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21st Century And Genocide

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Genocide in the 20th and 21st Centuries Prompt: Sadly, genocide did not end with the Holocaust. In fact, a lot more people have died from genocide since World War II than were victims of it in the war itself. How and why has this happened? What have been the steps taken to prevent, stop, and punish in regards to genocide since 1945? Have these efforts been successful or not? Explain why. In these more recent genocides, compare and contrast them. What big similarities and big differences have there been? Do we see anything similar in most of them? If so, what and why? Based on what we learned about genocide in your lifetime (since the 1990s), are we on track to finally eradicate these horrors or are we a long way off from that? Explain.

Response:

The Second World War claimed the lives of tens of millions of civilians including six million Jews and other "undesirables" in the attendant Nazi-led Holocaust. Although it seemed at the time that the enormity of this event should be sufficient for humankind to take the steps that were needed to prevent its recurrence, genocide has remained a constant companion of the human race throughout the remainder of the 20th century and into the 21st century. For example,...

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In addition, in 2003, 200,000 more civilians were murdered in Darfur in the Sudan (Past genocides and mass atrocities 3).
Although the precise causes of these more recent genocidal events varied, they all shared a common theme of involving people who were regarded as being undesirable and dispensable by virtue of their race, ethnicity, religion or other marginalized status. The problem has been further exacerbated by the arbitrary geopolitical lines that were drawn after both world wars that thrust peoples with longstanding grievances against each other into closer geographic proximity. For instance, Rubinstein emphasizes that," To the average person, 'genocide' is likely to mean the deliberate and intentional killing of all or most of a specified group of people simply because they are members of that group and for no other reason" (37). Although killing all members of another group because they differ somehow may appear baseless, humans fear what is…

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Works Cited

"Past genocides and mass atrocities." (2016). United to End Genocide. Web.

Romaniuk, Scott Nicholas. (2015, March). "Genocide: A Normative Account." Romanian Journal of European Affairs 15(1): 86-90. Print.

Rubinstein, William D. (2004, April). "Genocide and Historical Debate: William D. Rubinstein Ascribes the Bitterness of Historians' Arguments to the Lack of an Agreed Definition and to Political Agendas." History Today 54(4): 36-40. Print.
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