 |
|||||||||
     |
|||||||||
 |
|||||||||
| You are here: 2000 / Workshops, Panels and Seminars / Workshops on Education / Workshop 5 on Education, "Religious and Ethical Teachings and the Holocaust" / Presentation by Dr. Didier Pollefeyt | |||||||||
|
|||||||||
|
Participants Countries and organizations Conference documentation Conference programme 
|
|
|
|
Report from Workshop 5 on Education: "Regigious and Ethical Teachings and the Presentation by Rabbi Irving Greenberg Presentation by Dr. Franklin H. Littell Presentation by Dr. Elisabeth Maxwell Presentation by Dr. Stanislaw Obirek Presentation by Dr. Didier Pollefeyt Presentation by Professor John K. Roth Presentation by Dr. Didier Pollefeyt Pollefeyt, Didier Presentation by Dr. Didier Pollefeyt "And if any of you would punish in the name of righteousness and lay the ax unto the evil tree, let him see to its roots; And verily he will find the roots of the good and the bad, the fruitful and the fruit-less, all entwined together in the silent heart of the earth. " The Prophet (Kahlil Gibran) I. Religion and ethics after Auschwitz: recognition of limits and guilt As such, (Christian) religion and (Christian) religious education are no guarantee against genocide, on the contrary even, (Christian) religion and (Christian) religious education (catechetics) themselves were involved in the genesis of the holocaust. It is not correct, as the Vatican statement We Remember does, to separate radically (Christian) anti-Judaism from (racist) anti-Semitism. The (Christian) theology of substitution, and especially the (Christian) teaching of contempt (in catechetics, preaching and liturgy) are necessary conditions to understand the holocaust. An extreme example is the Deutsche Christen. As such, (western) ethics and teaching (western) ethics are no guarantee against genocide, on the contrary even, (western) ethics and teaching (western) ethics themselves were involved in the genesis of the holocaust. It is not correct, as some educators do easily, to understand the holocaust simply as a diabolic revolt against ethics. Nazism used modern ethical arguments and theories that were acceptable, or at least debatable in the light of western ethics. The holocaust is not so much a question about immorality, but about the vulnerability of ethics. An extreme example is the `nazi ethics' (Haas). As such, teaching ethics and religion is no guarantee that genocide will be prevented in the future. This is even true when the holocaust is teached (see under II). Religion and ethics should start by recognising their limits, their responsibility and even their guilt vis-à-vis the holocaust. II. Holocaust education: hermeneutics versus ideology Teaching the holocaust in religion and ethics is always influenced by certain ethical and religious presuppositions. There is no neutral way to present the holocaust in ethical and/or religious perspective. As such, this is not a problem, but every educator of the holocaust should be aware of his/her presuppositions when teaching about the holocaust. He/she should understand the tension between the hermeneutical complexity of the holocaust, the particularity of his own position and the specificity of his pedagogical goals. (Christian) educators can misuse the holocaust for their own religious goals. They can only select these facts or stories that correlates well with their (Jewish of Christian) faith. Educators in (western) ethics can misuse the holocaust for their own pedagogical goals. They can only select these facts or stories that match adequately with their anthropological and ethical presuppositions. To (mis)use the holocaust only for one’s own pedagogical goals is injustice towards the victims and an a priori elimination of the radical challenge of the holocaust for every ethics and religion. There is a growing critical attitude vis-à-vis the possible ideological character of holocaust teaching, and this not only from the extreme right side. The only adequate reply to that critique is to develop criteria of quality for holocaust education. We are in urgent need for a instrument of analysis of existing holocaust curricula, using scholarly standards. We propose as central criteria for moral and religious education: in education of the holocaust, students learn to deal in a critical and open way with the basic dilemmas and problems in the ethical and religious interpretation of the holocaust and consequently in their own understanding of human evil. This can be a check list: Is there attention for: * the universal and the unique aspects of the holocaust; * the perspective of the victims, the perpetrators, the bystanders and the rescuers (is multidirectional partiality allowed); * the continuity and the discontinuity from western history to the holocaust; * the small scale and the great scale; * emotion and rationality; * the science of history (the statistics) and the pain of history (the stories of people); * the normality and the abnormality of the event; * the humanity and the inhumanity of the perpetrator; * the Jew as victim of the holocaust and the Jew in other contexts; * Jewish victims and non-Jewish victims; * the pessimistic and the optimistic aspects of the holocaust; * revisionist denial and ideological misuse of the holocaust; * the cliché stories and pictures, and the less known; * theodicy and antropodicee * the role of modernity and the role of Christianity; * the demonic and the banal aspects of the genocidal system; * analysing and moralising; * determinism and human freedom; * the death of God and the living God; * human evil and human holiness; * remembrance of the past and hope for the future; Holocaust education should always be aware of its contextuality. It can be teached in a Jewish, a Christian, a humanistic or a pluralistic setting, in Israel, the United States, in Europe (in Germany, in Belgium or in Holland, etc.), in the first, second or third world. Not to be(come) ideological, each setting should integrate especially these aspects of the holocaust that challenges the most its own ideological presuppositions. So legatees of the victims should be open to the universal aspects of the holocaust, legatees of the perpetrators to its unique aspects; believers should be attentive for the challenge of the death of God theology (theodicy), in a humanistic setting, the crisis of western ethics should be analysed (anthropodicee), Jews should be careful for victimism, Christians for apologetically refusal of guilt (cf. We Remember), etc. III. What kind of moral and religious education? Challenges for the future 1.a. Nazism can be seen as an (pseudo-) `ethical' movement (Haas). Nazism was the outcome of manichaean ethics, using dual categories of good and evil. The complexity of good and evil is here reduced to a simple confrontation between absolute good and absolute evil, God and the devil, the Übermensch and the Untermensch. 1.b. Nazism can be seen as a (pseudo-) `religious' movement. Nazism was the outcome of exclusivistic theology, using a concept of a Gott mit uns. Here, men is not created in the image of God, but God is created in the image of the collective identity of (Aryan) men. 2.a. In response to the holocaust, post-Shoah ethics (and moral education) should make clear the complexity of good and evil (see also the check list above). Even if manichaeaism is an interesting pedagogical and ethical tool to teach the holocaust, a manichaean presentation of the holocaust reproduces and imitates the logic of the nazi-evil itself. Nazi ideology did not allow ethical complexity. Post-Shoah education of ethics is not a good as such. It can even prepare the mentality for a new genocide when it feeds manichaean ideologies. The first challenge for post-Shoah education is the danger of a new ethical absolutism. 2.b. In response to the holocaust, post-Shoah Christian religion (and religious education) should find ways to transcend exclusivistic theology (in relation to Judaism: supersessionism). The central question of religious education after Auschwitz should be: how can we affirm the truth of our own faith traditon without denying the religious claims of others? Post-Shoah religious education is not a good as such. It can even prepare the mentality for a new genocide when it feeds exclusivistic theology and new theologies of substitution. The second challenge for post-Shoah education is the danger of a new religious absolutism. 3. The third challenge for post-Shoah education is the danger of ethical and religious relativism. After Auschwitz, it is as dangerous to say that all ways are the same (ethical and theological relativism), as to say that there is only one way (ethical and religious absolutism). Ethical and religious teaching should be orientated towards the discovery of a basic moral norm or standard by which all ethical values, cultures, ideologies and religions can be tested and criticised and humans and societies can be oriented towards the good and/or the Good. Therefore, western civilisation has to return to its Jewish roots, because Judaism brought and brings the perspective of Other(ness) into picture. And Auschwitz is an adequate starting point, because, how different people are in their ethical views, they will (almost) unanimously condemn the holocaust as a most brutal denial of the `face of the Other' (Levinas). IV. The relation between ethical and religious teaching Post-holocaust education should not reduce religion to ethics, that is, present Judaism and Christianity only in ethical terms. Everything is ethical, but, even after Auschwitz, ethics is not everything! Both ethics and religion have their own, interrelated, complementary, but distinguished meaning. a. Moral education after Auschwitz should embrace and move beyond both the moral emotion of pure horror and the moral rationality of pure cool analysis. For sure, it is not true that the shocking confrontation with the cruel facts of the Shoah itself is automatically frightening and would educate people. But also the opposite is true: rational analysis can kill empathy, moral feelings (as anger, indignation, helplessness, despair, fear, engagement, hope) and moral identification with the victims, and can open the way to moral relativism. Narratives are appropriate pedagogical tools to create adequate moral attitudes because they engage both emotion and reason and because they are unique instruments to bridge the gap between the general and the abstract, and between more pessimistic and more optimistic perspectives. They can be chosen carefully in the light of the moment of growth of the students. Stories should have preference over pictures. Moral education should even be very careful with photo-chocs because such pictures reduce the holocaust quickly to clichés and risk to replace on the long term moral imagination by the endless and in the long term `tiresome' repetition of always the same. As Roland Barthes argues: `In confrontation with such pictures, our own evaluation is taken away. One has already horrified, thought and judged in our place: the photographer has left for us nothing than our duty to moral agreement' (Eloge de la désobéissance, Ed. Le Pommier, Coll. Manifestes, 1999). Showing crimes against humanity is in itself not already a combat against these. It is moreover important not only to speak about genocide in general and the holocaust in particular, but also about more moderate forms of evil, which do not lead to genocide and the holocaust, and of which not (only) Jews are victims. Otherwise, we risk to damage the sense for proportionality of the students. It is also important to try to bridge the gap between the holocaust and contemporary society and daily life (f.e. manichaeaism in T.V. programmes or supersessionism in contemporary religious-political conflicts). The holocaust was not the work of devils, monsters or animals, but of human beings. We should not only warn for the last steps in the extreme genocidal evil, but also, and especially, for the first steps, leading into that direction. Otherwise, we risk that students in class are horrified, do not understand, turn back home, but nothing has changed in their moral attitude and political life within democracy. b. Religion can not be reduced to ethics after Auschwitz. Especially religion is challenged by the holocaust, but religion can also deliver a proper, positive contribution to post-Shoah education. Religion and ethics are deeply interrelated, as Auschwitz should make us clear, but they are not identical. Today, there is sometimes a tendency to replace traditional Judeo-Christian religion (centered around the biblical God) by a kind of alternative civil religion of the holocaust (centred around the moral commandment `Never again Auschwitz!'). But Judaism and Christianity have a much richer and longer tradition that can not be transmitted by only refering to the holocaust. Holocaust as a cult or creed can not substitute itself to traditional religion. In Judaism and Christianity, centrality is not given to evil, but to Go(o)d, not only to repentence and remembrance, but also to healing and forgiveness, not only to immorality, but also to reconciliation, not only to despair, but also to hope. Both religions possess an immense stock of and expertise in stories, metaphors, symbols and rituals to help people and cultures to repent, to remember, to confess, to mourn, to forgive and to reconcile humanity, to open a perspective `beyond Auschwitz', without denying the `after Auschwitz'. >> Back to top |
|
|
|
Introduction Opening Session: Messages and speeches Plenary Sessions: Messages and speeches Workshops, Panels and Seminars
Other Activities |
|
|||||||||
|
|||||||||
| For information about this production and the Stockholm International Forum Conference Series please go to www.humanrights.gov.se or contact Information Rosenbad, SE-103 33 Stockholm, Sweden | |||||||||