about the Holocaust, even if this bill is passed?
More than 60 years ago, the world collectively vowed that it would never forget the horrors of the Holocaust to ensure such atrocities were never repeated. The world, as history has proven, has a short memory.
Just since 1945, we have seen genocides in places like Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda and Darfur. The conflict in the Congo appears likely to be the next.
And yet, we at Holocaust Museum Houston and other similar institutions around the state are continually surprised by how little today’s students in Texas are aware of the Holocaust or more recent contemporary genocides and how little they understand of their individual responsibility to make our world a better place.
With the introduction of Senate Bill 482 in the 81st regular session of the Texas Legislature, we have an opportunity to see that our children are educated appropriately so that they are equipped to make responsible, moral decisions when confronted with such atrocities in the future.
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As Sara, a student at KIPP Academy Middle School wrote after visiting our Museum, “I hope that all of us continue to open our eyes to the world — to pay attention to the examples of discrimination and suffering. We must have the critical thinking to ask: Who is being treated unfairly? Then, we must have the empathy to care. Finally, we must have the courage to act.”
The KIPP Academy student is correct, of course; but still, I would bet money that the so-called "courage to act" will only take most people as far as holding candlelit vigils and encouraging "awareness," as opposed to advocating for real solutions such as arming the oppressed peoples of the world and teaching them to fight back. You know how the dialogue goes:
"We must DO something!"
"Ok. How about sending these people a few ten thousands of these, along with proper quantities of ammunition and people to train them in the rifles' use?"
"Oh, no no no! We must STOP the cycle of violence!"
And the cycle of violence continues, with the handwringers still blissfully unaware that the cycle of violence will ultimately only be stopped when the oppressors get copper-jacketed lead between their eyes.
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