Re: ATTENTION - The German thing...

[Musawwir Spiegel <musman...>]

A few days ago, I posted the following on the Jewish Music list server:

>For us Jews to blame current day Germans for what their parents or 
>grandparents did more than fifty years ago rests on the same kind logic as 
>the Nazis espoused.  I know that if I ever visited Germany or Austria I 
>would be haunted by the vibrations of what happened there, but I wouldn't 
>blame German people as a collective matter.  

Every response I saw to my posting disagreed with what I said.  Then, this 
morning, I read Markus A. Schenker's posting:

>I see the same system of revendication - a little groupe of jews was
>(really?) involved in the death of Jesus, reaction: All jews are
>responsible for all the time. The nazis killed millions of jews - all
>germans ar responsible...

I have had conversations with a Tutsi friend from Ruanda who lost most of 
his family to massacres by Hutus.  He seems unpreturbed by the recent 
massacres of Hutus in Zaire, and ready to see punishment visited 
upon all Hutus, irrespective of their specific connection with the killings 
of Tutsis a few years ago. 

In a conversation with a Serbian neighbor a few years ago, I jokingly said, 
"I bet you're glad you aren't in Yugoslavia now, killing Croats."  In response 
he recounted to me some of the evils that had been visited upon Serbs by 
Croats (absolutely true), and then made it clear that he thought that all 
Croats were evil and that he wished he were back in Yugoslavia killing 
Croats.  

There are Jews who can recount the details of every act of violence 
done by Arabs, and Arabs who can recount the details of every act of violence 
done by Jews.  The same can be said of Tamils and Singhalese in Sri Lanka, 
Hindus and Moslems (or Hindus and Sikhs) in India and Pakistan, Greeks and 
Turks in Cyprus, blacks and whites in the USA, Catholics and Protestants in 
Northern Ireland, etc.

This group hatred (which includes blaming all members of a group for the 
evil done by some members of that group) is the sickness that creates hell 
on earth and must end.