The word genocide can’t help but to strike a cord in the minds of people internationally. The connotation of the word is strong, an implicit call to action, but what if the word itself created more problems for conflict than solutions? A fatal flaw with genocide is the way the term has evolved away from being a legal definition of a crime, to a threshold of evil that can be manipulated to fit or not fit different actions. Genocide, while important, has the detrimental power to create a paradoxical situations for nations that have conflicts some call genocide. The paradox is that on one hand if the conflict has a long history or precursor that may be used to argue that the incident isn’t considered genocide, and that if the legacy includes colonialism
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The intervention could do more harm than good by resulting in retaliation on against Muslims or European peacekeepers, or endanger the delivery of humanitarian aid. The third is that the ancient hatred and specific land of the region would bring about a Vietnam like military intervention that would put U.S soldiers in jeopardy. In truth, there wasn’t a way of knowing that either of those were true but they didn’t need to be true in order to serve a purpose. The rationale wasn’t provided as a neutral delivery of facts, but a direct form of creating or recording history so that the United States could be justified in non- intervening. This rationale contrasts greatly with another case study, that of the Rwandan genocide, where the emphasis was placed not on the ghosts of colonial history but on the more modern history of the Hutu massacre to separate the West, or formerly colonial nations, from responsibility over the current …show more content…
Germany had control until the country was formally passed to Belgian rule. The colonization of Rwanda had an impact as both colonial powers identified the Tutsi as being superior under the Hamitic Hypothesis, defined and outlined by Phil Gourevitch, to continue the cementation of a hierarchy. The Hamitic Hypothesis was, an offshoot of popular race science, established by John Hanning Speke. Speke claimed that all culture and civilization in Central Africa had been introduced by taller people who he believed were part of the Caucasoid tribe of Ethiopian origin who were inherently superior to the Black indigenous Africans. Under this form of pseudo science, the Tutsi people who were stereotypically thought to be taller, lighter skinner, and longer faced than their stocky, round face, darker skinned, square jawed Hutu counterparts were considered superior. Tutsi became synonymous with the political and economic elite while the Hutu were subject to poor working and living conditions. Gourevitch argues that the Belgians made polarization of Hutu and Tutsi the cornerstone of their colonial policy. Movement between the two classes was made impossible with the issuing of ethnic identity cards in 1933- 1934 classifying every Rwandan as Hutu, Tutsi, or Twa. During the Rwandan Revolution, the centuries of Tutsi superiority came to an end, and the power flipped as the Hutu
The intervention could do more harm than good by resulting in retaliation on against Muslims or European peacekeepers, or endanger the delivery of humanitarian aid. The third is that the ancient hatred and specific land of the region would bring about a Vietnam like military intervention that would put U.S soldiers in jeopardy. In truth, there wasn’t a way of knowing that either of those were true but they didn’t need to be true in order to serve a purpose. The rationale wasn’t provided as a neutral delivery of facts, but a direct form of creating or recording history so that the United States could be justified in non- intervening. This rationale contrasts greatly with another case study, that of the Rwandan genocide, where the emphasis was placed not on the ghosts of colonial history but on the more modern history of the Hutu massacre to separate the West, or formerly colonial nations, from responsibility over the current …show more content…
Germany had control until the country was formally passed to Belgian rule. The colonization of Rwanda had an impact as both colonial powers identified the Tutsi as being superior under the Hamitic Hypothesis, defined and outlined by Phil Gourevitch, to continue the cementation of a hierarchy. The Hamitic Hypothesis was, an offshoot of popular race science, established by John Hanning Speke. Speke claimed that all culture and civilization in Central Africa had been introduced by taller people who he believed were part of the Caucasoid tribe of Ethiopian origin who were inherently superior to the Black indigenous Africans. Under this form of pseudo science, the Tutsi people who were stereotypically thought to be taller, lighter skinner, and longer faced than their stocky, round face, darker skinned, square jawed Hutu counterparts were considered superior. Tutsi became synonymous with the political and economic elite while the Hutu were subject to poor working and living conditions. Gourevitch argues that the Belgians made polarization of Hutu and Tutsi the cornerstone of their colonial policy. Movement between the two classes was made impossible with the issuing of ethnic identity cards in 1933- 1934 classifying every Rwandan as Hutu, Tutsi, or Twa. During the Rwandan Revolution, the centuries of Tutsi superiority came to an end, and the power flipped as the Hutu