And topics list on the upper right side of the page. Ian burumoa examines after world war ii and looks at the transformative nature of the war from the displacement of people in the better warn cities in europe and japan to the creation of the United Nations and the continued rise of communis commn the soviet union and china. This is about one hour and 15 minutes. Ian buruma the henry r. Luce professor of human rights and journalism was educated. Hes won several awards for his work among them the International Prize and the shore and steamed journalism award. The publication he writes for and within new york review of books, new yorker, New York Times and the guardian, which the guardian recently published a highly learned and highly entertaining review of the British Museum exhibition sex and pleasure in japanese art. Among the previous books are really jenny and democracy on three continents, murder in amsterdam will europe and tolerance and inventing japan 1863 to 1964. In the year zero most of which he wrote while he was a fellow at the center in 2011 and 2012 to the serious fellow that he was so productive he has a brilliant portrayal of the world emerging from the devastation and unspeakable horrors. Skeptical about the idea that we can learn much from history, he nonetheless wanted to know the end including his own father when he went through. He helps me make sense of myself and in need all of our lives in the long dark shadow of what came before. They call cold war zero magnificent in its modesty and the Financial Times describes it as elegant, humane and luminous. Mark in a most who was honored as the New York Public Library lying and has published more than 25 books including several collections of stories and many novels among them many, times aero and most recently the state of england. He received the james tait black memorial prize for his experience and was named one of the 50 greatest british writers since 1945 by the london times in 2008, 1945 seems to be the theme tonight. We are fortunate to be able to listen in on a conversation between the two extraordinarily gifted fighters who are often friends. They will talk about 45 minutes and take a few questions from the audience. There are microphones on both sides please come up to the microphone rather than try to speak from your chair. And then they will sign books. So please when they are speaking with him get off to the table to sign. Please welcome speak 11 and mark ten amos ian buruma and amos. [applause] something to be said. And of course this is a term in this book. It is amazing organizing a great deal of material. The aftermath of the war is determined by the war itself and its shaped by events that preceded it. Apart from being uniquely devastating in the 55 million dead and many ruins and all the devastation that we know of, it looks increasingly weird and grotesque from some aspects of the war ended wasnt blundered into. There was one man, the japanese experience is slightly different but it can be almost considered separately that one. The only time hitler ever made me smile is i think it was just before the invasion of poland which set the war in motion questioned by the general case i havent got any nerves about this. He was set that her since 1980. The fact that this one man flipped germany, the most, the best educated country on earth, the best educated country that there had ever been into this exploration of the best deal, which is what happened but it was still remarkable, and thouge weirdness of much of the aftermath is sort of inherent. Its the great crux that no one can ask. It was before they went like land to the slaughter. You could click that a bit and say they went like lambs to the slaughter house and got to work you have george urban connections in feeling for germany. And i think that he did exceptionally well because of the connection with england and america and germany and crucially in japan. I dont think that it helps necessarily to know germany well or japan while to explain the human propensity for extreme violence. I think that we shar shared thet of horrified fascination with white people are capable of doing terrible things. I dont think there are people who say that you could explain this because they have and the extermination that they meant how deep it goes from hitler or the japanese that are uniquely barbaric and cruel. I dont belief that for a minute. And i think that your question is a good one. How is it that one of the most highly educated and civilized countries in europe produced so much extraordinary lives because yes it was hitler the planet it, that he couldnt have done it on his own. He had a very active participation. And i think hitler is one example and has the most extreme example in modern history that there are others on a smaller scale of the political regime that deliberately exploit peoples basic instincts and i think the idea that there is a torture in all of this is probably not true either, not all of it would make good talks. But if it is true that the authorities at the government give people license to do whatever they like with other human beings, you will find a large number, and one cant put particular numbered of this, but you will find an efficient number of people who will be there and at least two torture and killing. Even if people have lived perfectly happy with one another before that command again people often say for example in the balkan war people explain the environment again. They should find ways at a certain time. I dont think that the hatred even though there are all kind of mass but keep them coming back and manipulated by politicians and leaders and so on in order to put people up to violence. But i dont think there is such a thing as the smoldering hatred that suddenly burst spontaneously. Its always orchestrated. And i think that one of the best examples of this in my book in 1945 is what happened particularly in czechoslovakia or poland where the large german populations whose family has lived there for centuries and suddenly they opposed that they were given license by their own leaders and given away by the allies that did nothing to stop it. They have to be expelled and do your worst and people did for several months. Now, german nationalists like to claim that what happened in poland and czechoslovakia and with the germans and germany suffered from the soviet red army which was also hard on this in terms of rate and killing and torture and so on this was just as bad as what the germans did to others in the subject of the roverelative sizing not to rewre but to put in a different complexion on these. It was said an in his review in the New York Times that what you did and doing the buck was deheroize and that goes along the lines of the allied bombing, dressed being that paradigm and at the turn of germany that hes come to people and ethnic german half a million dead, that is a bit more. We agreed to return the russian pow to certain enslavement. And at the way that weve revived colonialism and saying that the resistance in france particularly was not that. The truth was Something Like collaboration. But i find myself very much reacting against that sort of in a visceral way. And there is no equivalent. One should remember that as churchill cites the war and the interesting concept that i saw raised is that they get old and the bigger they are, the faster the age. Six years and a lots of patience is my way of putting it. But he said while we created the United Nations and the european community. But we destroyed their. That was the achievement. It was a necessary achievement, of course. And why take away the heroism of that and i think the bleak convolution that one can draw is that very often the heroes can click turn into villains. The soviet red army fought in the sacrifices of the soviet soldiers for extraordinary and they fought like lions and it was a necessary fight and with them they wouldnt have tv did hitler, but they behave like beasts often when they invaded the germany. Likewise, that senator when a woman is raped she switches off the procreation of all mechanisms yes, indeed. The soviets were not the only ones who were guilty. Because of the Japanese Occupation of the countries in Southeast Asia and so on, but in the country the local populations certainly didnt want to go back to the state where the dutch and the french and the british system extent have the illusion they could go back to the prewar and take back the colonies. Now im at the nationalists in the countries had often collaborated with the japanese, quite understandably because they saw that as their chance to liberate themselves from the european colonial masters. But after the war in europe, these nationalists were depicted as collaborators. So, who was sent to algeria and the Dutch East Indies and other places to put down the anticolonial rebellion with atrocious force people that fought in the resistance against the knots easing to so my point is that Human Behavior including the atrocity and extreme violence is not a matter of character or if culture but its a matter of circumstances if the people that behave like heroes in certain circumstances can behave like animals and others. That finding if you find you have someone completely at your mercy, the fraud comes next is torture. We should make note in general life balance declined and once we are back at the conclusion that violence has declined, continuing the decline and one very important notion that it took a lot of reestablishing itself after you had the monopoly of the violence and that must be the state. This is the sounding idea of what makes the nationstate. Not in this country. Know ive always thought that americans just havent accepted the preset and they want to be able to stand up to the u. S. Army if things should get tyrannical in the white house. But there have been the police going back centuries and that gathering force. Also you may interested in the novel that made a big differen difference. He doesnt like the word empathy. He said he heard a mother screaming at one of her two children screaming show some empathy. The question is what the novel really promoted. And easing that this is a erratic . Know, i dont think so. And i dont think high culture makes us into better human beings. This is one of George Steiners great hobby horses how is it that they can play schuman absolutely beautifully and the next day go to work i dont think that it is all that mysterious, nor do i think that Higher Education makes it into more. I really do think it is a question of, as i said, of circumstances. And i suppose if you think of the more recent war is a dilemma because if you think about the monopoly of the force, Saddam Hussein certainly monopolized the force in his state and a brutal manner it was a state in which torture was widespread and people were gassed. He was a torturer. He monopolized trade one could argue there are things people fear more than a brutal dictatorship and its anarchy in which its every man for himself and chaos, which we see to some extent in libya now and to some extent iraq and that isnt well that means things would have been better if we left Saddam Hussein alone, that it is something that people should think about a little bit more before they casually say while, we as americans it is our duty to fight the dictatorship and bring freedom and liberty for us to do so. They had ubiquitous torture and care for. It is a dictatorial order for most people and is probably still to be preferred for the violent anarchy. And violent anarchy in many ways you have until 1945 until the order was reimposed. Ideology. The period 1940 to 1945 is the second war. But there was no religion on the face of it and ideology is obviously religion was like heroin and ideology was like methadone. [laughter] it brings you tumbling down but not a bit of its 100 million for communism and fascism. Hes not seen for centuries because of ideology. It isnt always so clear. At its most violent phases theres not a huge distinction between religion and ideology because it was also the religious cult in which people could be tortured to death for trading on a speaker with his image on it and that his religion at its worst. It has nothing to do. It is a cult. If you think the group overemphasizes and is determinative of young peoples behavior throughout their life, the great study of that is policed reserve battalion 101 where its established the killing falls that went off behind. They kill women and children and then no one ever got punished for speaking chancellor. They were not sent they would be transferred and all that you might have in the meantime is a bit of jostling and anyone being punished for requesting the chancellor. Yet they would kill women and children all day every day. There was a sort of wear and tear. After a while, the killing is a strain and even it was considered to be more efficient to have gas chambers in them and people that operate at the gas chambers were not usually germans either it was left up to the victims to do that, so its not necessarily the case. While we are on this subject ive often thought that the reason why the violence in the civil war, and again to come back to the ethnic germans, the reason why they are so particularly brutal and it goes togetheto get a repudiation thet famous instant was when he set up on i cant remember now, his son. You see it over and over, people who set upon their neighbors. It wasnt enough to kill people. It have to go it was only preceded by humiliation of some grotesque kind. And i think that this is simply speculation. I think one of the reasons is that it isnt easy for one human being to murder another human being especially if they identify them with their neighbors if they look like you and so forth and it makes it easier if you reduce your victims to the status of an animal, some abject creature crawling around in the mud then you are killing an animal and no one very human being which is what you have to reduce people to that state. Its why the victims were called cockroaches on the radio. Its easier to call people cockroaches. How they terrorists speak to anyone that still has sympathy at all. And what these people left to themselves, no selfrespect, no common decency, etc. , that is the wave h. Eight their childr children. And they are in possession of what you think of them and. If you i would be in german and they were machinegunning mental patients and people had gone mad killing people in the east and i thought something wasnt quite right in germany. But on the same experience in 45 after, the Russian Troops often teenagers rated hospitals and great people sometimes wonder if on their death beds. When you write about violence there is the danger of the pornography and we are frightened of it and therefore fascinated but one always has to be a bit careful that you dont start to rustle in the description of it because there is a pornographic element of it and how one guards against it that we have no answer to it. Its a factor. They call it the literary lecturing, unwelcome rich human experience. And its close to sex. Thats why there is a pornographic element. People read about violence with a fascination of it entirely unrelated to the fascination about reading about sex. Many of [inaudible] but in line with what pinkers argument one might note there was a standing ovation in congress when he got his sentence commuted and it was over the phone called the battle hymn that was on top of the charts. I think it explains a little bit what happened in world war ii and afterwards as well and its a particular situation where soldiers are in a foreign country. They dont understand the language. They are often country boys and you can be shot at by anybody. The distinction being guerrilla fighters and soldiers and so on. It almost doesnt exist. You have no idea whos going to be shooting at you. There is than a great temptation to be triggerhappy and just shoot at groups and shoot them all and i think i dont think me lai was an act of necessarily despite the directions of calculated savingn come out of fear. They have taken many they have taken a lot of losses. Again its the dehumanization of the enemy. Quote uncouth unquote kooks in a remote village to a lot of those fearful provincial soldiers from the Rural America who would not have seemed to be entirely human. I would just like to read a sentence. What this book does so well is capture the amazing complexity and all the different theaters in different situations. And how ramified it all was. This is talking about yugoslavia the parties in several wars going on at the same time slot along ethnic political and religious rights. Versus muslim serbians versus communist versus slovenian communist. It sounds to me like syria. But i mean, look at greece and indonesia. Churchill again said they rule through villages and even after they have done that they dont win. Revolutionary violence. Right, what wars do justice dictatorships often do in foreign occupations is they deliberately manipulate resentments, divisions and so on that existence societies anyway. In france the vichy regime would have never come to power if it would have been for the German Occupation. Increase again the antagonist between the left and the right goes back to prewar period when they had the rightwing dictatorship and the leftwing opponents often were locked up in jail. The germans occupy greece. The resistance comes from the left often communist. The old card become collaborators with the germans and that goes on after the war. And so greece ended up in a brutal civil war and it couldve easily become a civil war and france was simmering and belgiug flemish nationalists were deliberately inflamed by the German Occupation against the frenchspeaking will lose. There was no monarch to keep things together because he was trying to make a deal with the germans and so on so what have that are the war than, its not that you top of the dictator or bring the brutal enemy to heal. In some ways the problems go on and the problems which have been made worse by war. How do you contain not . Having sort of the national figure, a king or a queen or degaulle in the case of brands who has the legitimacy to sort of patch things up and to go at it very deliberately by talking about everybody being antigerman and now its time to hold together again as though it hadnt happened but it was probably necessary thing to do because otherwise the country would have been torn apart. The other reason there were several wars starting with the soviets in western eyes clearly divi