Adolph Adams gasped in awe as he thumbed over the words of his warmest and bitterest best frenemy of all.
If Humanity Exists, then All is Permitted:
Germany’s Recognition of the So-Called Korean Genocide is a Horrific Act of Presumption
Dr Saul Friedman, formerly of the Libertarian Party, the Classical Liberal Party, and the Republican Party.
The German government’s recent unilateral declaration of ‘Crimes Against Humanity’ in Korea is a truly horrific development. This opportunistic Realpolitik move is an utter catastrophe.
As a Jew, as an American, and most of all, as an individual and not some mere token of a type, I am 100% opposed to setting up a hierarchy among mass atrocities.
The distinction between a ‘crime against humanity’ or ‘genocide’ and a ‘mere straight-vanilla mass atrocity’ is not a scientific one, but a rhetorical and polemical one, driven by cynical, partisan Realpolitik.
It is truly horrifying to see yet another government (no less than the government of the main perpetrator of the Nazi Holocaust!) demean and trample all over the victims of all mass atrocities, by perpetuating practices of illicit privilege and hierarchy.
If they had the slightest shred of respect for people massacred in the Korean mass atrocities, or anyone else heartlessly butchered in any mass atrocity soever, they would hold their peace, and not desecrate the memory of the innocent by continuing this perpetual sacrament, this eternal mystifying mummery of self-interestedly hierarchising and privileging some mass atrocities over others, by baptising them with nonsense words cynically calculated to signify that these particular mass atrocities, and ONLY these, are of any real significance.
It is merely a power game.
Let not one fool or idle speculator be mistaken.
The ruthless and ineffably violent arms race and beggar’s pokerfest of ‘which one is a genocide?’ and ‘which one is a crime against humanity?’ is a race to the bottom, and it will inevitably corrupt and taint beyond measure all those who give in to the temptation.
This is not about justice, or decency, or commemoration, or power; it’s merely cynical, self-serving, malignant opportunism.
And who practices such opportunism?
Cynical, self-serving, malignant opportunists.
***
Adams paused.
‘You were right, dear friend,’ he breathed.
Saul’s half-ironic chant still resounded in his head.
‘And if I am not for myself, then who?’