Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Ash, welcome. In my four years sitting on this committee, this is one of the most compelling testimonies I've ever heard, and heartbreaking. To think of a child being treated as you described earlier is beyond the pale even for us to try to envision. Your mind won't allow you to even envision what happened to that child.
Normally in western countries such as Canada, such brutality is associated with some kind of severe mental illness. Your observation about how society has dehumanized these particular victims makes it more possible for these atrocities to be accepted by the public. It's a horrific fact to even consider that society gets to that level.
In times of war, such as World War II, the militaries would assign names to groups--geek, gook, kraut, jap, or whatever--to make it psychologically more possible for somebody to do the kinds of things in war that maybe are necessary, because you get into hand-to-hand combat, or whatever. But to take that back and to consider those things occurring to a child in such a manner--it's just so hard to even find the words to deal with it.
But in societies, as you alluded, things are so ingrained. A man I worked with for 30 years was a peace activist, and once there was an exchange of money when he said to the person across from him who had made a nickel error in the change, and he was giving him the nickel back, “That's so hymie of me”.
That just showed that this man had no concept of what that word meant. It was just a word for cheap to him. It had nothing to do with the Jewish community.
So you have a culture here in Tanzania that is viewing this in that manner. It's become so ingrained in it. There's a huge, huge educational component that has to be part of it.