EDITORIAL: Teaching about genocide (03/13/05)

EDITORIAL

Teaching about genocide

The Illinois State Legislature is currently considering a bill that would expand the state's curriculum on genocide to encompass genocides throughout the world. House Bill 312, sponsored by Rep. John Fritchey (D-Chicago), would amend the Illinois School Code to require all elementary and secondary public schools in the state to teach about the genocides that occurred in Armenia, Ukraine, Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda and Sudan. Thus, it would add to the already mandated state curriculum on the Holocaust. The bill has already been passed by the Illinois House, but still awaits action by the state's Senate.

The Ukrainian Genocide Famine Foundation - U.S.A. explains that "the intended premise of Section 5, Chapter 122, Paragraph 27-20.3 of the Illinois School Code is to mandate Illinois public elementary and high school students to be educated about the Nazi Holocaust of 1933-1945 so that such atrocities would never happen again. But genocide continues to happen: most recently in Rwanda and Bosnia." Thus, the foundation underscores, it is important to expand the study of genocide to include various periods of history to the present day, and to cover genocides that devastated diverse countries around the globe - a position that we wholeheartedly endorse.

"As we educate our children about the injustice of hate crimes, it is important to recognize that any form of genocide, against any people, is equally detestable. The multicultural nature of the United States of America is integral to its cultural and political identity. In such a multicultural society, there is no room for showing more reverence to one ethnic group, its memory, history and tragedies, than to another," argues the Ukrainian Genocide Famine Foundation.

Despite its noble intentions, House Bill 312 faces some stiff opposition. Opponents argue that it would require local school districts to fund new curriculum units and to teach them without adding any additional school time. "I just think we need to look very carefully at what we're expecting from schools," said Deanna Sullivan of the Illinois Statewide School Management Alliance. "It's amazing what we're required to teach. We grapple with this every year."

In answer to funding concerns, the Ukrainian Genocide Famine Foundation has stated that it is prepared to provide the teachers of Illinois with curriculum guides at no cost to their schools.

In addition, some Jewish groups have expressed wariness toward the bill, according to the Chicago Sun-Times, based on their fear that expanding the study of genocide to cover all such crimes "would minimize the mass murder of European Jews and other groups by Nazi Germany." The newspaper quoted Richard Hischhaut, executive director of the Holocaust Memorial Foundation in Skokie, Ill., as saying that "The Holocaust - that's capital-letter-H Holocaust - stands as a singularly unique tragedy in the course of human history." Adam Schupack, spokesman for the Anti-Defamation League, told the Sun-Times that "We certainly view it as a priority that any additional genocide education, which is worthy, comes as additive, and not at the expense of Holocaust education." On the other hand, the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago testified in favor of House Bill 312.

Rep. Fritchey quite correctly pointed out in the Sun-Times that "A student walks away with one understanding if they think [genocide] is an isolated incident ... They have quite a different one once they see that it's happened with a sense of disturbing regularity." In urging support for the bill, Rep. Fritchey has also underscored: "This long overdue legislation will help us ensure that our students learn of the devastating role that genocide has played around the world throughout history, and unfortunately, in current times."

We encourage our readers in Illinois to take up the cause of House Bill 312, and work for its passage. (See the story on page 10 for more information.) For, as Rep. Fritchey has stated: "It is only through this type of education that we can work to erase the type of global indifference that allowed the tragedy in Ukraine to occur and the apathy that exists today with respect to the genocide happening in Africa. We must value all human lives equally."

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