Wouldn’t it be scary if someone suddenly decided that you should disappear because he thinks you do not have the right to live because of your race or religion? Scary yes, but definitely possible. The word genocide, which is also known as ethnic cleansing, is certainly not uncommon to anyone living in this not so perfect world, full of violence, hatred and discrimination. Throughout the decades, genocide has taken place in more than one occasion, causing wars, slaughters and mass destruction of cities and towns. I think that genocide is by far the worst crime in humanity. Hatred, superiority and personal memories are all behind genocide.
Everyday, I get more surprised on how some very powerful leaders can act so cruelly and kill thousands of innocent people just because of their ethnicity, race or religion. The political leaders who committed genocide do not seem very smart to me because strong and powerful countries do not differentiate between colour and religion. Equality is the most important aspect leading to a united, strong country despite the different races or religions in that country. Instead of killing, chasing and dividing up their countries, these leaders should have created a powerful and united country. To fully understand genocide, one must first try to define it.
Genocide is “the effort to destroy the essential foundations of the life of national groups whose objectives would be the disintegration of the political and social institutions of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of the personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and even the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups” (Charny 2). The crime of genocide dates from a very long time ago. The first time a genocide crime happened is not dated or even remembered and it is “lost in antiquity” (Charny 41). That raises the issue that maybe humans were created with all that hatred inside them. But again there is no evidence about this. Personally, when I first heard the term genocide, the first picture that came up to my mind was the picture of the German dictator Hitler.
Hitler hated Jews and saw them as the reason behind every disaster in the world. In his biography on Hitler, Schramm wrote that there is a theory explaining the reasons behind Hitler’s hatred towards Jews, he said that one of Hitler’s ancestors who was Jewish, “took advantage” of a small girl (51). This incident obviously made Hitler paranoid for the rest of his life making him hate and despise all Jews. He decided to kill them and looked for a better world where they won’t exist at all. Maybe if Hitler had not hated these Jews and instead if killing them and putting them in gas chambers in awful concentration camps, he could have won World War 2.
The Jews genocide is also known as the Holocaust. Nazis were unbelievably harsh and monster-like when it came to dealing with Jews. Six Million Jews were killed in camps (Harff 11). A very well known camp is Auschwitz. Charny also wrote that Nazis called Jews “poisoners of Aryan blood”, Nazis also wanted to totally eliminate the Jewish race from the universe (65), and they obviously did their very best to achieve that.
But Nazis did not only see Jews as a minority, they also thought that homosexuals, Russians, Poles, Gypsies (Charny 65) and blacks were all inferior to the German race. That is an excellent example showing how superior Germans thought they were. Growing up, I learned about other genocide incidents as well. I learned about the first genocide in the twentieth century, The Armenian genocide (Chaliand, Ternon 1). The Turkish government killed more than a million Armenian in terrible and non-humanitarian massacres. Armenians and Turks lived in relative harmony in the Ottoman Empire for centuries.
They began to have conflicting dreams of the future. Some Armenians began to call for independence, while some Turks began to envision a new Pan-Turkish empire spreading all the way to Turkish speaking parts of Central Asia. Armenians were the only ethnic group in between these two major pockets of Turkish speakers and the nationalist Turks wanted to get rid of them altogether. The Armenians were being raped, starved, dehydrated, murdered and kidnapped along the way (Charny 91). More recently, I learned about the genocide of the ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.
The Serbs are practically killing Albanian men and forcing women and children out of the country. Instead of dividing up their country into several smaller states just because some are Christian Orthodox, others are Catholic and others are Muslims, Yugoslavia could have been one of the most powerful countries in Europe. A strong united country despite its racial differences is a big advantage. The United States of America has more than fifty states, each very different from one another, yet the US acts like one strong country. Never have I heard that the Mormons in the state of Utah want their independence or that the US wants to get rid of them just because they are a minority.
Also, more and more countries are joining the European Union and that is the best example on how a united continent will increase in power. Genocide does sound like a nightmare, but unfortunately it happens all around us and it is hard to prevent it. Nazis, Turks and Serbs are just mere examples of how all human beings can act selfishly. God created all men and women equal. It does not matter whether I am black, white, Muslim, Jewish or even Buddhist. This is one world, one place and it is about time people start collaborating and live in peace despite their differences.
Works CitedChaliand, Gerard and Ternon Yves. The Armenians: From Genocide to Resistance. London: Zed, 1983. Charny, Israel W.
Genocide: A Critical Bibliographic Review. London: Mansell, 1988. Harff, Barbara. Genocide and Human Rights: International Legal and Political Issues. Denver: University of Denver, 1984. Schramm, Percy Ernst.
Hitler: The Man and the Military Leader. Chicago: Quadrangle, 1971.