MAN’S INHUMANITY TO MAN

Throughout history there have been barbaric atrocities – genocides – that have demonstrated “man’s inhumanity to man”. We think of those in ancient times as evidence of early cultures that felt little value for human life. But even in modern times, humanity continued to show that it can still be barbaric. There were a lot of examples in the 20^th century. Of course, the one that comes to mind first – and perhaps the worst – the Holocaust during World War II when the German Nazis attempted the extermination of the Jewish population in Europe. As a result about 6 million were killed – horrific. But, there were many other genocides in the 20^th century:

• The Armenian Genocide (1915 – 1918) – More than half of the Armenian population (1.5 million people) were annihilated by the Ottoman armies.
• The Ukrainian Genocide/The Great Famine (1932/33) – Russian communists seized all privately owned farmland and livestock in the Ukraine, which at the time was considered the breadbasket of Europe. A famine resulted and approximately 7 million people died.
• The Rape of Nanking (1937) – The Japanese army seized the Chinese capital and murdered half the population (300,000 civilians and soldiers) and also raped and murdered over 20,000 women.
• Mao Tse-tung’s Cultural Revolution (1958) – The “Great Leap Forward” destroyed the agricultural system, causing a terrible famine in which 27 million people starved to death.
• The Killing Fields/The Cambodian Genocide (1975-1979) – The Khmer Rouge pursued a reign of violence, fear, and brutality over Cambodia in an attempt to form a Communist peasant farming society. This resulted in the deaths of 25% of the population from starvation, overwork, and executions.
• Bosnia and Herzegovina (1992) – The Serbs pursued “ethnic cleansing” and as a result, over 200,000 Muslim civilians were systematically murdered and 2,000,000 became refugees.
• Rwandan Genocide (1994) - Hutu militias attempted to exterminate the country’s ethnic Tutsi population and as a result an estimated 800,000 persons, had been killed.

And there were others.

But now in the 21^st-century you would think that modern society would be more civilized. However, the atrocities continue to happen as evidenced by a series of more recent events:

• Democratic Republic of the Congo/DRC (2002 - present) - Many killers and rapists who were former genocidists who escaped into the DRC from the Rwandan genocide went on a rampage against other ethnic groups. Estimates of the dead range from three to five million persons.
• The Genocide in Darfur/Western Sudan (2003) - Government-sponsored militias conducted a campaign of slaughter, rape, starvation and displacement. It is estimated that 400,000 people have died due to violence, starvation and disease. More than 2.5 million people have been displaced from their homes and over 200,000 have fled across the border to Chad.
• Syria (2011 – present) - President Bashar al-Assad’s government has violently repressed civilian protests and launched attacks on both rebel forces and Sunni Arab civilians. The death toll is estimated to be more than 60,000 people and over 700,000 Syrian refugees have fled to neighboring countries.
• Christians and Muslims in the Central African Republic (2013 – present) – A civil war and ethnic conflict between the Christian militias and the Muslim coalition resulted in genocide.
• South Sudan (2013 – present) – A civil war between ethnic groups has taken the form of a campaign of genocide and ethnic cleansing.
• ISIS (2014 – present) - The terrorist group carved its caliphate out of war-torn Syria and Iraq in 2014 and 2015 and pursued brutal, genocidal campaigns against non-Muslim communities. They killed thousands, destroyed their villages, and also carried out mass rapes.
• The Rohingya in Myanmar (current) - The Buddhist majority consider the Rohingya, who are Muslim, to be illegal immigrants and "terrorists" from Bangladesh. As a result of ethnic cleansing, up to 3,000 people have been killed and at least 270,000 have been displaced.

And there are others – and probably will continue to be.

I can’t understand how these atrocities can continue. It makes no sense for millions of people to be slaughtered. If you examine these cases, you find that there are several common ingredients. In most cases these occur in undeveloped countries. But, of course, Germany, Russia and Japan are exceptions to that. So I guess hatred has no bounds between developed and undeveloped countries. However they all seem to involve ethnic rivalries and hatred. Many are religious in nature – particularly Muslim versus non-Muslim – but others are tribal. I suppose you could also say that some of these cases are political or territorial, but I think they all come down to ethnic hatred that drives “man’s inhumanity to man”. So I don’t see a solution as long as there are groups of people that hate each other to the extent that they will pursue annihilation. I don’t think the human species was meant to be like this. Unfortunately, genocide seems to be uniquely human trait – very tragic.

All Rights Reserved © 2018 Henry P. Mitchell