The things we do to each other.
The thought passed through my brain like the cold breeze over the bleak landscape of Terez¡n. The northern Bohemian town was host to a deadly concentration camp between 1940 and 1945, when 2,500 inmates died in unfathomable ways under Nazi occupation. The camp of Terez¡n is an echo of a scream which, after reverberating for 60 years, is in danger of fading.
Jan Wiener, professor and surrogate father of AU's Prague semester, was both guide and witness at Terez¡n. He likened the prolonged treachery of the Holocaust to the instantaneous horror of 9-11. Both were mass executions, albeit of different magnitudes. Both sent us reeling in a new direction, both taught us something about ourselves. After the Holocaust, the world saw life differently. Right after 9-11, perhaps we valued it even more. Now we have the blood of war on our hands, and maybe we haven't learned enough.
There is a holocaust in the Middle East and people are dying. And we might be a little too ignorant about it. This American is, anyway.
In Terez¡n, I was reminded of the John Donne work "Devotions upon Emergent Occasions," which includes the line "any man's death diminishes me, for I am involved in mankind." We've reached a point where we no longer consider ourselves involved in mankind, but rather involved in a nation or ideology. We can no longer look at each other and say, "We're both here, we exist, our lives have value, let's stop killing each other." Such a dialogue is not possible. The only international language is the language of death.
Over the past two weeks, almost 40 U.S. soldiers were killed. Last week the Italian military headquarters in Nasiriyah was bombed, killing 32 Italians and Iraqis. Civilian deaths in Iraq, if counted, are not reported. The global community is craning its neck to see the damage, to determine when the cause is going to stop being worth its casualties.
I supported the war. I thought it was important to disarm the threat to our lives. Now I am unsure. There comes a point when we must value life enough to stop using it as currency to buy safety from a threat we will never quantify. We can mourn the deaths of our soldiers, cheer the deaths of our enemies, raise our flags high and tear theirs down. We can and should fortify freedom and democracy, but there is something that supercedes the abstracts for which we fight: life. And therein lies the eternal paradox. In order to protect life, we must sacrifice it.
"Life goes on, but we must not forget these things," Jan said, regarding the Holocaust and 9-11. "One should stop these movements while they're young and destructible. Violence must be used against such a thing."
We learned that lesson after the Nazis grew too powerful, and we are applying it to terrorism now. It is logically the right thing to do. But while we are fighting this crusade, while lives are snuffed out with the rumble of a faraway gunshot or the shriek of a nearby car bomb, we cannot strip an individual's life of its importance, regardless of ideology.
In Terez¡n, 2,500 people died. It is an event of the past, but it is the business of today. In Iraq, people are dying right now. It is and will always be our business, regardless of our stance on the war, our nationality or ideology, or whether or not it ever ends. We must stop measuring life in terms of death, and measure our lives in terms of others' lives.
I walked out of Terez¡n, confused and guilty, and hurt and hopeful. Somewhere in town, a church bell sounded mournfully, perhaps for a funeral.
But I did not send to know for whom the bell tolled
