Author and reporter Samantha Powers will speak at The University of Memphis Thursday about genocide and the United States’ stance on it. The lecture will begin at 7:30 p.m. in room 136 of the Fogelman Executive Center. U of M President Dr. Shirley Raines is scheduled to introduce Powers.
Two years after Yugoslavia began to break up, Powers became a foreign correspondent in the Balkans for The U.S. News and World Report. She watched and reported as groups such as the Serbians launched attacks against civilians in Bosnia. Sarajevo was under siege for over 1,000 days, and civilians there were captured, sent to concentration camps, raped and killed.
According to Powers, for years, she and other international correspondents witnessed the horror of genocide while the world made no effort to intervene.
Powers will speak about human rights and what she believes is the United States’ lack of response to genocide in the 20th century. “Go with an open mind,” said history professor Jonathan Judaken. “She doesn’t have an ax to grind. If you think genocide is a significant issue that a major world power should intervene in, at the very least you should know the record.”
Powers’ book, “A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide,” is the record, Judaken said. The book is an entire history of genocide in the 20th century and the United States’ response to it.
While there were a few people who spoke out and tried to rally the country to make a stand, for the most part, the United States was a nation of bystanders, according to Powers. She tells the story through the few “up-standers,” as she calls them.
“When an entire group of people are targeted for extermination because of religious, ethnical or political beliefs, should the U.S. government intervene?” Judaken asks.
Powers’ book raises interest in areas of history, politics, humanities and criminology and others.
In the criminology department, genocide is called the “ultimate crime,” professor Margaret Vandiver said. In law enforcement, genocide raises issues of when and how to intervene internationally, while respecting the sovereignty of nations and the right of everyone to life. These are issues Powers addresses in her book.
“She is a very important and original thinker on one of the most crucial issues of the time,” Vandiver said.
Barbara Ching, director of the Marcus W. Orr Center for the Humanities, added that the genocide Powers has witnessed was within the last ten years.
“It is interesting and shocking to hear about it as current events, not as a part of history,” she said.
Powers’ presentation asks audiences to think deeply about policies during times of genocide, recognize opportunities to stop before genocide occurs and learn how ordinary people can take a stand, said Rachel Shankman, the director of Facing History and Ourselves, a sponsoring organization.
