The Rwanda Genocide, the Holocaust and Human Nature

Genocide

"Never again" has become an evil counter-cliche, reminding us to expect some manner of  genocidal rampage every sixty years or so, and at least one act of ethnic cleansing in the interregnum.   The moral tsk-tsking on the part of spectators to these horrifying moments in history irritates me almost as much as the wholesale slaughter of innocent human beings.  But why?  The reason is that if we truly believe that we're morally superior to the genocidal maniacs, we really haven't learned anything at all from history.  And furthermore, when history swings around and gives us or our descendants a turn at the bat, we will be no more prepared to change the outcome than were the Nazis who perpetrated the Holocaust against 6 million Jews, the Israelis who have been trying to rid themselves of the Palestinians ever since, the Turks who came close to annihilating 1.2 million Armenians between 1915 and 1920.  And if you don't believe what I'm saying go ask the ghosts of the Native Americans whom we wiped out in order to achieve our "Manifest Destiny."

As for Rwanda, the Hutus slaughtered a million of their Tutsi neighbors in a period of 3 months beginning on the 6th of April, 1994.  The horror was unspeakable.  But tragically so was that of the incidents I am listing below. I could have listed more events but left the cut off point at 20th century occurrences:

• Herzegovina: 1992-1995 - 200,000 Deaths
• Rwanda: 1994 - 800,000 Deaths
• Pol Pot in Cambodia: 1975-1979 - 2,000,000 Deaths
• Nazi Holocaust: 1938-1945 - 6,000,000 Deaths
• Rape of Nanking: 1937-1938 - 300,000 Deaths
• Stalin's Forced Famine: 1932-1933 - 7,000,000 Deaths
• Armenians in Turkey: 1915-1918 - 1,500,000 Deaths

But let me end this on a reflective note.  There may be one way to end genocide. It is to recognize the murderous beast lurking within the darkest corner of the human soul, rather than pretending that only some cultures or ethnicities are capable of atrocities and others are not.  Being a Jungian of sorts, I wonder what it would be like to make friends with it.  Maybe the only solution is for us all to take up the martial arts and learn first to dance with the beast within ourselves.