In the last three weeks, I've been asked a dozen or so times why I care... why I care about the Shan... why I care about the victims of this genocide... why I care enough to move around the world to teach in a relatively remote location. Each time I've basically stumbled through this answer, mumbling something about the last time I was in Thailand and visiting a refugee camp and memories that stay in your head... etc.
But something absolutely fundamental is missed in this answer. Why do some memories stay forever in one's head? Why do some life experiences become the driving force of direction in one's life, while others pass away with only a gently nagging tug of guilt? It's not merely the idea of responding to the other in compassion, because I have seen suffering in many places around the world, including my own country. For me, it's this soul-sickening word called "genocide" that grips me.
You see, my response is fully rooted in the narrative into which I was born. Much literature has been written about the sense of guilt many children of the Jewish diaspora feel for surviving, for living, in light of the Holocaust and the pogroms of the 20th century in Europe. I have also witnessed the shame and guilt that is expressed in German culture over the Holocaust. As a product of American culture, where old world family histories do not determine new relationships, the memory of both types of guilt run deeply through my veins and perhaps more intensely than usual. It has always felt easier to claim solidarity with those that died (the distant Jewish relatives and the not so distant Bohemian relatives) than to recognize the ugly history of a few times removed cousin, who stood beside Hitler as one of his right hand men and directed the murder of millions. I am Bohemian, Jewish, and German (and by this I do not mean German Jewish, rather the relative a Nazi war criminal), and the histories of each have gripped me and caused me to wonder how it is that entire people groups can turn to hatred. It is what forces me to respond and to refuse to passively ignore genocide as it exists in this world.
I suppose this is not an easy answer to give when someone asks casually (as if any answer can be casual) why I care, and I will probably continue to mumble and stumble through in response, but here's the truth: I care, because the blood running through my veins dictates only two options in response to the face of genocide, either an actively compassionate response or a sickening hardening of heart. I choose the first.
But something absolutely fundamental is missed in this answer. Why do some memories stay forever in one's head? Why do some life experiences become the driving force of direction in one's life, while others pass away with only a gently nagging tug of guilt? It's not merely the idea of responding to the other in compassion, because I have seen suffering in many places around the world, including my own country. For me, it's this soul-sickening word called "genocide" that grips me.
You see, my response is fully rooted in the narrative into which I was born. Much literature has been written about the sense of guilt many children of the Jewish diaspora feel for surviving, for living, in light of the Holocaust and the pogroms of the 20th century in Europe. I have also witnessed the shame and guilt that is expressed in German culture over the Holocaust. As a product of American culture, where old world family histories do not determine new relationships, the memory of both types of guilt run deeply through my veins and perhaps more intensely than usual. It has always felt easier to claim solidarity with those that died (the distant Jewish relatives and the not so distant Bohemian relatives) than to recognize the ugly history of a few times removed cousin, who stood beside Hitler as one of his right hand men and directed the murder of millions. I am Bohemian, Jewish, and German (and by this I do not mean German Jewish, rather the relative a Nazi war criminal), and the histories of each have gripped me and caused me to wonder how it is that entire people groups can turn to hatred. It is what forces me to respond and to refuse to passively ignore genocide as it exists in this world.
I suppose this is not an easy answer to give when someone asks casually (as if any answer can be casual) why I care, and I will probably continue to mumble and stumble through in response, but here's the truth: I care, because the blood running through my veins dictates only two options in response to the face of genocide, either an actively compassionate response or a sickening hardening of heart. I choose the first.
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