Fifty Shades of Black and White
On December 13, 1937, the Japanese Army routed the larger in
numbers but vastly inferior Chinese forces and captured the ancient city of
Nanking. In the days that followed, they
occupied the city and committed, on a grand scale, a series of acts so gruesome
and bestial that the period is known as “The Rape of Nanking.”
Why the Japanese army acted the way they did is perhaps
beyond comprehension. It occupies the
same space as Hitler’s campaigns of extermination, Lenin and Stalin’s purges, and
the killing fields in Cambodia. The
critical thing to remember is that this isn’t just the mad vision of a single
crazy person, but rather, to paraphrase Daniel Goldhagen, acts enabled by
countless “willing executioners.”
What causes some to participate and others to resist is
unknown. Surely, rational people
recognize evil when they see it, but there can be a blurring of the lines when
the “enemy” has been described as degraded and inferior. That’s exactly what happens during war--all
sides use propaganda. Then, somehow, acts of violence, cruelty or even moral
depravity can seem to be justifiable. Black
and white merge into something opaque and unknowable.
Clearly, there are things that are simply wrong to do, no matter
who is doing them. There are good people
who will act under stress in ways that they would otherwise recoil from in normal
times. And, even more stand by without
protest, perhaps in silent acquiescence or agreement, perhaps simply paralyzed
by fear. Fighting a war, killing, by
definition, forces people to make moral choices about what they perceive, or
are told to perceive, as a greater good.
Many simply go along, living with the ambiguity of the situation,
content to close their eyes and throw their lot with their side. It is hard to grasp what the ordinary
Japanese soldier, garrisoning Nanking, must have felt. It is harder to believe that they could have
felt anything.
Did the world know what was happening and simply stand
by? Yes and no. There were a few journalists who, at
stupendous personal risk, reported and filmed, and their dispatches filtered
out to the press. Even more substantive were
the heroic efforts by a number of foreign businessmen, diplomats, and missionaries,
who formed the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone and created
a safe area in the western quarter of the city. A German, John Rabe, selected because of his
membership in the Nazi Party, led the Committee. Rabe’s efforts, and those of a
literal handful of others, were nothing short of extraordinary. Mr. Rabe is credited with saving perhaps
250,000 Chinese lives, at times literally chasing Japanese soldiers away from
his home within the Zone.
The picture of Rabe striding around, flashing his decorations and his swastikas, pulling soldiers away from their
victims, while, at the same time writing to Hitler to complain (Hitler, the humanitarian?) is the type of thing that is hard to imagine. And yet, there is something about this story that seems so
grainy-newsreel dated, and yet so contemporary.
It makes the petty complaints, and the petty people who populate our
political life so infinitesimally small that it takes your breath away.
The smart observers of what is going on in Washington, on both sides of the aisle, know
it. They see the systemic dysfunction as
a people failure, not a process one, and they look for ways to restore the
center. There was an interesting suggestion by Dana Milbank in the Washington
Post “Save America, Restore the Draft” that calls for two years of mandatory
service for all men and women. Milbank
notes that only 19% of the combined Senate and House are veterans, the lowest
level since World War II (remember, we entered WWI late in the conflict.) Milbank goes on to say “It’s no coincidence that this same period has seen the gradual
collapse of our ability to govern ourselves: a loss of control over the
nation’s debt, legislative stalemate and a disabling partisanship. It’s no
coincidence, either, that Americans’ approval of Congress has dropped to just 9 percent,
the lowest since Gallup began asking the question 39 years ago. Because so few
serving in politics have worn their country’s uniform, they have collectively
forgotten how to put country before party and self-interest. They have
forgotten a “cause greater than self,” and they have lost the knowledge of how
to make compromises for the good of the country. Without a history of sacrifice
and service, they’ve turned politics into war.”
“Turning politics into war” is a phrase Milbank uses too
easily, because fairly obviously, we are not shooting at each other. And, assuming that nobility of purpose is
derived from military service may also be a stretch. But he is right on point on two things: The
first is that working in socially and economically diverse groups forces people
to reach out of their comfort zones to attain a common goal. The second is reinforcing the connection of
the young to the community and the country.
One could argue the opposite. I doubt that the Germans or the Japanese
lacked social cohesion or commitment to a national purpose. But, implicit in Milbank’s argument is the
conviction that what we have here in America, after all the yelling, and the
tugging, and the selfishness, is something of far greater value than just
self-interest at the expense of the rest of the world.
Is that just narcissism? Why wouldn’t we act as others have,
and be indifferent to life? We are,
after all, the only country to use nuclear weapons, and we firebombed Dresden. I think the difference that Milbank perceives
is something bigger in the human experience, a call to service, and a
recognition of the costs of being insensate to the sounds of inhumanity. Work with others, even those with divergent
experiences and views, and you come to value shared accomplishment.
Milbank is an optimist.
The comments that followed his article were predictably partisan, many
of them ugly. And even more crabbed and sour views, often in the guise of
clever Thanksgiving snarkiness, emanated from the ideological echo
chamber. Optimism doesn’t sell when the
hot product of the month is vinegar.
Yet, I think Milbank is right in his optimism, if not his
method, because he is relying on our moral compass. Even more broadly, he is relying on John
Rabe’s moral compass, a basic humanity that allows one to be an enthusiastic
Nazi in 1937, and a savior of countless thousands.
Rabe eventually returned to Germany, and was promptly
interrogated by the Gestapo. Whether his letter ever reached Hitler is unknown. It was certainly unanswered. He
struggled terribly, both during the war, and afterwards. Sick, unemployed or underemployed, he
despaired of even feeding his family. When, in 1948, the survivors of Nanking heard
of his circumstances, they took up a collection, and the Mayor personally
traveled to Switzerland to purchase supplies for him.
One need not be perfect to do the right thing. There is
black, and there is white, and there is a vast expanse in between. The Nazi John Rabe made that journey.
Surely, we can do the same.
Michael Liss
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