A Lesson in Empathy

March 22, 2008

By Robert Mangelsdorf
Maple Ridge News

Rwanda. Cambodia. Darfur. Armenia. Bosnia. The Holocaust.
In the past 100 years, genocide has left a scar on the face of human history. Man’s inhumanity to man, the willingness to murder those who are different, it would seem, is a uniquely human trait, inherent in all races and cultures.
The cycle of violence has small beginnings. Like ripples in a pond, hatred can spread quickly, and in all directions. But its nature, the stone that causes the ripples, is always the same.
“The second we dehumanize [a group of people], this sort of behaviour becomes acceptable,” says Danielle Zagar.
She is a teacher at Samuel Robertson Technical Secondary and has developed a first-of-its-kind conference for students that deals with the nature of genocide – how it happens, the forms it takes and how it can prevented from ever happening again.
Man’s Inhumanity to Man: An Exploration of Genocide in the 20th Century takes place April 8 to 10 at various locations around Maple Ridge.
Two hundred high school students will take part in the conference. It will feature workshops on online hate groups and child soldiers, on the struggle for reconciliation, as well as film and book studies.
“The main question we ask ourselves us is, why does this happen?” Zagar says. “How can everyday common people do this killing?”
While genocide might not be of interest to all, the importance of the subject cannot be overstated.
As soon as someone becomes alien, she says, or foreign, even different, that can lead to inhumane behaviour. The Jews were insects, as were the Rwandan Tutsis.
Often this behaviour can take root on the playground, in the form of bullying. Children single out those who are different and then torment them.
Empathy is key overcoming this, Zagar says, as is an understanding how their words and actions affect other people.
“I’m hoping kids come away [from the conference] with compassion and understanding, and highly motivated to do something about this,” says Zagar.
Zagar was inspired to organize the conference after attending one on genocide in Toronto this past July, when she met Leo Kabalisa, a school teacher who escaped the Rwandan genocide and shared his story with her.
“He really made an impact on me,” says Zagar. “I could barely look him in the eye knowing what he’d been through.”
The Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre has assisted Zagar in setting up the program and hopes to make it annual event. She has also received a letter of support from retired Canadian Lieutenant-General Roméo Dallaire, commander of the ill-fated UN peacekeeping mission in Rwanda.
All students participating in the conference will receive a copy of the book Sunflowers, by Holocaust survivor Simon Wiesenthal, which deals a prisoner in a concentration camp who is asked for forgiveness by a dying Nazi soldier.
Among the guest speakers at the conference will be Michael Ettedgui of the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre in Toronto. He will be giving a presentation on internet-based attempts to deny the Holocaust, in which six million Jews were killed during the Second World War, close to 70 per cent of the European Jewish population.
The conference dove tails with a Global Studies course Zagar has developed. It combines World Religion 12, Comparative Civilizations 12, Sociology 12, and English 11 and 12 into a full-time, semester-long program.
Among the many subjects covered in the program is genocide.
“If we don’t know what has happened in our past, how can we raise citizens to prevent it,” says Zagar.
Diondra Doak, a Grade 12 student in Zagar’s class, says the unit focussing on genocide is terrifying, but necessary.
“You can get numb when you see so much of it,” she says. “Seeing all those bodies, for that minute you think there’s nothing you can do, and you feel powerless.
“But then we talk about it, and we realize that there is something we can do.”
What really frightens Doak, though, is the lack of action being taken to prevent further genocide.
“I think we are a group of students who want to make a difference,” she says. “We’re the next generation, and if anything changes, we’ll be the ones to change it.”
Keaton Riach signed up for the Global Studies program because he wanted to learn more about what his Opa (grandfather) went through in a Nazi concentration camp in Poland.
“He lucked out,” says Riach. “One of the Nazi soldiers helped him escape, and he immigrated to Canada.”
Years later, his Opa, then a successful businessman in Abbotsford, tracked down the Nazi soldier who help him avoid the gas chambers and helped him out financially until his death.
Sometimes Riach imagines what it would be like to go through a similar ordeal.
“I try to, but it’s hard,” he says. “It’s so shocking what happened.”
• Parents and educators are invited to take part in a free workshop on cyber-terror, called Internet Safety for Parents and Teachers: Taking Back Your Computer, April 8 at SRT, 7:30 p.m. To register, call 604-463-4200.