Montreal Gazette, Canada
May 5 2007
Ordinary people, heinous acts parenting-advice author looks at
history of genocide
SUE MONTGOMERY, The Gazette
Extraordinary Evil: A Brief History of Genocide
By Barbara Coloroso
Viking Canada, 272 pages, $30
To many parents, the name Barbara Coloroso immediately brings to mind
bibles on how to survive the turbulent and mind-boggling challenge of
raising kids. Bestsellers like Kids Are Worth It, Winning at
Parenting Without Beating Your Kids and Now I Know Why Tigers Eat
Their Young – her book on surviving the teen years – have provided
useful, practical advice for years.
Extraordinary Evil: A Brief History of Genocide may at first seem to
be a major departure from her previous work. In fact, this
examination of three 20th-century genocides is a fascinating
extension of Coloroso’s books on bullying and on raising ethical
kids. It’s also the result of her 30 years of studying how ordinary
people can turn so extraordinarily evil and commit such heinous acts.
For sure, there will be historians skeptical of Coloroso’s conclusion
that genocide is simply bullying taken to its extreme; that it’s a
slippery slope from the schoolyard scene in which a bully picks on
someone as a growing crowd either joins in or passively stands by, to
hate crimes, to an entire group in a country being exterminated by
another.
But for anyone seeking an explanation as to why humans have behaved
in unimaginable ways throughout history – and continue to do so (see
Darfur, Sudan) – her analysis bears serious consideration. Her
experience as a mother of two, parenting expert and former Roman
Catholic nun, combined with years of travelling to places where
genocide has occurred, gives the book a human touch. She somehow
reduces the horror of genocide to digestible terms, making the reader
feel that perhaps he or she does have the power to prevent the
annihilation of entire groups of people.
"When individuals, families, communities and nations stand up to it,
leaders will no longer find support for the complicity that enables
it," she writes.
One of the biggest mistakes the international community makes in
dealing with genocide is equating it to conflict and using the same
tools to deal with it, she argues. Whereas conflict is normal
behaviour and is susceptible to reason, genocidal behaviour has at
its heart cold hate, or contempt. Conflict doesn’t escalate into
genocide, but bullying can.
Like her parenting books, this is a well-written, well-organized
read. It doesn’t get bogged down in historical facts, although she
does include some little-known ones. For example, it wasn’t until
1982 that Germany formally recognized the genocide during the Second
World War of the Sinti and Roma, who had been killed along with 6
million Jews.
The book examines three genocides of the 20th century: that of the
Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, Jews and others in the Second World
War and Rwanda’s Tutsis by the Hutus in 1994. Coloroso argues that
all three tragedies had a common theme and formula, with each group
of "genocidaire" learning and honing the tricks of the trade from
those who killed before them.
Hitler, she writes, was emboldened by the impunity with which the
Young Turks were able to pillage, rape and starve the Armenians, just
as the Hutus studied Hitler’s Mein Kampf.
What’s particularly compelling is the former nun’s call for a serious
discussion – in our homes, schools and communities – about the
complicity of religious institutions in hate crimes and crimes
against humanity, especially genocide. Tutsis in Rwanda, for example,
fled to churches, seeking sanctuary only to be hacked to death by the
thousands. The Nazis saw Jews as the evil "Christ-killers" and the
Young Turks wanted to do away with the Armenians, who were the
Christian minority, or the infidels.
Given the disturbing shift in Quebec during the most recent election,
in which Muslims were singled out and attacked in some media for
demanding accommodation (which they weren’t), the book should be
required reading for all in this province. One of the similarities
between the genocide of the Armenians and the genocide of the Jews
was an intolerance toward the elements resisting assimilation, and
the incitement of public hostility toward the targeted group.
While it’s hard to conceive of a genocide occurring in modern-day
Quebec, it sounds alarmingly familiar, doesn’t it?
Sue Montgomery is a Gazette reporter who has taught journalism in
Rwanda and has been covering Canada’s first genocide trial.