192) No centenario da imigracao japonesa, um romance do sofrimento dos primeiros imigrantes

Saga da imigração japonesa
Por Adelto Gonçalves
11/6/2008

SÔBÔ – UMA SAGA DA IMIGRAÇÃO JAPONESA
de Tatsuzô Ishikawa.
Tradução direta do japonês de Maria Fusako Tomimatsu, Monica Setuyo Okamoto e Takao Namekata.
Cotia: Ateliê Editorial, 259 págs., 2008, R$ 36,00.
Site: www.atelie.com.br; E-mail: atelie@atelie.com.br

Há um século, mais exatamente no dia 18 de junho de 1908, o navio Kasato Maru ancorou em frente ao armazém 14 do Porto de Santos, depois de 52 dias de viagem, trazendo a bordo 781 japoneses que compunham 165 famílias. Eram camponeses, carpinteiros, pequenos comerciantes e donos de fabriquetas à beira da falência, que haviam deixado a cidade de Kobe a 28 de abril, dispostos a fugir da miséria em que viviam em seu país, imaginando reconstruir a vida com o trabalho na lavoura.

Para marcar esses cem anos de intercâmbio – que nem sempre foi mantido dentro dos limites do respeito aos direitos humanos, tanto lá como cá –, as autoridades dos dois países programaram uma série de festividades que inclui a visita ao Brasil do príncipe Nahurito, da família real japonesa, a São Paulo e Santos.

Dentro desse espírito de confraternização, acaba de sair o livro Sôbô – Uma Saga da Imigraç ão Japonesa, de Tatsuzô Ishikawa (1905-1985), que conta uma parte significativa dessa história de um século que, nos últimos anos, teve a sua contrapartida com a aventura dos dekasseguis no Japão: hoje, cerca de 30 mil brasileiros descendentes de japoneses, para fugir de uma situação difícil, optaram por trabalhar no Japão em serviços que, normalmente, os japoneses já não querem fazer.

Vivendo em alojamentos e em condições precárias, muitos conseguiram amealhar um pé-de-meia e voltar para o Brasil, onde procuraram abrir um negócio, mas outros retornaram também com muitas queixas do tratamento que receberam. Até porque, apesar do aspecto físico igual, sempre foram considerados estrangeiros.

II

A história de Ishikawa começa em 1930, quando, aos 24 anos, recebeu o convite de um amigo para inscrever-se no programa de imigração para o Brasil. Fez um acordo com a revi sta para a qual trabalhava, comprometendo-se a enviar artigos sobre sua viagem em companhia de uma leva de imigrantes que deixariam Kobe a bordo do navio La Plata Maru.

Ao chegar à hospedaria de imigrantes, em Kobe, Ishikawa depara-se com a miséria de seu povo – trabalhadores que haviam deixado para trás seus lares, embalados pelo sonho do trabalho e melhores condições de vida além-mar. Abalado com o espetáculo triste que vê, toma a decisão de escrever um romance a partir de sua experiência como imigrante.

Mas não teve forças para colocar de imediato no papel o que via. E adiou a decisão por mais alguns anos. Permaneceu no Brasil, trabalhando seis meses numa fazenda no interior do Estado de São Paulo, até que decidiu retornar ao Japão e à atividade literária. E, finalmente, escreveu Sôbô – Uma Saga da Imigração Japonesa, que, em 1935, ganhou o Prêmio Akutagawa de Literatura Japonesa, de grande renome no Japão.

O título, de difícil tradução, traz dois ideogramas: sô remete a sôsei, “povo”, mas também pode significar “cor de capim”, “apressar-se” ou “envelhecer”, acepções que podem estar relacionadas à imagem de um povo desprezado. Já bô comporta os significados “imigrante” e “povo subjugado ou massacrado”.

III

A verdade é que poucos escritores japoneses conseguiram reproduzir com tanta fidelidade o drama das classes baixas japonesas, especialmente o dos trabalhadores rurais. Foi nesse contexto que Ishikawa derrubou convenções literárias, já que até então os demais escritores preocupavam-se apenas em exaltar a família real, a tradição cultural do antigo Japão e, depois, a classe média urbana e seu acendrado individualismo.

Sob a forma de diário, Ishikawa narra a trajetória de imigrantes – dependentes de uma magra ajuda de custo do governo japonês e sujeitos à safadeza de agenciad ores, pois sempre há quem queira lucrar com a desgraça alheia. O relato detalhado da viagem coloca a nu a miséria, a corrupção e a discriminação por detrás dos procedimentos sanitaristas e dos interesses mercantis da época. E cresce à medida que os dramas existenciais dos personagens ganham corpo, ao serem obrigados a conviver com outras famílias, ou mesmo passageiros da primeira classe do navio ou até mesmo com os costumes ocidentais.

São muitos os dramas, desde as doenças que infestam os porões do navio – doenças de pele, beribéri, sarna, piolhos – até a melancolia e a resignação que aumentam com o tédio que têm de suportar por quase dois meses. Eis um trecho do relato de Ishikawa:

“Agora, no espírito dos imigrantes, as fendas começavam a se abrir. Elas eram raras em idosos e casais: era um tipo de solidão que assolava os solteiros. Continuamente começavam a surgir problemas de comportamento moral”.

Em outros momentos, a ignorância cedia lugar a um sopro de consciência social: “Se ainda estivesse em sua terra natal, continuaria sendo um trabalhador rural honesto e virtuoso, que não tinha consciência de nada”.

IV

Tatsuzô Ishikawa nasceu na província de Akita, região norte do Japão, e cursou Letras na Universidade Waseda, em Tóquio, o que indica que não pertencia exatamente à classe social que retratou em Sôbô. Mas não concluiu o curso, preferindo dedicar-se ao jornalismo como repórter e, depois, à literatura. No prefácio, Sakae Ishikawa, professor doutor da Universidade Sophia, de Tóquio, seu filho, lembra que o pai sempre foi uma alma movida pelo sentido de justiça social, produzindo obras que o tornaram um dos romancistas mais populares de seu país exatamente pelo cunho social que impregnou em seus livros.

Ishikawa publicou ainda Hikage no mura (Aldeia à Sombra), de 1937, em que descreve uma aldeia que submerge com a construção de uma represa. Em Kinkanshorku, de 1975, trata da corrupção no poder conservador. Em Kizudarake no Sanga, de 1964, discorre sobre a destruição ambiental pelo crescimento do sistema econômico. E em Ikiteru Heitai (Os Soldados Sobreviventes), de 1945, divulgou os atos bárbaros praticados pelo exército japonês no continente chinês, durante a Segunda Guerra Mundial. Por esta obra, foi condenado criminalmente pelas autoridades da época.

Depois da Segunda Guerra Mundial, ainda escreveu artigos críticos sobre o comportamento do exército norte-americano, que tiveram a sua publicação proibida por determinação do comando geral das forças de ocupação. “Todos esses fatos demonstram a postura firme e única de Tatsuzô. E o ponto de partida e desenvolvimento de sua produção literária encontram-se em Sôbo”, diz Sakae Ishikawa que, em 1992, teve a oportunidade de viajar para o Brasil e visitar a fazenda em que seu pai trabalhou e viveu.

Adelto Gonçalves é doutor em Literatura Portuguesa pela Universidade de São Paulo e autor de Gonzaga, um Poeta do Iluminismo (Rio de Janeiro, Nova Fronteira, 1999), Barcelona Brasileira (Lisboa, Nova Arrancada, 1999; São Paulo, Publisher Brasil, 2002) e Bocage – o Perfil Perdido (Lisboa, Caminho, 2003). E-mail: adelto@unisanta.br

191) Desastres econômicos do seculo XX

Um livro interessante sobre os desastres econômicos do século XX, como abaixo resenhado.
Creio que se pode aprender mais com desastres, fracassos e derrotas, do que propriamente com sucessos e vitórias. Estes podem ter várias causas, nem sempre detectáveis ou identificáveis plenamente, enquanto que os primeiros geralmente redundam de equívocos na implementação de políticas econômicas, na condução dos negócios, na administração de crises -- que sempre existem, pois pertencem à dinâmica da própria vida. Sucessos, sobretudo, nem sempre são imitáveis, ou reprodutíveis, pois nem todas as condições estão dadas ou são oferecidas a todo mundo, ou a todos os paises.
Mas, se pode aprender um bocado com as derrotas, pois erros de administração ou de gestão são evitáveis, ou contornáveis, justamente, com base no aprendizado do passado.
Não estou seguro de concordar com a apreciação feita por Niall Ferguson sobre o "sucesso" econômico do modelo soviético pós-Segunda Guerra Mundial. Conheço sua análise da Segunda Guerra, feita em "The War of the World", inclusive de suas causas e implicações econômicas, mas tendo a discordar dessa equivalência que ele faz entre o capitalismo concorrencial americano e o modelo de planejamento centralizado como responsáveis pelo crescimento econômico posterior. Devemos lembrar que a ajuda americana (e inglesa) foi essencial para que o exército soviético suportasse a terrivel ofensiva hitlerista e pudesse depois recuperar o terreno. Por outro lado, a imposição do modelo econômico soviético pode ter servido para concentrar recursos nas tarefas de recuperação econômica e de repartição econômica dos custos da reconstrução, mas o desenvolvimento econômico na base da industrialização pesada e de comando centralizado deixou essas economias incapazes de sustentar a concorrência no plano global, sem considerar aqui os imensos custos humanos desse gigantesco experimento.
Caberia ler, em todo caso.
-------------
Paulo Roberto de Almeida
pralmeida@mac.com www.pralmeida.org
http://diplomatizzando.blogspot.com/


Rockoff on Oliver and Aldcroft, eds., _Economic Disasters of the Twentieth Century_

Michael J. Oliver and Derek H. Aldcroft, editors, _Economic Disasters of the Twentieth Century_. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2007. ix + 361 pp. $125 (hardback), ISBN: 978-1-84064-589-7.

Reviewed for EH.NET by Hugh Rockoff, Department of Economics, Rutgers University.

This is a great idea for a book: economic disasters of the twentieth century. The editors, Michael Oliver and Derek Aldcroft, have written chapters on Financial Crises (Oliver) and the African Growth Disaster (Aldcroft). And they have recruited seven scholars to write chapters on other twentieth-century disasters: the First World War (John Singleton), the Great Depression (W.R. Garside), the Second World War (Niall Ferguson), OPEC Price Increases (Michael Beenstock), Inflation (Forrest Capie), Stock Market Crashes (Geoffrey E. Wood), and the Demise of the Command Economies of the Soviet Union and its Outer Empire (Steven Morewood). It is a stellar cast. Each author is an authority in his field and would make anyone's list of the best people to write a particular essay.

The book is intended, first of all, for economic historians. These are what might be called creative surveys. The authors summarize the literature in their field, but they also try to push things forward a bit by addressing a few broad questions that haven't been addressed fully in the literature. It is, therefore, worth looking at an essay even if it falls within your area of research. I was familiar, for example, with many of the references in Niall Ferguson's chapter on World War II, but I still learned a lot from his extraordinary command of the literature, and his reflections on the origins, conduct, and consequences of the war. The greatest value added for me, however, came from reading Derek Aldcroft's essay on the development failures in southern Africa, a subject about which I knew little beyond what I have read in the _New York Times_ and the _Wall Street Journal_.

The book would make a good text or supplemental reading for a course in the economic history of the twentieth century, either at the advanced undergraduate or graduate level. Students love disasters. So a whole semester when they could go from one recent economic disaster to another would make for a very popular course. All of the essays would be accessible to advanced undergraduates. Only Michael Beenstock's essay on OPEC employs algebra and graphical analysis. Many of the essays, however, assume some familiarity with the historical background and are densely packed with economic reasoning. Therefore, many undergraduates would need help mastering the essays.

Are the authors optimistic or pessimistic about our ability to learn from these economic disasters and avoid similar mistakes in the future? On the whole, the authors dealing mainly with the advanced industrial countries draw optimistic conclusions. Either the economically advanced countries will avoid economic disasters or, at a minimum, cope with them. John Singleton sets the tone in his essay on the First World War. (It is the first essay: they are arranged chronologically.) Singleton catalogs the enormous costs of the war. These include not only direct costs such as battlefield casualties and expenditures for weapons, but also indirect costs, such as the exacerbation of the influenza epidemic of 1918-19. But Singleton also points out that there were winners as well as losers. He sees Japan as (arguably) "the main economic beneficiary" of the war (p. 23). And he concludes that "The First World War was an economic disaster but, paradoxically, it also demonstrated the resilience of industrial capitalism" (p. 43). Niall Ferguson concludes his essay about World War II on an even more positive note: "Two new models of state-led production -- the American and the Soviet -- were put to the test of total war and passed it with flying colours. Those new models were then exported around the northern hemisphere, generating major improvement in economic performance nearly everywhere they were adopted or imposed" (p. 124).

W.R. Garside's essay on the Great Depression sees an important lesson of the 1930s being applied in the 1970s: political pressure to prevent a recurrence of the high unemployment of 1930s, even at the cost of abandoning economic orthodoxies. Michael Beenstock traces fluctuations in the price of oil and in OPEC's role in the oil market. He ends his essay by enumerating the reasons why oil price shocks are likely to be less disruptive today than they were in the 1970s. The most important factor, in his view, is improved macroeconomic policies.

Forrest Capie's essay on inflation shows that periods of hyperinflation or very high inflation are almost always the product of "civil war or revolution or at a minimum serious social unrest" (p. 172). Weak governments faced with threats to their existence resort to the printing press. The implication is that we are unlikely to see very high inflation in advanced industrialized nations. Capie ends his essay by enumerating the many ways that nations have found to limit the potential for inflation: independent central banks, dollarization, currency boards, monetary unions and so on. Geoffrey Wood sees stock market crashes as an inevitable part of the economic scene. But he argues they need not produce macroeconomic disasters. Disasters happen when a stock market crash is combined with "banking and monetary system failures" (p. 254). The message is that we may not be able to avoid the waves of optimism and pessimism that capture the stock market from time to time, but we can avoid the policy mistakes that turn stock market crashes into macroeconomic disasters.

On the other hand, when the focus shifts to less economically advanced nations, the conclusions become pessimistic. Michael Oliver, after surveying the literature on international financial crises concludes: "... it is a sobering thought to conclude that whatever reforms are made to the international financial architecture and however robust domestic financial systems are made, economists and policy-makers will still be dealing with financial crises 100 years hence" (p. 227). Steven Morewood is not at all sure that the end of communism in the Soviet Union and its satellites was a good thing economically. "Time will tell" (p. 308) is as far as he is willing to go. The most pessimistic essay is Aldcroft's on the African growth disaster: "Thus we can say confidently that, short of a miracle, the prospects for most of the very poor nations, and especially the SSA [Sub-Saharan Africa] group, will continue to remain very bleak indeed" (p. 348).

This is a fine collection of essays. There is no point in playing the game of awarding gold, silver, and bronze medals, as reviewers often do, because all the essays reach a high level of quality. Each of the authors is a well-regarded expert in his field and clearly capable of producing a well-crafted essay. The surprising thing, given the variability that characterizes most collected volumes, is that all of the authors came through. Each wrestled with important questions and developed his answers in detail. There were no slackers. The authors and editors are to be congratulated.


Hugh Rockoff is a professor of economics at Rutgers University and a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. He recently published (with Leonard Caruana) "An Elephant in the Garden: The Allies, Spain, and Oil in World War II" in the _European Review of Economic History_.

Copyright (c) 2008 by EH.Net. All rights reserved. This work may be copied for non-profit educational uses if proper credit is given to the author and the list. For other permission, please contact the EH.Net Administrator (administrator@eh.net; Telephone: 513-529-2229). Published by EH.Net (June 2008). All EH.Net reviews are archived at http://www.eh.net/BookReview.

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190) A negacao do Holocausto: uma "abjecao" historica

Infelizmente ainda são muitos aqueles que pretendem negar as evidências do extermínio de judeus (e outras categorias) na imensa máquina de aniquilação nazista. Este livro pode contribuir com a tarefa de "exterminar" (metaforicamente) os "holocaust deniers".

Denying History: Who Says the Holocaust Never Happened and Why Do They Say It?
(S. Mark Taper Foundation Imprint in Jewish Studies)
by Michael Shermer (Author), Alex Grobman (Author)
University of California Press, 330 pages; 1 edition: May 3, 2002
ISBN-10: 0520234693; ISBN-13: 978-0520234697

Denying History is a courageous and accessible study of "a looking-glass world where black is white, up is down, and the normal rules of reason no longer apply." Authors Michael Shermer and Alex Grobman have immersed themselves in the conferences, literature, and Web culture of Holocaust deniers; they have engaged the pseudo-historians in debate; and they have visited the concentration camps in Europe to investigate the truth of what happened there. Denying History presents Shermer and Grobman's findings. The book refutes, in detail, the Holocaust deniers' claims, and it demonstrates conclusively that the Holocaust did happen.It also explores the fundamental historical issue in all debates over the truth of the Holocaust: the question of "how we know that any past event happened." Thus, Denying History is a doubly useful book; it sets the record straight on one of history's most terrible events, and it instructs readers in the scientific, logical, and historiographical principles that can help us make wise judgments about history on our own. --Michael Joseph Gross --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly
Holocaust denial - back in the news since the British courts shot down David Irving's libel suit against Deborah Lipstadt (for her groundbreaking book Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory) in April - gets an inventively thorough treatment in this important book. Keeping their focus on larger questions about historical rigor and public memory, Shermer (a professor of the history of science at Occidental College and publisher of Skeptic magazine) and Grobman (Rekindling the Flame) look closely at the methods employed by deniers and those used by legitimate historians. "Holocaust denial," they argue, "is not just a Jewish issue. It is an attack on all history and the way we transmit the past to the future." Drawing on a wide array of evidence - interviews they conducted with famous deniers (including Irving himself) and text from their Web sites and literature - the authors explore the difference between legitimate historical revisionism and pseudohistorical denial. They note that historians interested in revising accepted knowledge depend on a wide variety of sources to draw a picture of an event or period - if some of that evidence is contradictory, then respectful scholarly debate ensues; if new evidence surfaces, then the historical record gets revised. Deniers, on the contrary, use the barest of evidence - one contradiction, for example - to discount entire arguments; meanwhile, they bolster their own arguments with out-of-context phrases and mistranslations. Using the deniers' own words to tear down their arguments, Shermer and Grobman provide a clear method for determining the reality of past events and supply a powerful weapon for anyone who cares about learning from the credible historical record. 42 b&w photos. (June)

========

Vejam três comentários no site da Amazon.com:

1) By Robert Helmerichs (Minneapolis, MN USA)

Denying History succeeds on two levels. First, it is a thorough demolition of the arguments of Holocaust deniers, presenting the overwhelming evidence for the systematic and deliberate murder of about 6,000,000 Jews by the Nazis during World War II. On this level, it is a very painful book at times, but clear and utterly convincing.

Second, and perhaps more importantly, it is an exploration of historical method intended to show how not only Holocaust deniers, but fringe groups of all kinds, distort and pervert history to make their points. The book is a virtual guide to BS detection, displaying the techniques used by pseudo-historians and how the conclusions drawn by these techniques evaporate in the light of a careful, objective evaluation of the evidence.

In a sense, it is too bad that the Holocaust, a very emotional topic (and this book can be quite angry at times), is the test case; less of a hot-button issue might have made for a calmer (and at times less disturbing) book. But the Holocaust deniers need to be denied, and Shermer and Grobman do a masterful job of it, without losing sight of the larger historiographical issues involved. Denying History is intense, readable, valuable, and for anybody who has ever been upset by bizarre historical claims, essential.

2) By Barron Laycock "Labradorman" (Temple, New Hampshire United States)

It is both puzzling and painful to recognize that there are still serious(?) people abroad in the world who loudly deny the veracity of the historical record concerning the Holocaust. As if to extend the unconscionable cruelty of the world yet longer for the millions of victims of this century's most heinous and tragic phenomenon, some actually continue to claim that either the Holocaust never happened, or that its dimensions and scope were much more limited and constrained that so-called Jewish revisionist historians would like the public to believe. This book puts the lie to all this nonsense, giving those who would deny the truth and accuracy of the history of the Holocaust an exceptionally thorough trip to the intellectual back shed to give them the whipping of their cranial careers.

With this volume, historians Michael Shermier and Alex Grobman have presented a virtual tidal wave of substantiating evidence of the nature of the complex social movement that the Holocaust deniers comprise. The authors trudge through a depressing tour of every aspect of this social movement, and go deeper into every aspect of the deniers and their social network in an effort to both better understand what motivates them as well as how to finally and authoritatively refute their claims. In so doing, they not only illustrate how shallow, self-serving, disingenuous, and disreputable these claims and positions are, but also provide much more substantial proof of the existence of the Holocaust.

In some ways this tour into the deep underbelly of continuing hate, bigotry, and ignorance is a descent into a Dante-like inferno, one the reader tends to recoil from because of its `in-your-face' portrayal of such rampant and continuing racial hate and conflict. In other ways it seems more like an impromptu visit to the comical land of the Keystone cops, or the gang who couldn't shoot straight. Anyone falling for this grab-bag crack-pot mixture of conspiracy theories, racial suspicions, and social paranoia isn't likely to be sitting next to anyone in a graduate course in history, anyway. Still, one must remember that Hitler graduated from the ranks of the likes of these cretins.

This is a profoundly disturbing but altogether necessary book. To suggest that after fifty years serious people could still question the historical record regarding the savage and murderous events collectively referred to as the Holocaust is but one more painful indicator of how far the world must go to reach any kind of intellectual maturity or cosmopolitan compassion. One of the most interesting sidelights of the book is the fact that the authors have devised an ingenious framework that both contemporary and future historians and social scientists can employ to verify and virtually any historical event. I highly recommend it for anyone who has ever had someone say (as I have heard a number of times), "The Holocaust never happened."

3) By Jonathan Kay (Toronto, Ontario Canada)

You will not find a more straightforward Holocaust book than Denying History: Who Says the Holocaust Never Happened and Why Do They Say It. The authors' basic argument is this: The extermination of six million Jews during the Second World War is a historical fact. Those who deny it are wrong.

It's hardly a provocative thesis. But ask yourself this: Would you be able to refute a Holocaust denier? The fact of the Holocaust is like the spherical Earth: Every reasonable person accepts it, but few can prove it. That is why Skeptic magazine publisher Michael Shermer teamed up with historian Alex Grobman to write Denying History. They believe thinking people have a duty to fight Holocaust denial head on; and they want them to come to the battle armed with historical facts.

When the eyes of the public are upon them -- such as during the 1985 trial of Canadian Holocaust denier Ernst Zündel, or the famous 1994 Donahue episode that pitted two Holocaust deniers against Shermer and an Auschwitz survivor -- deniers often get the best of staged confrontations. The most prominent deniers know a lot about the Holocaust, especially arcane subjects like the chemistry of Zyklon-B gas and the architecture of gas chambers. Many of the sound bites they spit out are quite true. It is a fact, for instance, that the Nazis never manufactured soap from Jewish bodies on a mass scale -- contrary to urban legend. Deniers are also correct when they claim that there is no known Holocaust order bearing Hitler's signature. David Irving, the on-again off-again denier who recently lost a defamation suit in Britain, has never had to make good on his $1,000 challenge to any historian who could produce such a document.

But, as Denying History makes clear, there is still a mountain of evidence proving the nature and scale of the Holocaust. The Nazis' use of gas chambers has been established by, among countless other sources, the 1946 Nuremberg confession of Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss, as well as the 250-page autobiographical manuscript he wrote while awaiting execution. The estimate of six million killed is supported by a spate of historical studies, and also by Nazi physician Wilhelm Hoettel, who testified at Nuremberg that: "In the various concentration camps approximately four million Jews had been killed, while about two million were killed in other ways." None of this evidence convinces the true denier, of course. He is, by necessity, a conspiracy theorist. To him, every confession was coerced, every photograph faked. As the authors of Denying History demonstrate in psychological profiles of today's most prominent deniers, they see the "holohoax" as a plot by Jews (or, "the traditional enemies of truth" as they are commonly referred to in denier circles) to discredit the Nazi regime and the German people. "There are certain aspects of the Third Reich that are very admirable [such as its eugenics and euthanasia programs] and I want to call people's attention to these," Zündel told Shermer and Grobman in an interview. What the Holocaust has done, he argues, is to "bar so many thinkers from re-looking at the options that National Socialism German-style offers."

It is tempting to mock these confused men (there is a great essay to be written on why there does not exist a single preeminent female denier). But Denying History betrays no contempt for its subjects. The authors believe everyone has a right to be heard; and they treat Holocaust deniers with clinical detachment. This attitude reflects the authors'position of intellectual strength. Hatred for Holocaust deniers is compounded by the helpless fear that the pseudo-historians' specious lies may spread. When one is armed with concrete knowledge, however, that fear is lessened and hatred gives way to pity.