Genocide : A Complex Item

¬¬Marissa Bracey World History and Voices Ms. Phillips & Mr. Cline May 5, 2015 Holodomor: The Eight stages of Genocide Genocide is a term that was created in 1944 to describe violence against a specific ethnical, racial, national, or religious group with the intent to destroy or wipe out that entire group. This is an unfortunate event that has caused millions of casualties and left even more in grief. The famine-genocide of Ukraine took place over the span of 16 long years, killing over 7 million farmers and families, over one third of the lives lost were children. Joseph Stalin is to blame for the horrors caused in Ukraine, his communist ways and power hungry drive allowed him to force millions of farmers out of their land and into poverty.

In 1936 Hitler allied with Mussolini and sent troops into Rhineland. In 1938, Hitler annexing Austria. This should have been a red flag for the other countries because Hitler already broke the Versailles Treaty. However, nothing was done. Only one year later German troops invalided the Poland. At first the Germans were somewhat progressive with the amount of aircrafts they acquired. Their mobile, mechanized offensive force was very effective and underestimated. The German air force was strong and effective. With 1,300 planes, countless soldiers on foot and tanks the Polish, they didn’t stand a chance. The Germans technique of Blitzkrieg or lightening war proved to work. With this technique the Netherlands only stood for four days. The countries

Did you know that today there are still acts of genocide happening around the world? “The Ten Stages of Genocide” is an article written by Gregory H. Stanton, the president of Genocide Watch, an organization that is fighting to end genocide. In this article, Stanton lists ten stages that will occur in a genocide, starting with the stage of classification and ending with the stage of denial. In Burma, a sovereign state, also known as Myanmar, a minority ethnic group named the Rohingya is being discriminated by the majority of the population and the government in Burma. The Rohingya have been denied Burmese citizenship since 1982, when a law was enacted by the state government that excludes the Rohingya as one of Burma’s ethnic groups (“Myanmar Will Not Recognize”). There has also been reports of ethnic cleansing, anti-Muslim violence, and forced labor (“Plight”). Because the Burmese government refuses to recognize the Rohingya Muslims as one of their official national races and denies the Rohingya of their rights, the United Nations and Gregory Stanton, president of Genocide Watch, recognize the ethnic discrimination of this group as a growing problem. The United Nations strives to stop the mistreatment of the Rohingya, and Genocide Watch declares that Rakhine State in Burma is in a state of genocide emergency, going through the ten stages of genocide.

One very profound characteristic of the events that occur within genocide is how one group becomes the dominating leader over the group whom they are targeting. Most of the time, the group that is targeted is the group that inhabits the lowest people within that countries’ society. This explicit event occurs in both with the Aborigines in Australia and the Herero/Nama in South-West Africa. Both places endured a genocide that targeted the group of people within each society that the world believed would not survive unless someone intervened on the Aborigines and Herero/Nama 's’ behalf. However as time would tell, those whom believed they were improving these societies…eventually saw that they instead ruined the lives of those whom lived during these events.

It is made known that before 1944, the term “genocide” did not exist. A Polish-Jewish lawyer named Raphael Lemkin wanted to describe the acts of the Nazi policies, in regards to the mass murders of the European Jews. Using the Greek word “geno-“, meaning race or tribe, as well as the Latin word “-cide” for killing, he formed the word “genocide” (History.com Staff). According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the term holocaust means, “Any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: Killing members of the group; Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; Deliberately

Genocide is one of the most tragic events that can happen around the world. Identifying the stages is the most crucial part of stopping these horrible acts. The Bosnian Genocide and the Holocaust could have been prevented or stopped if the 8 stages were properly identified .

The crime of genocide is one of the most devastating human tragedies throughout the history. And the word genocide refers to an organised destruction to a specific group of people who belongs to the same culture, ethnic, racial, religious, or national group often in a war situation. Similar to mass killing, where anyone who is related to the particular group regardless their age, gender and ethnic background becomes the killing targets, genocide involves in more depth towards destroying people’s identity and it usually consists a fine thorough plan prearranged in order to demolish the unwanted group due to political reasons mostly. While the term genocide had only been created recently in 1943 by Raphael Lemkin, a Polish-Jewish legal

In order to understand the term genocide and how it works, one must understand the definition of it. Genocide, is a greek word, “geno” means people, race and “cide” means to destroy or to kill, so in other words it is defined as intended annihilation of a national, ethnical, racial or religious group. The indigenous people of America, came to this land many years ago, before than any Europeans. They settled their tribes in here and created a new home for themselves where they lived a thousand years. However, this did not last long, until Europeans settled in America. When Europeans were settled in America, they enslaved Native Americans, took their golds away, made them to convert to Christianity and introduced them to many disease. Everything

“Genocide negatively affects perpetrators by perpetuating distorted thinking about the self and others, including cognitions that dehumanize those who are targeted” (qtd. in “Resolution against Genocide”). Genocide causes millions of innocent individuals and families to be tortured and murdered in numerous inhumane ways. The violence that is used in genocide is caused by the false beliefs inside ones mind. Eugenics, socioeconomic statuses, and racism are three of many factors that contribute to the motives that inspire genocide.

Various explanations and descriptions of genocide exist. “Genocide is foremost an international crime for which individuals, no matter how high in authority, may be indicted, tried, and punished by the international criminal court” (Rummel). In general, it is considered genocide when the following are committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part a group: Killing members of a group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of a group; deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to

There are 3 key factors that lead to genocide the first being Religion, the second being absolute power, and the third is that the person with the first two will lead to genocide if they have psychopath tendencies.

Genocide, a dire event, has been recurring time and time again throughout history. In the past, there was the Holocaust, where Hitler exterminated over six million Jews based on his anti-semitic views. Elie Wiesel, a Jewish author, has become a very influential man in educating the world of the true events of the Holocaust due to his involvement in the disaster. Presently, a genocide is occurring in the Darfur region of southern Sudan, in which according to Cheryl Goldmark, “a systematic slaughter of non-Arab residents at the the hands of Arab militiamen called Janjaweed” has been taking place since 2003. (1) Not only is genocide a tragic historical event, it also continuously occurs today.

Genocide is one of the inhumane crimes ruling authorizes can do to their own people or

Genocide is defined as the deliberate killing of a large group of people. Genocide is usually state sponsored. Dr. Stanton states there are 8 predictable stages Classification, Symbolization, Dehumanization, Organization, Polarization, Preparation, Extermination, Denial Genocide can be prevented at each stage. Classification creates a split of a national identity.

Studying the past and and learning the stages of genocide has the potential to help prevent genocide. It only has this power if the people that are informing themselves about the stages and signs of genocide are willing to share their knowledge and speak up. Knowing that we have made a mistake before and letting it happen again tells us that we did not truly learn anything we just memorized information. To be able to identify when a genocide is serous and about to take place is difficult because every genocide is different, however there are warning signs that are more definite than others. If these things can be identified and there is a strong plan in place to help neutralize the problem there is a chance that genocides could be stopped.