It\’s 8 p.m. on a Wednesday, and I\’m at the studios of KIRN — a Persian-language AM radio station on Barham Boulevard near Universal Studios. I\’m a guest on a program called \”Live From Hollywood.\”
Amnesia of the past foreshadows amnesia of the future. Forget yesterday\’s tragedy and the threat to tomorrow is denied. Forget the first genocide of the 20th century — the murder of 1.5 million Armenians in 1915 — and the memory and atrocities of the first genocide of the 21st century in Darfur turn invisible, and the world response is muted.
The responsibility for transmitting the survivors\’ legacy of remembrance into the future must now increasingly shift to us — their children and grandchildren.
They say that familiarity breeds contempt, but I\’m thinking that when you meet so many strangers in so short a time, familiarity might just breed comfort. You see a guy\’s picture 20 times, you begin to feel you know him. Maybe the first time he wrote to you, you weren\’t sure about him — maybe he even creeped you out — but a year or two later he practically seems like family (possibly that family member you want to avoid, but family nonetheless).
I really wanted to reach out to my uncle to wish him a happy birthday, but I didn\’t have his phone number or his address. If I did, I\’d certainly call him or visit him, and certainly I would have mailed him a card. To be honest, I am embarrassed to admit this, but I actually don\’t know where he really is now, and perhaps you could help me find him.
My senior students suffer from short-term memory loss, a condition less severe than Alzheimer\’s and dementia but nonetheless frightening. They can recall exact moments from decades past, but in the present, from one moment to the next, many don\’t remember who or where they are. Sort of like elected officials.
As a child, Joseph Lelyveld\’s parents called him \”memory boy.\”
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