When there are no gas chambers, no barbed wire, and no concentration camps, many don't recognize the perpetration of new genocides and other targeted mass atrocity crimes because they may not look the same.
Interpretation
This quote highlights how the absence of recognizable symbols of genocide can blind people to ongoing atrocities.
John Prendergast emphasizes that the lack of traditional indicators of genocide, such as gas chambers or concentration camps, can lead to a dangerous complacency. Many people may fail to recognize or acknowledge new forms of genocide and mass atrocities simply because they do not conform to historical examples, underlining the importance of vigilance and awareness in the face of evolving human rights abuses.
In practice
This quote could be used in a speech about the importance of recognizing modern atrocities in a human rights conference.
I see courage everywhere I go in Africa. Fearless human rights activists in Darfur. Women peace advocates in eastern Congo. Former child soldiers in Northern Uganda who now are helping other former child soldiers return to civilian life.
On the whole, men are more good than bad; that, however, isn't the real point. But they are more or less ignorant, and it is this that we call vice or virtue; the most incorrigible vice being that of an ignorance that fancies it knows everything and therefore claims for itself the right to kill. The soul of the murderer is blind; and there can be no true goodness nor true love without the utmost clear-sightedness.
The first and last lesson of religion is, "The things that are seen, are temporal; the things that are unseen, are eternal." It puts an affront upon nature.
The problem of our age is the proper administration of wealth, so that the ties of brotherhood may still bind together the rich and poor in harmonious relationship.
So long as we represent technology as an instrument, we remain held fast in the will to master it.
I think I should understand that better, if I had it written down: but I can't quite follow it as you say it.
As a real person, he wouldn't last a minute, would he? But drama is about imperfection. And we've moved away from the aspirational hero. We got tired of it, it was dull. If I was House's friend, I would hate it. How he so resolutely refuses to be happy or take the kind-hearted road. But we don't always like morally good people, do we?
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