A Last Word (Hopefully) On Rwandan Genocide

[LeoCasey at aol.com]

I am, frankly, quite torn about how to bring this thread to a close. I 
believe that when a thread reaches the point of having people debate about 
who said what at the beginning of the thread, it has clearly outlasted any 
useful life. And, in any case, once we start throwing about terms like 
"anti-communist" and "unreconstructed cold warrior," it is clear that debate 
has ended, and name calling has begun. Part of me says just don't respond to 
Heartfield's latest personal attacks, or to even acknowledge Noonan, who 
seems to have joined the fray for the sole purpose of adding to the 
conflagration.

On the other hand, I don't want to leave the impression, however implicit, 
that I accept Heartfield's account of the debate, that I have somehow 
unfairly characterized his position on the Rwandan genocide. I have made it 
clear enough -- and at some length too -- what I found completely wrongheaded 
and offensive about his views of the Rwanda genocide, a critique which is 
best captured in the paragraph kelley cited. Moreover, when Yoshie suggested 
that Heartfield's view was "alternative to the idea that the dominant Hutus 
tried to exterminate the Tutsi minority in genocide motivated by ethnic 
hatred in 1994," a view which most people would see as tantamount to denying 
that the genocide actually took place, I specifically posed the question of 
whether he held to that view, or whether he was taking a view more akin to 
what the conservative German historians did in their debate with Habermas -- 
yeah, it happened, but it was in reaction to what those other nasty guys were 
doing. I specifically asked: "So are we crude Rwandan genocide deniers of the 
David Irving variety, or are we the more sophisticated German historians?" 
His response was to say that he and Yoshie don't agree on everything, 
whatever that means in this context. 

Now there is no doubt that Heartfield will not be pleased with my historical 
analogies, but at the very least there might be some faithfulness in 
recording what my position has clearly been.

So let me say as clearly as possible for one last time that what I have found 
offensive in Heartfield's and Yoshie's position:
the excusing, the minimizing, the post-facto justifications for the genocide 
itself [the Tutsis, the RPF, the imperialism -- the devil -- made them do 
it], the moral equivalences between those who did the killing and those who 
stopped it.

Call that what you want, parse it any way you care, but I would really like 
to make that my last word on the subject. I actually had hoped to stop before 
now, but I don't want to end with my position being misrepresented.

   
Leo Casey
United Federation of Teachers
260 Park Avenue South
New York, New York 10010-7272 (212-598-6869)

Power concedes nothing without a demand.
It never has, and it never will.
If there is no struggle, there is no progress.
Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation are men who 
want crops without plowing the ground. They want rain without thunder and 
lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its waters.
-- Frederick Douglass --