Okay folks, this is the first week we are reading a whole book. 173 pages. You can do it. Please do it.
The book is written by Swedish Sven Lindquist, who writes non-fiction, but is known to mix genres, as he also does in this book that is part travel-memoir, part historical analysis. Firstly: I have added some general advice on how to read a whole book for this course under "how to read" right here on the website. It might be helpful to look over those before you start chewing through Lindquist. The main point Lindquist is making in this book is that the Holocaust is not a unique event, but something that came directly out of European colonialism. As Lindquist writes in the preface: "two events need not be identical for one of them to facilitate the other." This is a big claim, and also an uncomfortable one, because it means that everyone with European decent (not just the Germans) carries these atrocities in their historical luggage. But as Lindquist ends his book: "You already know that. So do I. It is not knowledge we lack. What is missing is the courage to understand what we know and draw conclusions". What do you suppose he means by that? What conclusions do you think he wants us to draw? Also, as you read, think about how the book is written. How has the work been conducted? How is it told? What does it add that the author is traveling, bringing us readers along for both his trip through Sahara and his research? Main questions raised/topics to notice in each part of the book: Part 1: What happens when humans get to do whatever they want with nobody overlooking them? What happens when humans "slip into violence"? Notice how the example of the author's father is juxtaposed with violence in the colonies. Part 2: Notice how the distance between the killer and the killed in war has increased over time. Contemporary drone warfare is a testament to this. Nowadays, the killer is sitting in an office in Nevada, killing someone in Pakistan. Lindquist here makes the point - a really good one I think - that it is a big logical mistake to think that because you have superior or more sophisticated technology and weapons, you yourself are more civilized or more worthy of life. Part 3: This chapter describes the history of the sciences of extinction and evolution, and how these at the time new ideas got hijacked by the wrong people with the wrong ideas, and were used to justify the colonial genocides. This is central to our class topic: How is the death of someone else justified in the eyes of the perpetrator? To what extent do we think these ways of viewing certain people still inform warfare today? Part 4: Covers how the ideas of evolution were misunderstood, twisted, and then used to underline first racism and then the Holocaust. This chapter describes how the Germans were behind other European nations in conquering colonies, and how Hitler saw his war against Russia and jews as colonial. Notice that Hitler treated Russians and Jews similar to how people of color had been treated in the colonies, which was different from how Hitler's "white" prisoner's of war were treated. Over to you: What do you think? How did reading the book affect you? Do you agree with Lindquist? Why? Why not? And to ask the question I began with once again: What conclusions do you think he wants his readers to draw from reading his book? I look forward to your reactions!
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