Digesting the "Ambulens" Video

While we were watching the "Ambulens" video, I knew what was coming but I just kept on hoping it wouldn't. I was amazed at the Jewish man's courage- his silent, non-physical resistance. When we talk about resistance, we are often thinking about physical resistance- fighting the enemy, running away, etc. I think that peaceful and calm resistance has a much deeper affect than any amount of physical resistance could ever do.
The man in this video was a hero in my eyes- he didn't instill fear in the children, he didn't argue or try to get away, but instead, he stood tall and proud and didn't let the Germans take his dignity away. This man's resistance was so incredibly powerful.
Although the video doesn't tell us who the message is intended for or what the message even is, I think it sends a strong message to the Jews. Any Jew that witnessed that man's (the Jewish man in the video) courage and pride could be lifted up and encouraged to do the same. The fact that the Jewish people practically had no other options but death, they still managed to resist- and in this way, the Germans could take everything from them but the thing that mattered the most- their pride and dignity.
Though this video was sad, at the same time it was inspiring. The resistance shown in the video made me feel proud, even though I'm not a Jew. i really admire the courage of those who resisted.

Tangled

If I could describe our world in one word, it would be tangled. There are many words that come to mind like corrupt, lost, messed up, etc, but tangled just seems fit after our class discussion today. It's like its impossible for the Armenian Genocide to be acknowledged by the whole world, and genocides are going to keep on happening because some nations give off the "You can't touch me" vibe. To put it another way, the Armenian Genocide denial situation is kind of like a murder trial with a witness that refuses to testify. The witness saw what happened, and could take the stand and make the perpetrator pay, but the perpetrator has connections and has threatened to kill the witness's family if he testifies. Thus, the witness won't testify because he doesn't want to risk losing his family. The witness is "tangled" in the middle of everything.
This is the same deal with the United States- we have proof that the Armenian Genocide was in fact a genocide, yet our government won't "testify" because they fear how Turkey will respond. To the United States, oil, aircraft bases, waterways, etc are more important that telling the truth- just like the murder trial's witness's family is more important than the truth to him. Any of us would like to think that if we were in charge we would do what was right regardless of the consequences we may face. But in reality, would we, really? This is one tangled up situation, and unfortunately, there isn't any easy solution either. How can we begin to untangle this mess? What could we, as American citizens do to start paving the path to acknowledgement?

Processing All of This

At the very beginning of this course, we heard a little bit about the methods of genocide...the gas chambers in the Holocaust and "deportation" of the Armenians, etc. It didn't really bother me that much to hear about these methods, not because I don't think they're awful, but because it was all stuff I had learned about before. Now though, as we have been getting deeper into our readings and class discussions, learning about the various methods of torture used, especially in the Armenian and Rwandan genocides leaves me speechless. Smashing heads in vice grips, beheading, burning alive...all these brutalities are just awful. I just can't believe, Just World Theory or not, that people can do this to each other! How incredibly selfish governments are- taking innocent lives because they are in the way of more power. Learning about all this makes me so mad- and I wish I could directly do something about it- like making governments see that people's lives and freedom are more important than power- but I know that governments don't even care. I guess it's probably not right to stereotype all governments, but it seems like they are so selfish- even the United States government! So anyways, learning about the many genocides that have occurred, and that are still occurring in our world really takes me a while to process. I like learning about this stuff, but at the same time it sets my emotions awhirl.