America's "innocent ignorance"
The blood on the streets of Budapest wrote history: A tiny nation rose, united as never before against a tyrant, and the Hungarian Revolution erupted in Budapest on Oct. 23, 1956.
The blood on the streets of Iraq is also writing history.
And the blood on the sands of Darfur is writing history.
Yet, it appears that the United States has learned nothing from this history.
"Innocent ignorance — if there is such a thing," is what Pearl S. Buck, Nobel-prize winning author of "The Good Earth," wrote about the American mindset when it came to world politics and diplomacy.
This "innocent ignorance" is what made President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1956 claim he was "not informed," while the rest of the world not only heard the televised cries of the Hungarian people, begging for help against a tyrant, but saw huge crowds imploring the international community to intervene.
But, "innocent ignorance" prevailed. The revolution was crushed and thousands were murdered, imprisoned, tortured and exiled to Siberian work camps.
The Hungarians were caught between the U.S. defending them against the Soviets, or defending the Suez Canal, which was the major shipping route for American oil.
It is obvious now — and it was obvious then — that oil interests would win the American president's support.
We Hungarians wanted democracy, and to this day exercise our hard-won right to protest and engage in other freedoms. Around the world, many people thirst for democracy. And Americans, realizing their leadership role, try to help everyone achieve it.
But that "innocent ignorance" again stands in the way when we listen only to the evidence we want to hear; when we do not agree with elections that do not go "our way"; when we ignore the rights of others to think differently; when we do not understand cultural differences; and we know nothing about those we want to help and attempt to help them in a way that they can only resent.
It is interesting that today, we are fighting a sadly ineffective war in Iraq, where oil interests are well-documented. Yet, we are allowing what has been overwhelmingly agreed upon as genocide in Darfur to continue under the "oversight" of the international community.
Historical events are important because if we do not learn from the past, we will be forced to relive it. Extreme left is as bad as extreme right — many know from experience. The only system worthy of humans is democracy. The greatest weakness of democracy is that it can be voted out of existence. "Innocent ignorance" can kill us.
All those who have democracy must realize the choices they have and make the right ones, or they will have to suffer the consequences.
Helen Szablya is the honorary consul of Hungary for Washington, Oregon and Idaho. She is the author with Peggy King Anderson of "The Fall of the Red Star." A Mass at St. James Cathedral will be said at noon Oct. 21 in commemoration of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution.