visas & virtue and the issue of "camps"

[Birgit Kellner]

When I read Alan Kita's reply to my last message, I thought it best to
reply to him in private, as the issue definitely goes way beyond this
list's purpose, but the tone of Jim Fuji's message necessitates a few
words of clarification on my part. 

I find it rather disturbing that Mr. Fuji credits me with the motivation
to "'restore' the Jewish holocaust as singularly worthy of the terms
'concentration camp'" (Fuji). I have no such motivation at all, and have
emphasized, in my last messages, that the term 'concentration camp', as
I see it, is NOT restricted to Jews, and NOT to Nazi Germany at all.
Moreover, the charge of "ethnocentrism", apparently based on the fact
that I did not list every single ethnic group throughout world history
that became a target of "concentration camps", is completely off the
mark. My initial question started out from a film about a Japanese
general consul in Lithuania who issued visas to Jews fleeing from the
Holocaust. The director of the film linked this particular historical
event with the persecution of Japanese-Americans in the US. This raises
question as to the legitimacy of making such a connection. Had he linked
Sugihara's quest with the genocide of Armenians, I would have mentioned
Armenians. The problems surrounding persecution and imprisonment in
camps of whatever nature, are incredibly complex ones, and I believe
that any discussion pertaining to them is best served by maintaining a
modicum of rationality and conceptual clarity, all while acknowledging
the unimaginable suffering which people, whether Bosnians, homosexuals,
Jews or Japanese-Americans, had to go through (and still have to go
through). Anything else leads to absurd comparisons in suffering and
pain (who suffered the most?), and playing off victims against each
other rather than pointing out and calling to responsability the
victimizers. 

I am grateful for Mr. Kita's information about the controversies
surrounding the term "concentration camp" in connection with the exhibit
on Ellis island. However, the tone of his message suggests not only that
he views 'internment camp' as a euphemism, but that, while expressing
his concern that somebody (like me) would still be "shocked" by the use
of 'concentration camp' for these camps, employs precisely the
shock-value of 'concentration camps' for his own argumentative purposes.
This is a rather simple rhetorical device, i.e. attracting attention to
the misapprehension and misinterpretation of a historical fact by
declaring certain expressions for it as euphemisms, and replacing them,
deliberatly, with others that are known to shock, outrage, and provoke.
In this particular case, I wonder whether there is not a more than
rhetorical price to pay in using this particular rhetorical strategy to
achieve the no doubt honorable goal to make a dark and ugly chapter of
US-American history reviewed, recognized, acknowledged. The term
'concentration camp' derives its shock-value from the unimaginable
horror that is associated with a particularly ugly brand of systematic
imprisonment, torture and mass murder, and with the political and moral
implications of it, such as that the general populace condoned and, as
some would argue, wilfully participated in, mass slaughter.
Historically, this brand of systematic persecution is mostly associated
with Nazi Germany, though, I emphasize again, by no means limited to it.
'Concentration camps' are shocking precisely because one of the lessons
to be drawn is that, given certain circumstances, it could happen
anywhere, and it is not a singular historical event explicable through
the devilish character of Germans and Austrians. Does the appropriation
of this term for other historical events which, as outrageous and
horrible as they may have been, are still different in character, not
ultimately trivialize it, and obfuscate precisely those moral and
historical lessons which are to be learnt? People have worked incredibly
hard to indicate, and learn, these lessons, especially in Germany (and
especially NOT in Austria ...), and continue to do so (or so one hopes).
Is it legitimate to simply wash that away, sweep almost 50 years of
complex political and ethical discourse under the carpet? 

My shock about the use of this term by Chris Takashima and the others
involved in the said interview does not derive from the fact that
horrible things were done to Japanese-Americans by the US-government at
all. I do not find that any more or less shocking than the fact that
horrible things were done to Armenians, homosexuals, communists,
christians, Bosnians, or Cambodians by the same and other governments.
As crimes against humanity, these are all shocking things. But shock is
not the end of it, there must be reflection, consideration, and
conceptual clarity about the issues involved. I maintain that there is a
qualitative difference between 'concentration camps', Nazi or otherwise,
and the camps, however one chooses to call them, in which
Japanese-Americans were imprisoned. So, my sense of outrage at the use
of 'concentration camp' is, for lack of a better word, conceptual. I was
simply nonplussed by what I perceived as an amazing lack of historical,
and political, sensitivity. And, add to which, lack of political skills,
for I do believe that this appropriation of "concentration camp" is
extremely counter-productive in that it merely alienates other groups of
"victims" such as Jews, and opens up discussions and controversy between
"victims" - one could develop that point further and argue that this is
a function of reactionary identity-politics, the segmentation of society
into groups based on race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, and
the staging of political discourse within the arena of identity-issues
rather than elevating it to the status of a genuine public debate in a
civic society, but that's another thread. 

Mr. Fuji: 
>     A thoughtful response to Alan's points would surely have avoided a
> dismissive euphemism like "containment", used by Ms. Kellner in referring to
> the "internment" of Japanese-Americans. 

I used "contained" in inverted commas. I was quoting a euphemism, not
using one. 

>     It's more than naive to think that the list subscribers you are
> presumably addressing cannot distinguish the particulars differentiating
> these two crimes against humanity.

I am quite confident they can, though I am still convinced that these
are more than just "particulars". 

I would be happy to discuss these matters further, though, unless more
specific arguments about the film "visas & virtue" itself show up, it is
perhaps more appropriate to continue this off-list. 

-- 
birgit kellner
department for indian philosophy
hiroshima university