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[Previous entry: "The Master Plan"] [Main Index] [Next entry: "419"] 18 April 2003: "The dark side of liberation"I've been re-reading We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families, Philip Gourevitch's excellent book on the 1994 Rwandan genocide (I also recommend Elizabeth Neuffer's The Key to My Neighbor's House, which focuses on the ICTY and ICTR). In chapter 13, Gourevitch notes by way of illustration: Similarly, in France, during the months immediately following World War II, between ten and fifteen thousand people were killed as fascist collaborators in a nationwide spasm of vigilante justice. Although nobody looks back on those purges as a moment of pride, no national leader has ever publicly regretteed them. France, which considers itself the birthplace of human rights, had a venerable legal system, with plenty of policemen, lawyers and judges. But France had been through a hellish ordeal and the swift killing of collaborators was widely held to be purifying to the national soul.France had four years of Nazi occupation; Iraq has had over two decades of Saddam. Draw your own conclusions. |
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