made to eradicate an entire group. Or three or four. The Holocaust is a part of our history.

Besides, Jews don't ask for anyone's grief. Desmond Tutu may be a clever man, but he's wrong on this one. Israel doesn't exploit the Holocaust; there are too many still around who remember it, who were part of it. It's a misconception that they do.

The West has been criticizing Israel for years; they've also been supporting it because it's been the only viable and consistent democracy in that region; there are some emerging democracies, but none have the history of democracy and general adherence to civil rights. Besides, Jimmy Carter was the latest to write a book about criticizing Israel, but plenty have written such criticisms of Israel. Indeed, European cities saw quite a few protests against Israel a year or two ago.

Tutu is basically exploiting a common prejudice. Israel might be wrong in this case - it does have a 'spotty' record of investigating its own "mistakes" (including the USS Liberty), but for Tutu to declare what he did? The man is wrong.

No, the clock hasn't run out on the Holocaust. But no one is asking anyone to wring their hands and wail about the loss of those millions. Simply being aware of the loss to humanity, of the deprivation those people suffered, and the sheer callousness an entire nation displayed to their fellow members is enough. Grief is neither demanded nor asked for, awareness is.

Carolyn Ann

Cerulean Bill said...

No, I am not saying that everyone's grief and rememberance has to end. No one can say when that should happen for those who are involved in an event, and some events go much further than one group or one nation, as they should. The greater the impact, or the heinousness of the event, or both, the longer that the event will linger in memory, and the longer it will temper our actions.

I am saying that there is a point where I can't be expected to act based on it, and at some people, where the people involved act based on it. Otherwise, you get the 'his family attacked my family four thousand years ago, so I'm going to attack them today' vendetta. You get 'the damn Catholics killed my brother, I'm going to find a Protestant and kill him.' You get 'dammit, I should have had that vice-presidency of the claims department, back in 1965'. You can't always reach back as a defense. Remember? Be aware that it happened? Of course. But excuse current actions because of it? Take actions based on it?

Nope. Past a certain period, varying by intensity and impact and immediacy, nope.

Tutu says that people aren't objecting to the shellings because of what happened to that country sixty years ago. I suspect he's right. To me, thats not reasonable. The Holocaust will always be part of that country's history, because it was a formative event. But we can't judge actions taken today based on that event. It was too long ago. For us, grief has ended.

Is the shelling right? I don't know.

It goes without saying -- but I will, anyway -- I'm sorry for offending you, or your wife.

Cerulean Bill said...

Great timing -- my laptop battery started to die.

My impression is that Israel is a third-rail topic that can't be discussed without someone crying foul. Its like when I talk with someone about gun owner rights, and I find that their opinion of fair and reasonable use is pretty far away from my own, so that when I try to edge a little closer, I cross the line way before I'd have expected, and I've gone from a neutral party to a gun grabber. Don't trust that SOB; he says he doesn't want your guns, but he really does. I would be willing to bet that right now you have the visceral feeling that there's something about me and Jews. Not saying I'm evil, just -- something fishy there. I hope I'm wrong.

So, to summarize:
Am I saying that the Jews ought to stop caring about the Holocaust? No. Of course not.

Am I saying that people should generally continue to be aware of it as an indicator of how badly we can befoul society? Yes.

Am I saying that people should not use that awareness as sole justification for acting or not acting? Yes.

Unknown said...

My apologies, Bill.

Desmond Tutu has a grave advantage over many of us: he's got a platform of incorruptibility. But that doesn't shield him from being just plain old "wrong".

The State of Israel doesn't hold the Holocaust over anyone's head: what it does have is that is the only functioning democracy in the region. It pays more attention to civil rights than the other guys, and it basically is the "good guy". If you stretch the definition of "good guy" to seemingly impossible reaches.

Tutu is, basically, wrong. Unlike him, I am willing to admit when I screwed up.

Carolyn Ann

Cerulean Bill said...

I would admit it -- if, you know, I ever did. Yeah, thats a joke.