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Lost it
Oy, I have to teach Bosnia and Rwanda in a class I'm teaching this semester. I can't even do it anymore. I'm currently busy trying to substitute for my original readings something that gives the gist of what happened, without all of the detailed descriptions of deeply personal and sadistic killing which really characterize the essence of what happened during those two conflicts.
Back in the day, I used to be able to read and talk about this stuff. Then I got soft and old and became a mother, and now I just can't imagine making my mainly sweet, tenderhearted class read these things. When we talked about UN peacekeeping in the DR Congo this week, they were utterly dumbfounded by some of the things that went on there. Christ, they were even shocked to discover how little water people have to get by on in UNHCR refugee camps. What are they going to do with Rwanda and Bosnia? What's an easy way through this?
Back in the day, I used to be able to read and talk about this stuff. Then I got soft and old and became a mother, and now I just can't imagine making my mainly sweet, tenderhearted class read these things. When we talked about UN peacekeeping in the DR Congo this week, they were utterly dumbfounded by some of the things that went on there. Christ, they were even shocked to discover how little water people have to get by on in UNHCR refugee camps. What are they going to do with Rwanda and Bosnia? What's an easy way through this?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Joe Mama on -
There isn't one...but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. You teach college kids, yes? It will be hard, and painful, and important.
Good luck.
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Permalink Reply by Mamawho on
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Ugh. I remember reading We Wish to Inform You. . . in a freshman class. Being an older student married to a combat veteran, I was a little more prepared. I am certain there were a few students who believed that the accounts were mostly fabricated, but most of them were horrified.
Are you familiar with The Battle of Kosovo heroic cycle? It's 14th century Serbia, but a familiar struggle. I think it's hard for Americans to wrap our brains around a centuries-old struggle.
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Permalink Reply by kanachick on -
There's no easy way. I read a small part of Romeo Dallaire's memoirs and it still haunts me. But Joe Mama is right - it's important. We'll be here to virtually hug you as you go through it.
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Permalink Reply by mcglory13 on -
You cannot and should not protect them. I totally get it though. Post baby? I am a sap who wells up with tears over everything. Sigh.
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Permalink Reply by TeacherJ on -
I don't think you can give them an easy way through this. It's just always going to be hard.
I don't have to do Bosnia or Rwanda, but have on occasion found myself in conversations where I have to tell kids that Anne Frank is a nonfiction person (Kid: "So that REALLY happened?! I thought this was a fiction story!") or that, yes, people flew those planes into the twin towers on purpose (Kid: "They did that ON PURPOSE?! I thought that was an accident! Why would they do that? A lot of people died!"), both of which were pretty gut-punching.
Your students probably won't like reading the tough stuff, but they'll learn a lot from it. And it will definitely open their eyes a little bit more.
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Permalink Reply by MamatothaMax on -
There isn't an easy way through it nor should there be. We have to learn about these genocides and remember.
It's not comparable to genocide but my grandparents lived in WWII England and we talk about what it was like living through that time. I have many stories that are not pleasant and hard to tell but I will tell them to my children and I hope that they pass them on too. Better they learn that life can be hard and painful than experience it first hand.
I really get how you feel now that you are a mother.
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I'm not more likely to fall apart over these kinds of things now that I have a kid - I've found that I can still talk about them in detail, see the photos, etc., but that I have a steely righteous anger about it now. DaddyWho has a rough time of it occasionally - he reviews crime scene photos at work. Lately, a number have been of babies.
Teacher J - Have you read Brundibar? The book is Maurice Sendak and Tony Kushner- it's a story about an opera originally performed by the children in a Czech concentration camp. I am very hard to bring to tears, but this book does it.
I found the books my grandmother had bought at Dachau and Auschwitz in the 50s, and they laid everything bare for me (incredibly graphic photos). My mother is German, so I recognized a connection and demanded some explanation. My poor grandma found herself explaining the Holocaust to a precocious 6 year old.
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Permalink Reply by wookie on -
I've never been able to deal with senseless or systemic violence. Not as a child, not as a young adult and not as a parent. It's just out of scope for my emotional/logical capacity.
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Permalink Reply by hermit crab on -
I kind of feel like this is where I am with this now. The problem with the kind of violence that happened in Bosnia and Rwanda is that there's really not much of a lesson to learn from the specific brutal incidents, other than to know that kind of brutality exists in the world. It's what happens when politically-empowered sociopaths let all of the other sociopaths out of the jails, hop em up on drugs and alcohol, and send them into normal towns. MW, I think the idea of a historic legacy that justifies the violence is more of an enabling factor and an after-the-fact rationalization for the regular people, not the ones actually planning, leading and performing the most mayhem.
I think what I resolved to do was to talk about ethnic cleansing on one day and genocide on one day, in more general terms. Thinking about how I used to deal with this stuff - I lived in Bosnia and Kosovo for a few years - it all involved a lot of drinking and emotional withdrawal. There really is no way to take this information in without hardening yourself against it in some way. I'm not sure there's any particular academic benefit to getting the kids to that point that a more general discussion of the aims and practices of ethnic cleansing and genocide wouldn't equally achieve.
wookie said:I've never been able to deal with senseless or systemic violence. Not as a child, not as a young adult and not as a parent. It's just out of scope for my emotional/logical capacity.
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Permalink Reply by hermit crab on
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To be clear, I am not an utter wimp about this stuff. Talking about the Congo war means talking about child soldiers and cannibalism, for instance. It's the intentional, drawn-out sadistic violence that I feel really anxious reading and teaching. In that sense, genocide is sometimes easier than incidents of ethnic cleansing -- one is "just" brutal mass killing, while the other is trying to create such horrific scenes that people are scared into leaving a territory for good.
However, I am now more aware that this is a specific sensitive point for me - I'm going to do some more reading to see if I can do a better job integrating knowledge about this sort of violence into future classes. I've scanned this one in the past - I'm going to inter-library-loan it at read it for real this time.
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Permalink Reply by MamatothaMax on
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While one lesson of the genocides of Rwanda and Bosnia is the senselessness and brutality that is in the world wouldn't wouldn't one as important (if not more) lesson be to put a human face to recent history? To generalize sterilizes, it becomes just a series of facts. I know this would be difficult if you only have a few days to cover these.
When I was in 6th grade we studied the genocide in Cambodia by the Khmer Rouge. We read a few stories by survivors and refugees. We also watched parts of The Killing Fields. It was hard to watch but important.
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I don't know that I've heard the music! I'll have to track that down.
Lady Grey said:My daughter is performing Brundibar with the UNM Children's Chorus next weekend. The music is beautiful. I didn't know there was a book--I'll have to look for it.
Mamawho said:Teacher J - Have you read Brundibar? The book is Maurice Sendak and Tony Kushner- it's a story about an opera originally performed by the children in a Czech concentration camp. I am very hard to bring to tears, but this book does it.
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