Personal Narrative: Genocide

History does repeat itself. If we would just read the notes of wisdom our ancestors left us called books, maybe we wouldn’t make the same mistake over and over again. But then again, maybe ignorance is bliss. We are taught since the time we could walk to do good.

There is no doubt that history repeats itself and even though it isn’t direct if we look a little deeper we can see the similarities. No matter how hard we hide history will discreetly fined a way to

I have lived in only one location my entire life: Edwardsville, Illinois. A peripheral suburb of St. Louis, it stands as the rare oasis of people in a desert of corn, pinned in its own personal bubble. Due to this blend of time and isolation, I developed a natural familiarity with my hometown. But, throughout my childhood, I longed to break free from the confines of the bubble and venture outward. However, this changed last summer, as I walked through Richards Brickyard, our family heirloom, that my great-grandfather, Benjamin Richards, founded over 120 years ago. I felt these childlike sentiments slip away. The bubble that had surrounded me for so long began to vanish, and the picture that it had been obscuring was slowly revealed.

Howard Zinn makes a statement that is a powerful analogy regarding this, “I assume that history is not a well-ordered city (despite the neat stacks of the library) but a jungle… we who plunge into the jungle need to think about what we are doing, because there is somewhere we want to go” (Zinn). This quote represents that people thinking about their actions are required for a metaphorical, world peace and harmony. If those people think about their actions before they act upon them, then they will realize they might have a future before wrecking a historical time period. A prime example of history repeating past historical events is the Rwanda Genocide in respects to the Holocaust. The Holocaust developed as the Nazi’s killed Jewish people because they were the inferior race.

When people say history repeats itself, they are not lying. A modern conflict in today’s world can relate to the events that happened in a play written in the 1500’s. The play, The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, by William Shakespeare, can relate to the ongoing Syrian Civil War. In both circumstances, people not anticipating the consequences of their actions made decisions. It resulted in devastating tragedies, all started by an ancient grudge. Which forced the government to retaliate in violence against the perpetrators, involuntarily displacing innocents, and the loss of many people or requiring them to flee

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” -George Santayana (as originally written). This much has always been true to those who study the seemingly extinguished conflicts of the former world. The undeniable fact of it is, history can and will repeat itself, lest society seeks to learn from it. In order for society to learn from the tragedies of yesteryear, certain changes must take place, because change is essential for growth - which in turn fuels further change: a fundamental cycle that society must commence. Without change and growth, humanity is thrown into a state of chaos and destruction; one’s logical thinking may get the best of them. In order to grasp control over the recurrences of history, Some supposedly

It's a Friday afternoon, I plan to go to Great Wolf Lodge in an hour with my church. I see one of my friends so he says to his mom “ Hey, that's my friend” I said “Crap” So I go inside to sign in to go and see my friends just sitting in a corner on a big sofa. We are listening to music and just talking then a green bus comes.

[T13]Man, I think I'm getting something else besides a cold. I hear this voice telling me this all a video game. This entire world is something I signed up. If the voice is going to talk, then tell me how to get out of here. I either getting sick or crazy if I am hearing voices inside my head.

The door slammed with a loud BANG. The stench of waste death and despair pulled over me. Why am I here? What did I do? Am I going to die? Scared out of my mind I yell "I want out" but it's like no one heard my cries for help. the door to my cell swung open. A young man walked in, he was tall with black hair and a long thick beard. he walks up and says "come with me he is ready for you." I stand up shaking.As I walk out the door the smell just gets worse it was like the camp was made out of dead bodies and waste. the door slams behind us. The whole time we walked not one word came out of his mouth. We stumbled upon a small room he opens the door shows me inside and points at one of the chairs. On the table, there was a small packet. I am startled

Genocide is a reality that no one can ever conquer or vanish if they are working alone or do not look at the consequences upon taking choices of action. We as Americans feel it is our duty to only take a course of action if we know and are fully aware of the actions being made against the people, or if we are being affected directly. If it does not affect us and we do not know about it then obviously we cannot do anything about it.

Regardless of country or age, one common fact that children learn in school seems to be that history always repeats itself. Connections always exist between different cultures and wars often seem to be fought on the same basis. History seems defined by the rises and crashes of different civilizations, all of whom believed to be the best, to be invincible. Ever too often, either due to a faulty leader or merely invasions, the civilization slowly burns up, until a new one is born from its ashes. But, regardless of the patterns, regardless of the similarities, overall humans learn from experience right? From the time of the hunter-gatherers, or even from the from civilization of Mesopotamia, humans have been on an upward curve, growing through every struggle, right?

I do believe that history repeats itself because we are making the same mistakes from the past. The cyclical and spiral theories are the ones that I agree with and can relate to and see happening right now. For instance, with all of our advances in technology, why is it so hard to control ISIS or other terror groups that are causing such destruction? You would think we would have learned from past war tactics; however, wars are being fought like we have made no advances. I believe we should care about history because history documents the circumstances that cause major events. For instance: plaques, wars, major catastrophes, monarchies, changes in government, social and economic changes, population, etc. By being knowledgeable of the

I think that you can definitely repeat the past, in history it is shown that the past has definitely been repeated. When Napoleon attempted to gain territory in Russia, he failed to after winter approached, the same would happen to Hitler later on when he attempted to attack Russia. History repeated itself in Russia in similar ways. History could have repeated recently when Donald Trump wanted all people that identified as Muslim to wear a special Id Badge, what he did not realize (but the rest of the world did) was that he was proposing something extremely similar to what Hitler did to the Jewish people. I do think that the past can and will be

On June 10th 2016 I woke up and went out to start my day. Since it was summer I usually spend my days swimming or at home playing in the yard. That day I decided it was a perfect day with excellent weather to spend my day at the Plymouth pool. It was a great day to lay out in the sun and get a sun kissed glow, but most of all to hangout with my friends. I would usually spend my whole day from noon to 6:00pm at the pool, but this time by surprise my mom picked me up early and told me my brother and his girlfriend Renee wanted to take me out to Chicago with them. I was told I was going to go to a carnival or out to eat in Chicago, but my mom knew all along where I was going. She told me to find a shirt with dark blue on it but I never knew

Now and days every person must take at least two years of history in order to pass high school. Many people, including myself, ask the question,“Why must we take history?” Well the answer many of us get is, “ So that history does not repeat itself.” The real question of the matter is, Does history repeat itself? History has repeated itself over and over again. An example of this would be the genocide that occurred in the Ottoman empire in 1915, nearly 88 years later another genocide has occurred in Darfur in 2003. These two events are both similar and different in ways, but none-the-less are proof that history does in deed repeat itself.