The Smithsonian Magazine for January 2018 is dedicated to the various shattering historical events for the US during the notorious year of 1968. I was familiar with some of them, but not having grown up in the US, and being still a child as the malaise of the US involvement in the Vietnam War grew and dragged on painfully, I knew next to nothing about the Tet Offensive that left thousands of South Vietnamese in Hue butchered horrifically at the hands of the North Vietnamese Vietcong. I also knew very little about the infamous My Lai Massacre where 504 unarmed villagers, men ,women, children, infants, were slaughtered by American soldiers, on March 16, 1968, in which none but one of these perpetrators would do jail time, as less than four years, mostly under house arrest. It was shocking for me to read the horrific details of this mass murder of unarmed civilians, and to what length our government at the time went to deny and dismiss any wrong doing in the massacre. That was 50 years ago. Vietnam is apparently still very much in denial about the Tet Offensive, that was launched on January 30, 1968, and left thousands of South Vietnamese civilians murdered by barbaric methods, such as being buried alive. Both articles left me stunned. Such brutality and inhumanity done ruthlessly, one by American soldiers in My Lai, and the other by North Vietnamese soldiers in Hue.
It is tempting, apparently, to feel that one's own civilization is better, kinder, superior in all sorts of ways, including when it comes to the delusion and arrogance of denying atrocities of war. This is a delusion of enormous proportions. Under the guise of nationalism, hubris, and sometimes sheer pathological indifference, the " us " versus " them " refrain makes it so that it is so much easier to hate those who we feel are the cause of wars and chaos, and all the ensuing misery and death. History however has a way of tipping the scales. War is capable of bringing out the worst in all humans. It is not tied to race, creed, or nation. Nations that consider themselves as highly civilized, have terrible track records, not just in distant times, but in recent memory. What the Belgians did in the Congo, the Dutch in South Africa under Apartheid, the French in Algeria during their colonization of that country, and during its Independence War, are examples of recent crimes against humanity. Then there are the atrocities and genocide committed by the Spanish Empire in Central and South America, by the US with the genocide of the Native American people, and the lasting damage of the legacy of slavery and the continuing oppression for another hundred years of its black people, leading up to the Civil Rights Movement that would cost the lives of white and black Americans alike. That is plenty you would think to guarantee we do not feel so smug about our supposed superiority. The worst genocide of the 20th century occurred in the heart of Western Europe at the hands of the Nazis, who were German Christians, and did it all in the name of God and country.
What is happening in Syria, in Iraq, in Myanmar, in Yemen, just to name the most heartbreaking cases of man's inhumanity versus man happening right now, is stupefying in its scope. The destruction of life, hope, of entire peoples, of classified and treasured art and architecture of human history, is beyond understanding. It is infuriating, shocking, maddening. Where is humanity headed? It is a frightening question.
In the same Smithsonian Magazine issue is an article that gives hope, it is about the longest standing and continuously operating library on the planet, St. Catherine's, a Greek Orthodox monastery in the Sinai Desert in Egypt. It has been in operation since the fourth century. The library at the monastery contains more than 3000 manuscripts, and the person in charge of its library is a man who was born in Texas, studied Byzantine history at the University of Texas, converted to the Greek Orthodox faith and was invited to St. Catherine's in 1996. Known as Father Justin, he was asked by the monastery's abbot to lead the effort to make available to scholars from all over the world, the library's manuscript collection that the abbot decided to have digitized. What a marvelously upbeat article, bringing light and hope to the preservation of priceless knowledge going back to antiquity. Such a wonderful counterpoint to the destruction wreaked by extremist zealots in the name of religion right now in the Middle East, and parts of Africa. I hear neighbours and acquaintances speak in frustrated terms at times of the horrible atrocities committed by extremists who manage to sow panic in crowded cities all over the world these days, and lamenting the brutality, as we all should. Then I realize that dismissing these events as related to just one religion, one people, as an aberration in human history, is neither accurate or helpful. The Nazi regime of death led to World War II and the deaths of over 70 million people. The Spanish Inquisition reigned its reign of religious persecution for 400 years, killing, torturing, maiming, burning people alive, burning their knowledge, their books, their literature, their theology, in the name of Catholicism and King and Queen, in Spain and the Americas, doing irreparable damage to culture, history, civilization. Spain as an empire also erased all the advances made by the Moors of Arabic and Berber descent who had invaded Spain in 711 AD, with their general, Tariq ibn Ziyad. The term Moors refers to the Berber autochthones of the Maghreb and they would rule the Iberian peninsula until 1492, bringing advanced science, culture, architecture, arts and religious tolerance, to Spain and Europe. Their expulsion translated to a drain of culture and knowledge and the insiduous persistance of the dreaded Spanish Inquisition that systematically eradicated religious tolerance in favour of strict Catholicism, ruthlessly enforced by fear, repression, torture, exile and executions. The Spanish Inquisition was finally disbanded in the middle of the 19th century. During the 700 years the Moors ruled Spain, great strides were made in sciences, and literature, architecture, quite the opposite of what a return to strict Catholicism would lead to after 1492. Nowadays, religious intolerance at the hands of parts of the Muslim world and its extremists makes us forget that there was a time when atrocities were committed in the name of Christianity, the most recent one being the nightmare of the Nazi reign of terror. A historic perspective is necessary if we are going to make it through the barbarity that is taking hold in parts of the world in the name of religion. Knowing what happened in the past, to whom, by whom, matters more than ever. The catapult of blind ignorance and knee jerk hatred and prejudice that condemns entire cultures and peoples because of the deranged fanaticism of a minority will only lead to more misunderstanding, more violence, more racism, more misery. Studying history has never been more important, now that some people in their religious hatred want to erase parts of it. The lessons should be vivid in our minds. The book burnings by the Spanish Inquisition of the treasury of Mayan knowledge in Guatemala seem perhaps far removed. The book burnings of the Nazis are not, only 70 years, within our parents lifetime. If we are not alert, aware, informed, we will careen into the ravine, not just be witnesses to it. The catapult of ignorance will hurl those boulders of ignorance right back at us. It is high time we all go on a revelatory walk back, not with a gun, or our fists, but with the only weapon that defeats the stupor of ignorance : knowledge, the knowledge of history, with its recorded books, of the history of our own country, other countries, of world history, so we can walk on with fairness, intelligence and determination and not let violence have the last word, but the bridges that are built by open hands, and well informed hearts and minds.
The references to the Tet Offensive and the My Lai Massacre are from the January 2018 issue of the Smithsonian Magazine, as are the references to St. Catherine's Monastery.
The references to the Spanish Inquisition and the Moorish rule of Spain are courtesy of my master studies in Spanish and Latin American Literature, and courtesy of Wikipedia.
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