What I have been learning

WARNING!!! THIS BLOG CONTAINS:
JOEL SHARING RANDOM STORIES IN HISTORY: SOME RATHER DARK & GRUESOME. VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

It is absolutely crazy to think that we are almost three full weeks into the semester. Where has the time gone? There are two classes though this semester that I have been learning a ton from. These classes are really amazing and challenge one to think through a lot of things. One class is Hist 351: History of the Second World War. The second class is Pol Sci 432: Problems with World Order.

I am going to attempt to share with you some crazy stories that I have learned. My family may have noticed that I was reading an interesting book this weekend. The book is called the Rape of Nanking. Nanking is a city in China and in 1937, it was invaded by Japan. The next 7 weeks was quite literally, hell on earth. Men and women were raped, with no respect of age, from 10-80. Sons were forced to rape mothers, fathers their daughters. Babies were tossed into the air, landing on the bayonet or the sword of a soldier. Thousands of men were lined up and shot. There were killing contests, who could behead the most civilians. Men were burned alive, buried alive, and drowned. In the end, an estimated 300,000 civilians were killed at the hand of the Japanese. I am leaving out some pretty graphic stories, just hoping to give an idea of what it was like. I would actually recommend you read this book, it is eye opening to say the least.

The holocaust in Germany was also taking place around these times. I have learned of a phrase called "The Banality of Evil." This theory states that some of the worst evils are caused by ordinary men. Men who are good fathers, good husbands. Yet somehow, someway, they get caught up in such evil.  Prime example is Adolf Eichmann. He was a key figure in the Nazis and also the Holocaust. Responsible for the killing of an unimaginable number of Jews. He was able to escape undetected at the end of the war. He was found years later, working in a factory in Argentina.  Also working in that factory was a Jew who survived the holocaust and recognized Eichmann. The local authorities did not know a ton about Eichmann but did know his anniversary. When the day of his anniversary came, Eichmann got off the bus with flowers in hand and was arrested. So here we have a normal man, a man loyal and dedicated to his wife and kids yet able to commit atrocities. How is that possible?

Also, another interesting story. Did you know that Hitler had 3 older siblings who died when he was young. Because of the loss of his siblings, he in a way, was everything to his mom and his mom was everything to him. One day, Hitler's mom got sick with breast cancer. Her doctor, a Jew, did everything possible to save her. But in the end, she died a very painful death.  Hitler tried to get into art school but was denied admission, the majority of the staff, were Jews. Did this have anything to do with Hitler's hate for the Jews? Maybe. 

Ready for some more? In a book I am also reading is about African Americans growing up during the Jim Crow era. This story is about a FREEman named Sam Hose. He was a black man working for a white planter. All Hose did was ask for a wage. The planter refused. The next day, the white planter put a gun to Hose, Hose in self defense, killed the white planter. It is 1899. People are supposed to be equal...but what happened to Hose is horrifying. All people could see was that a black man killed a white man. A few days later, 2,000 men and women appeared on a Sunday afternoon, April 23, 1989 in Newnan, Georgia. The following is an account of what happened.
"After stripping Hose of his clothes and chaining him to a tree, the self-appointed executioners stacked kerosene-soaked wood high around him. Before saturating Hose with oil and applying the torch, they cut off his ears, fingers, and genitals, and skinned his face. While some in the crowd plunged knives into the victim's flesh...others watched with unfeigning satisfaction...the flames...causing his eyes to bulge out of their sockets, and rupturing veins. When in Hose's agony he almost managed to unloosen his bonds, the executioners quenched the flames, retied him, and applied more oil to the body before relighting the fire.  Such suffering has seldom been witnessed. Before Hose's body had even cooled, his heart and liver were removed and cut into several pieces and his bones were crushed into small particles. The crowd fought over these souvenirs. (small pieces of bones went fro 25 cents, a piece of the liver sold for 10 cents). One of the participants..left for the state capitol, hoping to deliver to the governor of Georgia a slice of Sam Hose's heart.

What is so crazy about this story is how it hits so close to home. These are white Christians, who after church on a Sunday, did such horrible things to another human.
I had the opportunity of hearing an interview with a young man in jail. He was in jail because his bomb failed to explode when he went into a restaurant. A young man, my age, a well educated man, a suicide bomber. In the interview, he was crying. Why? The young man said said that "Because now he'll die." How sad is that. This man believed into the lie of immortality and virgins and he was weeping because he believed he was denied immortality.
Just today, a man walks into an IHOP with a gun, killing 3 people and wounding another 8. 2 of those he killed were members of the National Guard. The other was a lady in the crossfire.Tragedy.

So what does all this mean? I dont think I have an answer. I could go into detail about how the concept of fear...but I wont. I could go into more detail about the Banality of Evil but I wont. To sum it all up, we are living in hard times. In times of such pain and hate. How in a time where there are billions starving and dying, how can we justify spending billions on instruments to kill others?
There is so much I dont know. I am just at the tip of the iceberg with a lot more readings and research to follow. All I know now is to pray. Pray for our nation, for those that hurting. LOVE YOUR ENEMIES! Well, that is enough of me rambling away. If you toughed it out and read to the end, impressive. Hopefully maybe you learned something while reading.
For further study: read the Rape of Nanking or Night by Elie Wiesel. Or google or whatever you want.

Feel free to leave me some thoughts on all this.