3 Films and Lesson for Humanity - Comments

Bro, thanks for a wonderful post. 3 movies with the backdrop of 3 terrible atrocities spanning 3 continents Asia, Africa and Europe. I think it is sobering that the most recent one happenned merely 15 years ago. And goodness knows what is happenning in Burma or North Korea even today?

What intrigues me the most is how the movies uncovered 3 different sets of reactions by both the perpetrators and victims. Along with the previous post about CCP's stance on reforms - or rather the lack of it - I am afraid it betrays some uneasy signs of immaturity amongst Asian governments and may be, even within Asian societies. I have a terrible feeling that we have not seen the last of barbarism and violence on an inhuman scale even within the most modern Asian societies. Underneath the veneer of Asian modernity and economic progress, there are dark violent impluses, deep insecurity and intolerance still festering and seething.

The Germans admitted the Holocaust as a tragedy and a national shame. The Nazi leadership was tried (by the Allies) but the rest of the nation - who bore some responsibility one way or the other - admitted responsibility and was forgiven, even by the victims.

Likewise for Rwanda. The victims - the Tutsis - came into power with the help of regional allies and from their bases in the Congo. In a region that is often prejudiced against by many who consider them uncivilized and barbaric, they exhibited extraordinary magnanimity and humanity against the people who earlier butchered them and their families. What does this say about the quality and leadership of the Rwandan people?

The important point is not only to recognise that the Germans and the Hutus were guilty but also that they were forgiven by their victims. That is an important concept. Calls for justice and responsibility must be accompanied by forgiveness not hatred.

In Asia, memories are long and are subject to political manipulation to create new generations of victimhood. That will only feed the demons of fear, intolerance and violence that can erupt uncontrollably at any moment. Asia still awaits the kind of leadership that not only call for responsibility and apologies but who also simulteneously offer forgiveness and tolerance.

I re-read with some poignancy your email to me from June 4 this year. That was a good article by Kristol. Little did I expect that a week later, one would experience a re-enactment in the streets of Iran. Comparing the young people in Beijing circa 1989 and in Tehran circa 2009, I see so much similarities: especially in their hope & haplessness, righteousness & recklessness, impressive people & tragic repressions. I saw perfect mirrors in their impulses for freedom and progress against a corrupt and reactionary regime. I saw their pride in their respective nations and ancient civilization. I also see patriots wanting reforms and change while respecting the "revolution" but ended up being smeared by their oppressors using unimaginatively identical language: as counter-revolutionaries and terrorists supported by foreign powers.

It is tempting to over-rely on analogies but there are important differences. For decades, the Iranians had some power of the ballot through elections. The powers-that-be still try to preserve a fig-leaf of ruling by popular mandate. The tanks were not (yet?) on the streets. The opposition leaders were not (yet?) locked up or shot. And the protest goes on in many ways. In an echo of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, every night at 10pm, protected by darkness, Iranians go up to their roof tops .... and repeatedly prayed out loud: "Allah-u-akbar" and soon they were joined by others from other roof tops, and then from more and more rooftops until the city roared with prayers. From a news report today, this still goes on for half-an-hour every night.

And through it all, I believe the Iranian people have gained the respect of many people in the world who are seeing them for the first time as intelligent, dignified, passionate, educated and fine-looking individuals - not the crude, turbuned, nihilistic caricatures painted by warmongers looking for a pretext for a war with Iran. With a people like this, its just a matter of time for change for the better in Iran.