Genocide essays

Genocide essays The U.N convention defines genocide as all acts committed with the intent to destroy in whole or in part a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.1 What are the motives behind genocide? There lies within humans a potential to commit genocide. The dark side of human nature awakens when a combination of economic catastrophes, political disasters and social upheaval makes a segment of a population desperate for change. Then, a regime's propaganda can successfully motivate it's citizens to commit genocide on a certain identifiable group or "victim". There are 4 motives for genocide. Number one: elimination of a threat. Number two: economic gain. Number three: creation of terror amongst surrounding people. Number four: fulfillment of a theory or belief system.2 There are six major early warning signs that indicate a genocide is very near. Number one: hate propaganda, showing the future victim group as a lethal danger to the survival of society. Number two: the preparation of death lists and the killing of the people on the list. Number three: the introduction of restrictions, not allowing journalists to travel freely in the country. Number four: the use of code words to plan killings. Number five: the creation of training of special murder units. Number six: the murder of military or police officers who are against genocide.3 This paper will examine three Genocides committed in the twentieth centuryArmenia, Nazi Germany and Rwanda. Muslim Armenians and Christian Turks lived in peace in the Ottoman Empire for centuries. Things began to slowly change. Nationalism, a new force in the world came to be. The Turks started to love their country so much that they would die to defend it. As well as this time every nationality in Europe wanted their "own" country, not to live under the rulings of an Empire. As a result, the Ottoman Empire began to fall apart. The only thing holding it together was the E...