Last week the Polish Embassy in Tehran held screening of a Polish film in National Library of Islamic republic of Iran. The film shown was Katyn by Andrzej Wajda. The story is moving and since that afternoon I have been thinking about the tragedy happened to Polish people and other people who have suffered and still do in one way or another.
However, in the movie there is a part that the sister of a Katyn victim is about to commemorate his brother's memory by making a gravestone which the epitaph reads the date of his death, 1940. This date is a cause of controversy depicting the Soviets (who had Poland occupied) to be responsible for the Polish genocide in Katyn forest during WWII and not the Germans whom Soviets claim to be the killers. The girl insists on the date carved in the stone as if, achieving a patriotic obligation and she ends up in jail pompously.
I was asking myself, what difference does it make? What is really important about knowing who the killer was? Do Wajda or the Polish embassy want to settle with the history? How about if we emphasized on the roots and origin of the phenomena with the hope to prevent similar cases in the future?
Is it not deviating from reality if we believe that only Nazi ideology and ruthless Stalin can practice racism and violence and consequently commit genocide? We know very well in the absence of conscience and principles, this can take place by all nationalities. It is not difficult to provide a list for such crimes through out history. Meanwhile, how about the 1941 massacre in Jedwabne in Poland?
We do not need to search deep into history, just look at what Gaddafi is doing with his own people? Coming closer, here in Tehran next to our ears we also heard horrible things from Kahrizak.
Certainly, Katyn atrocity was not the first neither will be the last, but the crucial aspect to consider is; what every one of us can do to bring an end to similar events? The answer I strongly believe is that we should be sensitive and take responsibility for crimes happening surrounding us. Being silent or close eyes to tyrannies happening in the neighborhood is directly paving the way for oppressor to do more. I remember some words from Luther King, “He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it", and I need to mention few instances of world community particularly EU's negligence towards perpetrators of evil.
Al-Megrahi the Libyan convicted of bombing Oan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie Scotland in 1988 and was sentenced to life imprisonment Al-Megrahi was freed said on compassionate grounds (but we all know Gaddafi paid for him) by the Scottish Government following doctors reported that he would live only 3 months more, who still lives up to now.
Another example is Vakili Rad the man convicted of assassinating former Iranian Prime Minister Shahpour Bakhtiar in Paris. He was serving a life sentence when the French government trying to rescue Clotilde Reiss, a young French teacher with spying charges, sent him home where he received a hero's welcome.
Why is Europe so cooperative with dictators? Why are tyrants and totalitarian rulers so accommodated in west? I am talking about different facilities provided by modern and advanced states for theses regimes only on the personal interests? Military items, possibility of travel, safe haven and most important of all; western banking services are the least we know. Suffering people ask why EU peruses extremely different policies inside and outside its physical borders.
Taking full attention for insiders and neglectful for others.
September 11 proved that kind of strategy is inadequate. Now, no one nation can live cheerfully alone. Leniency concerning forces of evil undoubtedly would affect more advanced countries in time.
However, in the movie there is a part that the sister of a Katyn victim is about to commemorate his brother's memory by making a gravestone which the epitaph reads the date of his death, 1940. This date is a cause of controversy depicting the Soviets (who had Poland occupied) to be responsible for the Polish genocide in Katyn forest during WWII and not the Germans whom Soviets claim to be the killers. The girl insists on the date carved in the stone as if, achieving a patriotic obligation and she ends up in jail pompously.
I was asking myself, what difference does it make? What is really important about knowing who the killer was? Do Wajda or the Polish embassy want to settle with the history? How about if we emphasized on the roots and origin of the phenomena with the hope to prevent similar cases in the future?
Is it not deviating from reality if we believe that only Nazi ideology and ruthless Stalin can practice racism and violence and consequently commit genocide? We know very well in the absence of conscience and principles, this can take place by all nationalities. It is not difficult to provide a list for such crimes through out history. Meanwhile, how about the 1941 massacre in Jedwabne in Poland?
We do not need to search deep into history, just look at what Gaddafi is doing with his own people? Coming closer, here in Tehran next to our ears we also heard horrible things from Kahrizak.
Certainly, Katyn atrocity was not the first neither will be the last, but the crucial aspect to consider is; what every one of us can do to bring an end to similar events? The answer I strongly believe is that we should be sensitive and take responsibility for crimes happening surrounding us. Being silent or close eyes to tyrannies happening in the neighborhood is directly paving the way for oppressor to do more. I remember some words from Luther King, “He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it", and I need to mention few instances of world community particularly EU's negligence towards perpetrators of evil.
Al-Megrahi the Libyan convicted of bombing Oan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie Scotland in 1988 and was sentenced to life imprisonment Al-Megrahi was freed said on compassionate grounds (but we all know Gaddafi paid for him) by the Scottish Government following doctors reported that he would live only 3 months more, who still lives up to now.
Another example is Vakili Rad the man convicted of assassinating former Iranian Prime Minister Shahpour Bakhtiar in Paris. He was serving a life sentence when the French government trying to rescue Clotilde Reiss, a young French teacher with spying charges, sent him home where he received a hero's welcome.
Why is Europe so cooperative with dictators? Why are tyrants and totalitarian rulers so accommodated in west? I am talking about different facilities provided by modern and advanced states for theses regimes only on the personal interests? Military items, possibility of travel, safe haven and most important of all; western banking services are the least we know. Suffering people ask why EU peruses extremely different policies inside and outside its physical borders.
Taking full attention for insiders and neglectful for others.
September 11 proved that kind of strategy is inadequate. Now, no one nation can live cheerfully alone. Leniency concerning forces of evil undoubtedly would affect more advanced countries in time.
