‘IT’S A SHORT WALK FROM BULLYING TO GENOCIDE’; BARBARA COLOROSO TALKS ABOUT ETHICS, DEEP CARING AND DOING THE RIGHT THING WHEN THE BURDEN IS HEAVY
Ottawa Citizen, Canada
Oct 28 2007
Final Edition
BYLINE: Louisa Taylor, The Ottawa Citizen
SECTION: THE CITIZEN’S WEEKLY; Pg. B6
LENGTH: 1521 words
Parents have turned to Barbara Coloroso for thoughtful and caring
advice on raising children since the publication of her first
book, Kids Are Worth It, in 1994. Since then she has written about
understanding and preventing bullying, and later nurturing ethics in
children. In her latest venture, Extraordinary Evil: A Brief History
of Genocide, Coloroso explores the roots of genocide. Examining three
genocides of the 20th century — of the Armenians by the Young Turks,
the Jews in the Holocaust and the Tutsis in Rwanda — Coloroso draws
a line from the bully in the schoolyard to the killer with a machete.
Coloroso will be Ottawa on Nov. 5 as the keynote speaker for Holocaust
Education Week.
You’re known as a trusted source of parenting advice, beginning with
Kids Are Worth It and later your work on bullying. You’ve said you
were surprised when your editor suggested you write a book on genocide,
so surprised in fact that you dropped your glass.
I was just stunned — we were celebrating this other book (Just Because
It’s Not Wrong Doesn’t Make It Right, on ethics) and it was the last
one I was ever going to write. I needed a long break. I don’t like
to write, it’s not a fun thing for me. Speaking is what I love to do.
But I’ve studied genocide since the late ’70s. It has been my own
personal interest. If you go back to Kids Are Worth It you’ll see
quotes from Viktor Frankl and Primo Levi — but it was never a
public thing.
I walked the rabbit-proof fence in Australia, I went to death camps
in Europe. And when I was working in Rwanda, my editor asked what
I was doing there, and I told her I was working with orphans from
the genocide.
Why did you go to Rwanda?
I asked Stephen Lewis if there was anything I could ever do for
him and he said ‘Go to Rwanda.’ He put me in touch with a group
in Toronto called Hope for Rwanda … so I travelled with them and
they introduced me to a group of orphans and then to the Tumerere
Foundation. They work with child-headed households and orphans.
A professor asked if I would come and talk to the new teachers in
Butare, which was then the University of Rwanda’s education school. A
large number of the Hutu staff there killed the Tutsi staff and a
large number of the students were complicit in the deaths of their
Tutsi classmates. He wanted me to talk about schoolyard bullying,
on a campus where people slaughtered one another.
All I had with me was the little cartoon bully circle from the bully
book, and I was embarrassed when I handed it out. Here was a bunch
of survivors from the genocide who were going to be teachers, and
there were Hutus in the group as well. It was an uneasy peace.
I handed it out, apologized and said "Let’s start with how it’s a
short walk from bullying to genocide."
I didn’t get very far before the survivors started to list on the chart
where the UN fit, where Romeo Dallaire fit, where Oxfam fit, where
their neighbours fit, where church leaders fit. It made sense to them.
I was struggling with the ethics book at the time and that lecture
was an "aha" moment about three virulent agents — hating, hoarding
and harming. If we can look at the antidotes, then perhaps we will
have a foundation for ethics, an ethic rooted in deep caring, where
you teach kids to care deeply, share generously and help willingly,
instead of harming other people with lying and cheating and stealing.
If you’re raising children who are more willing to help one another
because it’s the right thing to do, then I think you are raising an
ethical child who will stand up for values and against injustice and
who will do the right thing when the burden is heavy, when that girl
asks all the other girls not to sit by the new girl.
You say it’s a short walk from bullying to genocide. Do you mean
bullies grow up to be perpetrators of genocide, or genocide is the
same forces at work, with deadly consequences?
It can be both, but it’s more often the latter than the former.
Although, bullies tend to be leaders. In order to be a bully you
have to have leadership skills. The sad things is, look at Hitler —
he was a bullied bully. So was Stalin. We ought to be tuned in to
angry people who treat other people with contempt. So it’s possible
for a leader to be a bully, but more possible is the climate and
culture of mean that is created in a political environment. It’s a
system of behaviour that’s learned from childhood — you have to be
taught to have contempt for somebody. You have to learn that somebody
is less than you, that somebody can be put outside your circle of
moral concern.
… When I was in Rwanda, somebody said it doesn’t start in school,
and one survivor raised her hand. She was shaking and she said "Yes it
does. When I was in Grade 2, the teacher told all the snakes to stand
up and move to the other side of the room, and we did it, because we
knew we were snakes." And kids called them cockroaches and snakes on
the playground.
It was very easy then to get a political party with hate radio, and for
people to become very fearful of them. Hitler said "the Jews are going
to take over the world." The hate radio of the Hutus said the Tutsis
are going to come and kill you. And what is it that the Christian right
here says about gays? They’re going to make your children gay and take
over our schools and destroy marriage. It’s the same fear-mongering.
You focus on three genocides that fit the United Nations definition
of genocide, but there is much disagreement about other events,
such as the famine in the Ukraine, that don’t meet that definition.
Some people say the definition needs to be narrowed, some say it
needs to be expanded. I was at a conference recently, where genocide
scholars were ripping into each other — you’re making it too general,
everything’s a genocide — you’re making it too specific, the Ukrainian
famine ought to be included.
I go back to bullying, and then I have to add on top of it where it
is a political group or a party in power that has decided one group,
for whatever reason, needs to be destroyed. We’re looking in the Congo
right now at the genocide of women. We’ve never made the gender leap
in genocide. Women are being so horribly butchered in the rapes that
are being committed, butchered to eliminate women. We have to take
stock of that.
The definition of bullying has come under attack in some quarters,
because some people think all bullying is conflict. The majority of
anti-bullying programs have as their foundation conflict resolution.
Conflict is normal, natural and necessary — it’s two of us fighting
over something.
Genocide is one-sided — I’m out to get you and you didn’t have to
do anything for me to have contempt for you. We can build up fears
and say you’re going to take over our schools, you’re dirty, filthy,
you’re a snake, but the reality is you’re a human being. Once I make
you an "It," I can do anything to you.
The scary thing is when it’s in our schools, we can work on it,
when it’s in our community we can work on it, but when it’s an
entire government that shuts itself off from the rest of the world,
the international community has to be gutsy enough to step in and
not ask permission.
We say never again, then it happens again.
And again and again. We don’t have the will to stop it. We have our
self-interest at stake. Look at this genocide resolution (proposing
that the U.S. Congress acknowledge the Armenian genocide). We’re
worried right now about what the Turks will do to us if we even
acknowledge a genocide. So if we stepped in some place to stop a
genocide, oh my goodness, we might lose our oil! Human beings should
be at the centre of our choices, not "What’s in it for me?"
What reaction have genocide scholars had to your book?
Mixed. From the survivors, which means a lot more to me than any
scholar, I get overwhelming support and thank you. I’ll take that.
I’m not a genocide scholar and never pretend to be.
What will you be talking about in Ottawa?
I’ll be drawing the connection between bullying and genocide.
What’s next for you?
My next book is on the power of good — immersing myself in the
people who are witnesses and resisters and defenders. I find it hard
to believe the resilience of people who have been so horribly hurt,
because even listening to their stories and being immersed in it took
a toll on me.
But I met some Hutu children who had rescued a Tutsi family without
their parents knowing because their parents were off looting during
the day.
I talked to a man who had rescued people during the Holocaust when he
was 17, and didn’t know the people he was rescuing. When asked why
he did it, he shrugged his shoulders and said "That’s how we were
raised." I keep hearing that comment.
On the bully circle, that’s the people on the very top, the antithesis
of the bully. Why do they do what they do? I want to find out what
kind of environment we can create to make that more the norm than not.
I’m looking forward to it, because I don’t know the answer.
Coloroso will be in Ottawa on Nov. 5 at Sir Robert Borden High School
at 7 p.m. Tickets are $8 for adults and $5 for students and must be
reserved by calling (613) 798-4696 ext. 236.