“Genocide: A Campus-Wide Dialogue” has raised approximately $300 after only two days.
“While the number of people has, unfortunately, been less than we hoped for, the amount of money that people have already donated has exceeded my expectations,” senior Kelsey Fox said.
The International Club is hosting the event to both increase understanding of genocide and raise money for the Kigali Memorial Centre in Rwanda. The Centre works to bury bodies found in mass graves and raise awareness in Rwanda, where the atrocities occurred in 1994.
Fox said that $20 donated to the Centre allows one student to attend a peace-building program and $140 will enable an entire class to attend the program and receive a lunch.
“We hope to raise $2,000 and encourage people to continue bidding in the auction,” Fox said.
Former ambassador to Rwanda and Visiting Professor of Politics David Rawson spoke on Wednesday about the atrocities of the Rwandan genocide. In the 100-day genocide, he said, more than 800,000 were slaughtered.
“We wanted to start the week by presenting the cold, hard facts and he did that well,” Fox said. “It set [Professor of History] Birzer up excellently to present the philosophical implications of genocide.”
Sophomore Martha Ekdahl said she appreciated Rawson’s ability to answer questions that might not be in history books, like how former President Bill Clinton reacted to the genocide.
“[Dr. Rawson] invoked his experience. He was there. He saw things happen. He also had an ear for what was going on in Washington,” Ekdahl said.
Birzer, in his Tuesday lecture, said he worried that the horrors of the 20th century are simply a transition into a more violent lifestyle.
“The single most important, primary, and fundamental fact of the 20th century is murder, murder by the state,” Birzer said. “Every continent except Antarctica and Australia has experienced genocide of some sort.”
He reminded attendees that Hitler rose to power legally, democratically and constitutionally. He also urged students to remind policymakers about the nature of man and the effects of technology.
“Dr. Brizer’s talk explained what [genocide] meant in the entirety of the 20th century, and how new and devastating genocide is,” Ekdahl said.
The week-long series will continue with a lecture from former Reagan aide Barbara Elliott and a roundtable with Rawson and Elliot.
Anyone interested in placing bids on silent auction items can do so before and after the lectures in Phillips Auditorium on Thursday and Friday and from Saturday morning until Sunday at 1:45 p.m. in the Grewcock Student Union.
