Making A Difference

Whose, The ‘Greater’ Tragedy

Do superpowers remember sorrows they’ve inflicted?

Advertisement

Whose, The ‘Greater’ Tragedy
info_icon

America’s evocation of the horror of 9/11 to reorder popular memory pales into insignificance in comparison to the concerted, and correct, efforts to keep alive the memory of the horrendous Jewish holocaust, which occurred around the same time the subcontinent was partitioned, with devastating consequences. The Jewish holocaust continues to be evoked in every human rights discourse at every world stage.

What does not get mentioned in the same breath is perhaps the sufferings of the Palestinians at the hands of the Israelis and the Jewish state’s blatant violation of human rights in dealing with those whose land they have colonised. Even an attempt by Palestine to get a full membership of the United Nations goaded America into threatening that it would exercise its veto in the Security Council, to deny to the Palestinians what most others in the world think is their right. That this threat should have issued within weeks of the 9/11 ceremony is telling.

Advertisement

Nor was Chile’s Allende the only victim of US intervention. In their attempt to oust regimes seen to have Communist leanings or being “too independent”, successive governments in Washington have intervened in Latin American countries—be it Cuba, Brazil, Guatemala, Panama or Nicaragua. Most of the times the elected governments in these countries were replaced with dictators, willing to do American bidding and safeguard US interests. Washington remained callously indifferent to the miseries their hand-picked leaders inflicted on the people of these countries, killing, torturing and jailing hundreds.

The sufferings of the Vietnamese during the US war in Vietnam, leading to the deaths of millions and destruction of property worth several millions, doesn’t have the same resonance as it once had. The reason is simple: Vietnam lacks the power to reorder the collective global memory.

Advertisement

If the Americans were culpable in many of these tragedies, so were the Russians at the time the Soviet Union was an entity on global maps. They militarily intervened to dislodge governments in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and many other countries that fell within their sphere of influence during the Cold War. Even today’s Russia has brutally suppressed the Chechens who want to remain independent. The same can be said about the Chinese who have ferociously dealt with the Tibetan and Uighur minorities demanding independence.

However, attempts have been made in some countries to acknowledge the mistakes of the past and look for reconciliation. Most famously these happened in South Africa through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission or in Australia’s “sorry days” where the Australian government apologised to the Aborigines for genocide and sustained violence and decades of exploitation.

Tags

    Advertisement

    Advertisement

    Advertisement

    Advertisement

    Advertisement

    Advertisement