The Ethical Role Of Animals In The Rwanda Genocide

Escaping is a pleasure to some people and to some it was a necessity, like to Jack Werber, “Escape was not our goal since it was so unrealistic. What we wanted was to survive, to live long enough to tell the world what had happened in Buchenwald.” This quote by Jack Werber is inspiring to some people. Jack Werber did live long enough to tell his story, like a lot of Tutsis in the Rwandan genocide. The Rwandan Genocide impacted not only the Tutsis, but the world.

Laws are not strong enough against animal cruelty and people do not know about this problem because it is not as prominent as others. Some of the reasons humans kill animals is for food, clothing, and entertainment. The way we kill animals in doing these are very brutal and inhumane. The only thing they care about is to produce a mass amount of meat, in a short period of time, and with little food to feed the animals. The last thing they are worried about is the animal itself and its feelings and needs.

With this said I put this question to you. What gives us the right, as animals, to brutally abuse and kill other animals in the name of science and the selfish preservation of our own species? Especially when there are alternative methods available to us that don’t require the death of innocent animals.

The treatment of animals and humans has changed drastically over the years. Humans in the 1620’s started treating other humans as objects and used them to do their dirty work that they did not want to do because they were either simply too lazy or they just felt like they were too far above the work that they were forcing other people to do. Slavery was very popular for somewhere around 250 years. This was one of the longest ill-treatments of human beings in history. Now humans are coming up with the ideas of

Eating animals poses two moral questions. Is it wrong to raise and kill animals simply because humans enjoy the fleeting taste of their flesh? Do our differences from these animals justify their slaughter? The response to both of these questions is simple. Never. Many people believe that their superiority over animals is a justification to eat them. Animals have been traditionally defined as slaves and non-rational beings without moral reasoning, but these beliefs have been refuted for centuries.Even if these claims were true, these differences should encourage more, not less, moral consideration since they gather that animals cannot give or withhold their consent or

George Santayana once said “Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” The Rwanda Genocide is a contemporary representation of the events that occurred during the Armenian Genocide. It is an unforgiving circumstance that even after massacres from the latter and the Holocaust that Genocides still emerge in a world who far too often shuts their door to the idea of intervention. Countries can have an abundance of supplies, unmatchable man-power, and exceptional military equipment, however, with interests in absentia, countries will be reluctant to deploy forces despite exclamations of help. The culmination of the Rwanda Genocide is absolutely an unforgiving portion of history that will be remembered by the victims, the witnesses, and the decision-makers.

History has a funny way of repeating itself. After World War II, the United States and the rest of the international community promised to do all they could to prevent future genocides. However this was a promise they were unable to keep. In 1994 when Rwanda went through genocide the United States and U.N were absent, leaving the Tutsis to be brutally murdered by the Hutus. As a consequence 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed and dumped into mass graves. Once again the United States and U.N promised to do more, but this time it was too late.

In between 1930 and 1945, an event took place that changed the world in many ways. The Holocaust was a genocide that consisted of the decimation of one single race, the Jews. This solemn event is very similar (and also quite different) to another event that took place only four thousand miles away. Like the Holocaust, this event is was a genocide and it took place at Rwanda in 1994. This genocide was between the Hutus and Tutsis. These two groups have a long background with each other that consisted of civil wars, switches in power and superiority, and tension. It began when the Europeans put the Tutsis in a superior position because they were the ones that closely resembled them, the Europeans, in physical appearance. It was the death of

For years we have struggled with rights water its humans or nonhumans, and what has rights. Who decides who has rights? There are many organizations that try to help make animal right known such as Friends of Animals, Animal Aid and many more. However, there are still injustices occurring nonhumans. I analyzed three articles to find out what causes nonhuman inequality.“Weighing and Protecting life: Beyond Speciesism, Welfarism, and legalism,” Steven Best will be my first source. Best focuses on the word speciesism, it goes in-depth into why people subconscious label animals as species. On the contrary Richard York, “Humanity and Inhumanity: Toward a Sociology of the Slaughterhouse” has a different point of view. York speaks

When we speak of exploitation, holocaust and slaughter, we think of slavery, the five million Jews killed during the Nazis Holocaust, and the many casualties of war, but these numbers pale and are a minuscule fraction compared to the number of non-human animals that are killed daily as a disposable service and resource for humans; their death is invisible, their horror silent. The same facts that shock us become acceptable data, a justifiable commodity of modern living. These anthropocentric sets of moral codes we use to rationalize our actions do not hold upon examination, and consistently brings us face to face with our own intrinsic prejudices.

Genocide is the complete extermination a specific group. It is a significant event in History that has been repeated time and time again, from the Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Holocaust to Joseph Stalin’s Era in the USSR. These chaotic periods of mass killing are usually the result of hatred towards certain races, religions, or ethnic parties. The attackers put unnecessary blame on the other group and take action to punish them brutal instead of finding means to compromise. They fear for their potential lost of power. The victims are quickly torqued and wipe out with a little chance of protecting themselves. In this case the rapid annihilation of the Tutsi for causing the apparent social and political issues in Rwanda, Africa is a perfect example of that. This genocide became known as the “100 days of slaughter.” (BBC) In the end of this period over 800,000 (about three quarter of the entire Tutsi population) were eradicated.

The elk is dragged back to the hunting cabin where it is skinned, cleaned, and cut into manageable pieces. Knowing he does not need the meat, the hunter takes only the head and leaves the rest. He mounts his trophy over the mantle. What does this every day scenario say about humans in comparison to their four legged counterparts? While not all people kill for sport, there are absolutely no animals in the world that do. They kill out of necessity: to eat, to mate, to teach their young, and to defend themselves. On the same token, the human race is the only species known to commit cruel acts just for cruelty’s sake. Yet, we as humans pride ourselves on our ability to understand right from wrong. In this way, do animals have the distinct advantage over us in that they know no difference between right and wrong, yet are naturally good? Does this leave the human race as the only creatures on Earth that are

Let me start by saying I do agree that we should not be brutal and mistreat animals. Singer stated “If a being suffers, there can be no moral justification for refusing to take that suffering into consideration. No matter what the nature of the being.” (Singer, P., 1989). I do see his point however, Humans have hunted for their food since the dawn of times. We have caves where they show printed men hunting animals to feed their own. Back in the day’s food was not wasted which we do in today’s time. I believe it is not ethically wrong to consume meat; however, people should not mistreat animals, now they should treat them with dignity mistreating animals is ethically wrong. My family was brought up on a farm where everything was fresh, and

It is much better to use animals for research rather than killing them for our meal. Why do people get so violent when animals are used for research? Why do they consider animal testing cruel and inhumane? People hunt animals and consume them. They look at them in circuses and zoos. In zoos, they are caged and not in their natural habitat. In circuses, they are used for entertainment.During all that no one ever feels that it is cruel to animals. How is that justified? People also use animal bodies to make several products.

Humans have always had a complicated relationship with non-human animals. This relationship has always benefitted the needs of humans, with little consideration for animals’ needs. Some animals are tortured for entertainment, some are butchered for food and others are taken from their habitat and family, and forced to be pets for humans. These are all examples of the ways humans have exploited animals for their own satisfaction. Hal Herzog’s essay “Animals Like Us” describes the complicated relationship that humans and animals have, and how difficult it is to determine what is ethical when dealing with animals. Jonathan Safran Foer makes a similar observation in his essay “The Fruits of Family Trees” of the ethical issues in the