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How will the Canadian Museum for Human Rights represent genocide?

2012-02-18 11:34:02 | | Press release

Toronto, Canada -- The International Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies (A Division of the Zoryan Institute) (`IIGHRS-Zoryan') was invited to a public gathering in Winnipeg by the Canadian Museum for Human Rights (`CMHR') in April 2003, after an initial meeting with Gail Asper in Toronto. As a Canadian institution, we lent our name publicly in support of the CMHR at an early stage.

Our early enthusiasm diminished over time, owing to the politics surrounding the museum. Owing to such politics, we still have no idea how the Armenian Genocide and other cases will be represented in the CMHR. The IIGHRS-Zoryan made a detailed presentation to CMHR officials in December 2009, as part of its public consultation, on how to represent genocide in general, and the Armenian Genocide in particular. When we found that the public consultations were not being taken into consideration by museum officials, and there was an outcry from various communities about what they felt was unfair treatment, we subsequently issued two public statements on this issue in February and August 2011, and wrote directly to Stuart Murray, the museum's President and Chief Executive Officer. None of the points have been dealt with by the CMHR, nor has our letter been responded to.

The arguments can be read in detail on the IIGHRS-Zoryan website, at
http://www.genocidestudies.org/Announcements/How%20Genocide%20Should%20be%20Represented%20in%20the%20CMHR%20v20.pdf
and
http://www.genocidestudies.org/Announcements/Genocide%20Multiculturalism%20and%20the%20CMHR.pdf

The essence of the arguments is as follows.

The lack of responsiveness of the CMHR and the absence of information about how cases of the gross violation of human rights will be represented raise questions as to which cases will be included, how much space will be allotted to each case, what their content will be, if they will have a permanent or only temporary exhibit, and how these decisions are made. Moreover, there is a close relationship between the gross violation of human rights and genocide that is being neglected in the museum's planning. Unless we study such cases comparatively, the lessons that can be learned are of limited value, particularly with a view to the prevention of such cases.

In trying to fend off criticism from various community groups over its handling of these issues, the CMHR posted a statement on its website, originally appearing as a letter in the Globe & Mail on March 23, 2011, that the museum is not about genocide and never was. The August 2011 IIGHRS-Zoryan editorial rebutted this with explicit statements to the contrary from the museum's own publicity. The editorial also argued the benefits of studying the known cases of genocide on a comparative basis. Finally, the editorial pointed out that as a federal institution, the CMHR was legally required to adhere to the official Canadian policy of multiculturalism, which is to integrate all citizens into Canadian society and treat them fairly and equally.

We recently learned from Armenian community representatives that the museum will include the five genocides officially recognized by Canada's Parliament, including the Armenian Genocide, but we still do not know how they will be represented or how the CMHR will deal with the fundamental questions raised in our two public statements. It seems that the CMHR is playing community politics by contacting different groups at different times, while ignoring the challenging questions raised by an institute whose mission is the study of these very issues. We raise these issues today to make the Armenian community aware of what has transpired over the past eight years. The IIGHRS-Zoryan calls upon the Armenian community of Canada to speak with one voice and to demand answers to these questions, for which we have been awaiting an answer for a long time.

George Shirinian, Executive Director
Zoryan Institute
255 Duncan Mill Rd., Suite 310
Toronto, ON
Canada M3B 3H9

Tel: 416-250-9807 Fax: 416-512-1736
News from Armenia and Diaspora - Noyan Tapan

International Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies
(A Division of the Zoryan Institute)

How Genocide Should Be Represented in the Canadian Museum for Human Rights
by
Roger W. Smith
Chair, International Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies
February 24, 2011

Toronto, Canada -- The Canadian Museum for Human Rights (“CMHR”) is planning to have twelve permanent zones or galleries. According to the CMHR’s website, there will be a zone devoted to the Holocaust and a “Mass Atrocity” zone, immediately adjacent to it, which will feature detailed information on many other mass atrocities that have taken place worldwide.

The prominence given the Holocaust with its own separate gallery, and the as yet unclear status of the other cases of “Mass Atrocity” is causing considerable concern within some communities. It raises questions as to which cases will be included, how much space will be allotted to each case, what their content will be, if they will have a permanent or only temporary exhibit, and how these decisions are made.

This article discusses these concerns from the perspective of the International Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies in Toronto, a Canadian research institute devoted to human rights and genocide studies and education for nearly thirty years.

The CMHR was the vision of Can West founder Izzy Asper as a place where Canadian students could visit to learn about human rights. He launched the CMHR as a private initiative on April 17, 2003, the 21st anniversary of signing of Charter of Rights and Freedom. On April 20, 2007, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced the Government of Canada’s intention to make the CMHR a national museum, the first created in over 40 years. Then on March 13, 2008, Bill C-42, An Act amending the Museums Act received Royal Assent in Parliament, with support from all political parties, creating the Canadian Museum for Human Rights as a national museum. The CMHR’s stated mission is, in part, to establish

a national and international destination -- a centre of learning where Canadians and people from around the world can engage in discussion and commit to taking action against hate and oppression…. inspiring research, learning, contributing to the collective memory and sense of identity of all Canadians… to explore the subject of human rights, with special but not exclusive reference to Canada, in order to enhance the public’s understanding of human rights, to promote respect for others and to encourage reflection and dialogue.

It is the world’s reaction to genocide and other gross violations of human rights that has helped bring about the modern human rights revolution, culminating in the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide on December 9, 1948, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on December 10, 1948. Therefore, to explore the subject of human rights, it is critical to examine the gross violation of human rights and its relationship to genocide.

The phenomenon of genocide is complex, and its ramifications are global and devastating for humanity at large. We may approach the subject by studying cases of genocide individually -- such as the Holocaust, the Armenian or Rwandan Genocides, or the Holodomor -- or we may deal with them comparatively. Individual case studies by nature are narrow. They are self-contained discourse and, as such, are of
limited value for scholarship and education. In their general thrust, they are descriptive, and inherently do not allow for the illustration of common denominators of several cases.

Comparison, on the other hand, is essentially an analytical task. The characteristics of genocide can be brought out in the interplay of such common denominators. Only the comparative approach can yield carefully delimited generalizations about the nature and mechanics of genocide as a general problem of humanity. Even though generalizations distilled from comparative studies reflect the common features and characteristics among the cases being compared, their elaboration does not need to exclude other features that are not common. One need not limit one’s self to the quest for common denominators in order to do justice to the comparative method. By taking into account those factors that are rather uncommon, one may in fact underscore the importance of the common features.

Yehuda Bauer, Professor of Holocaust Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and academic advisor to Yad Vashem, noted in a speech given at Clark University on April 23, 2009 that the origins of the UN Genocide Convention,

go back to a Polish-Jewish lawyer and jurist named Raphael Lemkin, who first began writing about all this in the 1930’s, before the Shoah of the Jews; Lemkin’s model was not Jewish but Armenian, harking back to the Armenian Genocide of 1915 and an earlier genocide against the Herero tribe in southwest Africa in 1903-04. His was truly a comparative approach to genocide.

However, genocide is an extremely emotional issue. Often, people engaged in the field of genocide and human rights have a personal relationship with these traumas. In addition, the members of each group feel that their own trauma is unprecedented, the most important, and tend to inflate their experience to the level of historical uniqueness, as they naturally feel their own pain more immediately. Thus, it is understandable that the reactions to the CMHR’s announced allocation of galleries have been polarized and adversarial.

We are aware that the museum is still a work in progress. We also acknowledge its challenges in meeting the desire of various groups to be included in the framework of the museum, as well as the desire of some to exclude others from it. There must be a scientific and scholarly basis for the CMHR’s decision-making process, including the designation of its galleries. It is our belief that the comparative approach to various cases of genocide, based on the principle of inclusiveness, provides such a scholarly standard, whereas allocating a whole gallery to only one case, while lumping all others into a single gallery called “Mass Atrocity,” relativizes and thereby trivializes those other cases. Moreover, the comparative approach will help those Canadians, who have genocide and the gross violation of human rights as part of their history, share their traumatic experiences with their fellow Canadians and the world at large. The comparative approach will enhance the public’s understanding of the complexities of the gross violation of human rights, promote respect for others, and encourage reflection and dialogue.

There is a further benefit, not to say an imperative, to the comparative approach. By exploring genocide in a comparative manner, we can begin to see its patterns. When we see and understand those patterns, we have the ability to predict the conditions by which genocide may occur. Once we have the ability to predict when genocide may occur, then we have the possibility of preventing it.

In conclusion, it is recommended that the CMHR convey, as part of the universal experience, the historical, political and moral lessons of genocide in an inclusive, holistic and comparative manner. Anything less would do a grave disservice to its stated mission and would become of concern to the conscience of all Canadians.

In this respect, we should remember the words of Raphael Lemkin, the man who coined the term “genocide” and struggled for the acceptance of the United Nations Genocide Convention, described in his personal memoir his own involvement in this field:

I understood that the function of memory is not only to register past events, but to stimulate human conscience.

Roger W. Smith

255 Duncan Mill Rd., Suite 310 Toronto, ON, Canada M3B 3H9
Tel: 416-250-9807 Fax: 416-512-1736 E-mail: [email protected]
http://www.genocidestudies.org/

International Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies
(A Division of the Zoryan Institute)

Genocide is not genocide in the Canadian Museum for Human Rights
August 22, 2011

An article titled, “Memory becomes a minefield at Canada’s Museum for Human Rights,” by Ira Basen in the
August 20, 2011 issue of the Globe and Mail, provides an exposé of the controversy surrounding the Canadian
Museum for Human Rights. The appearance of this article calls for reflection on two critical factors regarding the
museum, which have not been adequately discussed: the important relationship between human rights and genocide,
and the requirement of federal institutions to adhere to Canada’s official policy of multiculturalism.

The CMHR’s website displays a letter to the Globe & Mail, dated March 23, 2011, in which CMHR officials state
that “The Canadian Museum for Human Rights is not a museum of genocide, it never was. It is a catalyst for
change. The Museum is … not a memorial to the past.” The sentiment is echoed by the museum’s CEO during his
interview in the article. This adds a whole new set of issues to the existing controversy over the absence of an
inclusive and comparative approach to cases of genocide.

The Holocaust, to which the CMHR is devoting an entire gallery, is most definitely a genocide. Indeed, it is a prime
example of genocide and should be a central part of the museum. Genocide is not a matter of the past: even those
genocides that occurred many years ago continue to have major effects. Just as one can not teach about human rights
without taking genocide into account, so one can not teach about genocide without taking the Holocaust into
account, but through a comparative approach with other cases of genocide.

To say the CMHR is not a museum of genocide ignores the inseparable relationship between human rights and
genocide. The importance of this relationship is signalled by the fact that a) the UN Genocide Convention was the
first human rights treaty adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations; b) it is administered by the Office
of the UN High Commissioner of Human Rights; c) it focuses attention on the protection of national, racial, ethnic
and religious minorities from threats to their very existence and therefore sits directly within the priorities of both
the United Nations and the modern human rights movement, aimed at eradicating racism and xenophobia; and d) it
stresses the role of criminal justice and accountability in the protection and promotion of human rights. Genocide is
the most extreme source of human rights violation; it must be in the forefront at the museum.

The claim that “it never was” about genocide is surprising, given that the CMHR has issued press releases and
promotional material in which genocide figures prominently. One press release, for example, titled, “20th Century
Genocides,” has on its first page the heading, “Stories of the 20th Century Genocides -- The Vision,” where one
reads:

“Prejudice, racism, grievance, intolerance, aggression, injustice, oppression -- they all start small, and we need to
spot and stop them in our own local orbits before they grow and get out of control. This means looking at the often
long prehistory of genocide, as well as its symptoms in the present. Understanding these will help avert future
horrors."

“As the visitors to the Museum arrive on the third floor of the Museum, they enter a transition zone where an
unfolding series of images, questions and quotes takes them onto a global stage and the dark side of the rights
story -- the denial of human rights that can result in genocide. The names of 20th century genocides -- Armenia, the
Ukrainian Famine, Nanking -- appear with those of other crimes against humanity. The Armenian Genocide was the
first genocide of the 20th century. This genocide, unpunished and denied, illustrated how crimes against humanity
can escalate into genocide as seen in future genocides such as the Holocaust, Cambodia, Rwanda and Sudan.”

We agree. Only in this comparative way can one find general truths about the nature and mechanics of genocide as a
general problem of humanity, which can help finding solutions to how genocide can be prevented.

The museum does not have to be a memorial to the past, but it must certainly take account of, represent and explain
the history, ongoing development of, and challenges to human rights, if it hopes to inspire learning and become a
place of change.

To do this, the Holocaust should be employed as a prime model of how to teach genocide. The Holocaust has been
recognized by the world; its perpetrators have been tried and punished; the crime has been acknowledged by the
perpetrator country; an apology has been extended, and reparations made. But it is critical to realize that other cases
are necessary, as each provides its own particular lessons to be learned.

In the case of the Armenian Genocide, for example, the perpetrators mostly escaped punishment; the perpetrator
country continues to deny that genocide took place and aggressively pressures others to participate in this denial.
This is despite the fact that on May 24, 1915, the Allied Powers -- France, Great Britain and Russia -- declared that
the Ottoman leaders would be called to account for their “crimes against humanity,” for the slaughter they were
committing against their own Armenian citizens, whereby the term entered international jurisprudence.

The Rwandan Genocide is yet another model. In this case, UN peacekeepers were in the country, and the head of the
mission, Canadian General Roméo Dallaire, made every effort to warn the UN of the impending genocide, and the
world via the news media, once it had started. Yet, the world powers made every effort to avoid calling it genocide,
so as to evade the responsibilities of intervention. Each case has an important contribution to the understanding of
genocide.

Taking these and the other cases of genocide into equal account would make all the various communities in Canada
feel they are treated equitably, and that they are an important and integral part of the Canadian mosaic. It would help
overcome the kind of thinking in cultural or ethnic “silos” that contradicts the objectives of Canada’s official policy
of multiculturalism. In 1971, Canada was the first country to adopt multiculturalism as an official policy. The Act’s
objectives are, in part, 1) to affirm the value, dignity and equality of all Canadian citizens regardless of ethnic origin,
language, or religious affiliation; 2) to ensure that all citizens can preserve, enhance and share their cultural heritage,
take pride in their ancestry, and still have a sense of being Canadian; 3) to encourage the accepting of diverse
cultures and promote racial and ethnic harmony and cross-cultural understanding. One of the ways to foster these
noble objectives, in the words of the Act, is to “encourage and assist the social, cultural, economic and political
institutions of Canada to be both respectful and inclusive of Canada’s multicultural character.”

The CMHR is a national cultural institution, whose stated mission is, in part, to establish “a national and
international destination -- a centre of learning where Canadians and people from around the world can engage in
discussion and commit to taking action against hate and oppression…. inspiring research, learning, contributing to
the collective memory and sense of identity of all Canadians… to explore the subject of human rights, with special
but not exclusive reference to Canada, in order to enhance the public’s understanding of human rights, to promote
respect for others and to encourage reflection and dialogue.”

Taking a comprehensive and comparative approach to genocide as the ultimate violation of human rights would
complement perfectly the objectives of Canada’s official policy of multiculturalism. It would avoid differentiating
and dividing communities. It especially would make those communities who feel their histories have been neglected
or denied feel more welcome. One can not overestimate the psychological trauma of those who are part of a nation
that has experienced genocide.

Therefore, CMHR officials must recognize that genocide must be an integral part of the museum, as was envisioned
and presented to Canadian society. This would facilitate the CMHR’s adhering to Canada’s policy of
Multiculturalism, as well as its own mission statement, and make the museum a destination for everyone.

255 Duncan Mill Rd., Suite 310 Toronto, ON, Canada M3B 3H9
Tel: 416-250-9807 Fax: 416-512-1736 E-mail: [email protected]
http://www.genocidestudies.org/