Ethnic Cleansing in Germany: A Symposium
The Historical Roots of Discrimination
James H. Doherty
President, D-MS International Consultants
Former Vice-President, National Leadership Conference for Israel
Special Advisor to the U.S. Holocaust Commission
The evening program is specific to Germany, but I would like to do a general historical and political overview. Genetically, the human tradition is xenophobic. The fear or hatred of the stranger, group, race, religious belief and even at times gender is bred into us. Historically, there was a good reason for that. It provided safety, shelter, food—in other words, survival—a primal binding, if you will, for individual and group protection. Modern society is just a veneer. It always has been and I fear it always will be. Today, even primatologists tell us that these same traits are present in almost the same forms and actions in chimpanzees and gorillas. I thought they were better behaved.
Religious freedom and personal liberty are constantly and everywhere at risk.
Others on the panel will present current specifics. However, I believe we need a brief look back—a historical overview of things you know but perhaps need to be reminded of to set the tone for the evening’s agenda. This kind of action, this kind of hatred, this kind of persecution is not new or even an unknown phenomenon.
In pagan times, prior to the three great monotheisms—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—the trend among people and believers was the same. To outsiders, they appear united. Internally, they exhibit hatred and come to blows over some specific practice or point of view. You can look at Judaism in the early Christian church where, Jesus-like, Luther wanted reform, not separation. We all know where that has lead. The early excesses of the Christian church from the time of Constantine are well-known.
Prior to anti-Semitism and anti-Judaism in Europe, hatred and persecution were first practiced and performed on Christians for heresies. The language used against Christian heretics was brought back a few hundred years later during the Inquisition. During the Crusades—the first Crusade was preached by Peter the Hermit, a co-religionist, the Byzantine Christian Church—the Eastern Right, called to the Western Church to help invade the hostile Islamic nations. That Crusade came across Europe looting, raping and burning. When they got to Constantinople they pillaged Constantinople. Behold these Christians how they loved one another. And so much for chivalry.
So when you talk about particularism, you can get as particular as you like: the Reformation and the Religious Wars, and the Treaty of Westphalia which was very tenuous at best. There were huge dispersals of the populations from the Crusades right through to the Reformation. And the same has been true down to modern day. In the late 1980s, the Romanian Revolution was lead by a minister who headed the German Lutheran minority in Romania. A friend said “Look, what are they doing there?” They had been there since the Thirty Years War, that’s what they were doing there.
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