Genocide Awareness Week

We created this timeline to help you visualize Genocide in our times.

Genocide Week for GSU Perimeter College is set for April 9-12.

It seems like such a sad subject for a week.  Who wants to focus on Genocide?  The issue is difficult at best, but whether we look at it or not, it has happened, it is happening, and it will happen–unless we do something about it.

The college students of today are the leaders of tomorrow.  Your education should extend beyond your books into the world of real problems and real solutions.  How do we stop genocide?  How do we stop hate, murder, and the destruction of cultures?

• Clearly define genocide
• Acknowledge genocide.
• Take action against the perpetrators.
• Help the victims.
• Stay vigilant against new atrocities.

Those who commit genocide hide in the shadows, make excuses, and justify their actions.  It’s not always easy to pin them down.  So, we have to get very very good at recognizing the signs, stopping the cycle, and refusing to forget.

WE MUST NEVER FORGET

It is less than 100 years since the Holocaust, yet we have already forgotten.  Anti-Semitism has grown in Europe, the Middle East, and the US.

And we ignore the genocides that are happening today.

We turn off our televisions and turn our heads away from Facebook and Twitter posts about the Yizidi genocide.  We tell ourselves it is too hard to deal with, or that it is not our problem.

But it is everyone’s problem.  Every holocaust, every genocide is EVERYONE’S PROBLEM.

So, take this uncomfortable week, and spend some time studying what a genocide looks like, how it happens, and what the world does in response.

See this week not as a testament to pain, but a testament to hope.  We ask you to attend our events, to think deeply about the past, the present, and the future, and we ask you to:

Be a light in darkness. 

Bring darkness to light.