by Elie Wiesel
To hate is to refuse to accept another person as a human being, to diminish him, to limit your own horizon by narrowing his, to look at him—and also at yourself—not as a subject of pride but as an object of disdain and fear. To hate is to opt for the easiest and most mind-reducing way out by digging a ditch into which the hater and his victim will both fall like broken puppets. To hate is to kindle wars that will turn children into orphans and make old people lose their minds from sorrow and contrition. Religious hatred makes the face of God invisible. Political hatred wipes out people’s liberties. In the field of science, hatred inevitably puts itself at death’s service. In literature, it distorts truth, perverts the meaning of the story and hides beauty itself under a thick layer of blood and grime.
Today, at the threshold of the twenty-first century, this is what we must tell all men and women for whom we wish a future as bright and smiling as the faces of our children. If we do nothing, hate will come sneaking perniciously and slyly into their mouths and into their eyes, adulterating the mutual relations between people, nations, societies and races. If we do nothing, we will be passing onto the coming century that message of hatred known to us as racism, fanaticism, xenophobia, and anti-Semitism.
Democracy means dialogue. Without the other, neither is conceivable. Together, they contribute towards that “brotherhood of nations” mentioned by Alfred Nobel in his last will and testament as man’s only hope of peace and survival. This then is our appeal: “We appeal to governments, organizations, the media, educational institutions to find measures to follow up the essence of this Oslo Declaration in ways which can help lead mankind away from hate and vanquish the indifference to hate.”
These words do not only mean that we have decided to oppose the flood of ugly, violent hatred that is still inundating our society. By signing them, we first of all confirm our certitude that humanity is strong enough to stem it and worthy of such a victory.
Some of the participants sign this appeal without reading it; others consider it too philosophical or not enough so; still others call it unsatisfactory for failing to include any reference to feminist aspirations.
Like many documents of this nature, this one may or may not find its place in the archives. But that is not what matters. What matters is that once again links have been forged to fight hate, which is so terrifyingly adept at fanning unholy passions throughout the world.
I am sometimes asked: What is the use of bringing together under one roof great figures of the social and human sciences, philosophy and literature? What benefits can mankind gain from seeing always more or less the same experts around different tables, telling one another more or less the same thing? None, suggest the skeptics. Many, respond the naive. The point is to combine skepticism and naïveté. And above all, not to give in to cynicism. What is the point? is a worthwhile question on condition that it is not answered even before it is asked. As for all social initiatives, everything depends on what one’s expectations are. If you expect too much from such a gathering, you will be disappointed. As for myself, I am not. I am satisfied with little. A handshake that brings two adversaries, two strangers, together is enough for me. A sincere remark, an authentic idea that makes one think, that encourages the mind to open up, whether to accept or to reject, is enough for me.
Yes, there are gratuitous and sterile efforts, I agree, but they are rarely totally without merit. They frequently end in failure—that is incontestable—yet a failure is preferable to not having tried.
An example is the Moscow conference our foundation organized in December 1991 together with Ogonyok weekly magazine. Like the Nobel laureate conference in Paris, it produced no concrete results. Neither Gorbachev nor Helmut Schmidt, the former German chancellor, for instance, was in a position to move his country toward more humane, more equitable, more generous policies. Schmidt had long since left government, and Gorbachev was soon to leave power. And yet.
To listen to Adam Michnik of Poland’s Solidarity movement, pleading the cause of Nagorno-Karabakh, or to Abe Rosenthal denouncing the police totalitarianism of the KGB, to hear François Léotard’s exposé of politics and hate, is to take part in an endeavor initiated by a yearning for brotherhood, an endeavor that does honor to all the participants, intellectuals and political figures alike.
For the opening session, Schmidt and Alexander Yakovlev, Gorbachev’s right hand, had been invited to compare their recollections of World War II. They had been selected because Schmidt had been a lieutenant in the tank corps that advanced as far as the suburbs of Moscow, and Yakovlev fought, also as a lieutenant, in the Red Army, defending his country against the invader. “How was it for you?” and “Did hate play a role in your motivations?” we ask each of them. I think they were meeting for the first time. Schmidt speaks of his adolescence, his youth. He did not join the Nazi party; it seems one of his grandparents was a Jew. Everyone is too polite to ask him whether he had not wanted to become a Nazi or hadn’t been able to. Like Yakovlev, he prefers to discuss ideology, political doctrine, and the future in general.
The appearance of General Oleg Kalugin produces a moment of high tension. He presents the methods and aims of the KGB system in all their brutality. His delivery is that of an expert, his tone cold, almost scientific. The audience pays rapt attention to every word, every inflection of his voice. Questions are fired at him from all sides: Is it true that the KGB was fomenting anti-Semitism abroad? (Yes.) That the KGB once had a hold, and still did, on Gorbachev? And if so, what was it? (Answer vague.) What does he know about Raoul Wallenberg? (No more than we do.) How did the KGB function in the United States? There follows an explosion provoked by Abe Rosenthal: “When a general of the KGB appears before a group of intellectuals, it is incumbent upon him to be clear and frank.” What exactly had he done under Communist dictatorship in the exercise of his functions? Of course Abe is trying to find out whether the general had committed crimes, and, if so, which. Kalugin tries to dodge the questions and finally gets angry: “I’m not here before a tribunal!” And Abe retorts: “When a general of the KGB appears before a group like ours, we are his judges.”
Aside from this incident, which deeply upsets Abe but brings him honor, the sessions take place in an atmosphere of total respect for one another. There are no interruptions, no challenges, not even an offensive comment. Just as in the previous conferences, links are formed.
I don’t know whether as a result of our debates hate diminished throughout the world, but I know that in those days in Moscow, friendship won some victories, not over hate but over indifference.
It was on this occasion that I saw Gorbachev again.
In the capital one could sense the coming crisis. The relations between Gorbachev and Yeltsin were worsening by the hour. There was a rumor that Yeltsin, defying protocol, had by a simple telephone call dismissed Edward Shevardnadze from his post of minister of foreign affairs. When Shevardnadze arrived at the airport to welcome James Baker, the U.S. secretary of state, he was denied access to the VIP lounge. Yeltsin’s police actually ordered him to turn around. Moscow was buzzing with rumors. There was talk of a new coup, this time initiated by Yeltsin.
Would Gorbachev attend the conference? He had promised us that he would come, but until the very last session we are not sure. Finally we are told he is keeping his word by inviting us to the Kremlin. All of us? No. He was inviting ten “delegates.” But there were forty of us. We were told the room was not large enough. Arthur Gelb and Abe Rosenthal, Vitaly Korotich, editor in chief of Ogonyok, and other participants advise me to accept: better a meeting with ten than no meeting. I finally agree but make it clear that, in that case, I myself would remain in the hotel. The Soviet officials alternately cajole and threaten me to make me change my mind, but, not being a diplomat, I dig in my heels—either we shall all go or I shall stay among the uninvited. In the end, all of us go.
Gorbachev greets us affably. In his welcoming remarks he speaks mostly of his political successes, and literary, th
erefore commercial, ones. His book on perestroika has sold extraordinarily well: five million copies worldwide. In one year it has brought him $800,000, which means that in spite of everything his message is getting through. In my response I try to lighten the tension in the room by asking him three questions:
First, why is it that each time we meet it is always in an atmosphere of drama? (He smiles.)
Second, you are a writer, so am I. You are a Nobel laureate, so am I. Why are your books best-sellers and mine are not? (At last, he laughs.)
Third: First you became president, then you received the Nobel Prize. Would a reverse pattern be conceivable for me? (Here he laughs loudly and says: “I don’t advise it.”)
I go over the subjects that preoccupy us: ethnic hatred, religious fanaticism, the nuclear menace, the future of the regime, relations with Israel, anti-Semitism. I don’t conceal that I have met with Jews from Leningrad, Kiev, and other places who all live in anguish. He tries to reassure us. His answers are frank, unvarnished. Israel? He is happy to have renewed diplomatic relations with the Jewish state. Pamyat and anti-Semitism? In the past two years the situation has improved.
We were the last foreign visitors he received in the Kremlin as president of the USSR.
I was to see him a third time, six months later, in Haifa, where he had come to receive a humanitarian prize from the Technion Institute. The Soviet ambassador is to make a speech but excuses himself on Boris Yeltsin’s orders, or so we are given to understand.
Gorbachev is now an ordinary citizen without rank or title and no longer represents anything, except perhaps his vision of a liberated world. Sic transit gloria mundi. He reminds me of Winston Churchill after his defeat at the polls in 1945. But Churchill was a great orator, and you couldn’t say that about Gorbachev. Also, Churchill had saved the world from Fascism. Had Gorbachev saved it from Communism? History will judge. In rereading these notes in 1996, I find myself thinking of the resurgence of the Communist party in Russia and other countries of Central Europe. Still, as we watch the successor of Stalin, Khrushchev, and Brezhnev, surrounded by Israeli flags flapping in the twilight, standing at attention as Hatikva is sung, all of us in the crowd cannot help but feel the winds of history. Surprised at first but then visibly pleased to see me again, he falls into my arms and kisses me on both cheeks. To his wife, Raissa, who doesn’t understand, he explains: “My last visitor in the Kremlin, do you remember? He’s the one.”
Other conferences follow.
Spring 1992: New York is in the midst of a full-blown racial crisis. Riots are raging in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights, when we hear from the governor of New York State, Mario Cuomo: “You are arranging conferences on hate everywhere except in our city. Do you really think that we don’t need one, that our ethnic problems are solved?”
Together with the governor, we organize a seminar to be held in autumn. Its title: “To Save Our Children.” To save them from hate, of course. There is little time to prepare it. Marion, who is directing the foundation, and Arnold Thaler, her associate and vice president of the foundation, work tirelessly with the governor’s staff. Lists have to be drawn up, invitations sent out. It is imperative that every segment of the community be represented: Jews, Christians, Blacks, Hispanics; sociologists, educators, philosophers, psychologists, psychiatrists, journalists … and more.
Two plenary sessions introduce the meetings of the commissions. Everything seems to be under control. Then comes the explosion.
A young man bursts into the hall where participants are dealing with problems of education and the media. He protests against the gay community’s lack of representation. He is actually wrong: the executive director of the Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project is a full member of the conference. The intruder considers this inadequate and demands that a homosexual participate in every committee. Boston University President John Silber answers him with great logic and characteristic calm: How does the young man know who around the table is homosexual, and who is not? And what if they all were, without advertising it? I was not present when the incident occurred, but all the participants I question are unanimous: Silber never raised his voice. Nevertheless, the next day the executive director of the Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project declares in plenary session that he feels compelled to withdraw from the conference.
A Long Island newspaper reports the incident, blowing it up out of all proportion. For their part, the Boston dailies, which rarely miss a chance to attack Silber, take up the item, adding additional negative comment. In the end, the ombudsman of the Boston Globe, after seeing a videocassette of the session, publicly declares that Silber had acted appropriately.
June 1995: another international conference, this one devoted to young people and entitled: “The Leaders of Tomorrow.” This time young people, facing “leaders of today,” are participating in the debates that take place in Venice’s San Giorgio, the beautiful home of the Cini Foundation. Thirty adolescents between the ages of fifteen and nineteen represent the two sides of several areas of conflict. From the Middle East: Israelis, Egyptians, Jordanians, and Palestinians. From Ireland: Catholics and Protestants. From Yugoslavia: Croats, Serbs, and Bosnians. The others come from various African countries and the United States.
In a short time the frontiers disappear and a moving camaraderie develops. A young African American who has already been in prison seventeen times evokes his experiences; the others show great empathy. Bonds are created between the Israelis and the Palestinians. When a young Bosnian forcefully demands on a direct satellite line that First Lady Hillary Clinton make promises for his people and his country, the entire group gives him its support. As always, Hillary is brilliant as she responds to frequently confrontational questions.
Yossi Beilin, Israeli deputy minister and one of the secret negotiators of the Oslo Peace Plan; Uri Lubrani, the legendary savior of distant Jewish communities, and Itzhak Rager, the mayor of Beersheba converse with the Jordanian ambassador to Italy and the PLO representative in London.
Former Irish terrorists sit, for the first time, on the same stage as their enemies of yesterday. Richard Goldstone, the South African judge who is the United Nations prosecutor, charged with arguing cases of crimes against humanity, is speaking of the relationship between justice and memory. Silber speaks to the role of education. Bernard Kouchner, former and future French minister of human rights, later to be appointed U.N. administrator of Kosovo, pleads for intervention wherever humanity is at risk. Susanna Agnelli, foreign minister of Italy, discusses the problems of individual conscience confronting men and women in power.
We have barely returned to New York when we plunge into preparations for the next conference, scheduled for December in Hiroshima. Its theme is “The Future of Hope,” and our cosponsor is Asahi Shimbun, the most important Japanese daily. The conference opens with a concert in Asahi Shimbun’s great concert hall in the presence of Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko.
Ten Nobel laureates; a former Japanese prime minister; Takako Doi, chairperson of the Japanese Parliament; former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger; French Culture Minister Jack Lang; the Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa; several nuclear experts; economists; important journalists—all participate energetically and passionately in debates that begin at eight o’clock in the morning and end late in the evening. In this place our preoccupations seem urgent.
Yugoslavia recalls us to reality.
The Destiny of Sarajevo
SARAJEVO’S RECENT TRAGEDY began in 1991. A wave of murderous violence and hostility sweeps over former Yugoslavia, now shattered. Democracy was not successful in establishing cooperation among its varied and hostile ethnic groups. On the contrary, all it did was release repressed antagonisms. A bewildering fact: Under Tito the various communities had lived peacefully side-by-side. Could dictatorship, when it is marketed “with a human face,” be more beneficial than democracy? With respect to Yugoslavia one might well think so, but I don’t believe it; nothing can and nothi
ng should be substituted for a government based on freedom.
Once again bombs are falling on cities, civilians are assassinated, children are massacred. Will it never stop? Will the twentieth century be nothing but a bloodstained itinerary leading from Sarajevo to Sarajevo?
Dubrovnik is buried in ruins. Other cities follow. Homes are abandoned, families uprooted, haggard mothers and exhausted old men are in full flight, driven by an ancestral terror.
God in heaven, what is there to be done?
Most Americans don’t even know where some of these places are. Bosnia? Whom does it belong to? And the Krajina, where is it? Other unfamiliar names flood the news: Banja Luka, Srebrenica, Tuzla. The geography lessons we are learning are tragic.
Ministers and diplomats now say with regret that they should never have recognized these states. I hear it at the Élysée, and it is confirmed at the White House. Everyone I speak to blames Helmut Kohl, the German chancellor, the first to recognize Croatia’s independence. And it was he who immediately afterward exercised unrelenting pressure on his Western allies to support his policy.
