It will be 15 years in April since the Rwandan genocide happened, I was still in high school and I could remember the horrible pictures and Videos shown on Tv. To me one of the most powerful movie made about this genocide was: Sometimes in April, with Idris Elba, I was really really moved by it.
I also watched a few weeks ago on HBO a movie named: The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo (I am sure you already heard about it). Men i was just speechless. Please God Forgive us, that's what I was thinking during the whole documentary.
A look at genocide over the years.
The human race has a history, some that they can be proud of and some that people try to forget. It’s the ones that can’t be forgotten that haunt most of us today as the genocides that have taken place since ancient times. This is a horrible history and it all lies in the hands of the powers that be at the time. Sometimes it’s sad and shameful to look back over history and realize we have not learnt from these lessons and they still take place in some parts of the world. To make matters worse it is let happen due to governments not getting involved. It is not always armies that kill but rules of government that lead to the mass murders of innocent people. Every country has its own mass murders to deal with in one way or another.
The 13th Century
The 13th century has its own genocide which was carried out by Mongolian Horsemen of Temujin Genghis Khan. Some of his armies wiped out whole nations in their quest for power, leaving behind, nothing but bones and ruins.
Early Genocides
At Wounded Knee the United States militia may have eliminated the indigenous population of Sioux. It is said that when Christopher Columbus set foot upon American soil combined with the Wounded Knee Massacre there were 100,000 000 people eliminated. Although it was disease that was partially to blame for this genocide was it not the fault of those that brought disease to their land. In Brazil there once lived approximately three million people which faded away to 300,000 in 1997.
Argentina Genocide
Argentina saw genocide unfold in the Conquest of the Dessert Campaign which in 1870 left more than 1,300 of indigenous people dead. It is a source of contention today if genocide was the intent to exterminate the aborigine people but regardless lives was lost.
Australia Genocides
In the 1800’s there was a period of conflict that is referred to as the Black War. At the time the Tasmanian Aboriginal people were approximately 5,000 to 8,000 strong in 1830. These people were reduced to 300 people by 1833 when the conflict was ended and the survivors were relocated to Flinders Island. They never recovered and in 1876 the last Aboriginal died.
Philippines Genocide
The Philippine –American war from 1899 to 1902 was an operation launched by the US. During this war there were over a million Philippines lost their lives. These consisted on men, women and children. Was this genocide? It is still debated today among scholars; nevertheless over a million people are dead.
German and South West Africa Genocide
In 1904 to 1907 the German and South West African War took place. This is said to have been the first organized genocide of the 20th century. The Herero loss 80% of their population and the Namaqua lost fifty percent of theirs. These people were killed in a brutal scorched campaign of Germany.
The Irish Famine - Genocide?
The Irish Famine in a way was truly genocide as it was determined that the British Government between 1845 to 1850 pursued a policy of mass starvation with the intent to destroy a large part of the national, ethnical and racial group known as the Irish people. Their population went from eight to nine million to approximately 4 million. This is not your typical genocide but as we can see through history genocide comes in many forms.
The Armenian Genocide 1915-1918
One of the first genocide of the 20th Century occurred when two million Armenians living in Turkey were eliminated from their historic homeland through forced deportations and massacres.
Ukraine Genocide 1932-1933
Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union, set in motion events designed to cause a famine in the Ukraine to destroy the people there seeking independence from his rule. As a result, an estimated 7,000,000 persons perished in this farming area, known as the breadbasket of Europe, with the people deprived of the food they had grown with their own hands.
Jewish Genocide (holocaust) 1938-1945
We are all aware of the genocide that took place during World War II. It began with a simple boycott of Jewish shops and ended in the gas chambers at Auschwitz as Adolf Hitler and his Nazi followers attempted to exterminate the entire Jewish population of Europe. It is perhaps the one to be remembered for all time as it is still fresh in history. It is estimated that over 16,000,000 people died under the hands of the Germans, they were not all Jewish people but they were people just the same. Over ten million Slavs lost their lives along with 5.3 million Jews, 258,000 Roma, and 220,000 homosexuals. To most of us today this seems unbelievably, at least until you talk to a survivor then it becomes very real.
Bosnia-Herzegovina Genocide 1992-1995
The conflict between the three main ethnic groups, the Serbs, Croats, and Muslims, resulted in genocide committed by the Serbs against the Muslims in Bosnia with 200 000 deaths.
Cambodia genocide 1975-1979
An attempt by Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot to form a Communist peasant farming society resulted in the deaths of 25 percent of the country's population from starvation, overwork and executions.
Rwanda Genocide 1994
This to me perhaps seems to be the most unbelievable genocide in history. Not that I have any doubt of it happening but that it was let happen at all. The world stood by and watched as 800,000 people were slaughtered and no one did anything to stop it. This genocide took approximately two months to extinguish these people from the face of the earth.
Five years since the genocide in Darfur began, over 450,000 people have died, millions have been displaced, and the conflict continues.
Democratic Republic of the Congo, Africa’s Hidden Genocide.
According to the International Rescue Committee, 5.4 million Congolese have died, 50 percent of which are children five years old or younger. Amnesty International has reported that tens of thousands of women have been raped, some victims as young as 2 years old and as old as 70 years.
There are many more countries that are responsible for genocide, too many that I didn't even mention, if that could have happened in Rwanda in 1994 then it can happen anywhere. Maybe we can find excuses for the genocides of yesterday but there are no excuses for the genocides of today. Will we have learnt anything from the past? Apparently not as there are still places in the world that are in upheaval such as Israel and Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq, Congo, Sudan and the list goes on. Only time will tell, but hopefully people will never have to go through the horror again that those that have gone before us went through. Inchaalah.
If you want to learn more about the movie ''The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo'', click on the following link: http://www.hbo.com/docs/programs/thegreatestsilence/index.html
If you want to learn more about the movie ''Sometimes in April'', click on the following link: http://www.hbo.com/films/sometimesinapril/synopsis/
Source: Google, HBO
1 comment:
Don't forget to add to the Argentine genocide, the murder of Africans who were brought to the country as slaves and how the government used them as human cannonballs and used every way possible to eradicate every aspect and existence of them from Argentine culture. The only thing that is left even with a few possible descendents is the Tango.
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