Why 'never again' keeps happening

This essay is part of a weekly feature on my blog that presents interesting stories from elsewhere in the world, particularly Africa, that are little reported in the American media. It's part of my campaign to get people to realize there is a lot going on in the world outside the US, Israel and Iraq.


I was interested to read this essay by the BBC's Fergal Keane entitled 'Why "never again" keeps happening.'

Keane was the BBC's reporter in Rwanda during that country's genocide, an experience harrowingly recounted in his book Season of Blood: A Rwandan Journey.

He wrote the essay based on his trip to Darfur, where another genocide is going on.

He explains some of his frustrations:

I gave up having any faith in the phrase "never again" after Rwanda.

I now add another verbal formulation to the list of redundant phrases.

It is the sentence "We must learn the lessons."

It is of course invariably the precursor to the words "never again."

"We must learn the lessons of the Holocaust, or of Cambodia, or of Bosnia, or of Rwanda... and make sure that things like this..." and you know how this sentence ends, ..."things like this never happen again."

The teaser describes the essay as a reflection on how the international community fails to learn lessons when it comes to reacting to genocide and crimes against humanity.

In reality, this misstates the problem. What Bosnia, Rwanda and Darfur have shown is that the international community doesn't want to react to genocide and crimes against humanity. At least not with anything more than endless and empty warnings. It's not that the rest of the world actively wants genocide to occur, but there is no pressure for it to act. What government was defeated at the ballot box because of inaction regarding Rwanda? What government faces massive street protests against inaction regarding Darfur? What government tried to drum up public support for action in Bosnia? None did.

Governments DID learn lessons, just not the lessons human rights groups wanted them to learn.

Ultimately, such inaction in the face of inhumanity's worst atrocities is not a failure of learning lessons. It's a failure of political leadership. It's a failure of will.