Today I saw history. Not history in the making, but history as it happened.
My colleagues and I visited the Kigali Genocide Memorial Center and were shocked, disgusted, amazed, and empowered by the stories and pictures of people that endured the history that we saw.
As I walked through the center, I was immersed in the history of Rwanda. I read about colonization, tribal delineation, and many of the events leading up to the genocide. I watched in horror as the first massacres were carried out, shook my head at the absence of international support, and joined the countless other visitors to the center in asking, "Why did this happen?"
To come to Rwanda now, you would not suspect that the country had been torn apart by hatred only a short time ago. A spirit of unity, forgiveness and hope has rested upon the people, and they are committed to progress as a country.
Douglas Adams once said, "Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so."
My mind has consistently dwelt upon human nature, and our inherent ability to perpetually regress into pasts previously rejected and denounced vehemently. Practices that have once shocked the world are subsequently ignored and again allowed to rear their ugly heads, continuing the cycle of pain.
And after every relapse, the refrain:
"Never again..."
The term, if acted upon, carries with it strength; a fixed determination to avoid a return to the past at all costs.
When not acted upon, they are empty words, whose emptiness does nothing to curb the suffering of those oppressed.
Elie Wiesel, holocaust survivor and author, stated in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, "We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented." If anyone has earned the right to cry out against apathy, he has.
Are there ways that we can fight against indifference? Can we somehow lend our hand to those reaching out? Not just to those suffering from acts of genocide, or ethnic cleansing, but to those suffering from the smaller, everyday "crimes against humanity," and to ourselves.
Let's make change stick, and let us return dignity and strength to the term "Never Again," however it may apply to us.
