60 years from the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp. Lots of stuff about this in the web, but I am bothered by the ease by how world leaders, who themselves many have started bloody conflicts and have done little to stop other conflicts, can come to Auschwitz and start preaching how awful the Holocaust was and how we must never again allow such things to happen and how sorry they are and how they and their countries are ready to accept their guilt etc. Inaction for today´s victims, praise for those that have lain dead for 60 years. As they say, words are cheap.

They should start by ending the many conflicts that are raging around the world today. I couldn´t imagine a better way to commemorate the memory of the people killed in Auschwitz than saving the lives of people that can still be saved. In Aceh, in Chechnya, in the DR of Congo, in Darfur, in Iraq, in Palestine etc. These world leaders could bring justice and peace to places like Western Sahara and Palestine tomorrow if they would want to, and could do much to promote peace in such messy places like DR of Congo, where maybe over 6 million people have died in the last 7 years of fighting. Imagine that - 6 million people. And the world is obsessed with terrorists, that have killed thousands of people... But no.

It´s easier to be apolegetic and speak poetically about crimes that happened 60 years ago than to do something to help the victims of today. Certainly the victims of Auschwitz deserve to be remembered, but the thing is, there is nothing we can do to help those that are dead. We can only help those that are still alive and can be saved. In a world where there is an ongoing genocide - not an industrial genocide which the Holocaust is usually seen to be, somewhat wrongly when it comes to parts of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union - that claims more and more lives, it´s something of a travesty to speak those noble words in Oswieczim and then to do nothing in Darfur.