Jewish-Polish lawyer
named Rafael Lemkin, making it a relatively new crime in terms of social
definition, coined the phrase “genocide” during the Nazi Holocaust. He combined
the Greek word genos, which translates
to people or nation, and the Latin suffix cide,
which translates to murder. Genocides have continued at an alarming rate around
the world and have attracted international attention despite world leaders
fighting it and passing the Genocide Convention with the slogan “Never Again.”
Genocide has claimed many peoples’ lives and the recent cases of genocide
include Sudan, Darfur, Zimbabwe, and Syria. For instance, in Syria’s case the
Syrian security forces under the control of the al-Assad government commit it.
The main challenge with the cases with genocide is that they are complicated when it comes to proving them.
Proving in a court of law whether genocide took place or not, is more
complicated than many perceive it. In Rwandan case, it was never complicated since
one ethnic group admitted killing another to compensate for crimes against them
in the past. Darfur situation is a more convoluted one since there was
difficulty in proving that the president hired the militants to kill the people
of Darfur.
Genocide in my own perspective
The prevalence of this
crime has attracted more attentions and conversation from historians, political
scientists, sociologists, and others individuals who try to comprehend the
reasons behind genocides. I never understand why people do attack others and
wipe an entire community in the name of political supremacy or other reasons. However,
it is understandable that human beings live or belong to societies, which I
might refer to as ‘groups.’ These groups have the capability to shape the way people
think and perceive different aspects of life. This makes sense since humans were
adaptive to certain characteristics of humans that have made them survive. On
the other hand, I still do not agree to the fact that people who have been
living together can go ahead and attack their neighbors for reasons known to them.
What is annoying is that most of the events classified under the international
crime law do happen in glare of the international community but most leaders do
deny the happening of the events. Denial is more than saying, “No, that did not
happen”; the involved parties give reason as to why this event happen, more so,
they try to justify the reasons behind this maiming and killings of their
fellow citizen. Individuals in societies ought to have collective values. Groups
are in charge for caring for persons, moreover individuals may be called upon
to sacrifice for the group. It is common to find societies that are more
collectivist place more weight on the group aspect of the society. In such
societies, it is common to find that group goals are expected to be the
individual's goals. This is the reason because group member's identity themselves
with the groups because they believe that groups exist for the good of individuals.
This simply explains why it is common to find individuals in communities are
incited against other members of the community for the benefit of the groups’ leader
ambitions. This scenario is well portrayed in the Rwandan genocide where more
than 800, 000 people were killed. The saddening fact about the Rwanda case is
that one ethnic group was incited against the other. From the Rwandan case, it
is simple to assume that genocide is a tribal warfare or ethnic conflict, but
in reality, societies that are more diverse are more likely to experience because
diversity itself is likely to cause conflict. In Rwanda, the ethnicity of the
ruler was the reason for the conflict. The Hutus controlled and had access to
the government in the years before the country’s genocide, whereas Tutsis were
never appointed to any position of power. The
inequity in the country resulted to the deep-rooted dogma of dissimilarity as
well as mistrust within the society.
What the international community
should do to address genocide
Single
individual never commit genocide but it is an effort of a group after extended misinformation
campaigns to dehumanize certain groups in the society, however they can be considered
as singular acts. I believe that the international society has acted on denial
of the genocide simply for the reason that they are not the affected parties.
There blindness is so great that they do not even consider campaigning against
the vice because they tend to protect their business relations with other
countries as it manifests in Syria. This can be achieved through proper
restitution of democratic institutions that will accommodate every member of
the society. This should be inclined towards helping societies in attaining the
ability to tolerate different groups more so reconcile with previous oppressors.
International communities have focused on the use of military intervention,
which has worsened the situation than it was anticipated. The best solution is
to have an inclusive institution in place and aid these countries in
constructing institutions that are more democratic. Overall, international
communities should try to understand why these crimes take place because it
will help in detecting tackling them.
No comments:
Post a Comment