Juneteenth

Today is Juneteenth, the commemoration of the day the slaves in Texas were freed (http://www.juneteenth.com/history.htm; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juneteenth). Even though the Emancipation Proclamation freed the slaves in the Union on January 1, 1863, slaves in the Confederacy continued to be enslaved. After the surrender at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865 (https://www.nps.gov/apco/index.htm), news spread slowly through the Confederacy. Union soldiers led by General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston on June 19, 1865, and brought the news. There was shock and jubilation. Some slaves left their plantations to find family in other states, or even if they had no where to go. June 19, or Juneteenth has become a time of celebration in the African American community. It is also a time of prayer, and focusing on education and self-improvement. Unfortunately, it is little known among whites in the US, though some suggest it is a second Independence Day (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/juneteenth-photos_us_57640f77e4b0853f8bf08d36).

Unfortunately, June 19, 1865, did not end slavery. It continues to the present day. Walk Free estimates that 45.8 million people continue to be enslaved (https://www.walkfree.org/modern-slavery-facts/). Despite being illegal, slavery exists in nearly every country on earth. This year, attention has been directed to the slaves used in fishing, especially in international waters. One center of this is Thailand (http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/feb/25/slavery-trafficking-thai-fishing-industry-environmental-justice-foundation).

Forced labor may also continue with governmental support, as is the case of cotton picking in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan (http://www.antislavery.org/english/campaigns/cottoncrimes/forced_labour_in_uzbekistan_background.aspx). Brick making and garment making in India also often employ the use of slave labor (http://www.antislavery.org/english/slavery_today/what_is_modern_slavery.aspx).

Over half of slaves are women and children. Nearly 1 in 3 victims are children, often trafficked by someone they knew (https://www.walkfree.org/modern-slavery-facts/). Natural disasters, such as the earthquake in Nepal, lead to the trafficking of more children. Closer to home, only last year did Los Angeles County stop arresting children for prostitution, and begin treating them like victims (http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-sheriff-children-sex-trafficking-20151021-story.html).

So, on this Juneteeth, let us not only remember the past, as all Americans should, but work toward the elimination of slavery throughout the world today.

After the visit

On May 27^th, President Barack Obama visited the Hiroshima Peace Memorial in Japan, the first time a US President has visited Hiroshima. He spoke of the horrors of war – of nuclear weapons in particular – as he stood by the evidence of the destruction caused by the relatively small weapons (by today's standards) used against Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Back in April of 2009, in Prague, President Obama said, "As the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon, the United States has a moral responsibility to act. We cannot succeed in this endeavor alone, but we can lead it, we can start it. So today, I state clearly and with conviction America's commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons."

During President Obama’s visit, I recalled my own visit to Hiroshima nearly 40 years ago. I was travelling with my parents, who had been involved, along with two uncles, in the Manhattan Project. Despite receiving honors, my father rarely spoke about his involvement in the project that would produce the first nuclear weapons during World War II. My mother often told of the moment of realization of the weapon they were working on, and the horror of it, tempered only at the time by the sense of necessity due to the war.

As we walked around the city and visited the museum, my parents hardly spoke. Both were quite somber throughout the day. It was clear to me that they felt a sense of responsibility. That visit had quite an effect on me as well, even though I was not born until years after the bombing. In 2006, I joined the board of the Los Angeles chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR-LA), an organization dedicated to the prevention of nuclear war.

There are over 15,000 nuclear weapons in the world today; 94% of these are in the US and Russia. Currently, the US plans to spend $348 billion over the next 10 years and a trillion dollars over the next 30 years in order to “modernize” our nuclear weapons systems. Russia has also been updating its arsenal, and has renounced the "no first use" of nuclear weapons. We are into a new arms race.

We have avoided nuclear Armageddon for 70 years; yet, there have been at least five events since 1979 when either Moscow or Washington prepared to launch a nuclear war under the mistaken belief that it was already under attack by the other side.

With today's expansive weapons and arsenals, more people could be killed in hours than were killed during WWII. Even a limited war involving only 100 Hiroshima-sized bombs, less than 1% of the world's nuclear arsenals, could have devastating effects on the climate, could disrupt agriculture around the globe, causing a global famine that could kill 2 billion people, and triggering further wars for control of resources. If most of the weapons in the world's arsenals were used, a global ecological collapse – a nuclear winter – would result.

Recognizing the grave humanitarian consequences of nuclear war, the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), the World Medical Association (WMA), the World Federation of Public Health Associations (WFPHA), and the International Council of Nurses (ICN), together representing 15 million health professionals, have called for a treaty to ban nuclear weapons worldwide. One hundred twenty-seven countries without nuclear weapons, supported by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and civil society, have signed onto the "Humanitarian Pledge" legally prohibiting nuclear weapons.

During his visit to Hiroshima last month, President Obama said, “We may not be able to eliminate man’s capacity to do evil, so nations and the alliances that we form must possess the means to defend ourselves. But among those nations like my own that hold nuclear stockpiles, we must have the courage to escape the logic of fear and pursue a world without them.”

As President Obama said, “Those who died, they are like us. Ordinary people understand this, I think. They do not want more war. They would rather that the wonders of science be focused on improving life and not eliminating it. When the choices made by nations, when the choices made by leaders, reflect this simple wisdom, then the lesson of Hiroshima is done.” He spoke of the hibakusha (atomic bomb survivors), and acknowledged their experience and contributions. He spoke of their efforts to turn their experiences into messages of peace.

The world is a dangerous place. Nuclear weapons do not make us safe. Instead, we are more at risk. It is an existential risk for our species, and for all life on the planet. As President Obama said, “The world was forever changed here, but today the children of this city will go through their day in peace. What a precious thing that is. It is worth protecting, and then extending to every child. That is a future we can choose, a future in which Hiroshima and Nagasaki are known not as the dawn of atomic warfare but as the start of our own moral awakening.”

The United States cannot eliminate nuclear weapons alone. But, we can lead. It is our moral duty as the only nation to have ever used a nuclear weapon as an act of war. I know that is what my parents would want, and why they felt the need to take me to visit Hiroshima - so I could see the unparalleled destruction caused by these weapons, and understand that they must never be used again.

Jamala

Recently, a young woman who calls herself Jamala won Eurovision 2016 with a song called 1944. Here are the lyrics and links to video clips: http://lyricstranslate.com/en/jamala-1944-lyrics.html.

The song angered the Russians though it referred to her great-grandmother's deportation some 70 years ago. At the time, Stalin felt that Crimean Tatars might be disloyal and deported all of them to Central Asia. Members of Jamala's family had fought for the Soviets. This deportation echoes, for me, the earlier deportations of Poles from the eastern parts of Poland after the Soviets had invaded Poland while allied to Nazi Germany. In both cases, those being deported were treated inhumanely. One of Jamala's great-grandmother's daughters died during transport and her body was disposed of "like garbage" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamala). Again, Poles suffered similar treatment. Hence, it does not seem surprising that there was support for this entrant among those that have also experienced similar treatment.

Susanna Jamaladinova was born in what is now Kyrgyzstan After the deportation of her father's family from Crimea in 1944 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamala). Her family then returned to Crimea, though her parents had to divorce in order for her Armenian mother to buy a house in Crimea since Tatars were not allowed to own property in Crimea during Soviet times.

Since the breakup of the Soviet Union, more Tatars had returned to Crimea, and many were unhappy with Russian annexation (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/2016/05/11/jamalas-ukraine-eurovision-song-stirs-up-russia/). To Russia, Jamala's song seems also to refer to the recent annexation of Crimea by Russia, yet the title and lyrics seem to refer to the earlier deportation (http://lyricstranslate.com/en/jamala-1944-lyrics.html). Russia has even proposed reinstituting Intervision to counter Eurovision (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/2016/05/11/jamalas-ukraine-eurovision-song-stirs-up-russia/).

Like the dismantling of the gulags (http://blog.victimsofcommunism.org/perm-36-erasing-the-gulags/), the avoidance of discussion of the deportation of the Poles and Tatars and others to gulags or labor camps is not a solution. The memories will live on in the stories told to relatives and will resurface in songs such as 1944 and other ways of memorializing the victims. Yet, the world should remember that many of the victims were Russians, who are still caught in the forced silence, without a way to openly remember their families, as Stalin is rehabilitated as a hero. There is an ongoing effort to rewrite this history.

Thank you, Jamala, for putting at least part of it front and center.

A nation of refugees

I've grown up knowing that we are mostly immigrants in America. Perhaps all, if you interpret that to mean that all humans migrated to the western hemisphere. The early ones may simply have been following their prey or searching for new pastures. In a sense, they may have been the first economic migrants. But, they may have also been fleeing something. Rival clans. A several year drought. It's hard to know that far back.

More recently, there were certainly the adventurers, but also those fleeing religious persecution. The pilgrims of Massachusetts or the Catholics of Maryland, or the secret Jews of New Mexico, who may have sought to hide in a less populous region. Of course, those brought as slaves didn't have a choice in their transport.

In my own family, I know there were different types of migrants. My father's ancestors seem to have left Europe for primarily economic reasons, or adventure. My mother's relatives were a variety. Certainly some left for economic reasons--too many kids to divide the farm into useful bits. But others left after being involved in one of the many uprisings by Poles against the powers of Germany, Austria or Russia during the partitions. Some were displaced during WWII, when they were taken from their homes to become forced laborers, in Germany or Russia. And, later, they were unable to return to those homes.

Now the question is regarding Syrians. Zygmunt Bauman was interviewed for an opinion piece in today's New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/02/opinion/the-refugee-crisis-is-humanitys-crisis.html?_r=0). He simply stated, "refugees end up all too often cast in the role of a threat to the human rights of established native populations, instead of being defined and treated as a vulnerable part of humanity in search of the restoration of those same rights of which they have been violently robbed."

He discusses the limited options that many of these people had before making their choice to flee. And, how most of us would have made a similar decision. He sees the "refugee crisis" as a crisis in humanity. That we, in the west, often see refugees more as a threat to our comfortable security, rather than as people in need of security at its most basic level, that of life. 

Europe is not that far from being a "continent of refugees" after WWII, as populations were being relocated after the devastation of that war. America has been more protected by its relative isolation. But, we should all remember, as Americans, most of us came not only seeking something, but leaving something.

The Great Urkun

One hundred years ago, there were two genocides. The better known one was the Armenian genocide where over 1,500,000 mostly Christian Armenians were killed by Ottoman Turks. This occurred during the First World War. According to Fact Check Armenia (http://ayf.org/factcheckarmenia/)

• The Ottoman Empire killed over 1,500,000 Armenian men, women, and children, exiled the Armenian nation from its historic homeland, and destroyed and deported hundreds of thousands of its other Christian Assyrian and Greek citizens.
• The Armenian Genocide (1915-1923) was preceded by Turkish massacres of Armenians in 1909 and 1894-1896, during which hundreds of thousands of Armenians were murdered.
• In 1918, Theodore Roosevelt called the Armenian massacres “the greatest crime of the war.” In President Herbert Hoover’s memoirs, he wrote, “Probably Armenia was known to the American school child in 1919 only a little less than England … and the Sunday School collections of over fifty years for alleviating their miseries.” President Woodrow Wilson, who called for a mandate over Armenia, stated, “At their hearts, this great and generous people [the Americans] have made the case of Armenia their own.”
• The Allied Powers, England, France, and Russia, jointly issued a statement in May of 1915 explicitly charging the Ottoman Turkish Empire with committing “a crime against humanity” and pledging to punish the perpetrators.
• Adolf Hitler was emboldened by the world’s failure to punish Turkey for its mass murder of Armenians. On ordering his commanders to attack Poland without provocation in 1939, he dismissed objections by saying “[w]ho, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?

It is sad that, still, Turkey refuses to acknowledge this genocide. And, the US currently is reluctant to anger this ally by speaking of it officially on the day it is commemorated by Armenians, April 24. Even on the 100th anniversary--April 24, 2015.

But the title of this piece refers to another event,which I just learned about. It occurred in 1916. The Great Urkun refers to the Exodus of Kyrgyz people fleeing the Russians. A revolt broke out in Central Asia against Russian imperialism. The Russians, like the British, were concerned about the development of a pan-Turkic alliance. Hence they opted for suppression. " "I hold it as a principle that the duration of the peace is in direct proportion to the slaughter you inflict upon the enemy. The harder you hit them, the longer they remain quiet," Skobelev said after wiping out the last of the Turkmens' resistance in 1881." (http://www.rferl.org/content/qishloq-ovozi-remembering-great-urkun/27706415.html)

Most of the Kyrgyz did not possess weapons to fight against the Tsars forces, so they attempted to flee. Many fled, headed for China. This required them to pass through the Tien Shan Mountains. Hundreds of thousands made it to Chinese Turkestan, but, it is estimated that at least 150,000 and possibly more than 250,000 Kyrgyz perished.

The Bolsheviks encouraged the Kyrgyz to return. Some did. Bayali Isakeev did, and later became an official in the Kyrgyz Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. He wrote of his journey during the Urkun, "we could see the crevasses filling up, nearly to the top in some places, with the bodies of camels, horses, cattle that had slipped over the side, and often people were there also." 

Isakeev was arrested and killed during the purges of 1937, the time of The Great Terror, when it is estimated that between 600,000 and 1,200,000 people were killed. Many of these were killed in either the eastern or western parts of the country, due to suspicion of spying or support for other nations. The largest number of these were ethnic Poles, of whom 143,810 were arrested and 111,091 executed. (https://en.wickipedia.org/wiki/Great_Purge) But, that is another topic, so I will end here.

Another hospital bombed

A women's and children's hospital in Aleppo was bombed today, totally destroying the hospital.
(http://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-thursday-edition-1.3557391/we-lost-a-pioneer-aleppo-s-last-pediatrician-dead-after-airstrikes-on-hospital-1.3557722) The city's last pediatrician was killed.

Clearly such a hospital would be serving largely non-combatants, hence would be unacceptable if one accepted the standard rules of war and the Geneva conventions on the treatment of civilians.  Syria, Russia and the US have denied carrying out the airstrike.

Over 250,000 Syrians have been killed during the civil war. But, civilians have been targeted frequently by both government and terrorist groups. So, Syrians are leaving in droves. I'm sure they feel there is no alternative but death. Many civilians are trapped by the war. Children are suffering at home even more than those who have left there homes, trying to make it to Europe.

The recent attacks on clearly civilian sites are disturbing. Not only are the groups like ISIS, and the Taliban attacking civilians, but also governments with sophisticated weaponry. Certainly more information will come out over the next few days regarding this event, but certainly the war will go on and more civilians will suffer and die.. 

Kunduz Redux

Over twenty years ago, fresh from my fellowship in neuro-oncology, I looked into volunteering with Medicins Sans Frontieres/Doctors Without Borders (MSF). It was before I had dependents--two children that I am now working to raise to independence. I knew there might be risks, so better to do it before I had someone who needed my care as a mother.

At that time, the war in Bosnia was heating up. I knew that surgeons were likely to be sent to war zones, as we are much needed to care for the victims of violence. I volunteered that I had studied 2 Slavic languages, so had a start on communicating with patients in Bosnia. It turned out that I didn't go. Instead, I started to work at an inner city hospital, where I saw victims of a different kind of war.

Today, I noticed two articles about an event last October 3, when US airstrikes targeted the MSF hospital in Kunduz: http://www.msf.org.uk/article/kunduz-what-was-lost-a-doctor-s-story
https://medium.com/the-development-set/i-screamed-as-wires-pinned-me-to-the-ground-dc105d1d761a#.d3n7bpjxc

The hospital was one that provided care to the northeastern region of Afghanistan. It has not yet reopened. It served all, civilians and combatants. But, it did not allow any weapons on its campus.

Clearly, patients and those caring for them are not engaged in war. Hence, it should have had protection under the rules of war. Yet, it was repeatedly attacked on October 3, despite having announced its coordinates. So, at some level, a mistake was made. Over time, more facts will come out. But, we do need to remember the victims, those who chose to risk their lives to care for others. We need to thank them for their service.