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June 26, 2004 Until recently the term “torture” only seemed to connote the wicked practice of alien people in the Dark Ages, mired in brutish ignorance and removed from us by centuries and the sensibility of humane, benevolent, civilized modern citizens. Only occasionally our consciousness was touched by this nefarious procedure, usually explained as a breakdown in normal human behavior. The most striking of horrific examples, of course, in fairly recent history are the infamously familiar, dreaded names of places like Auschwitz, Dachau and Buchenwald. We have yet to comprehend the immense depth of the abyss of the kind of despicable human conduct committed there. Somehow we have managed to console ourselves, detaching and placing such indescribable horror into some kind of mental quarantine, by coining suitable terms of human aberration. How else are we to explain, how a country like Germany which had produced many of the giants in the arts, music, literature and philosophy fell so deeply? Following the chaos of WW1 and the breakdown of the Weimar Republic, we are told, civilization was temporarily suspended while deviations in humanity, such as murder and torture, were sanctioned and imposed upon the Germans by the Nazis. Many have tried to grapple with this evil development in German history. And it appears that in conjunction with coercion, the evil forces had employed another tactic to influence compliance of the populace, something seemingly new that at that time it was perfectly natural to call it “propaganda”. Utilizing the enormous power that mere words conjure up in the minds of people, the wordsmiths of the Nazi government manipulated and twisted the value and meaning of the language, at the same time providing ready-made explanations for the supposed necessity of brutal, inhumane behavior. No one can measure the degree between real brainwashing and the realization of selfish personal advancement that such propaganda had in the compliance of the population with the evils of the Nazis. But the success of persuading people by gradual exposure to a transformation of nuances in the meaning and logic in language is certain. When the word “torture” appeared in the news recently, everyone was appalled by the savagery of the participants. The brutality seemed alien to us, and not at all the behavior of civilized human beings. But the shock and repulsion we initially experienced has turned into numbness, as we are realizing that this conduct might have been sanctioned by the highest officials in our government. And predictably, we are also exposed to the explanation of its supposed necessity. To illustrate the fall from the highest form of civilization to the deepest abyss of heinous evil, in my mind, hardly any other place stands as a greatersymbol, than the afore mentioned German city of Weimar. Just 6 kilometers up, from this birthplace of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, one of the most prolific and important of all the artists, poets and thinkers in the German language, there looms one of the starkest of the symbols of Evil - the Concentration Camp of Buchenwald. Let us not be condemned to repeat history at its worst. ------------ About the author: Wolfgang Niesielski is a cartoonist, caricaturist and writer. He is working on his fifth novel and has published one (a sciencefiction/horror book) and a collection of cartoons. Visit www.wolfski.org or email: wn@wolfski.org Tell a friend about this site! ------------ |
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