המתת השור

fascinating intro dealing about issues that are capital in our modern world thinking
may i introduce my two scents of reflexion on that issue of History and memory adding in filigran another word and another intellectual realm which are as well some of the helpers in my reflexion : pardon, forgiving and the philosophy of values
first and foremost, i was a journalist in hard news for 22 years working in one of the most prestigious news networks in one and still most conflictual area of the world that is the middle eat.
being of french education, english raised and nurtured in most of my adulthood thinking within the Middle east, i have drifted consciously and instinctivally to a place which far away in many ways but not all today : a continent called Africa which i am trying to learn from within now
what these tremendous human lurkings have taught me are solely the fruits of my own opinion, enhanced by what i have learned in the department of History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem as well, strangely enough as History of Art which has contributed to my questions here but more than anything, my experience as a journalist :
history is a way - and one within many - to comprehend the human gender through the space and binocular of time. time is a wonderful clarifier but as well a well too many tyranical one as one puts too many things into it
journalism is history in the present without the benefice of time that is one has to analyze facts and events in the present form which permits a fantastic research into objectivity that is non interpretation other than the facts to be found and exposed as what they are and for us a way to form and transform our immediate analysis of the present future. The best journalist being of course the one who is able - within the scope of his own field of expertise - to be an exact prophet/speaker of what is important in a wide and wider circle in order to decipher what will be of importance in this very wide and wider space of ours : today mondialism.
finally, there is often an unfortunate mixe between morals and values. they were not through History far from being the same including massacres and human destructions on others and themselves and the necessity of morals in different societies when they became historicall societies; that is when it was able to read them for other, and it can go as far as prehistorical societies when we are including art in our mean of reading.
i will take an exemple...quite a simple but controversial one as it will always be.
the Jewish Holocaust was one of the most horrendous catastrophic atrocities that befell within the lap of Western and civilised 20th century society. the unicity of it is not the central point of the issue here. it is another discussion
what is i think is when I started to read about the first crusades in the Middle East of the 12th century and their arrival in Akko a calm bicultural israeli city today which has just begun to be thoroughly explored
a quite unknown event was exposed to me by a British Historical scholar when writing about the vanquished muslim local woman and children old and young men gathering on the local beach of Akko and of their fate decided between the then local deciders and the crusaders who had succeeded to crush them; in an non typical beliquous gesture, the lattest decided to spare the life of the weak and gather them on the beach. But, as it was found impossible to deal with them, the decision was turn upside down and they were all drowned and slaughtered contrary to their previous decision, by the thousands;

non of that massacre stayed in the too famous annales of this region of the world, visited and revisited a thousand times by all scopes of intellectuals.
this episode, came to rise within me the present reflexion in its general lines. what is the difference in terms of condamnation between now and then ? between that massacre and this massacre taking into consideration that we will not be drozned now by the specifics and that we will when we will want to go deeper into some more reflexion.
my personal conclusion was that that massacre in the 12th century happened in a world with a different set of values: the weak destiny versus the strong deciding of their fate for instance. indeed, it did not rise an eyebrow in the riddles of History afterwards
the 20th Jewish Holocaust has, and should and will for time immemorial because, this specific holocaust rose within a world which carried as a flag a set of human values for "civilized" societies i:e Germans who where NOT suppose ever to accept this kind of brutal and mass murdering.
we live in different times in terms of values too.
that is what History is teaching us too.
and now finally, what about memory
being in Africa, a continent which has suffered no less than others by human cupidity from within and outside for the sake of the "good" of the "'evil"' has yet another value to teach us, the Western civilisations : the value of pardon. pardon versus memory can be dangerous when reaching vengeance; but memory for the sake of pardon is a great pacifyer, as prooved i think by one formidable prophet of our times : Nelson Mandela
signed from a beginner
thank you for your attention