Comparing different theories of genocide is beneficial because it shows that people are intrigued in understanding the things that still plague some of our societies today. In the later stages of the post-Holocaust twentieth century, the plea to never allow genocidal acts largely went ignored. Throughout the years there have been many inhumane acts carried out in numerous countries and there have been many scholars who have been trying to figure out why people continue to do such terrible things to each other. This is an issue that continues to vex people, because it seems as if it doesn’t matter how much you try to prevent acts of genocide it still finds a way to manifest itself anyway. The study of genocide had begun when scholars compared
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“Yet, as should become obvious, genocidal events have been common enough to suggest that they cannot be explained as some kind of deviant behavior. On the contrary, given the right circumstances, normal human beings are all too ready to kill by category.” (Chirot-McCauley, pg 17, 2006) Genocide is a rare occurrence and its still baffling because societies have implemented strategies to limit intergroup violence. There is no simple solution for mass murder, but progress will not be made until changes are made with education, laws and international guidelines. In their book, Daniel Chirot and Clark McCauley claim that the easiest way for these offenders to overcome the policies that were placed against them is to commit acts of mass murder or to get rid of the groups that stand in the way of their ideals. “The most intractable cause of genocidal killings emerges when competing groups—ethnic, religious, class, or ideological—feel that the very presence of the other, of the enemy, so sullies the environment that normal life is not possible as long as they exist” (Chirot-McCauley, pg 2, 2006). Given that their presence on a desired territory is typically troublesome, indigenous people are usually the targets of genocide because their presence decreases the economic or strategic value of a given territory. We see this occur during the Rwandan Genocide as members of the Hutu clan who inhabited the eastern portion of Africa murder nearly 800,000 people, primarily of the Tutsi clan, who was the minority between the two. The perpetrators conceptualized the Tutsi’s, as they were perceived as the threat. The Hutu wanted to sacrifice the Tutsis in the name of ritual purification, which
“Yet, as should become obvious, genocidal events have been common enough to suggest that they cannot be explained as some kind of deviant behavior. On the contrary, given the right circumstances, normal human beings are all too ready to kill by category.” (Chirot-McCauley, pg 17, 2006) Genocide is a rare occurrence and its still baffling because societies have implemented strategies to limit intergroup violence. There is no simple solution for mass murder, but progress will not be made until changes are made with education, laws and international guidelines. In their book, Daniel Chirot and Clark McCauley claim that the easiest way for these offenders to overcome the policies that were placed against them is to commit acts of mass murder or to get rid of the groups that stand in the way of their ideals. “The most intractable cause of genocidal killings emerges when competing groups—ethnic, religious, class, or ideological—feel that the very presence of the other, of the enemy, so sullies the environment that normal life is not possible as long as they exist” (Chirot-McCauley, pg 2, 2006). Given that their presence on a desired territory is typically troublesome, indigenous people are usually the targets of genocide because their presence decreases the economic or strategic value of a given territory. We see this occur during the Rwandan Genocide as members of the Hutu clan who inhabited the eastern portion of Africa murder nearly 800,000 people, primarily of the Tutsi clan, who was the minority between the two. The perpetrators conceptualized the Tutsi’s, as they were perceived as the threat. The Hutu wanted to sacrifice the Tutsis in the name of ritual purification, which