History and Memory As Swarthmore students are well aware, genocide, discrimination, colonialism, and auhoritianism have scarred this century. Beginning with the Boer War, the concentration camp, a place for civillians, not combatants, has been an instrument of at best irrational prejudice and at worst genocide. The image of harsh military repression of demonstrators has run the gamut from the Prague Spring to Sharpeville to Bloody Sunday. In addition to the inculable and indescribable horror of these events, their historical treatment, especially when it consists of of diminution and denial, gives these events a latter day resonance ranging from emotional pain to outright violence. In recent weeks, these issues have come to haunt even this campus. As a result of our education and awareness, students on this campus acknowledge the Holocaust, one of history's greatest if not indeed its single greatest horror. The destruction of the European Jewish community stands out not only because of the extreme evil behind it, but also because of the way it took normal citizens and turned them into victims merely because of their religion or ancestry. The Holocaust is indeed such a devastating event that German historiography revolves around it. It likewise is the most unspeakable of the prejudice and ill-treatment the Jewish people has suffered over nearly six millenia. Several weeks ago, someone distributed pamphlets denying the calculated nature of the mass murder, from a group calling itself ironically, "The Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust." While people have the well deserved right to speak freely, even in such a cowardly manner, this denial of the Holocaust and the pursuant letters published in The Phoenix trivialized the suffering of the Jewish people in an extremely hateful manner. Ironically, it was the publication of the letters that drew the greatest fire. Beyond the issue of the publication of the letters lies the simple fact that denying history serves to continue its unresolved conflicts, bringing their tensions and pain bakc to the surface. This point has been driven home with the collapse of Communism, when Serbs and Croats brought out ethnic hatreds kept under wraps since the 1940s, and neo-Nazis have become prevalent in the former East Germany. Most of history's injustices are not as well accepted as the Holocaust. While the Truth Commision deals with South Africa's white supremacist past, important Communist commisars hold roles of authority all over the former Eastern Bloc, Argentinian murderers remain immune and the former tyrant Augusto Pinochet and several of his old associates serve in the Chilean Senate. While people easily shrug off these problems as those belonging to Second and Third World countries, revisionist historiography and denial are the case even among members of NATO and the European Union. France is currently trying Maurice Papon, a Vichy official who served in cabinets during the Fifth Republic, for example. As Don Mullan, an Irish human rights activist who marched in the February 2, 1972 civil rights march that became Bloody Sunday, visited Swarthmore to discuss both the British actions at the march and their consequences. As in most cases, historical background is necessary. After the Irish Free State (now the Republic of Ireland) gained its independence, the United Kindgom held onto six counties in the northeast which represented the largest area in which Unionists could form a majority. Continuing eight centuries of discrimination toward the native Irish, the British discriminated against Catholics in the province through job discrimination, voting laws, the educational system, and the police. When the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association was formed in the 1960s to protest this unfair treatment, the British instituted selective internment, which entitled them to imprison people without trial. This led to the imprisonment of known Irish Republicans, which in turn led to the fateful civil rights march. British paratroopers fired on unarmed marchers, despite the fact that the Irish Republican Army was known not to be involved in the march and had in fact agreed not to be involved. As a result, the IRA gained many members who felt the British would never treat them fairly and terrorism soared. The complete exoneration of the British Army by the Widgery Commission led to further anger, since it went against the evidence of eyewitness and ballistic accounts. Only after Mullan's heroic recovery and republication of the eyewitness reports, which had previously been ignored, did the British government, under Tony Blair agree, this January, to reopen the investigation. As the over 3,200 deaths in the past three decades have shown, the damage wrought by not only injustice, but the denial of truth, is monumental. It is possible, however, to draw positive historical lessons from the past. Mullan is doing just that, having founded CAIT (Celts and American Indians Together). The organization is seeking to raise 1.7 million Irish pounds ($2.5 Million) for hunger relief by the end of this year. The money will go to fight hunger everywhere, and to help recognize a more positive bit of the history of these two historically oppressed peoples. In 1847, at the height of the Irish Potato famine, the Choctaw donated $170 (about $10,000 now), to help feed the Irish victims of the famine. The famine which resutled in the deaths of a million Irish and led an equal number to flee, considered by many to be the first modern genocide because it involved the British removal of Ireland's plentiful agricultural production and starvation of the native Irish, is one of the darkest chapter's of Ireland's history. Likewise, the Choctaw, who had in 1847 just been forced along the horrific Trail of Tears, were unfortunate victims of repression. Yet amid their misery, the Choctaw pooled what little money they had to help people on the other side of the Atlantic. In 1995, the Irish President Mary Robinson thanked the Choctaw and visited them in Oklahoma, celebrating one of history's more inspiring stories. It is also worth noting that the Choctaw were informed of the plight of the Irish by the Society of Friends, who are respected in Ireland for their role in helping the Catholic Irish during the famine. Mullan, who has done not just the Irish and the British, but the world a service in reopening the Bloody Sunday enquiry, should be equally lauded for this campaign. Hunger, like the denial of human rights anywhere, hurts people everywhere. FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT CAIT, CONTACT DON MULLAN at DBMULLAN@IOL.IE |
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