The Farming Of Bones Analysis

The Parsley Massacre was a government sponsored act of genocide in October 1937 carried out by the Dominican government to rapidly eliminate the Haitians living in the Dominican Republic. Approximately 500- 12,000 Haitians were killed by the Dominican Army on the orders of Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo during a six day period, showing that this event was a mass killing that aimed at destroying a defined national group. This mass killing fits all of the criteria of a genocide, but is almost always referred to as a massacre rather than a genocide. There have been several literary works and documentaries that have attempted to bring attention to the Parsley Massacre, such as Edwidge Danticat’s novel, The Farming of Bones, which tells the …show more content…
A genocide is defined as the calculated and systematic killing of a large group of people, all of which come from a particular ethnic or religious group, with the intent of completely destroying that ethnic/religious group. Genocide is considered a very specific term and is not used lightly because of the implications it carries and the previous examples of genocide in human history. The criteria that a mass slaughter must fit in order to be considered a genocide include a uniform ethnic or religious group being targeted, and taking measures to ensure that the group is completely eliminated from existence. Any act of genocide is a crime against humanity and the leaders of the movement towards genocide are usually prosecuted to the highest possible punishment. Conversely, a massacre is any large scale killing and does not need to adhere to the same restrictions as genocides do, such as the attempted destruction of a defined group of people. Any large scale, brutal killing can be considered a massacre, but these are usually not considered a crime against humanity, and are not considered as detrimental to human society as genocides are. Also, genocides usually stem from an extreme and harmful sense of nationalism that fuels a group of people towards hatred of another group, …show more content…
The creator of the documentary discusses several of these genocides and travels the globe to uncover the secrets behind genocide and interview survivors that have seen the worst humanity has to offer. However, the Parsley Massacre is left out of this documentary despite fitting the criteria of genocide and sharing many similarities with other genocides he investigated. I believe the reason the Parsley Massacre is not recognized as a genocide is because it is usually not compared to other genocides throughout human history. There is no way to compare the mass killing of innocent people, but if we were to compare the Holocaust and the Parsley Massacre, most scholars would contend that the Holocaust was much worse than the Parsley Massacre and much more detrimental to human society. This comparison holds true for most of the more famous and well-known genocides throughout world history, leaving the Parsley Massacre stuck in the category of massacre rather than genocide. Also, I believe that in order for the international community to accept a mass killing as a genocide, there must be agreement between both sides of the genocide that there were attempts taken to eviscerate a group of people from existence. The Dominican government does not want to accept their actions in the past and will not