Mounce: Nuremberg and Santayana: Brave Students and UTRGV

Muchas gracias, Mark Reagan. Gracias for the good news about brave students in our midst (MyRGV, 16 Apr 25). 

Four international students, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, abruptly had visas revoked. They just “filed a federal lawsuit in Brownsville, against the US Department of Homeland Security.”  

Those students hail from Mexico—not surprising—but also from Nepal and Iran. They represent, symbolically, others (still on campus? already deported?) at UTRGV, around the state and the nation. They had been—until they were recently shocked and threatened—studying quietly in graduate fields of Physics, Finance, and Computers, among needed skills in our country and in the world.

Campus response? The Administration simply stated “We are committed to providing guidance within the parameters of the law.” The US Administration, however, says “we are targeting international students with criminal records.” Really? And all 900+ students are in that category? Acceptable? Believable? If so, I have a bridge (on the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo) to sell to you!

Brave attorneys for these local students note: they are all in full compliance with terms of their status and have not engaged in conduct that would result in termination. (There are, as with any group of students, some traffic and other minor offenses). Now, apparently, government officials desire (and calculate) that the mass indictments will force “self-deportation.”     

If that should occur, perhaps better than black vans sweeping citizens and non-citizens off the streets. Better than deportation, say, of a legal immigrant and father (Kilman Abrego Garcia), to dark prison in El Salvador. That case still very much in the news. Trump in cahoots with the dictator of that country, giving him millions to house US prisoners—citizens and immigrants alike—threatening even more! Trump is defying law, defying courts (a unanimous Supreme Court—you don’t see that much, anymore). Meanwhile, Trump says the obvious out-loud: “I like it” (Leonie Chao-Fong, The Guardian, 15 Apr 25).

Jorge (George) Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás, on the cover of a 1936 issue of Time magazine.

Is it “the beginning of American state terror?” (Travis Gettys, Raw Story, 15 Apr 25). Historian Timothy Snyder, who has studied the rise of fascism extensively, warns: “Donald Trump has crossed a dangerous line.” That line existed—and was crossed long before—when Nazis physically moved citizens into zones where law did not reach. In the case of Abrego, without due process of the law, guaranteed to each resident by the US Constitution, men in black vans can simply “disappear you.” Try holding that around in your head for a while. Worried? You should be.

Some say it is time for a new “Judgment at Nuremberg” (the 1945-1946 trials for war crimes of Nazis). They were depicted boldly in the book (Abby Mann), again in the Stanley Kraemer 1961 film, story by Montgomery Clift (unaccredited). Clift was also in the film, along with a stellar cast: Spencer Tracy; Burt Lancaster; Maximillian Schell; Judy Garland; William Shatner; Richard Widmark; and Marlene Dietrich (later, honored for her humanitarian and anti-Nazi efforts). Bring back that film, please, Netflix, Turner Classics! We need it now!

The need? As in post-war Germany, we, the people, need reminding of the guilt of the Nazis in our midst (the UK had opted at that time for summary executions!) Their guilt was apparent, but the rule of law was necessary to hang them for “crimes against Peace and Humanity” (27 million deaths, to include millions of Jews and any others the Nazis hated—immigrants, “Gypsies,” disabled. Other charges: “false imprisonment” and “hate crimes.”

The legal instrument was the Nuremberg Charter. The purpose, not merely conviction but justice – “assembling irrefutable evidence” and a process to “de-legitimize the power elites of Germany. The innovative result? Individuals will be held responsible for violation of international law. The trials were the true beginning of international criminal law.

Parallels for today? There are many. In the words from the trial, of numerous witnesses: “above all, there was fear, fear of today, of tomorrow, of our neighbors, fear of ourselves.” Moreover,”there was a fever over the land, a fever of disgrace, of indignity, of hunger. We had a democracy, yes, but it was torn by elements within.”

The film, Judgment at Nuremberg, ended with a promise: “This was an event the world will never forget.” Yet too many choose to forget. We must heed the famous warning by philosopher George Santayana: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Editor’s Note: The above guest column was penned by writer Dr. Gary Joe Mounce, a professor emeritus (political science) at The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. He can be reached by email via: gjmounce@gmail.com.

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