The Political Causes Of Genocide
Genocide never happens as a surprise. (It was cruelty that overtook them.) Genocide is always politics. Of course, there are political goal, but those political goals can be reached or achieved in different ways. Some people think that exterminating people or exterminating a group will help their goals, so that is why they do it (commit genocide). Genocide is something people do not like to talk about and genocides happen in every corner of the world, to every type of people. The numbers in the past 100 years are staggering. The Turks slaughtered more than a million Armenians during ww1. In the 1930-40s the Japanese killed millions across Asia. In the Soviet Union, the estimated number of deaths in the gulag camps and beyond is more than eight
million. The Germans slaughter 6 million jews and millions more during ww2. In the 1950s and 60s, the communist Chinese killed an estimate of 30 million. In the 1970s, the Khmer rouge killed 1.7 million Cambodians— around 20% of their country’s population. There have been more 100 million innocent victims of genocide in places including Rwanda, Bosnia, Darfur, and Congo, more than all the combat deaths in all the wars fought during that time everywhere in the world. Based on the human toll alone, genocide and mass slaughter are worse problems plaguing humanity than war. People need to understand that nothing is inevitable about genocide. It boils down to a series of choices. Leaders initiate the killing; ordinary people make a conscious choice to participate. And those with the power to prevent or stop it choose to do nothing. There has never been a time during the past century when our world was free of mass murder. For 5 long years, Darfur had been a scene of destruction and devastation, 300,000 had died and 2.5 million fled their homes, as the Sudanese government had tried to crush a rebellion against its rule. The plight of Darfur has moved people of conscience around the world. Although not all ultranationalist acts by nations reach the extreme of genocide, some would say that America, in response to the tragedy of 9/11, adopted some aspects of ultranationalism, and that it has taken extreme actions in invading Iraq. (Fielding, Chapter 9)
million. The Germans slaughter 6 million jews and millions more during ww2. In the 1950s and 60s, the communist Chinese killed an estimate of 30 million. In the 1970s, the Khmer rouge killed 1.7 million Cambodians— around 20% of their country’s population. There have been more 100 million innocent victims of genocide in places including Rwanda, Bosnia, Darfur, and Congo, more than all the combat deaths in all the wars fought during that time everywhere in the world. Based on the human toll alone, genocide and mass slaughter are worse problems plaguing humanity than war. People need to understand that nothing is inevitable about genocide. It boils down to a series of choices. Leaders initiate the killing; ordinary people make a conscious choice to participate. And those with the power to prevent or stop it choose to do nothing. There has never been a time during the past century when our world was free of mass murder. For 5 long years, Darfur had been a scene of destruction and devastation, 300,000 had died and 2.5 million fled their homes, as the Sudanese government had tried to crush a rebellion against its rule. The plight of Darfur has moved people of conscience around the world. Although not all ultranationalist acts by nations reach the extreme of genocide, some would say that America, in response to the tragedy of 9/11, adopted some aspects of ultranationalism, and that it has taken extreme actions in invading Iraq. (Fielding, Chapter 9)