Never again?

Every year, for two separate days, we are called upon to remind ourselves of human evil, the human irrationality of destroying a people with a wave of the hand. Grueling texts pop up all over the web with warnings in bold letters about the current evil, subject to the political position of the writer. The days become mud battles with the heroes’ stories running in the background, presenting a recurring motif in every national day sponsored by social media. Somewhat ironically though, other than blaming the opposite political camp, no one is talking about the Holocaust, or the Holocausts, of today.

A report aired today with a solid allegation regarding the activity of the Syrian Air Force during 2018. According to the report of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons’ (OPCW), the Syrian regime then attacked Saraqiv with chlorine bombs. You have not heard a word about it to date. As of 2018, more than 400,000 people were killed in Syria following the conflict that erupted in 2011. Another estimate is that by June 2017, there were over 540,000 people living in besieged cities. and the world is silent.

Let’s look towards China, the regime that everyone is afraid of. According to a Human Rights Watch report, 1.3 million of the Uighur have gone through the detention camps (a completely washed-up term). There are a total of about 12 million Uyghurs in Xinjiang Province. The goal is to erase them from the face of the earth. The story is silenced despite the chilling evidence. The story here is not new, by the way. The Chinese regime began producing traffic to the region in the 1950s and have sanctioned the expression of Uyghur culture. The camps have been operating without special disturbances since 2017.

We can continue to cover ourselves with lessons from the past, say we have learned and throw in ‘Never Again’ slogans. And here, right in front of our eyes, evil prevails and is again met with silence, similar to that which the nations exercised until the national interest of each of them was compromised during WWII.

At this rate, not only will there be another Holocaust — we are living through one today. We will not have the privilege of telling our children we did not know. For those who move uncomfortably in light of the use of the term ‘Holocaust’, how would you prefer we call the ongoing situations in China and Syria? Mass murder would be an understatement.

We are now experiencing a live Holocaust. This is what it looks like when we pretend to learn from the past but instead ignore the signs resting right in front of our eyes.