Editorial: The Maturing of Victimhood
A new exhibit at the Holocaust Museum is a very good sign
A Christianity Today Editorial | posted 4/02/2001 12:00AM
Last fall the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum opened a new exhibit that has received too little attention. The exhibit documents the 17-year war of ethnic cleansing in Sudan. The events of this ongoing struggle between the forces of Islamization and Arabization against the native Christian and animist peoples of Sudan's south have been highlighted in a number of important media during the past few years. (See, for example, CT's cover story of Aug. 9, 1999, on slave redemption in Sudan, or the Sudan resources compiled at www.ushmm.org/conscience/sudan.htm)But this exhibit stands out because it is the museum's first ever devoted to contemporary genocide outside Western Europe. And it is the first example of something that was envisioned from the founding of the museum. When President Jimmy Carter's Commission on the Holocaust recommended the founding of the museum, it also recommended creating a Committee of Conscience to "alert the national conscience. … and work to halt acts of genocide."
These first steps in the committee's efforts to carry out this mandate are welcome, though the survivors of ethnic cleansings in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia might well wonder at the committee's slow pace and its failure to act earlier and speak out more broadly. These efforts may serve as a model for the maturing of victimhood.
Jews are not the only people with a story of victimization. African Americans can tell their own story. As can Russians. And Armenians. And Native Americans. And Tibetans, too. Such groups are faced with the tasks of carefully documenting their history, a history of cultures erased, a history of heroes and villains, a history of liberation and reclaimed heritages.
These historical tasks are both for their own benefit and for the larger society: they build esteem for the rich particularity of their cultural identity, but also warn against the repetition of great evils. This historical work is demanding: groups are often unable to gain the widespread recognition of past tragedies. There has, unfortunately, been no art with the imaginative or aesthetic punch of Roots, The Gulag Archipelago, or Schindler's List to grasp the world's imagination for the ethnic cleansing of 1.5 million Armenians at the hands of Turkish nationalists. But when groups have their story well-told and widely accepted, they have a responsibility to mature.
Victimhood is not a good word. It connotes a preoccupation with the past that undercuts initiative in facing the problems of today. It tempts people to blame both historical forces and whoever is in power for the sorry state of affairs, while it fails to motivate people to overcome obstacles. It can blind people to the problems of other groups. It also provides fertile ground for demagoguery.
The grandstanding of leaders like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson would not be possible without the mentality of victimhood. That is why responsible leaders, like Palestinian human-rights lawyer Jonathan Kuttab, have talked about the importance of moving people from a culture of victimhood to a culture of citizenship.
But can victimhood mature? Can people continue to cultivate a consciousness of the great historical evils done to their ancestors without dwelling in self-pity? Can they instead use that consciousness to fight the great evils of today?
When African-American pastor Chuck Singleton works to counter slavery in Sudan, he is doing precisely that. And this first effort of the Holocaust Museum's Committee on Conscience is also a very good sign.
April 2 2001, Vol. 45, No. 5
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