Lessons from our bloody past

BY RAFFY BOUDJIKANIAN

raffy.boudjikanian@transcontinental.ca

Over 230,000 refugees in Kosovo by the end of the 90s, over six million deaths during the Holocaust in the Second World War, between 800,000 and one million in Rwanda in 1994, 1.3 to 1.4 million in North Korea as of 1948, 1.5 million in Anatolian Turkey during the Armenian Genocide started in 1915.

The piles of nameless victims of genocide and other crimes against humanity in the 20th century can be despairing and discouraging to think of, but Grade 10 students at Macdonald High School turned a negative into a positive last Thursday, mounting a mini-genocide museum for their leadership class after watching Shake Hands with the Devil, a film version of Canadian General Roméo Dallaire's memoirs from his time with the United Nations during the Rwandan Genocide.

"Not enough people at our school know about (genocide)," said Nicole Haulse, 15. She and her colleague Naomi Sarah Desjalais, 15, focused on a little-known genocide for their display: the over 23 million deaths committed by Joseph Stalin's regime from 1932 to 1939 through starvation tactics.

Both girls said they were shocked by the silence about this massive crime against humanity, both at the time and several years later. "A world-renowned reporter visited the Soviet Union and said: ‘all talk of famine now is ridiculous,'" said Desjalais, referring to Pulitzer Prize-winning Walter Duranty, who was duped by Soviet officials.

Natasha Gaudet, 15, focused on another lesser-known genocide for her display, the deaths of about 1.4 million Koreans at the hands of despotic general Kim Il-Sung, father of North Korea's current general Kim Jong-Il."Usually the people killed were either South Korean or North Korean," said Gaudet. She said she had never even heard of Il-Sung before she undertook her project.

Leadership class teacher Sean Jarvis said the idea to show Shake Hands with the Devil came to him after spending the semester looking at examples of leadership success. He decided it was important to show an example of "leadership failure" to his class, and the lack of support Dallaire received to avert the Rwandan Genocide in 1994 seemed to fit the bill. The genocide awareness day project was born of that showing.

Jarvis said it is important for educators to include not only whatever projects are already placed in the curriculum, but also expand it by speaking of other subjects. "We are holding on to some of the projects," he said.

The mini-museum was mounted for a single day at the Ste. Anne de Bellevue high school, mostly consisting of large cardboard displays with pictures and text of each genocide. Desjalais and Haulse's display on Stalin's genocide was covered in scratchy red splashes of paint, evoking the blood spilled in those days.

Proceeds from donations accepted during the day by other students at the school visiting the museum will be donated to the Montreal Institute for Genocide Studies (M.I.G.S.), a Concordia University-based genocide history department. "That's great news," said Prof. Frank Chalk, outgoing head of M.I.G.S. Chalk said he has seen older classes in Montreal-area high schools gradually begin to address genocide and crimes against humanity in their courses lately. "The Toronto District School Board is actually putting together a genocide curriculum," he said, suggesting local high schools would benefit from a similar mandatory course.

Haulse, Gaudet, and Desjalais all agreed the genocide awareness project was worth repeating in other classes. All three said they would be more aware of crimes against humanity in the future and take action if they could.