Once is too often

Irving Abella and Harold Troper’s book, None is Too Many: Canada and the Jews of Europe 1933-1948, was a bit of a bombshell when it first appeared some 30 years ago.  And it still resonates today.  I may no longer be surprised by the depths of anti-semitism evinced by the Mackenzie King government before, during, and immediately after the Second World War, but it never ceases to rankle, a wound still raw somewhere inside the interior of my brain, not to mention my heart.  How could the country in which my grandparents were responsible voting adults have behaved so execrably?  Did no one understand what was happening?  And if so, why was there no explosion of protest?  And of course this was also the Canada that openly discriminated against many minorities, both non-white and non-Christian immigrants, and the First Nations, Métis, and Inuit.  Why did the public not care?  But before I become too self-righteous, I must also wonder whether in 70 years time my future grandchildren will look back on 2013 and ask the same questions about my own response (or lack thereof) to the actions of our current government.

Professor Abella was the lunchtime speaker last Thursday at the conference entitled “If Not Now, When?  Responsibility and Memory After the Holocaust”, one of a number of memorable speakers over the two-day event.  But the paper from which I learned most was entitled “Distress Across Generations”, delivered by our own professor of Neuroscience and Canada Research Chair, Hymie Anisman.  His research has documented the effects of stress on the human body, and specifically the physical damage done by certain hormones released at times of stress.  What I hadn’t previously appreciated, however, is that exposure to stress over a long period – for example by Aboriginal peoples subjected to the attempted destruction of their language and culture in residential schools, or the European Jews who were persecuted, incarcerated, and murdered in such massive numbers in Nazi death camps – can cause permanent neurological damage which can in turn be passed on genetically to subsequent generations.

In yet another talk, my friend and former colleague, Jean-Jacques Van Vlasselaer, had quoted the remark by Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel to the effect that the only thing worse than death is forgetting.  Loss of memory is a terrible thing, whether that memory be individual or collective, because it leads in turn to loss of identity, and thence to lives devoid of any significant meaning.  I still remember our former Governor-General, Michaëlle Jean, speaking eloquently on that topic on our campus.  And it occurs to me that herein lies one of the primary purposes of universities, yet one that is almost never mentioned by governments, or even by universities themselves: namely to serve as repositories of memory, the collective memory of the human species on our planet.  Yes, we have a duty to push back the frontiers of knowledge and understanding, and to prepare our students for their future lives, but we also have a duty to preserve the memory of the past: of the literature, the art, the music, and also of the language, the thoughts and the deeds of those who came before us.  Because if we don’t, who will?

In the famous words of George Santayana, those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.  And when it comes to genocide, once is already too often.

Note to readers:  This is the last of these weekly musings for the current academic year, and I plan to take a short “sabbatical” over the coming summer.  See you in September!