Remembering man’s many inhumanities

Today, Saturday, is Earth Day, as every day should be. And Sunday, April 23, is Holocaust Remembrance Day, in honour of about 6 million Askenazi (northern European) Jews imprisoned, transported and murdered by the Nazis of Germany in the Second World War.

And since all humans are of equal worth, lets also remember the 1 million or 2 million of the Armenian Holocaust, who were force-marched and murdered by the Turks in 1919-20, the 100,000 Bosian Muslims imprisoned and murdered by Bosnian Serbs in 1992, the nearly 1 million Rwandan Tutsis massacred with machetes by Rwandan Hutus at government instigation in 1994.

Then there were the 28 million Russians, soldiers and civilians genocided by Hitler and his invading Nazis, and the 8 million or 10 million Germans, too — soldiers, civilians, nationals and merely German-speakers — also genocided by Hitler and his mates during and after the Second World War, just in case anyone is counting murdered Germans, too. And let’s not forget the 38 million Chinese soldiers and civilians murdered by Japanese invaders under Emperor Hirohito, who wasn’t tried for war crimes because he was too big to be blamed.

But that all happened during wars, you say?

Well then, let’s remember those murdered in peace time by their own government, by slow starvation and disease, so profiteers could sell the food elsewhere: the no less than 2 million Irish starved to death by the British in 1846-50, the 10 million to 12 million Ukrainians starved to death by Stalin in 1931-33, and the 45 million Chinese starved to death by Chairman Mao in 1959.

If it’s genocide only when you kill other peoples, what’s it called when you kill your own? If it’s a holocaust only when 6 million Jews are murdered, what’s it called when hundreds of millions of equally helpless humans are murdered?

Let’s have Earth Day every day and Holocaust Remembrance Day for all the murdered hundreds of millions.

Frank Holden St. John’s