The atrocities of narcissism

John Rabe's diary

I've been reading books about "the rape of Nanking" for a couple years, part of research for my next book project. It's not a calming experience. From 1937-38, Nanking was described by eyewitnesses as a literal Hell on earth, but for the actions of a dozen Americans and Europeans who stepped up to protect the vulnerable. Their mere presence often prevented the oppressors from proceeding with the worst sorts of crimes against humanity, and even then such atrocities occurred with frequency and impunity. 

Because I do like to read history and historical fiction, a constant question is "Could this happen again?" Could genocides like the Rape of Nanking happen again? And the answer is yes: such things do repeat themselves (eg, Rwanda).

Then you ask the question another way....

Could the "heroes of Nanking" happen again? 

Although we've seen the professionalization of humanitarian aid-givers, people like John Rabe, Dr. Robert Wilson (left), and Minnie Vautrin acted as private individuals, as much on the strength of personal conviction as professional creed. There was no UN or Peace Corps in their lifetimes. There was no guidebook re: "how to save ordinary people from atrocity." Given every opportunity to evacuate, they chose to remain long after their peers fled the scene, and — in advocating for victims — had repeated confrontations with the Japanese command.

After all the powerful and affluent departed, the Chinese left in Nanking were those too poor to travel, with nowhere to go, just like the disenfranchised among us today (think: Katrina and the low-income communities of NOLA). This also included demoralized soldiers from the Chinese army, in retreat from advancing Japanese forces. Many of the Chinese troops were teenaged boys already worn down after months of defending Shanghai. Their own command was fleeing upriver ahead of them.

Dr. Wilson operated on mangled bodies for hours without rest, later dying young because his health was compromised by those months in 1937-38.

Minnie Vautrin had a nervous breakdown after giving safe harbor to 10,000 women and children on a campus set up to care for only 3,000 refugees. Part of what exhausted Vautrin were the daily improvisations for survival — not just administering the school during a brutal occupation, but negotiating safety terms with the callous Japanese command, coordinating with her Safety Zone colleagues for a daunting scarcity of food supplies, and safeguarding the women and children. The campus was large, she couldn't be four places at once, and Japanese soldiers were continually scaling the walls and assaulting women inside the campus — or duping her into surrendering the women and girls in her care.

For three months, no one left alive in Nanking was able to wash themselves because Japanese atrocities had compromised all water sources. (Cooked rice had the coppery taste of blood). Given Japanese orders that all corpses were to be left out in the open, there was constant threat of disease, and malnutrition alone produced an outbreak of beri-beri.

John Rabe didn't sleep, patrolling the grounds of the Nanking Safety Zone every night, pulling Japanese soldiers off the women and girls they were trying to rape. To no avail, he wrote letters to Hitler, imploring him to intervene with the Japanese emperor and halt the brutal lawlessness in his beloved Nanking. When his Siemens employer recalled Rabe to Germany, he was stunned — and deeply moved — to see 2,000 women amassed before him, bowing in gratitude but also begging him not to leave. His post-war years were so impoverished, Frau Rabe took to making nettle soup from the weeds in their yard. Hearing of this, the grateful people of Nanking sent them money that eased his final years.

The "atrocity" of narcissism

After Tuesday's elections, we're further immersed in a nation where democracy has been forsaken for oligarchy, and our poor and disadvantaged will be criminalized — where those with wealth and power will only struggle to accrue more of it — even if it means betraying their neighbors and employees — and an act of compassion is more of a tax shelter than an effort to fix the roots of a chronic social problem.

In 2015, turn compassion and generosity into small, achievable actions. It doesn't have to mean donating gobs of money. Write your Congressman and call him out on his inaction; let the corrupt know that you're watching them. Start a bus-stop library. Teach one evening of economic literacy at the community center of a low-income neighborhood; talk to middle schoolers about the stock market, so they see role-modeling for financial decisionmaking. Convince a kid not to drop out, and urge him to stay in school for greater gains yet to come. Read a book to an elderly invalid or a hospitalized veteran. Drop off some bagels in the teachers' breakroom of your local public school.

It doesn't have to be much. Two hours from your life can remake someone else's entire existence — it can give them hope. Just like the heroes of Nanking, small ordinary actions can give an oppressed person reasons to hope. With hope they might hang in one more day; persisting one more day can make the difference between survival or annihilation. And I know from personal experience that when you feel beat-down or heartbroken, the best antidote is to live outside yourself. Stand for something that serves more than just yourself. Live in paradox, and delight in your anonymity: you'll be surprised how much gets done when you don't care who gets the credit for it.

Maybe if each private individual does a little bit, we can build small acts of social justice into enough critical mass to turn the heedless tide of narcissism and greed and corruption that's swamping our American values. It's up to each of us, not our so-called leaders, because the ordinary world is filled with extraordinary stories — and you are one of them.