Sunday, June 10, 2007

personal reflection

I think that the Rwanda Genocide was proof that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was more of ideas than something real, because if it were something real then there would be no way this could have happened. It's not like this even happened hundreds of years ago, this event was only 13 years into the past, and 59 years after the declaration was created, and even 62 years after the second world war, so the world had seen the and been done with the Holocaust, and should have know what to do when the government started to take control. Although the human rights had been around for sometime, it still didn’t prevent this massacre from happening. I think that it was just something made so that when the United Nations and allies were going through a similar situation, they would be able to save themselves. It seemed like it was more of a bluff and a scandal to comfort the world after the terror of the Holocaust, the rights themselves are necessary, but they aren’t enforced the way they should be, and the Rwanda genocide could have been avoided if these rights were enforced.

I think that the Rwanda Genocide was extremely similar to the Holocaust for many reasons. First and foremost, Rwanda was taken over by fanatic leaders, similar to the Nazi leaders in Germany who would follow the gory orders that their leader would tell them, without question, very similar to the SS of Hitler. Also, the government leaders and militia groups wanted to "cleanse" themselves from the two ethnic groups, the Hutu and the Tutsi, like Hitler wanted to rid himself of all Jews in the world, and managed to murder a great number of them over his period of leadership. I also think that the ways the Hutu and Tutsi were treated and killed were very much like non-Aryans during WWI, they were tortured, burned, and massacred over a course of 100 bloody days, like the Jews were experimented on, tortured and incinerated of many years. The overall idea of the Genocide and the Holocaust were basically the same to me.

I strongly believe that the idea of humanism didn’t once cross the mind of any military of government leader in Rwanda in 1994. If humanism was the idea that every individual matters, then clearly, it wasn’t an idea during this horrible massacre. The government and the two military forces (interahamawe and impuzamgumbi) wanted racial and ethnic cleansing, so anyone who was Hutu or Tutsi was killed, and that’s obviously not supporting the idea that every person matters. If humanism was an idea during the genocide, I seriously doubt that these hundred days would have happened. The only time I think that humanism would have been thought about would be the Interahamawe and Impuzamgumbi expressing that towards them selves, but that wouldn’t really be humanism, because they wouldn’t have thought that towards everyone, like the idea is suppose to be expressed.

The Rwanda Genocide really opened my eyes to the horrible things that people can do to one another. I knew that the Holocaust was extremely brutal and horrible, but it seems like it happened such a long time ago, but for something that happened 13 years ago, and could have been avoided, and something that was so much like the Holocaust, was let to happen, and to the extent that it did happen, it was mind blowing. Reading and learning about this genocide, made me sick. I felt so bad for the poor families who were brutally murdered for something as simple as their ethnicity. I really wish that these mothers, and fathers, brother and sisters, sons and daughters didn’t have to live through this terrible time, watching everything they lived for, be torn apart before their very eyes. As much as I felt sorrow for the victims, I felt an even greater disgust and loath towards the perpetrators, the government leaders and the Interahamawe and Impuzamgumbi, who lead violent rallies, and killed thousands of innocent civilians. I really wish I could have gone down there and just tortured all of them, the same way they tortured the Hutu and the Tutsi, but then I would stoop down to their level, and that, that would be so much worse. As much as I wish that this could have been stopped, it cant change what happened, and I can do now, is wish that no one else have to go through such pain and sorrow as those who died, and those who lived to tell the tail of the Rwanda Genocide

I feel a very deep sadness for the victims of the genocide, but what makes it so much worse, is that in my mind, I think that this whole time period could have been avoided. First of all, the government should have been stopped before all this got to the point it did, its not like this was in ancient times, it was in current times, and should have been stopped much sooner than it did. None of the actions the government or the Interahamawe and Impuzamgumbi did were justified at all. They had no right or reason to decide to kill thousands of innocent people. I’m not sure what they were thinking, but clearly they weren’t thinking at all, because if they were they could have saved many lives. I don’t know what to think, because as much as Id like to change what happened, I cant, so I think that the leaders and the Interahamawe and Impuzamgumbi should be brought to justice, because what they did was terrible and wrong, and should have been prevented, and shouldn’t ever happen again.

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