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Books > Social sciences > Warfare & defence > Other warfare & defence issues > War crimes > Genocide
Listen to a short interview with James Dawes Host: Chris Gondek ]
Producer: Heron & Crane
After the worst thing in the world happens, then what? What is
left to the survivors, the witnesses, those who tried to help? What
can we do to prevent more atrocities from happening in the future,
and to stop the ones that are happening right now? "That the World
May Know" tells the powerful and moving story of the successes and
failures of the modern human rights movement. Drawing on firsthand
accounts from fieldworkers around the world, the book gives a
painfully clear picture of the human cost of confronting inhumanity
in our day.
There is no dearth of such stories to tell, and James Dawes
begins with those that emerged from the Rwandan genocide. Who, he
asks, has the right to speak for the survivors and the dead, and
how far does that right go? How are these stories used, and what
does this tell us about our collective moral future? His inquiry
takes us to a range of crises met by a broad array of human rights
and humanitarian organizations. Here we see from inside the
terrible stresses of human rights work, along with its curious
seductions, and the myriad paradoxes and quandaries it
presents.
With pathos, compassion, and a rare literary grace, this book
interweaves personal stories, intellectual and political questions,
art and aesthetics, and actual "news" to give us a compelling
picture of humanity at its conflicted best, face-to-face with
humanity at its worst.
On April 25th 1915, during the First World War, the famous Anzacs
landed ashore at Gallipoli. At the exact same moment, leading
figures of Armenian life in the Ottoman Empire were being arrested
in vast numbers. That dark day marks the simultaneous birth of a
national story - and the beginning of a genocide. When We Dead
Awaken - the first narrative history of the Armenian Genocide in
decades - draws these two landmark historical events together.
James Robins explores the accounts of Anzac Prisoners of War who
witnessed the genocide, the experiences of soldiers who risked
their lives to defend refugees, and Australia and New Zealand's
participation in the enormous post-war Armenian relief movement. By
exploring the vital political implications of this unexplored
history, When We Dead Awaken questions the national folklore of
Australia, New Zealand, and Turkey - and the mythology of Anzac Day
itself.
Barry Oshry has a lifetime's experience of working with social and
organizational systems. Here he explains how we can understand -
and avoid - the "catastrophes" that continue to occur when one
culture meets another - when demagogues sell us messages of
superiority or purity in the face of cultural difference. Algeria
Armenia Bosnia Cambodia Congo Darfur East Timor The Holdomor The
Holocaust Myanmar Palestine Rwanda... He explains how the two
conventional solutions to encountering the "other" - Purity and
Tolerance - both exact a terrible cost on the oppressed while
diminishing the humanity of the oppressors. And he offers us a
third possibility, one that requires a fundamental transformation
in how we see and experience one another. This transformation
requires us to understand that the interaction patterns we fall
into shape the way we see and experience one another. Change the
pattern of interaction and our experiences of one another will
change... The possibility of "Power and Love", working together and
tempering one another, will emerge.
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