The idea that an understanding of the genocide, that a memory of the holocausts, can only lead people to want to dismantle the system, is erroneous. The continuing appeal of nationalism suggests that the opposite is truer, namely that an understanding of genocide has led people to mobilize genocidal armies, that the memory of holocausts has led people to perpetrate holocausts. The sensitive poets who remembered the loss, the researchers who documented it, have been like the pure scientists who discovered the structure of the atom. Applied scientists used the discovery to split the atom’s nucleus, to produce weapons which can split every atom’s nucleus; Nationalists used the poetry to split and fuse human populations, to mobilize genocidal armies, to perpetrate new holocausts.
This essay really hit hard as Palestine - Israel conflict continues.
Off point opinion: I do think it is a misconception that there existed a Chinese empire that continuously survive for two millennium. So many dynasties came and left, so many migration of people and reformation of culture, and so many border changes. It is better to view these dynasties not as a continuity but various power seeking clans and families claiming the title of celestial emperor, just as how European noble families claimed the title roman emperor for themselves.
