“When crimes begin to pile up they become invisible. When sufferings become unendurable the cries are no longer heard, The cries, too, fall like rain in summer”
— Bertolt Brecht, Selected Poems
The term “genocide” has been defined by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) in the following manner: “An internationally recognized crime where acts are committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.” Having visited that museum several years ago in Washington, D.C., I am still overcome by the gross acts of brutality and inhumanity that were committed against European Jews by Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime during the turbulent years of World War II. And, before going to view the exhibits at the museum, I had seen a plethora of reading materials, with very graphic images, along with audio-video historical documentaries, which dealt with the atrocities committed against the Jews.
This was before the advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI), a powerful tool which was recently developed, a technological marvel with so much potential for good in the world, but which has been often misused to utterly mislead and to artfully confuse scientific data and historical facts for many unsuspecting individuals in the various societies of the world.
Against the backdrop of the preponderance of evidence with respect to the history of the Jewish Holocaust, which took place in Europe, I never forgot how people denied — and continue to do so today — that it ever took place. The most notable Jewish Holocaust denier for me was the then Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. It was reported that he had issued several statements claiming that the Holocaust was “a myth” and “a lie”. His words were publicly repudiated by world leaders from many countries including the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and others, including Iranian academics and expatriates.
Not only are there holocaust deniers elsewhere in the world, but right here in America. Mr. David Dukes, a notable white racist, is one such example. He had attended a global conference devoted to Holocaust denial and anti-Zionism that was convened in Tehran by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2006. There has been a movement which emerged towards Holocaust denialism in the United States in the years which followed immediately after the war.
All that being said, the Jewish Holocaust is not the only act of genocide that has been denied and continues to be denied by those in the American populace, but, also, by the current Administration as well. It seems to me that acts of genocide in the world are being treated as servings in a buffet restaurant which can be ignored or acknowledged based upon one’s taste. The focus does not seem to be rooted, necessarily, in the facts or in the urgency of the various situations when gratuitous murder is committed wholesale, but in the expediency of political agendas. And this is not something that is new for the U.S. Federal government.
The slaughter of the Native American people is something that is well known and that has been well documented. Some within the Government, over the years, have tried to ignore or have tried to downplay it. In fact, all the treaties which have been made with the Native Americans by the Federal Government, which have all been broken by the Government, speak of the mindset of our leaders towards the very low esteem in which they are held.
The slaughter, the oppression and the debasement of African Americans for centuries is another case in point, which is also an ugly blotch upon the fabric of American society. The current attempts to eliminate hundreds of years of that experience from our collective consciousness also speaks volumes. It is an attempt of a genocide of culture on top of that which can be seen through the broken bodies from lynching. The current Administration, like previous Administrations, sees what it wants to see and what it wants us to see.
On February 28, 2025, the president and vice-president of the United States held a highly contentious meeting with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, which was televised live in the Oval Office. It was to discuss the continued U.S. support for Ukraine in repelling the ongoing invasion by Russia, and which was expected to conclude with the signing of the Ukraine-United States Mineral Resources Agreement. But the meeting ended abruptly without a clear resolution. During the last few minutes of the discussion, the American president and vice-president criticized Mr. Zelenskyy, at times drowning out his voice. Media outlets described it as an unprecedented public confrontation between an American president and a foreign head of state.
The behaviour of our leaders greatly embarrassed the American people on the international stage. The Administration, which has made it clear that it prefers our enemy, Putin’s Russia, to the Ukraine in the conflict, unlike the previous Biden Administration, made no mention nor did it show any care for the genocide as it is being committed by Russia against the Ukrainians. As of May 2025, the attacks had resulted in the United Nations-documented deaths of between 13,000 and an estimated 40,000 civilians. But, for the current Administration, “Mum’s the word”.
On October 7, 2023, Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups launched coordinated armed attacks from Gaza into southern Israel, which was the first invasion of Israeli territory since the Arab-Israel War which was waged in 1948. The armed incursion, which coincided with the Jewish religious holiday known as Simchat Torah, initiated the ongoing war in Gaza. A total of 1,195 people were killed, which included 736 Israeli civilians (including 36 children), 79 foreign nationals, and 379 members of the security forces. Israeli soldiers and civilians were taken hostage and there were reports of dozens of incidents of rape and sexual assault, but Hamas officials denied the involvement of their fighters.
The governments of 44 countries denounced the attack and described it as terrorism, while some Arab and Muslim-majority countries blamed Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories as the root cause of the attack. That horrific attack is not in dispute. The Biden Administration provided the Israeli Government with support in moral and tangible ways since the attack. Much has been said about the atrocities committed by Hamas, and rightly so. But, in a visit to the White House by the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in April 2025, which was broadcast on the national networks, with a reception that was markedly different from that of Mr. Zelenskyy’s, no mention was ever made of the over 53,528 Palestinians — including women, children and the elderly, a staggering number — who have been brutally slaughtered by the Israel Defence Force. The number continues to grow as this op-ed is being written. And yet — “Mum’s the word”.
A few days ago, the president of the Republic of South Africa received a chilly reception at the White House, quite similar to the reception of the Ukrainian president, due to false information about genocide of white people in that country. Such a falsehood was promulgated in part by South African billionaire Mr. Elon Musk, whose forbears have had a long history of committing acts of kidnapping, of human trafficking, of slavery and of genocide against Black people, even before the advent of the infamous racist Apartheid system. The following is an excerpt of an article published on May 22, 2025, by CNN about that fateful meeting at the White House:
“South African President Cyril Ramaphosa was the latest leader to become a MAGA prop Wednesday, as Trump lectured him on false claims that White South African farmers are the victims of a genocide.
Foreign leaders now enter the hallowed lair of the US president — who runs press conferences like they’re WWE cage matches — at their peril. Trump’s dressings-down are a metaphor for a US foreign policy that is erratic, politicized and awash in conspiracy theories. As Ukraine and Jordan also found out, the more vulnerable a country, the more hostile a reception they tend to get.”
The Administration had, recently, admitted a group of about 50 Afrikaners into the country who were granted refugee status due to alleged genocide committed against whites in South Africa by Blacks, a falsehood, as was stated before, that was pushed, in part, by Mr. Musk. And yet, as the South African president was being roasted over the fire pit that was prepared for him over flames that were lit and fanned by white racist conspiracy theories nobody in the White House seemed to recall the horrors that the forebears of those very “political refugees” and of Mr. Musk had foisted upon Blacks for centuries.
I have wondered how Blacks in South Africa have managed to be so forgiving of the Afrikaners. Everyone present, including the White House press core, seemed to have experienced a deplorable amnesia of history. As with the Blacks in South Africa, Ukrainian blood and Palestinian blood are of little value to this current Administration, in their quest to “Make America great again”. And, once more — “Mum’s the word.”
The current Administration would be wise to heed the following words of the American journalist, Nicholas Kristof,
“You will be judged in years to come by how you responded to genocide on your watch.”
