Conversations With Elie Wiesel - Hardcover

Wiesel, Elie; Heffner, Richard D.; Vinciguerra, Thomas J.

 
9780805241921: Conversations With Elie Wiesel
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0805241922 ISBN 13: 9780805241921
Verlag: Schocken Books, 2001

Inhaltsangabe

The Nobel Peace Prize-winner reflects on a variety of subjects, including the moral responsibility of governments and individuals, the role of the state, capital punishment, and mercy killing.

Die Inhaltsangabe kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

<b>Elie Wiesel</b> was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986. The author of more than forty internationally acclaimed works of fiction and nonfiction, Wiesel is Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities and University Professor at Boston University. He lives in New York City.<br><br><b>Richard D. Heffner</b> is University Professor of Communications and Public Policy at Rutgers University and the producer and moderator of the weekly public television series “The Open Mind.” His books include<i> A Documentary History of the United States</i>. He lives in New York City.

Aus dem Klappentext

sations with Elie Wiesel</b> is a far-ranging dialogue with the Nobel Peace Prize-winner on the major issues of our time and on life’s timeless questions.<br><br>In open and lively responses to the probing questions and provocative comments of Richard D. Heffner―American historian, noted public television moderator/producer, and Rutgers University professor―Elie Wiesel covers fascinating and often perilous political and spiritual ground, expounding on issues global and local, individual and universal, often drawing anecdotally on his own life experience.<br><br>We hear from Wiesel on subjects that include the moral responsibility of both individuals and governments; the role of the state in our lives; the anatomy of hate; the threat of technology; religion, politics, and tolerance; nationalism; capital punishment, compassion, and mercy; and the essential role of historical memory. <br><br>These conversations present a valuable and thought-provoking distillation o

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

one

Am I My Brother's Keeper? Elie, this is a question that perhaps is not understood too well by a good many people in our time. What does it mean to you?

It is a question that Cain asked of God, having killed Abel: "Am I my brother's keeper?" And the answer, of course, is, we are all our brothers keepers. Why? Either we see in each other brothers, or we live in a world of strangers. I believe that there are no strangers in God's creation. There are no strangers in a world that becomes smaller and smaller. Today I know right away when something happens, whatever happens, anywhere in the world. So there is no excuse for us not to be involved in these problems. A century ago, by the time the news of a war reached another place, the war was over. Now people die and the pictures of their dying are offered to you and to me while we are having dinner. Since I know, how can I not transform that knowledge into responsibility? So the key word is "responsibility." That means I must keep my brother.

Yet it seems that despite the fact that we live in an age of rapid, immediate communications, we know so little about what is happening to our brothers.

We are careless. Somehow life has been cheapened in our own eyes. The sanctity of life, the sacred dimen- sion of every minute of human existence, is gone. The main problem is that there are so many situations that demand our attention. There are so many tragedies that need our involvement. Where do you begin? We know too much. No, let me correct myself. We are informed about too many things. Whether information is transformed into knowledge is a different story, a different question.

But we are in the world of communication. Nothing has caught the fantasy, the imagination, of the world these last years as communication has. So many radio stations, so many television stations, so many publications, so many talk shows. It's always more and more information that is being fed. And I'm glad that these things are happening, because I think people should be informed.

However, let us say that on a given day a tragedy has taken place. For a day we are all glued to the television. Three days later, we are still glued. A week later, another tragedy occurs and then the first tragedy is overshadowed by the next one. I remember when I saw the hungry children of Biafra for the first time. I didn't sleep. I tried everything I could to address the problem--to write articles and call up people and organize activities to send food to those children. But if you had shown those pictures for a whole month, by the second month people would not have been moved by them. What happened to the information there? It is still stored, but yet we don't act upon it, because we are summoned by the current event.

There seems to be almost an inevitability about what you are describing, because extending and perfecting the means of communications is certainly a major thrust of our times.

I would like to be able to say to my students that there are so many things in the world that solicit your attention and your involvement that you can choose any one. I really don't mind where that particular event is taking place. But I would like my students to be fully involved in some event. Today, for instance, they will say, "I go to zone A, and then I go to zone B." But as long as zone A has not been covered fully, as long as it is a human problem, I don't think we can abandon it. All the areas must be covered. I would not want to live in a world today in which a person or a community, because of color, because of religion, because of ethnic origin, or because of social conditions, would feel totally neglected or abandoned. There must be someone who speaks to and for that group, every group.

Is there any question but that we have seen the faces of those who suffer and yet we are not moved sufficiently?

I plead your case: In 1945, all the newspapers and magazines in the United States showed the pictures of the concentration camps. And yet for another five years, displaced persons remained in those camps. How many were allowed to come to America? They were told, "Those who want to go to Palestine, good. All the others, come and we shall give you what you really need most--human warmth"? Furthermore, look at what happened in South Africa. Apartheid was a blasphemy. We saw these white racists killing. I remember images that moved me to anger--images of funeral processions. Whites had killed blacks because they were black. And then the whites disrupted the funerals, killing more black people. That is the limit of endurance, the limit of any tolerance. We should have protested louder. And yet we didn't.

We talk about a world that is, perhaps, too much with us, so much so that there is no time to focus. How do you help your students deal with that?

I mentioned Cain and Abel. Why did Cain kill Abel? It is not because he was jealous. According to the text that we read and comment upon, it was because Cain spoke to Abel, his younger brother, and he told him of his pain, of his abandonment, of his solitude--that God didn't want to accept his offering. In the Bible it's said, "And Cain spoke to Abel." And we don't even know whether Abel listened. There was no dialogue. So the first act, really, among brothers, was a lack of communication.

So what I would teach my students is communication. I believe in dialogue. I believe if people talk, and they talk sincerely, with the same respect that one owes to a close friend or to God, something will come out of that, something good. I would call it presence. I would like my students to be present whenever people need a human presence. I urge very little upon my students, but that is one thing I do. To people I love, I wish I could say, "I will suffer in your place." But I cannot. Nobody can. Nobody should. I can be present, though. And when you suffer, you need a presence.

When you say "communicate," you mean to accept communication, don't you?

To be able to give and to receive at the same time.

Does it seem to you that we're not listening to the world around us, that we're so much involved in our individual pursuits?

Absolutely. I think the noise around us has become deafening. People talk but nobody listens. People aren't afraid of that silence. Have you seen those youngsters and not-so-young people go around in the street with a Walkman on their ears? They don't want to hear anything. They want to hear only their own music. Which is the same music, by the way, that they heard yesterday. It's a kind of repetition which is deafening. People don't want to hear the world. The world is, I think, in need of being heard.

Elie, I find that as I get older and older still, I so often find that I want to shut things out, because I can't focus on what needs to be focused on if I'm listening to everything. That seems to me to be where we began, in a sense.

To me too, of course. So often I want to turn off everything and say, "Look, it's easier to talk about Romeo and Juliet than to talk about what's happening today anywhere in the world." Naturally. Because in that play, there is a text and there is a story. It's a story I can turn in any direction I want, really. You think that Romeo and Juliet is a story of love? It's a story of hate. So whatever subject I discuss, I can always turn it one way or another. It's familiar, graspable. I prefer to discuss Plato, naturally. But we must open our eyes, and--

I don't want to be a devil's advocate here. I understand the subjective need not to feel that I am my brother's keeper, the subjective need to shut out the pain--

Sure. You couldn't take it. There is a need to remember, and it may last only a day or a...

„Über diesen Titel“ kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Verlag
Schocken Books
Erscheinungsdatum
2001
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0805241922
ISBN 13 
9780805241921
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
175
Herausgeber
Vinciguerra Thomas J.
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Nicht verfügbar

Weitere beliebte Ausgaben desselben Titels

9780805211412: Conversations with Elie Wiesel

Vorgestellte Ausgabe

ISBN 10:  0805211411 ISBN 13:  9780805211412
Verlag: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2003
Softcover