Genocide Essay, Research Paper

GENOCIDE

The word ?genocide? has not been in existence for a very long: it was the jurist Lemkin who coined it between the two world wars. The thing itself is as old as humanity and there has never been a societ whose struture has preserved it from committing this crime.(Jean-Paul Sarte)

All genocide is a product of history and it always carries the signs of the society from which it springs. The case which we have to judge concerns the largest contemporary capitalist power. It is as such that we must attempt to consider it; in other words, inasmuch as it expresses the economic structure, the political aims and the contradictions of that power.

In particular, we must try to understand whether there is an intention of genocide in the war that the American government is fighting against Vietnam. Article 2 of the Convention of 1948 defines genocide on the basis of intention.(Encarta) The Convention was tacitly referring to very recent history. Hitler had declared a deliberate plan to exterminate the Jews; he did not conceal the fact that he was using genocide as a political tactic. The Jew had to be put to death, wherever he came from, not because he had taken up arms or had joined a resistance movement, but just because he was a Jew. The American government, on the other hand, has made no such clear declarations. It even averred that it was going to the rescue of its allies, the South Vietnamese, who had been attacked by the Communists from the North. Is it possible for us, in objectively studying the facts, to unviel their hidden intention?(Bookshelf) And can we, after this examination, say that the armed forces of the USA are killing Vietnamese in Vietnam for the simple reason that they are Vietnamese?

This can only be establishes after a look at history: the structures of war change at the same time as those of society. From 1860 to this day, military motives and objectives have undergone a profound change and the end result of this metamorphosis is precisely the war of ?example? that the USA is waging in Vietnam.

It is guilty of being deceitful, evasive, of lying, and lying to itself, embroiling itself every minute a little more, despite the lessons that this unique and unbearable experience has taught, on a path along which there can be no return. It is guilty, by its own admission, of knowingly conducting this war of ?example? to make genocide a challenge and a threat to all peoples. When a peasant dies in his rice field, cut down by a machine-gun, we are all hit. Therefore, the Vietnamese are fighting for all men and the American forces are fighting for all of us. Not just in theory or in the abstract. And not only because genocide is a crime universally condemned by the rights of man.(Jean-Paul Sartre) But because, little by little, this genocidal blackmail is spreading to all humanity, adding to the blackmail of atomic war, This crime is perpetrated under our eyes every day, making accomplices out of those who do mot denounce it.

Even today genocide is still alive. Even thought the word genocide is not used, there is no dictator, and people are not being killed, people are still discriminated for the way the look, act, dress, or even talk. I think people need to take a look inside and see exactly what they are doing to other people. Even though there is no set dictator, people still dictate what other people do, say, dress, or even act.

Bibliography

“Genoicide in America” Hall, Adam. 1982: Hallmark.