Making the same mistakes over again

I was looking through some of my photos from previous trips abroad earlier on and found a few which sparked some interesting thoughts. They were from Auschwitz, and if you have never been then it is somewhere you must go. It is a haunting place and a frightening reminder of what humanity can do to itself. Everyone has to visit, for no other reason than to make sure the terrible events are not forgotten. But it is not the first time a systematic genocide has taken place, nor indeed was it the last. 

George Santayana once said, "Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it", yet humanity does not heed his warning. And that may be the greatest crime of them all, we have such short memories and a terrible sense of responsibility. War, genocide and mass murder don't happen naturally - they can only happen due to the actions (and sometimes inaction) of human beings. We, as a species, are in control yet we do not seem to realise that fact.

We refuse to learn the lessons of the past, we repeat the same mistakes over and over again. The cycle simply continues from one conflict to the next, each humanitarian crisis follows the last and someone somewhere is always waging war. Human beings cannot help ourselves it seems, we always want what we cannot have and we seem unable to stop this happening!

Why do we let this happen? What is it in the human psyche that seemingly condemns us to an inability to learn from our mistakes. There is a line in Eric Bogle's emotional song about the Gallipoli Campaign during World War I where he describes a lull in the fighting. "We buried our dead and the Turks buried there's. Then we started all over again." 

It perfectly sums up the unbelievable stupidity of it all. What is the point of it all? There is seemingly no end, no respite from the horrors of how human beings treat each other. We have everything we need on this planet to live in peace, harmony and safety. Yet we don't. We exterminate each other and we NEVER LEARN. I do not know how to change it, but we cannot continue like this. Somehow, soon, humans must begin to learn from our mistakes, lest we be condemned to repeat them again.

I decided against the usual daily "fun and games" on the blog today. Instead I'll leave you with the first half of the quote on the plaque at Auschwitz. 

"For ever let this place be a cry of despair and a warning to humanity".

Till tomorrow,

DT