I listen to the wind
to the wind of my soul
Where I’ll end up well I think,
only God really knows
I’ve sat upon the setting sun
But never, never never never
I never wanted water once
No, never, never, never

I listen to my words but
they fall far below
I let my music take me where
my heart wants to go
I swam upon the devil’s lake
But never, never never never
I’ll never make the same mistake
No, never, never, never

Because I believe that the least we can do for the world, is to face the horrors we are capable of, my journey of self education knows no rest.   I’ve turned to Cat Stevens to sooth my tortured soul after my latest research topic, the forgotten Holocaust of World War II, The Rape of Nanking.

This is following a few days of intense Holocaust research.

In defending the plight of the Palestinian people, I continuously come against people who can’t see past the Holocaust as justification for their firm belief in Israel’s need for security.

The Holocaust was horrific.

And six million Jews died.

But in my research I came upon a startling point; that people debate over whether the term can be use for all victims of German extermination, or just the Jewish people. When we add in ethnic Poles, Romani, Soviet civilians, Soviet prisoners of war, people with disabilities, homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and other political and religious opponents, the number more than doubles being placed between 11 million and 17 millions people dead. (source)

My soul hurts that these other 5 to 11 million people are rarely referenced when people talk about the Holocaust.

But what of the forgotten Holocaust you ask?

I was watching ‘The West Wing’ the other night with my partner.  It was an episode about ethnic cleansing and genocide and there was a reference to neighbors swapping family members. The reason they did this is because the soldiers were forcing them to rape their family members, fathers raping daughters and sons raping mothers.  (Is being forced to rape your neibour better than your own? I can’t even think of an answer).  But I was affected by this episode, and I needed to know where this had happened in the real world.  So i googled it, and the first result led me to The Rape of Nanking.

Thousands of women raped every night over a six week period. Murdered and mutilated with bayonets shoved into their vagina’s. The accounts of what happened to those people have stayed in my thoughts since I read them.  They were burned alive.  Buried alive.  Killed in sport.  Beheaded after being forced to dig their own graves.  Is there enough good in the world to counter all the horrific actions of men?

In China, 20 to 30 million people died in war, in battle and as casualties.

All life is sacred. All of it! There is and never will be justification for what has been done.  And until all of us, across the world lay down our arms and live in peace, this will continue.

I think about all of this… all the time. Every time I meet someone who defends the war in Afghanistan. Every time someone defends the actions of Israel against Palestine. Every time people joke about rape. Every time people get on my case about the state of the world.

And if the Holocaust has laid a stain on our souls so dark that we must never let it happen again, why have we let it happen over and over again?

Reading Material:

http://people.bu.edu/wwildman/WeirdWildWeb/courses/theo1/projects/2001_chen/forgotten_holocaust.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanking_Massacre

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_and_disasters_by_death_toll

http://canadiangenocide.nativeweb.org/intro2.html

http://www.genocide1915.info/history/

http://www.cambodiangenocide.org/genocide.htm

http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/globalisation/visions_reflections/global_history_genocide

I watched a fantastic documentary today. It was made by the BBC about 4 years ago.

The never ending cycle of hypocrisy continues….

EDIT:

Just watched another really good look at the Israel/Palestinian conflict.

Pictures can tell more than my rambles could ever convey….

There are more pictures…. dozens that show broken and bloody bodies of men, women and children.  I looked at them all.  I’d post every single one of them, but I don’t want to turn people away with shock and horror.  If you want to see more pictures of what the Palestinian people have to go through every day, please click on the link at the beginning of the post and take a few moments to reflect and think about what is happening in the world.