Genocide

For the longest time, I have been gripped by a need to understand people. Why they do what they do? There is so much to study to answer this question, that I am convinced that a person with my levels of motivation can never come to answer the question. Well, the truth could be that no one can answer these questions. It is the story of human suffering which I want to probe, the tale of greed, corruption, war and genocide - to chalk out the true character of man. I am 24, and I am somewhat inclined to believe that mankind is largely a deplorable species. I have had no dearth of wonders and miracles which I attribute to my kind, but yet I am convinced of the inherent wretchedness, selfishness and cruelty of man. I am commited to this belief, and try to hope that in the course of my journey, I will learn to think otherwise.

Many years ago, I dont quite recall well, perhaps when I was 10, I saw "Escape from Sobibor". I remember my father telling me that it was a movie worth watching. So I stayed up late, and watched it! It is the first time in my life I learnt about Nazism, concentration camps and genocide. Since then, I have travelled to europe and seen some of these concentration camps. I have seen countless documentaries, hollywood productions, browsed through wiki and even read some books on this topic. As I think back to these periods of learning about these atrocities, I am shocked about how I felt when I visited the concentration camps.

I was shocked by not what transpired there, but was shocked by the fact that I didn't react at all. I was unmoved. I was untouched by the tales of human tragedy. I was untouched by the pictures I saw of human corpses piled outside gas chambers. I was untouched when I saw the size of the bunk-beds and the tales of how many people were crammed into that little space. I merely blinked when I saw pictures of emacited men working away to death..."

"Arbeit macht frei"

"Work shall set you free" - These word greeted the newly arrived detainees at concentration camps. For me it was more like "Exposure to humanity will set you free", I realize that all those years of disturbing footage has desensitised me to the plight of humanity. I am free from the grief I should feel, but yet not free from a deep seated feeling that ignorance is a sin. Ignorance of what really happened and who it happened to? And who committed these crimes?

I list below some genocides that have occured in the past ( source: wikipedia )
Place : year: people killed: people displaced
1. Sudan (darfur conflict) : 1983 : 2,000,000 : 4,000,000
2. Rwanda : 1994 :900,000
3. Bosnia : 1992-95: 8,000
4. East Timor:1975-1999: 150,000
5. Cambodia:1975-1979:1,700,000
6. Burundi:1972: 150,000
7. Bangladesh : 1971 : 1,500,000
8. China : Communist Era : ???
9. Armenia: 1915-1923 : 1,500,000
10. Germany : WW-II : 6,000,000
11. Congo: 1880-1920 : 10,000,000