When people are questioned as to their knowledge about genocides, the most common answer to a known genocide is typically going to be the Holocaust genocide perpetrated by the Nazis, primarily against Jews, but also including the killing of the disabled, the feeble-minded, and gypsies. If this were truly the only genocide in all of history, it would be well worth remembering as an object lesson of mankind’s inhumanity to its own. However, unfortunately, genocides have been a rather common occurrence throughout modern history as the strong and well-positioned have, time and time again, systematically killed those whom they considered to be an annoyance to them.
That is to say, in the 20th century, we had, for example, the Armenian genocide, the Cambodian genocide, the Rwandan genocide, the Herero and Namaqua genocide, along with many others in which those who were the oppressed and distinctly targeted were purged from various regimes, in which these tragedies, though not forgotten, have clearly left an endless trail of tears that is demonstrative proof that the killing powers of governments, or of paramilitary forces are absolutely cruel and they seemingly have little or no remorse for the taking away of people’s lives, who they don’t value and thereby desire to silence, so as to take over property, assets, and territory, all typically done to augment one’s own and also to assert control over the population for the expressed benefit of those in power.
The main reason why in this so-called enlightened age we see genocide still occurring again and again, isn’t so much that mankind has become even more evil and greedy, because in all probability mankind hasn’t changed all that much over the ensuing years, but has more to do with the fact that mankind has developed incredibly sophisticated weapons, logistics, and skillsets, previously unknown, that are extremely good in accomplishing the mass killing of those that get in their way, and once the killing starts, it has a tendency to snowball into more and more killing, mainly because the weapons so being used are far less personal, then something like hand-to-hand combat, and thus means those with the right armaments, who also lack a good conscience, can get done what they desire to get done, because the armaments do all of the heavy lifting.
So then, despite our knowledge of what is right and what is wrong, people’s unalienable rights are still violated all of the time, and when a particular unfavored group of people with similar characteristics, such as of color, or of religion, or of territory occupied, is deliberately targeted and then killed, in one form or another, this is genocide. The decision that needs to be made for all the nations that make up this world is what is the purpose of the United Nations, or any group of nations similar to this, if it will make not just a principled stand against what is quite obviously genocide, but actually to do something to stop or stymie such, as opposed to acknowledging that it is genocide, or appears to be genocide, but cares not a whit to do anything constructive, other than to label that which labels itself.