Many of us have felt a great lifting of spirit over the last year as we've watched freedom breaking out and expanding in the Soviet Union and throughout Eastern Europe. And we've assumed that democratic societies with democratic laws and institutions would inevitably follow. But people who remember when colonies all over world won independence from their colonial masters know that's not necessarily how things work.
At that time, there was a general belief in the U.S. that, when colonies gained their freedom and became independent nations, they'd develop institutions that would allow them to resolve differences among groups in peaceful and democratic ways. We were wrong. Decades later, democratic rule has yet to be established in most of these countries, and conflicts are still resolved by oppression, persecution and assassination instead of discussion. Now, unfortunately, there are signs that Eastern Europe could be heading the same way.
When the new Bulgarian government decided to repeal the repressive policies of communist hardliner Todor Zhivkov toward Bulgaria's ethnic Turks, ethnic Bulgarians rioted to have these policies restored. Not long after Nicolae Ceausescu was overthrown in Romania, pictures of Romanians beating ethnic Hungarians appeared on television all over the world. And we've seen the deaths resulting from the continuing ethnic strife between Azeris and Armenians in Azerbaijan.
The greater freedom the press now enjoys in many countries also means the people who are racist and anti-Semitic are once again free to peddle their wares. So Jews, who suffered repression under the old Soviet regime, are coming to fear massive persecution and violence under the new. And as they line up to leave the Soviet Union, many find their planes are cancelled because of Palestinian threats to shoot them down.
In other words, the possibilities for self-determination in Eastern Europe do not lead inevitably toward societies where diversity is accepted -- even valued -- and where the liberty and equality of every group is safeguarded. The inhumanity and hatred of one group toward another, of which the Holocaust was the pinnacle, seems as powerful a force as ever.
So in addition to supporting the aspirations for national independence in these countries, we should assist the growth of democratic laws and institutions. But we should also be mindful that democratic laws and institutions are not enough, and that we ourselves must continue confronting inhumanity and hatred if we are to escape its effects. We have to stare evil in the face, and one of the best ways of doing that is to study that tremendous eruption of evil into history, the Holocaust.
The idea that education is a civilizing force that teaches human beings to live in harmony is nothing new. We have a long tradition in the West holding that people who read great works of literature, who listened to music, who enjoyed painting and sculpture would be civilized and humane. The Holocaust destroyed that illusion. The Germans were among the most educated and cultivated people in the world, but as we all know, Nazis who presided over death camps during the day sat down in the evening to read Goethe. Being cultivated does not mean you will deal justly with others, and teaching our children about the greatest accomplishments of the human spirit does not tell them what they need to know about the underside of humanity.
For a number of years after World War II, knowledge of the Holocaust was dim. Many people who did know about it regarded the genocide of the Jews as a historical aberration that had nothing to do with them. But recently interest has grown, and in some schools the Holocaust is a significant subject of study. It's impossible to tell how many students are currently learning about the Holocaust, but over the past five years, the Holocaust and Jewish Resistance Summer Fellowship Program, sponsored by the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors, the American Federation of Teachers and the Jewish Labor Committee, has sent 200 teachers from 32 states to meet and study with Holocaust survivors in Israel. According to Vladka Meed, the founder of the program and a Holocaust survivor, these teachers reach about 40,000 students each year.
The lessons the Holocaust teaches are political and moral. Students learning about how European Jews were stripped of their civil rights and liberties and carried off like cattle to slave and die in concentration camps learn how fragile these rights can be -- how easily they can be lost when democratic institutions fail to protect a minority against the unjust actions of the majority.
These are lessons children, here and elsewhere, need to learn if they are to deal justly with others. The countries struggling with their new freedom can learn from the Holocaust, too. A country's independence and self-determination are tremendously important, but purchasing them at the expense of minority groups is an evil bargain and the first step towards devaluing the freedom of all citizens.