EDF2085-Reflection #16

Genocide and ethnic cleansing are two strong words that have a severe meaning. I have never heard of ethnic cleansing, but it means to completely eliminate a certain group of people regarding their religion or ethnicity. Genocide is considered a crime while ethnic cleansing isn’t. They are both almost the same thing just genocide is something more specific and ethnic cleansing in spoken in broader terms. I think this is something that should just be eliminated and both should be considered crimes. It is like speaking about the Holocaust, because this is what it was really about. It is something so sad, and many events have occurred because of it. One of the examples of genocide in the 20th century is said to be in Rwanda the conflict with the slaughter of the Tutsi minority by the Hutu majority. A blind eye was turned into a slaughter and over two million Cambodians were killed. In Bosnia more than two thousand civilians were killed and women were raped over a hundred times, all this while their husbands and sons were being tortured in concentration camps. Ethnic cleansing caused the loss of their homes. In Darfur there were many killings by the government, sexual violence, looting of property which were some forms of the ethnic cleansing that was done there. I believe these things are really hard to accept. The fact that no one stood up for these unfortunate people makes it really sad. Ethnic cleansing should also be aborted together with genocide. These atrocities were something I never knew of before and I believe it is abuse how some people can treat others this badly over differences or what not. Genocide is a form of prejudice and this is one example on how it is being acted out in today’s society by gestures like this. I never knew that these different locations had people that were being treated this badly. This is unjust and these aren’t ways people should be treated in society. These are things we have to learn from and stick up for ourselves if they were to ever happen as hard as it is to do. The reason they happen is because no one has ever said no, or stand up for themselves.