WAR! to be in conflict with life?

The Holocaust you hear that and your mind is instantly transported to the darkest part of the human psyche! The parts that will allow one human to degrade, defame, and destroy their fellow human. Yet at the same time your mind and heart are drawn to fact that the Holocaust is for the most part remembered for the death of the six million Jewish who died. Not as well known or as well publicized are Other targets of the Nazi Genocide or “Nazi genocidal policy”, that included Slavic’s Polish Russians, Ukrainians, Byelorussia’s, Serbs, Romania’s, and others that included the mentally ill, Homosexuals,  “sexual deviants”, and of course political opponents. They have all been remembered in some manner, but mostly the Jewish contingent. Does the Holocaust touch so many because those who performed it the German Nazi’s who so well documented it? Is what happened in World War II differ from the other atrocities of Genocide. In the movie Schindler’s List you see the efficiency of the Nazi’s as the move people and record every detail. This very sentiment is stated in the graphic novel Maus

“They marched us to the main courtyard and lined us by alphabet at tables. This the Germans did very good always they did everything very systematic and it was all done in one day”.

Elli Wiesel would see this system again in the book Night, this time it would be seen for a lifetime,

” In the afternoon, they made us line up. Three prisoners brought a table and some medical instrument. We were told to roll up our left sleeves and file past the table. The three “veteran” prisons, needles in hand, and tattooed numbers on our left arms I became A-7713. From then on I had no other name”.

Is this fact of the Nazi’s prolific recoded keeping that moves this from just Genocide to the Holocaust? Now don’t get me wrong the lost of life and the torment that they endured is still minded numbing. It is however Genocide the deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural groups just as all the others in history. Like the very one that is in the news today. You would of course think that I am speaking of Darfur no I speak of the Armenian Genocide that happened in 1915 during World War I over a million died and still today it is only a Genocide not a Holocaust. What truly saddens me is the position some Israelis take on it.

“Israeli foreign minister Shimon Peres visited Ankara and announced, “We reject attempts to create a similarity between the Holocaust and the Armenian allegations. Nothing similar to the Holocaust occurred. What the Armenians went through is a tragedy, but not genocide”.

Is mass death not all the same why would any take a position like this and one that appears to be a official governmental one. Then as you look on Darfur many demand this!

“U.S.-led military intervention to halt genocide in Darfur by the Sudan government and its militia proxies”.

Where is Israel it would seem that they should have the most compassion and eagerness to stop such atrocities. Why not a cry for an Israeli lead intervention! Now some say there is no genocide going on.

” Khartoum Karl said, “The United States is the only country saying that what is happening in Darfur is a genocide”.

What of the 400,000 dead no it is not the numbers that the Jews faced, but it does not stop these images from being true.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/artsandliving/magazine/features/2007/documenting-atrocity-061107/gallery.html

Now I am well a ware of movies such as Hotel Rwanda and other books that tell of Genocide and I feel great compassion for anyone who has to endure the memories of such horrific massacres of humans, but is not all Genocide a Holocaust, is that fact that so much was filmed, written and logged in by the Nazi that we turn a different eye to it. In war millions die some go unforgotten and the plight of the Jewish during WWII should never be forgotten, but should it be singled out by name and if yes why?  

Washington Post

Fox news

Maus by Art Spiegelman

Schindler’s List Universal Studios 1993

Hotel Rwanda Lions Gate Universal 2004

In one of my earlier blog’s I depicted war, like theater, so now I am going to somewhat revisit that idea. An actor at a live play is much different then one on TV or in the movies. Those scenes are shot over and over the best of them sliced together. On a stage it is alive the actor is a person playing a person, wanting you not to see them, but who they are pretending to be. This is called the willing suspension of disbelief it is a quid pro quo; the audience tacitly agrees to provisionally suspend their judgment in exchange for the promise of entertainment. Giving the actor and spectators a moment of duality! It this duplicity that stuck me when I was watching, the movie Schindler’s List reading the graphic novel Maus, both depicting the Jews holocaust of World War II and then reading a article in the Washington Post about security issues in Iraq and the many forms that duality can take.

For Schindler’s List and Maus part of this was the black and white qualities how shadow and contrast played the role of Angel for bright and Devil for dark. The physicality of the worlds how the splendor was exposed with clarity to enhance the prosperity lost. In Maus this is done with a half page drawing of a large dinning room viewed through a just as large window with the of the captions saying

“When first I came home it looked exactly so as before I went…it was still so luxurious. The Germans couldn’t destroy everything at one time”

Since I am speaking on Maus I should talk about its other duplicities. It greatest asset is the fact that it is a graphic novel. This is a special type of duality just in the way you read it you need to read it with one eye on the words and the other on the drawings. They share the world in a symbiotic relationship much like the live theater I feel this form of comic is as close as you can get to that. You are pulled into the world by the pictures and then hammered home by the words.

The fact that the Jews are mice and the Germans cats, this is of course and allusion to the idea of the cat and mouse games the played for their very lives. There is the father son relationship with it moment of good like when his father draws on his sketchbook to show the elaborate hiding places.

“Show to me your pencil and I can explain you such things it’s good to know exactly how was it”

Then there is the bad the constant fighting or in the writers eye the nagging just to get the story. This is seen when his father calls him to help and he decides it better to not go and face that feeling.

“No way I’d rather feel guilty!

Then the biggest Duality that is shared by both Schindler’s List and Maus is the dual people that you become to survive for me this is best seen in Schindler’s List with Oscar Schindler he is a Nazi who sole purpose was to get rich. He used the Jewish investors the real man to run every thing was Itzhak Stern, but at the same time that he bribe his way to the top he made sure food, water and life was given. He gave away a fortune and as depicted in the movie wept saying

“I could have done more, this car Göth would have bought this car that 4 more I could have saved”

This brings me to, yet one more double-dealing, the market Schindler’s List, Maus and Washington Post in the first two it the black market where everything is sold for survival even to the last as for the Iraq it just the survival of the market. The article that stuck home for me was one telling of how a markets in Baghdad are prime targets.

“Sabah Abd’s fruit stand is a few feet from the concrete barrier dividing Baghdad’s Sadriya market from a bus depot that was bombed April 18 in one of the deadliest attacks since U.S. and Iraqi forces launched a major operation in February to secure the capital… But only three days after the attack, Abd was back at his stand, charred vehicles still littering the parking area a few yards away. “My wife said, ‘If you go there, I will divorce you,’ but what can I do? There is no work outside,” he said”.

Here the simple needs of living are again being tested. The biggest test is how to remain secure and profitable. To have a world that is split.

 “It’s a constant trade-off between security and convenience,” Dodd acknowledged. “We could wall this whole place in, and nothing would happen. But economically, that’s not viable.” Hussein said he might eventually go elsewhere to find another job. But for now, he is staying. “Maybe it will get better,” he said. “We’re waiting for security.”

How does this tie into the other well look at the fact both markets are place where for just that moment in time those that are oppressed have a bit of power a say in what then need and what they are willing to do for it. This human trait is seen best in theater we are moved, by something we know is not real, but the universality of it draws us in. Humanity has way of showing the best it has to offer in the worst places and in the briefest of moments. These are three stories have captured one of those moments for Schindler’s List and Maus it the will to go on, and live for the Iraqis it simple to go on with life.

Maus by Art Spiegelman

Schindler’s List Universal Studios 1993

Washington Post  

No matter how you feel about the War on Terror one catch phrase you here is “well I support the troops”! This makes we wonder do they? Or are they simple falling to the wayside of political correctness or using the only tool they have to give power a cause. To be honest I think many are pushed into a sort of false support for the war. United States military is very unique, and in the modern age it is all volunteer armed force and should be respected and support for that.

 And the strange thing is I think many of those who are serving fall into the political correctness camp, they not sure why they our there and why did diplomacy fail. I think we should remember many serve not just in the battlefield, but do they have “support” as well? There is however the feeling on the battlefield of do I support myself in her blog Everyday is Groundhog Day in Iraq Rachel The Great has to question her own beliefs.  

“If only we could all find that one thing. Why am I out here? I don’t believe in this cause enough to die for it. I guess I believe it my country though and support it and you can’t just say something like that. You can’t pick and choose when you will or won’t love your country. Either you do or you don’t and I guess those that do are willing to pay the price for living in such a blessed place. I really think America is the most beautiful country in the world and although it’s not perfect, it’s the fact that we keep trying that matters most. I wonder if those that have paid the price though would look back from where they are and say it was worth it”

 She plainly states she not ready to die for the cause, but still she volunteered. Is this the same fever that Vera Brittan talks about in Testament of Youth.                                     

“the bloodthirsty armchair patriotism”  

No, if it is just patriotism then there would be no focus on the troops it would be on the war as a whole. The such as it is point put by Brittan again                                      

“thousands of our men had been shot down” 

Not even a clear as to how many, but in the War on Terror look at some of the headlines!          

“Five U.S. Soldiers Are Killed When Convoy Is Hit in Mosul“        

“Blast Kills 6 as Troops Hunt Iraqi Insurgents“ 

“9 U.S. Soldiers Killed in Two Attacks North of Baghdad“       

“Six U.S. Troops Killed in Ambush in Afghanistan“  

The troops have become the main issue and that is why it is so important to “SUPPORT THEM”, both sides for and against need the troops to push their agendas to give power to their words. Many times the soldier has been call the pawn of the diplomatic machine, but looking at all the support they have I would say they have become the meeting point to those who do not wish to meet.

To put it another way, in most wars the enemy was clear-cut and the loss of thousands was accepted, even possibly understood. But in this war there is no sure enemy. The political cannon that has become part of the American idea of war makes every life seem the most brutal of loses for America, but in reality the death of a solider is nothing to support that death is the most telling sign that diplomacy has failed.

• Testament of Youth Vera Brittan
• Everyday is Groundhog Day in Iraq Rachel The Great
• FOXNews.com 
•  washingtonpost.com – Iraq – Washington Post Continuing Coverage