The Fear Factor : How People Do Horrible Things

On April 6, 1994, a plane carrying Habyarimana and Burundi’s president Cyprien Ntaryamira was shot down over Kigali their were no survivors. They did not know who shot the plane down but they are blaming Hutu extremists and the leaders of the RPF. An hour after the plane went down the Rwandan armed forces and the Hutu militia groups had started setting up roadblocks and barricades, and started killing Tutsis and moderate Hutus. the first victims of the genocide were the moderate Hutu Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana and her 10 Belgian bodyguards, with that happening it started more conflict and interim government of extremist Hutu Power leaders from the military high command had stepped in on april 9. The killing in Rwanda had spreaded to the rest of the country, up to 800,000 or more had been slaughtered within 3 months.

Gradually, history has repeated itself with social issues

Both the short and long term causes are studied. The genocide could have resulted from numerous built up problems or one specific event. It is clear that for hundreds of years, the Hutus

The Hutu’s believe the Tutsi’s were trying to regain power. There was a long history of rivalry and violence between these two tribes and the killing of the president was the catalyst ignited the voracious flames of revenge. The Hutu’s began their manhunt to find and kill the Tutsi’s in revenge for the years of perceived oppression when the Tutsi’s ruled Rwanda.

“How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don’t think” (Hitler, Mein Kampf). As time passed, there has been many times in history where a genocide has occurred. A genocide is a one-sided massacre from one party toward an ethnic or different group of people. As genocides occurred, questions such as “Why do people kill?” and “How can people allow these atrocities to occur?” are asked. There have been many theories made up as people researched the reason behind genocides. Throughout different centuries in history, genocides such as the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide, and the Asian genocide, have occurred because of the negative psychological effects on the people caused by propaganda, corrupted leaders, and differences in ethnic groups.

How is it possible that after decades filled with thousands of deaths due to genocide, it still occurs to this day? For instance, Rwandan and Jewish families were torn apart, along with the hundreds of precious treasures and memories of each individual. During the Holocaust, over six million jews were killed;in addition, throughout the Rwandan genocide more than eight hundred thousand Rwandans were killed. Therefore, with these prior fatalities, it is the duty of upcoming generations to unite and put an end to genocide and prevent similar acts from taking place. Genocide strips the innocent lives of families; genocide is known as an act of the intentional mass murder of people, usually those who pertain to a specific race or religion. Punishing

The Hutus are now in the position of power; the Hutu officials began to carry out massive genocides on the Tutsis. According to Document 8 it states, “The Hutu officials who took over the government organized the murders [of Tutsis] nationwide…Meanwhile, when the murders started the RPF [Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front] in Uganda invaded Rwanda again.” This quote demonstrates the back and forth genocide each ethnic group is imposing on each other. The genocide in Rwanda was sparked by the death of the Hutu Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana, when his place was shot down. Many Hutus blamed the Rwandan Patriotic Front and instantly started campaigns of slaughter. This also provided additional reasons why the Hutu had hatred against the Tutsis. According to Document 9a it states, “Over the course of the genocide nearly one million people were killed.” This shows how extreme the genocide was and how extensive the genocide

Throughout time, history has been recorded from the perspective of the victors. It is this bias within the archives that shape the views and motives of the groups involved. As a result of this influence the general way of thinking, and recollection of historical events has been altered to a certain degree to conform to the conqueror’s ideals. Society turns a blind eye to the horrors of the past, preferring to plead ignorance than to face the reality of the cruelty humans are capable of. There are parts in history that conversely cannot be ignored, such as the genocide in Rwanda, 9-11, Terror in Paris and the most historical, the holocaust in World War II, where the true extent of human vindictiveness came to light. In spite

Hearing about genocide was nothing new to many people, but because of the new upbringing of the internet and availability of news broadcasts, the entire world was able to see it for the first time. It was always well known that the Rwandan population is very one-sided. The majority of the people living there are Sunni Muslims or "Hutus" whereas the minority consists of Shia Muslims, or "Tutsi". According to Sarah Hymowitz and Amelia Parker, Tutsi are said to be of higher class because they are more white, and the Hutus are common people of middle class. Although the distrust and hatred between the two groups of people was always slightly present, nobody had any clue about what would be the outcome. Following the establishment of the Hutu led government in 1961, the oppression of the Tutsi followed not far behind. Although many Tutsi fled in fear of imprisonment into neighboring Uganda, those of the Tutsi who were still in Rwanda (probably due to family or marriage ties) were seen as lesser beings by the new Hutu Government. At the time, and for two decades it seemed like the situation was under control. When the Rwandan Patiotic front (RPF) was formed in 1985, tensions escalated. The RPF was a group of Tutsi exiles who demanded that they be granted the right to return to their homeland and end the long period of discrimination against the Tutsi. The RPF rebels invaded Rwanda in October 1990, re-igniting Tutsi hatred throughout Rwanda. It was this act of Tutsi aggression,

The Hutu started to go door to door killing the Tutsi with machetes, cubs or any hand weapons they could get their hands on to because bullets were to expense for the Hutu to affored, about.com says (“Some of the victims were given the option of paying for a bullet so that they'd have a quicker death”). The reason why the Hutu would know who was a Tutsi was because they would look at their identity card that would have what they were, a Hutu, a Tutsi or a Twa. All the Tutsi men & children were killed as soon as they were found, but some of the women would be kept & tortured before being killed & in many causes they would be raped first then killed adding humiliation to the mix of all things. The killing lasted about 100 days or 4 months averaging about 800,000 Tutsi men & women died. The slaughter stop because the RPF came into play, the RPF or known as the Rwandan Patriotic Front is a trained military made up of Tutsi people that was made some years before. The RPF forced matter into their own hands & went into Rwanda to take over, they came out wining but at the same time the flet like if they “had lost because they have had wished to get here sooner than later” says a Tutsi

Throughout human history, mass killings have occurred on groups of people purely based on false stereotypes or rumors, built up aggression, power dominance, or physical attributions such as race. In the past 150 years, there has been a spike in the number of genocides, despite the culture that the killing takes place in. Therefore, it is impossible whether to deem these monstrous acts are of natural human, cultural, or sociological nature. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the causes, processes, and effects of the Holocaust and the Rwandan Genocide in terms of reification when comparing and contrasting the two horrific events. Additionally, elements of the logic of illogic and a doctrine of false concreteness will be discussed in an in-depth effort to uncover the mindset of these horrific atrocities.

During the 100 days of the brutal massacre known as the Rwandan Genocide, between 800,000 to a million people were tragically murdered. Tutsis were not the only ones being killed. Hutus were also being killed for various reasons. If people thought they felt regretful for what they were doing to the Tutsi, they would be killed. If the Hutus tried to help the Tutsi in anyway they were killed. Many of the Hutus were killed if they opposed the killing campaign and the forces directing it.

“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

Damascene said, “The soldiers fired their guns in the air to rally the killers . . . and the killers came running, screeching like animals and waving their machetes”. This shows that the Hutu extremists didn’t care about any Tutsi or even a strategy to kill. They just ruthlessly killed anyone they could with the excuse that they had to act first before the Tutsis attacked them. This is why power of the Hutu soldiers caused the

Genocide is “the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, ethnic, political, or cultural group”. In Rwanda for example, the Hutu-led government embraced a new program that called for the country’s Hutu people to murder anyone that was a Tutsi (Gourevitch, 6). This new policy of one ethnic group (Hutu) that was called upon to murder another ethnic group (Tutsi) occurred during April through June of 1994 and resulted in the genocide of approximately 800,000 innocent people that even included women and children of all ages. In this paper I will first analyze the origins/historical context regarding the discontent amongst the Hutu and Tutsi people as well as the historical context as to why major players in the international