60 years after the UN Convention - Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation

18 development dialogue december 2008 – revisiting the heart of darkness
The outcome of the mindset Einstein referred to reached its pinnacle
with World War II, the Holocaust and the bombing of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki. The evil of the gas chambers gave way to its modernised
version over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 9 The question which has been
studiously avoided ever since can be stated as follows: what if the evil
which has so often and unquestioningly been associated with Nazi
Germany, or, today, with believers of Islam, were to be seen as deeply
imbedded in a way of thinking which is actually more associated with
the triumph of the West, its economic, political and social models?
The corollaries (it would be impossible to list them all here) of that
mindset are that, by defi nition, (1) Americans, as persons, are a great
people, but their government is at fault; (2) the most horrendous acts
of terror have been committed by non-Americans, or people who,
out of envy, seek to destroy the American way of life (a way of life
from which, it could be added, ‘thinking’ has been evicted, unless it is
supportive of the dominant – American – ideology); (3) capitalism is
the greatest economic system, and its best guardians (especially since
Hiroshima/Nagasaki) cannot but be the ruling clique of the US.
In order for these assertions to remain unquestioned, the question of
how one becomes American must be kept as vague as possible because,
today, Native Americans, after being treated as enemies, have
been assimilated through a process of exclusion and inclusion which,
at fi rst, looks like it has no equivalent. Indeed, for writers like Robert
Kaplan, the fi rst step of that process, referred to by Kaplan as the
‘Indian Wars’, is THE model, which stands out as vindication of what
should be done today in Iraq. 10 As with the Indian wars, Kaplan argues,
military victory in Iraq can only be certain if the generals and
9 To those who argue that there is nothing comparable to the Holocaust, I would
respond on two levels: each genocide is both unique and generic. Who, it might
be asked, shall decide that one type of suff ering is greater than another? Is it really
possible to compare the experiences of terror suff ered by those who, out of the
blue, were attacked by foreigners seeking to seize their lands or, in Africa, hunting for
slaves? The Genocidal Temptation: Auschwitz, Hiroshima, Rwanda, and Beyond, edited
by Robert S. Frey (2004), attempts to connect genocides in a way that shifts the
discussion on Holocaust and genocide studies away from the paradigmatic notion of
certifi cation based on the idea that there is only one Holocaust. Alain Badiou’s (2005)
‘Portées du mot “Juif”’ (followed by Cécile Winter’s ‘Signifi ant-maître des nouveaux
aryens’), goes much further in showing how the birth of the State of Israel is both an
event (in line with the revolutionary projects of post-World War II) and a counter-event,
itself part of a larger counter-event (in line with colonialism, the conquest of territories
occupied by other people). For a translation of these essays, see Badiou (2006).
10 Cécile Winter’s text (see above footnote) refers to an Israeli offi cer who, before
invading a Palestinian refugee camp, reminds the soldiers that one must learn from
the experience of others, including the manner in which German soldiers took control
of the Warsaw ghetto (Badiou 2005: 119, as cited by Amir Oren, Haaretz, 25 January
2001).