Greenwald asks, “Can we do better?”

That was one of the questions posed by SPP Visiting Professor Jon Greenwald during a workshop organized by the Budapest Centre for the International Prevention of Genocide and Mass Atrocities in cooperation with Central European University (CEU), the Visegrad Fund, and the Milan Šimečka Foundation. The workshop on the role of education in preventing atrocity crimes took place at CEU on November 19.

In his remarks, Greenwald, who is spending this fall at SPP's Center for Conflict, Negotiation and Recovery (CCNR), reflected on the events that have taken place since the "peaceful revolution in East Germany and the concurrent sea changes throughout Eastern Europe." He noted that although there were good reasons to be hopeful 25 years ago, there were also signs "that dark forces remained in the world."

Greenwald touched briefly on the extensive evidence of those dark forces—in Srebrenica, Rwanda, Sudan, the Central African Republic, and in the Middle East—before asking, "Can we do better?" He answered his own question by saying, "We certainly must try."

Greenwald went on to say that to be effective, education had to be positive and forward looking, and that it should teach that R2P (the responsibility to protect) "is not an excuse or cover for big powers to force their will on weaker ones," but is instead "a responsibility that nations and peoples share in their own best, most practical, and common interest."

During the course of the day-long workshop, government officials, representatives of international organizations, academics, and human rights activists explored what could and should be done to educate young people to prevent future mass atrocities.

Professor of Practice and CCNR Director Robert Templer commented that preventing future atrocities was one of the topics that CCNR tackles in many of its activities, including the Lemkin Reunion that it organized in October 2014. It was also on the agenda last May when CCNR partnered with the Budapest Centre, the Nansen Center for Peace and Dialogue, and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung to organize "Prevention of Mass Atrocities in Practice: Difficult Dialogues."

Photo credit: Budapest Centre