Discrimination is the Stripes on Pyjamas Imprisoning Humanity

Today I went to a supermarket I have never been to and found the DVD on ‘The Boy in Striped Pyjamas’. I recalled having cried over this movie some years ago and felt it was important for children to see this film. I was surprised to discover that today is the anniversary of Nakba the Palestinian displacement.  According to Wikipedia for the Palestinians it is an annual day of commemoration of the displacement that followed the Israeli Declaration of Independence in 1948.

During the 1948 Palestine War, an estimated 700,000 Palestinians were expelled or fled, and hundreds of Palestinian villages were depopulated and destroyed.^[2][3] The vast majority of Palestinian refugees, both those outside the 1949 armistice lines at the war’s conclusion and those internally displaced, were barred by the newly declared state of Israel from returning to their homes or reclaiming their property.^[2][3]

Palestinian refugees in 1948

These refugees and their descendants number several million people today, divided between Jordan (2 million), Lebanon (427,057), Syria (477,700), the West Bank (788,108) and the Gaza Strip (1.1 million), with at least another quarter of a million internally displaced Palestinians in Israel.^[4] The displacement, dispossession and dispersal of the Palestinian people is known to them as al-Nakba, meaning “the catastrophe,” or “the disaster.”

Interestingly, without knowing the above anniversary, I watched ‘The Boy in Striped Pyjamas’ and thought of the Palestinians and the issue of displacement. I felt deeply for the Jews and felt the parallel between the Jewish and Palestinian fates. Both, in the collective memory, have known persecution, both have experienced been regarded as evil, feeling imprisoned, poor, dispossessed, grief, terror, no country and no right to exist. I wrote notes on what the German’s in the movie said to the Jew’s and how they used propaganda to make them out to be sub-human. My mind drifted to the many conflicts around the world. I saw the British colonisation of countries and de-humanisation. In Australia the oppression and extermination (Tasmania) of Australian Aboriginals, the American Indians oppressed and killed by the white Europeans, the Hutu’s masacre of Tutsi, World War I and II and the list goes on and on. Man’s inhumanity to man. To top off the night I watched the Australian program Dateline and it reported on China’s toxic pollution from factories of villages and the subsequent cancers, the Swiss removal of children from single mothers, using children for labour so that poor children learn to work. Apparently this went on for 100 years up until the 1930’s. Last on the list was the story of a CIA whistleblower speaking of the cruel torture techniques and disregard of the Geneva Conventions deemed as irrelevant conducted on alleged terrorists. The one prisoner he spoke to he believed and wrote in his interrogation report that the prisoner was innocent. As an agent he was perplexed by his superiors mentality that if a prisoner refused to answer he was withholding rather than entertaining the idea that he may not know. Thus interrogations would force false confessions as the prisoner would lie in order to get out of the pain. Apparently the guy who this CIA whistleblower perceived as innocent was held for 10 years. It brings you to psychology and what people perceive. He made the point that he believed if a poll asked the question ‘should torture be used to get information for the good of the country’? he believed that those aged over 40 would say no, those under 40 would say ‘do whatever’. His concern was the change in social values and I would add critical thinking. It makes you think of George Orwell with a shudder. Blind obedience to authority without conscience.

So I sat back tonight and reflected. What we see firstly is de-humanisation of whoever is perceived as the enemy. In the film ‘The Boy in Striped Pyjamas’ I noted a line where the German was speaking about the justification for suppressing and murdering the Jews, he believed they were responsible for the defeat of the German’s in the 1st World War. The German camp commandant, in the film, was speaking of Germany experiencing a national revival (power) and that the jews were vermon and dangerous. The daughter in the film was being brainwashed by a teacher and had thrown out her dolls in favour of Hitler images and of Hitler youth. It reminded me of when I went to the Anna Frank museum in the Netherlands. I recall walking up the steep stairs to her attic and trying to imagine the horror of being persecuted and taken away. I recall being at the killing fields in Cambodia and the murder of men, women and children seen as class enemies of Pol Pot. I went to Tselong Prison (a former high school) where people were tortured, I could feel their presence and the heavy energy hanging over the site.

What is noteworthy is how propaganda is used to demonise whole peoples, narratives created to justify cruelty. Egoic thinking of superiority, holding power, greed and pride driving division. Another important issue that came up was that if a person went against popular opinion they themselves would be demonised seen as a traitor or enemy. In the film a soldier whose father had gone to Switzerland had been branded a traitor and the soldier later sent to the front as a reprisal. Moving to the documentary tonight, in the CIA whistleblower case the CIA interrogator stated when he questioned his superiors about the use of torture and the Geneva Conventions (rules on no torture), he was asked what flag he was under, indicating he is a traitor. I recall George Bush saying in the war on terror ‘you are with us or against us’. You hear it in words of ‘infidel’ indicating no belief or not us and subsequently regarded as less than. These terms in all their colours runs against notions of freedom of speech and conscientious objection. Divisive words are used to force people to follow the dominant paradigm. I see it as the same problem under many faces.

So this blog is not to demonise any country for its atrocities, it is to raise the issue that humanity (as a collective) hasn’t learned how to work out problems and embrace differences in ways that preserve the dignity of other humans. To recognise their shadow (unowned negative beliefs refer Carl Jung) of greed, insecurity, lust for power and control that has permeated our world and been branded or justified in the name of freedom, national interest, security, civilisation, as right, preserving values, and the last oxymoron, peace. We haven’t learned how to stand in the others shoes and really feel empathy for another’s suffering. I’ve seen this in the microcosm of societies not in war – in families, friends, workplaces and government. In the business setting we call the lack of feeling expressed as professionalism whilst we universally ignore the suffering of others and just do the job. Many believe the myths of doing the right thing, economic growth, security and then feel the separation. We are still to learn that we are each other’s keepers and what you do to the other returns to the self. When we question and look for truth, then a way will be found like a lantern in the darkness.

Going back to the story of ‘The Boy in Striped Pyjamas’ what was beautiful about this story was two little boys aged 8, one the son of a Camp Commandant, the other a Jewish prisoner in a work camp (death camp). The German boy knew nothing of hating Jews and slowly discovered that Jews were viewed as the enemy and was told that none were kind, yet in his experience he had befriended this other little boy, as all he could see was a boy just like him and he wanted to play. His heart was innocent. At the end of the movie he decides to put on the striped pyjamas and go with the Jewish boy and play inside. He ends up being gassed. His father is too late to save him, and like those who have suffered losses of loved ones, he shares in the human tragedy of war and the true enemy of prejudice and hatred.

My wish tonight is for the Palestinians and Jewish people to heal and unite, to discover they have more in common than the walls of differences and to awaken to the wisdom of compassion and charity many espouse in their religions. That we are all one, when we see through the eyes of innocence, through children, we will find our truth that is hidden through the pain and hatred. To never repeat the mistakes of history, to remember herstory and to join hands as friends and build a future worthy of all children.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boy_in_the_Striped_Pyjamas

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is a 2006 novel from the point of view of an innocent young boy, written by Irish novelist John Boyne. Unlike the months of planning Boyne devoted to his other books, he said that he wrote the entire first draft of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas in two and a half days, barely sleeping until he got to the end.[1] To date, the novel has sold more than 5 million copies around the world, and was published as The Boy in the Striped Pajamas in the United States to go along with the traditional American spelling of the word. In both 2007 and 2008 it was the best selling book of the year in Spain. It has also reached number 1 on the New York Times bestseller list, as well as in the UK, Ireland, Australia and many other countries.
Plot

Bruno is a 9-year-old boy growing up during World War II in Berlin with his loving mother and father.[2] He lives in a huge house with his parents, his twelve-year-old sister Gretel (whom he refers to as a Hopeless Case) and maid servants called Maria, Lars, and the ‘Cook’. His father is a high-ranking SS officer who, after a visit from Adolf Hitler (referred to in the novel as “The Fury”, Bruno’s misrecognition of the word “Führer”) and Eva Braun, is promoted to Commandant, and to Bruno’s dismay the family has to move away to a place called Out-With (which turns out to be Auschwitz).

When Bruno gets there, he feels a surge of homesickness after leaving behind his family, grandparents, and his 3 best friends for life: Karl, Daniel and Martin. He is unhappy with his new home. It only has three floors, there are always soldiers coming in and out of the house and there are no good banisters to slide down. His father’s new office has a sign which reads: Out Of Bounds And No Exceptions. Bruno is lonely and has no one to talk to or play with and the house is so small that there is no exploring to be done. However, one day while Bruno is looking out of his window he notices a group of people all wearing the same striped pyjamas and striped hats or bald heads. As he is a curious child, Bruno asks his sister who these people are, but she does not know. His father tells him that these people are not real people at all, as they are Jews. Gretel has changed from a normal young girl into a strong Nazi with the help of her tutor, Herr Liszt, but Bruno does not seem to take the same stance as Gretel. He still prefers adventure books to history books. There is also a soldier called Lieutenant Kurt Kotler who is violent in his ways and shows his disapproval to the Jewish prisoner, Pavel. Pavel works around the house and is always treated badly by Lieutenant Kotler. One day Bruno falls off his swing and Pavel helps him dress the wound. Bruno, in his naivety, asks if his mother should take him to a doctor, meets a reply from Pavel saying that he is a doctor.

Bruno finds out he is not allowed to explore the back of the house or its surroundings, and his mother forbids him to do so. Due to the combination of curiosity and boredom, he decides to explore. He spots a boy on the other side of the fence. Excited that there might be a boy his age, Bruno introduces himself and finds out Jewish boy’s name is Shmuel. He was taken from his family (his father came with him, his mother and his siblings are at home) and forced to work in Auschwitz. Almost every day, they meet at the same spot. Soon, they become best friends. Bruno and Shmuel even shared the same birthday. They are basically the same person born into different circumstances, one a Polish Jew, the other a German. Over the course of the book, Bruno shows a great deal of naivety whilst his friend Shmuel seems to have more knowledge of his surroundings as he has felt the suffering first-hand.

Bruno’s mother persuades his father to take them back to Berlin after a year at their new home, while the father stays at Auschwitz. The story ends with Bruno about to go back to Berlin with his mother and sister on the orders of his father. As a final adventure, he agrees to dress in a set of striped pyjamas and go in under the fence to help Shmuel find his father, who went missing in the camp. The boys are unable to find him. Then the boys are mixed up in a group of people going on a march.

Neither boy knows where this march will lead. However, they are soon crowded into a gas chamber, which Bruno assumes is a place to keep them dry from the rain until it stops. The author leaves the story with Bruno pondering, yet unafraid, in the dark holding hands with Shmuel: “…Despite the chaos that followed, Bruno found that he was still holding Shmuel’s hand in his own and nothing in the world would have persuaded him to let go.”

In an epilogue, Bruno’s family spent several months at their home trying to find Bruno, before his mother and Gretel return to Berlin, only to discover he is not there as they had expected. A year afterwards, his father returns to the spot that the soldiers found Bruno’s clothes (the same spot Bruno spent the last year of his life) and, after a brief inspection, discovers that the fence is not properly attached at the base and can form a gap big enough for a boy of Bruno’s size to fit through. Using this information, his father eventually pieces together that they gassed Bruno to death. Bruno’s father then realizes what he was really doing, because of Bruno, and thought about his job as Commandant. Losing Bruno made him greatly depressed, and he stopped caring about his job. Several months later, the Red Army arrives to liberate the camp and orders Bruno’s father to go with them. He goes without complaint, because “he didn’t really mind what they did to him any more”.