In Orson Scott Card’s book Ender’s Game, genocide is addressed. Even though it was written in 1985 the topic of genocide still hold significance to this day. In the United States and Sudan genocide can either be seen currently or in their history. Though the genocide in these countries might look different from the genocide in the book it is still the same issue. The discrimination and destruction of a people group remains a human rights issue that few know about but all should care about.
What is genocide and why is it still relevant? “The definition contained in article 2 of the United Nations’ 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide: “Genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” From this quote we can see what genocide is. It isn’t just the act of mass murder against a certain ethnic group. It is also the complete or partial attempt at destroying their religion or race. It is clear to see that people have always been afraid of whatever is different from them. People often respond aggressively to things that they are afraid of. This happened in 16th century England. England used to be overrun by wolves but people were afraid of them and started to destroy them. Now, in the modern day, there are no more wolves in England.This is seen in Ender’s game when the government specifically trained soldiers to fight the “alien” race. An aggressive act stemming from fear.
“I believe black Americans face a genocide” This is a quote from the Guardian. The author wrote a whole article about how and why the word genocide is appropriate for what is happening to the black American community. We see in America how the black Americans face genocide in very many areas of their life. One of the examples is about how many black americans are in jail for selling drugs on the basis that they are “poisoning” the community while in Flint, Michigan the state government consisting of mostly white people was quite literally poisoning the community and all the charges were dropped. When it comes to marijuana possession arrests, 567,500 Black Americans were arrested in 2018 compared to 156,100 arrests of White Americans in 2018. We see genocide in the generations of black families who have been economically and psychologically destroyed by a justice system that incarcerated poor blacks for using drugs, while slapping the wrists of white professionals who used drugs.The theme of “getting” rid of or removing the supposed threat from society is echoed in the book as the motive for genocide.
In Sudan, 2003 the Darfur people group were being killed inhumanely because they rebelled. They rebelled because they felt that they were being neglected by their government. Despite the moral question of their rebelion, genocide is never justified. The core issue is that the global reaction to this genocide was minimal and ineffective. People just don’t care about what isn’t affecting them personally. The United Nations promised a 26, 000 peacekeeper force but they didn’t send nearly as many and the sudanese government only let them go to the less impacted zones. This indifference can be seen in the book in that the people are for the genocide against the bugs.
FP says that every genocide begins with the dehuminization of an ethnic group. This can be done really easy today through the media. This can be seen in America done by people that are so afraid of terrorists that they throw all of the Muslim people under one group. They then try to demonize all of the Muslims in America. America has had a long history of tragedies committed by both terrorists on American soil and the Americans on Muslim soil. This should be a war only between Americans and terrorists, not Americans and Muslims.
In the Business Insider they talk about how even though the ethnic purges done in Sudan have left the headlines it is still continuing till this day. In 2016 and 2017, violence has increased and many refugee camps are being attacked by Arab forces, continuing the genocide of 2000.
As you can see from this essay, genocide is still an ongoing atrocity. It doesn’t get recognized for what it is all across the world. Now you know that genocide is still a 21st century problem. This is important because people can’t fix a problem that they don’t know about.