Psychology Behind Genocides “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. First of all, propaganda initiated brainwashing, indoctrination, and distortion in the people, causing them to allow the genocides to occur. One example is shown in the Holocaust. The Holocaust was a mass extermination of the Jews and others, led by Hitler and the Nazis from 1933 to 1945. Before the Holocaust occurred, propaganda was the main cause that influenced many Germans to agree with getting rid of the Jews. They were brainwashed into thinking that Jews were evil and should be erased from their country. In Night, a documentary by Elie Wiesel, Wiesel states, “The gypsy looked him up and down slowly, from head to front. As if he wanted to convince himself that this man addressing him was
The socio/cultural cause of the genocide in Rwanda came from the German and Belgian colonization, bringing along with them an idea of social science. Both colonial powers reinforced the Tutsi’s political power, which further oppressed the Hutus. This reinforcement caused the Hutus to envy the Tutsi’s aristocracy because they were privileged to all things, while the Hutus were privileged to nothing (Kapuscinski). This oppression led to many Hutu revolutions that the Hutus were successful in over the unprepared Tutsis. These victories of the Tutsis incidentally reversed the Rwandan apartheid system. The reversion of the system then gave
In Rwanda during 1994 Genocide happened between the Hutus and Tutsis. Hutus and Tutsis had disagreements on who will have power which effected the whole population of Rwanda. This leads to the question why there is Genocide in Rwanda? Genocide happened by two clans who caused mass causalities. Others did little to help which caused Genocide to happen in Rwanda.
Propaganda is the use of mass media like television, radio, magazines and other mediums to make a large number of people believe a specific point of view. Propaganda controlled Germans and allowed them to adapt to the idea of murdering the Jews. Nazi party created such effective propaganda that immediately people only saw or heard their opinions and they had the urge to comply with them. They portrayed their anti-semitism and the murderous concept of killing Jews in a way that made it indirect yet straightforward and clear. This propaganda allowed almost the entire population to develop a strong hatred for the Jews. Hitler forced all media sources in Germany to send out antisemitic messages to citizens. Anything that opposed him in media was censored or removed. Posters and advertisements were used to falsify the German citizens into supporting violence leading up to the Holocaust. It was especially powerful in enabling the genocide to move from ideology to action. These visual deliberately misled people to believe the ideology was right because of the constant repetition of the same message. Propaganda softened people’s resistance to Nazi aggression. Nazi propaganda encouraged those carrying out the holocaust to think their actions were acceptable. The holocaust was not only caused by
The Cambodian Genocide and the Armenian Genocide have similar methods of how the victims were killed. They similarly murdered their victims, starved their victims and targeted government officials. They were different in that the Armenians were deported but the Khmer Rouge targeted Cambodians based of their class and had re-education camps.
A genocide is a horrible kind of war. It is a mass killing and torturing of innocent people who do not deserve any of it. There are many stages of genocides, which may or may not go in the same order. The Holocaust, being the largest genocide and a horrible point in history, is similar and different to the Bosnian/Croatian genocide. Although many aspects lead up to these genocides and other similar wars, there are possible measures that could have been taken to prevent all of this. No human should have to endure the pain of a genocide, especially as horrible as the Holocaust, or Croatian/Bosnian war. The Holocaust and the Bosnian genocide both consisted of many stages that led to a variety of horrible events, both similar and different, which could have been prevented if certain actions were taken into consideration.
The Holocaust was a mass murder of millions of individuals’ primary to and during World War II. “Only 54 percent of the people surveyed by the Anti- Defamation League (ADL) in a massive, global poll has ever heard of the Holocaust” (Wiener-Bronner). The Holocaust was from 1933-1945 and was run by German leader named Adolf Hitler. Hitler was a man who wanted to create his own race of people. Therefore to create this race, he wiped out anyone who did not have the specific descriptions that he wanted. For people to fit into his race, they had to have blue eyes and blond hair. This excluded the Jews and from then on Hitler slowly dehumanized them. In the concentration camp the first thing they had to pass was the selection test. The selection test was what the SS man (German soldiers) used to determine who was fit for work. Usually children, mothers, and elders were the first to die because they were not mentally fit for the work they were going to be given. People who passed the selection process either died of starvation, disease, fatigue, or assassination. It took twelve years before anyone intervened and by then it was too late for millions of people. Even though over twelve million people died during the Holocaust, genocides have still happened in Rwanda, Darfur and Cambodia.
Throughout history, there are different examples of how races were being oppressed, while the higher power does not intervene, and would almost act as a bystander, except that they have the power to stop it, and the point is that the higher power, should be the one to advocate on behalf of the oppressed. Some examples would be the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide, in which the higher power, or the government, would not interfere with the injustices really when they should have since a whole race could have been killed off. I do however, understand that some believe that the bystander, or the others that are standing by as this happens, should be the ones to stop it. Although this may be true, the others, for example civilians who are standing by, do not have as much power as let us say, governments who have the resources and the power to make a change to other countries in need.
In the past 150 years, tens of millions of men, women and children have lost their lives to ethnic cleansing or genocide. Although the definition is often scrutinized, according to Merriam Webster, "Genocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political or cultural group". The most notable event associated with the term is the Holocaust. Stated by Judah Gribets, Edward Greenstein and Regina Stein, "nearly six million Jews fell victim to genocide during the years of the Holocaust". Of This number, one million were children who were unable to take care of themselves. People's hopes and dreams for the future were stripped from them, and many families were ripped apart. Many of these people were tortured or raped
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines the word “genocide” as “the killing of people who belong to a particular racial, political, or cultural group” (Merriam). But aren’t genocides much more then that? Over the past hundred years, there have been several attempted genocides around the world. Two of the most well-known genocides are the Holocaust (the Nazi’s attempt to destroy the Jewish people) and the Bosnian genocide (the Serbians attempt to destroy the Bosnian population). This paper analyzes a political cartoon relating to genocides, describes the events that led to the Holocaust and the Bosnian genocide, describes several similarities and differences between them and explains why genocides continue regardless of the saying, “Never Again”.
Propaganda was an elaborate and essential tool used extensively by Hitler and the Nazi's as well as the Hutu's during their terrorizing reign of Germany and throughout Europe and the Hutu's horrific acts of genocide that happened because of a culmination of deep ethnic tensions brewing over a century and intense political corruption. Not only was it used to promote and endorse the party and its leader's extreme racist values but also to mask the horrifying truths of what was to become known as the Holocaust and the Rwanda Genocides.
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
In the year 1994, the Rwandan Genocide took place. During this time, Rwandans were set into two distinctive groups that were at war with each other. He Hutu ethnic majority were determined to remove the Tutsi ethnic minority. In westernized states, many people were not concerned with this because they felt that there was no real connection. The United States, specifically, did not want to engage in what they believed to be “not their fight”. In 2004, Hotel Rwanda was released and it baffled many westerns when they realized how little help they provided. It also caused an emotional response because it was noted how much could have changed if they had stepped in. Hotel Rwanda was a very historically accurate film and had many key features
Rwanda is a country made up of a population with three ethnic communities, the two main communities, the Hutu and Tutsi and an additional community of Twa (or pygmies) who all spoke the same language, Kinyarwanda or Rwandan (Clapham, 1998). There is a stereotype of appearance attributed to these two main communities, with Tutsi being seen as tall and having an aquiline shaped nose, and the Hutu as being short and flat-nosed (Clapham, 1998). In the pre-colonial state of Rwanda, it was the Tutsis that occupied positions of power even though they were a minority community compared with the majority of the Hutu community, this remained the same until Habyarimana (a Hutu) became President (Clapham, 1998). The Germans, Europeans and Belgian’s colonised and during their time in Rwanda, made it known that they favoured the Tutsis over the Hutus, the Europeans going as far to regard the Hutu and Twa as inferior to the Tutsis (Clapham, 1998). The Belgians eventually changed their views, and favoured the Hutu, foreseeing that the majority Hutu would eventually become dominant (Magnarella, 2005). Supporting the coloniser’s views, Rwandan folktales describe the Tutsi as being intelligent and courageous, the Hutu as being obedient however not very clever, and the twa as loyal to the Tutsis, yet lazy and lacking in restraint (Clapham, 1998). The Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) was established by Tutsis who were exiled from Rwanda, they retained a strong sense of identity and formed the
During the colonization of Africa, whites were seen as the superior group, and the natives and others were seen as savages. In this time, some of the African majority groups were favored by the whites, and were given better privileges than the other natives were. The “remnants of the colonial systems” contributed to such things as the Rwandan Genocide and Apartheid, because of this kind of favoritism. In addition, when the decolonization of these nations began, resentment and fear contributed to such genocidal acts and segregated movements.
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.