Genocide is made up of the greek word genos which literally means race, and the Latin word cide which means killer or act of killing. Together they mean Race Killing.
When thinking about genocide and
mass murder, everyone’s mind immediately fluctuates to Hitler and the
extermination of Jews. What Hitler did
to the Jews was horrific and terrifying, but little do we all know about all
the other genocides that happened worldwide and that even now, in the 21st
Century, we are still surrounded by such crimes. The term genocide hasn't been around for much, it was only truly established in the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide."This convention established "genocide" as an international crime, which signatory nations "undertake to prevent and punish". " (USHMM) This convention defines Genocide as:
[G]enocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to
destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group,
as such:
a) Killing
members of the group;b)
Causing
serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;c)
Deliberately
inflicting on the group condition of life calculate to bring about its physical
destruction in whole or in part;
d)
Imposing
measures intended to prevent birth within the group;
e)
Forcibly
transferring children of the group to another group.
As a consequence to the lack of actions taken by me
throughout my life, I can be labeled today as a bystander. According to
dictionary.com, a bystander is a person who is “present but not involved”.
Unfortunately, this describes my situation perfectly. I am a well educated
student who is aware of the crimes against humanity that are being committed
worldwide, yet I stand by, observe and take no concrete action. Of course, I
dream of the future, where I am a diplomat at the United Nations and manage to
end the P5 dominance of the Security Council and prevent the horrors that will
come if the world continues on this same path. But dreaming of the future isn’t
enough. Today, now, actions need to be taken. During our history class our
teacher taught us about a phenomena called “Bystander Effect”. I truly believe
that we are currently undergoing this event in a global scale. We all talk
about how terrible all the crimes around us are, yet, we are very much capable
of standing and trusting that someone else will end the horrors, other than
ourselves.
After this much needed lesson, I decided that I no longer
want to be a bystander. So I told myself, I need to do something. There is a
problem though, something that devastates me tremendously. When asked what is
it that I am going to do, I fail to think of measures that I can take. Now of
course, I can do something like flying over to Darfur and trying to do
something to stop the genocide, but this of course will not be of any value. Consequently, I did some research and looked
up what organizations want average citizens like me to do.
After some research, I came across the “UnitedStates Holocaust Memorial Museum” site where they tell us “What Can We Do?”.
Number 1 says, Learn More, and so I did. According to Genocide Watch, nowadays,
in our world, NINE COUNTRIES are in the “extermination” stage (Stage 7/8) of
genocide. This shocked me. I wasn’t even aware of the horrific situation of
some of the countries that were found on the list. I truly do hear a lot more
of the bombing in Boston than about the government opponents being killed in
Ethiopia. Number 2-6 on the USHMM all talked along the same lines, which
involve raising awareness, contacting the media and communicating other members
of society.
In my head, I try and grasp a solution in which I won’t be
bystanding, where I will be offering help- even if just minimal- to the
problem. I found that a possible solution could be gathering my class mates in
order to draft a letter which would be sent, either to the USA government or to
the Brazilian government, pledging for their attention in terms of these
genocide threats. Really, what we want to achieve is the recognition such
crimes; because, once something is coined as genocide, nations worldwide, along
with the United Nations, are forced to take action.
There seems to be a terrible misunderstanding on the part of a great many people to the effect that when you cease to believe you may cease to behave.
-Louis Kronenberger
Following the mind set in the quote above, I am choosing to believe that there is something I can do, even if minimal, to contribute to the end of such horrific crimes. I truly agree that if I everyone stops believing, everyone will stop behaving. This would only worsen the Global Bystander Effect by putting the lives of people in the countries were genocides are occurring in even more horrible situations.
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