fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2677 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2677 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.

[The Scribbler]

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02.

[bioshock infinite: burial at sea]

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03.

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04.

[True Detective]

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05.

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06.

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07.

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08.

[fire emblem/super smash bros]

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09.

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10.

[World of Warcraft]

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11.

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12. [SPOILERS for Hannibal]

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13. [SPOILERS for Bioshock: Infinite]

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14. [SPOILERS for Game of Thrones]

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15. [WARNING for rape/abuse I'm assuming? Ramsay/Theon stuff]
http://i.imgur.com/Xo0GSkI.png

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16. [WARNING for mental illness/hospitals]

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17. [WARNING for depression]

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18. [WARNING for eating disorders]

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19. [WARNING for rape]

[Game of Thrones]

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 000 secrets from Secret Submission Post #382.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The thing is, taking seriously other genocides and atrocities does not mean taking away attention from the Holocaust, because the Holocaust was still a genocide.

Um, how is that not what I wrote? I said that because other countries committed atrocities as well it should not keep us from coming back to look at the holocaust?

but the fact that the Holocaust is the first modern technological genocide, that nothing like it had ever happened, is part of its historical significance.

I totally agree with this point. But the fact that it took a very specific context for it to occur, doesn't mean its happening should be used to relativise the pain and suffering that was forced upon people elsewhere. The fact that the holocaust was unique in its execution, does not mean other events should be brushed aside or considered more forgiveable incidents in order to focus on the holocaust as the worst thing that ever happened instead.

I don't want to say that focus on other events should take away from focus on the holocaust, but that focus on the holocaust should not take away from drawing attention on other events.

Let me talk about Germany here for a second: The Holocaust is a compulsory subject at school. Depending on the type of school WW2 and the Holocaust get explored every year for 3-5 school years. And that's a good thing.

But unless you've got a teacher who is into colonial history the Herero Massacre (that happened only a couple of decades before WW2) is hardly ever mentioned. Everyone is ready to genuflect for the atrocities committed for WW2 but most European countries are not that keen on coming clean about the shit colonialism led to.

Talking about the Holocaust might seem more important, and there's more to talk about than with some other cases because its recent history and well documented and also because of the factors you mentioned, but it doesn't mean the rest should be swept under the rug.

And this is a thing that frequently happens both on the internet as well as in the real world. And by people who really should know better. From history students to teachers to politicians. "But at least it wasn't as bad as what the Nazis did" should not be an argument when processing other kinds of genocide honestly, but it is often brought up.

And to me these arguments sound a lot like people don't want to look at their own history too closely, but rather would pretend to learn from other countries' mistakes, because they were worse and more noteworthy and there's more to discuss.

And that's fucking sad.

How can we better oursevles if we condemn one thing but avoid being honest when analysing our other mistakes on their own terms? No crime should have someone going out of their way to find a way to pat themselves on the back about it, because it wasn't as bad as what your neighbor did.

(I don't mean to equate the massacre with the holocaust, because these things cannot be equated, but this is just one example (and one that happened very close to WW2) for how dishonest even we Germans are about our own history even while owning up for what happened during the holocaust.

The thing with the Holocaust is, other nations had a lot of interest in making us pay for it, and to make sure we did not deny what happened. And this is a VERY good thing, that carried over to modern day Germany. Denying the Holocaust is a crime. This is a good thing.

But with a lot of other atrocities the global village sleeps, and crimes get downplayed or forgotten.

We need to put pressure on each other to admit our sins and treat them honestly, without this veil of "but country YXZ did something worse, so stop looking at me!")

This.

And the Armenian Genocide which, you know, was used as a tool for Hitler to promote the Holocaust.

Accordingly, I have placed my death-head formation in readiness – for the present only in the East – with orders to them to send to death mercilessly and without compassion, men, women, and children of Polish derivation and language. Only thus shall we gain the living space (Lebensraum) which we need. Who, after all, speaks to-day of the annihilation of the Armenians?

ayrt

Yeah, I think I was agreeing with you much more than I seemed, and I just kind of failed to bring that across. So apologies on that.

I think what you're saying here is very sensible. To put it another way, maybe - the fact that Germany has studying the Holocaust as a compulsory subject is a good thing. But (a) it should be done in a way that looks at the reality of the Holocaust, instead of turning it into nothing more than a symbol, and (b) the same concept should be extended to other atrocities and especially the same concept should be applied in other countries.

Unfortunately you do run into political problems - not just in terms of not wanting to examine the history and not look to closely, either. I think in a lot of places, for whatever atrocities you want to talk about, there are still strong political lobbies that are actually apologists for whatever happened. The fact that no one in the political mainstream is willing to defend the Holocaust or justify it or minimize it is actually a lot more rare than you'd think. If for instance in America you tried to teach about the extermination of the Native Americans or whatever, there would be significant lobbies against that - shit, there are significant lobbies that want to refer to the Civil War as the War Between The States and talk about how it was the North's fault. If you want to talk about Japanese war crimes in Japan, that's a controversial issue. If you want to talk about the Armenian genocide in Turkey, I think that might actually be illegal. If you want to talk about Britain's long and storied history of colonial oppression there, there's going to be a significant lobby that objects to that. A lot of these things are unfortunately politically "live" in a way that the Holocaust isn't - and that's actually probably a reason it's important to educate people about it in the way you're suggesting here.

I am actually very glad we agree.

This last point is what I tried to allude to by saying we need each other, i. e. global pressure, and that's part of why the Holocaust is politically dead as you said. Or at least denying or even defending what happened gets you into trouble with large parts of the world. I realise this is an ideal and nigh impossible to achieve on a political level right now, or even in the forseeable future, because of the forces in play you mentioned.

It's easy to understand why people want these rewrites of history, and why they'd rather not examine certain parts of it too closely. But it's all the more reason to post about it, isn't it?

[ SECRET POST #2677 ]

Re: This will go unread because timezones, but fuck it, I'm upset.

Re: This will go unread because timezones, but fuck it, I'm upset.

Re: This will go unread because timezones, but fuck it, I'm upset.

Re: This will go unread because timezones, but fuck it, I'm upset.

Re: This will go unread because timezones, but fuck it, I'm upset.