The Rwandan Genocide and the Rape of Nanjing are two of the most devastating massacres in history. While they have a few similarities, overall they couldn’t be more different. The main cause for both of these wars was a struggle for power, which is a common similarity amongst many other devastating attacks. However, the reactions to these genocides were quite different in several ways. The Rwandan Genocide was between the Hutu and Tutsi tribes of Rwanda, Africa. It was a relatively short massacre, lasting around 100 days. However, it had an extraordinarily high death toll of around 800,000. It began in April of 1994, and ended in July of the same year. It was a vicious battle for power, where the Tutsi decided to display their might over the …show more content…
They murdered those they had raped and many more that dared to walk the streets. In fact, the Japanese soldiers had a contest to see who could kill a hundred people first. They couldn’t figure out who won, so their conclusion was to hold another contest to get to a hundred and fifty people. But in addition to physically harming the people of China, they also destroyed their homes and workplaces by lighting them on fire. Around a third of the buildings in Nanking were destroyed by the soldiers. Finally, the massacre ended when the Japanese had deemed that they had “restored order” in the city. The soldiers retreated and China was left to face their demolished city and spirits. However, after World War II ended and Japan surrendered, China got a small amount of closure for the many people they had lost. Japanese officials were put on trial for their heinous crimes and many of them were indicted. China had lost a great deal in this conflict, and in the years to come, the generation that reflected upon the past constructed memorials dedicated to the people that lost their …show more content…
The Nanking Massacre is still a sore subject for both countries to talk about, and is still a point of tension between them. Some Chinese citizens still don’t trust Japan, and Japan refuses to address their wrongdoing in the matter. Unlike the unending tension between the two countries of China and Japan. In the years after the massacre in Africa, Rwanda faced the daunting challenge of peace. Instead of fighting, they spent their time rebuilding their country and the bonds between the two groups. Millions of people had fled from the country to avoid the crossfire of the mass murder, and slowly but surely, many of those that had left came back to the land they were from. In conclusion, while both massacres were born from a desire for power and an exercise of control, one ended in relative peace while the other in underlying contention. The Hutu and Tutsi sought a more diplomatic solution and ended up desiring their prior unity. Whereas the Japanese and Chinese people were still withholding their own personal opinions on the matter and refused to address the
The analysis of the genocides that took place both in Rwanda and Sudan’s Darfur region exhibit some similarities as well as differences. The character of violence was similar in both cases, but in Rwanda the violence was more intense, participatory, and extraordinary. The violence in these two places took place in an environment that had experienced civil wars. It was a period of political transition which was further aggravated by ethnic nationalism and a conflict of ethnic populations that were living in close proximity. However, in the Rwandan genocide, the state is more centralized, compact, and effective. This is what explains the intensity and variation. The international response to these genocides through observers emphasized on using the genocide label to create domestic constituencies especially in the Rwandan case.
The Rwandan genocide may have had more people killed in a minute, but the conditions weren’t as nearly as bad as the Holocaust. In Rwanda, if the Hutsus saw a tutsis walking down the street you would be killed immediately. For this genocide, the Hutsus didn’t hold the Tutsis in a camp, make them sleep in horrid conditions, burn them alive, make them work or even put them in gas chambers leading to death. However, the Holocaust was different, if you were a jew you would be treated this way. Hitler would take the Jews into a concentration camp to be worked, starved, and tortured till you become weak and ill proceeding to death.
The Rape of Nanking started on December 13, 1937. This was the day the Japanese invaded Nanking (now Nanjing), which was then the capital of Nationalist China (Cook). The Japanese Army faced little resistance as the Chinese Nationalist leader, Chiang Kai-shek, evacuated his troops before the invaders advanced. After seven weeks of Japanese atrocities, the killings ended in early 1938 (The Rape of Nanking). Japanese soldiers finally left Nanking in early February when they needed to continue the attack on China.
As a conclusion, Rwanda and Bosnia genocide was about ethnic conflicts for gaining power or for land, mass murders, area destructions, civilians deaths, hiding evidence and many more. Also genocide has different stages to categories its specification such as classification, symbolisms, discrimination, dehumanization, extermination, preparation and many more. As the end of genocide there were deaths of some ethnic groups too which are hardly found or known as minority groups. We should further inspire and encourage future world people to prevent such a tragedy like the Rwanda and Bosnia and other genocide conflict from ever happening again.
Imagine every friend, every neighbor, every single person in one city being raped, killed, tortured. In the genocide known as the Rape of Nanking, the city of Nanjing was brutally taken captive by the Japanese. On the other hand, all of Germany attacked the Jews. But both of the genocides involved killing, raping, and dehumanizing. The Holocaust exterminated a whole lot more people than the Rape of Nanking. Germany also paid for their crimes, while Japan hardly acknowledged it. Both genocides also happened during the same time period, too. The Rape of Nanking was a smaller genocide than the Holocaust, but they still have their similarities and differences.
Ethnocentrism, the belief in the inherent superiority of one's own ethnic group or culture, has been the cause of genocide throughout history. Two examples of Ethnocentrism include the Nazi party during the Third Reich and the Hutu reign in Rwanda during the late 20th century. During the 20th century, the Holocaust and the Rwandan Genocide, two historically astounding genocides, took place containing similarities in the motive to kill but differentiating in their techniques. However they are more ______ than _____ by nature. The definition of “genocide” is very controversial. It means: “the deliberate killing of a large group of people, especially those of a particular ethnic group or nation”. This definition could be used as neither one of the excuses that the United States did not intervene in the Rwandan Genocide nor the opening stages of the Holocaust.
The continent of Africa has been continually engaged in civil, tribal and cross national conflicts from colonial independence up until present day. What historians regard as the most ‘efficient genocide’ in history, occurred in a mere 100 days in the small central African country of Rwanda. The Hutus and the Tutsis, two ethnic groups within Rwanda, have been at continual unrest for the past half a century. During the 100 day massacre of 1994, a murder occurred every two seconds; resulting in 18% of the Tutsi population being killed. A decade after the war, in 2004, the film Hotel Rwanda was released. The film followed the story of a Hutu man; Paul Rusesabagina as he housed over 1200 Tutsi refugees in his hotel. The Hotel De Milles Collines, a five-star resort in the capital city Kigali, was a safe haven for several hundred Tutsis during the 100 days of slaughter in Rwanda.
“The sweetly sickening odor of decomposing bodies hung over many parts of Rwanda in July 1994: . . . at Nyarubuye in eastern Rwanda, where the cadaver of a little girl, otherwise intact, had been flattened by passing vehicles to the thinness of cardboard in front of the church steps,” (Deforges 6). The normalcy of horrible images like this one had cast a depressing gloom over Rwanda during the genocide, a time when an extreme divide caused mass killings of Tutsi by the Hutu. Many tactics such as physical assault or hate propaganda are well known and often used during times of war. Sexual assault and rape, however, during times of war is an unspoken secret – it is well known that rape occurs within combat zones and occupied territories, but people tend to ignore, or even worse, not speak of the act. There have been recorded cases of rape and sexual assault in almost every war in human history. Genocidal rape was used as a gendered war tactic in the Rwandan genocide in order to accomplish the Hutu goal of elimination of the Tutsi people in whole, or part.
Many innocent lives were taken during the genocide in Rwanda in 1994. Philip Gourevitch’s “We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families,” explains why the genocide that occurred in Rwanda should not be written off in history as just another tribal disagreement. This book entails the stories of Gourevitch and the people he interviewed when he went to Rwanda. These stories express what people went through during the genocide, the loss they saw, the mass killings they tried to hide from, and the history of what led to the Rwandan genocide. Rwanda’s colonial past did influence the development of the genocide in Rwanda. The hatred between the Hutus and the Tutsis had been going on for many years before the genocide.
History aims to examine the actions and legacy of mankind. The past is filled with the achievements that humans have reached, however, history also shows us the evil that man is capable of. No atrocity against mankind is more heinous than the act of genocide. Genocide is the aim to destroy all (or part of) of a racial, religious, ethnic, or national group of people. This paper will examine two famous cases of genocide in history: The holocaust of Jews and other groups in Nazi Germany, and the destruction of the Congolese people under Belgian colonialism. The Holocaust remains as one of the main legacies of Hitler and the Nazi party, who claimed an estimated 11 million victims, 6 million of which were Jews. Comparatively, the Congolese Genocide
The Rwandan Genocide was a terrible event in history caused by a constantly weakening relationship between two groups of people. The country of Rwanda is located in Africa and consists of multiple groups of people. Majority of Rwanda is Hutu, while a smaller amount of people are Tutsis. The genocide started due to multiple events that really stretched the relationship between the two groups to its end. One of the starting factors was at the end of World War 1. Rwanda was a German colony but then was given to Belgium “who favored the minority Tutsis over the Hutus, exacerbated[exacerbating] the tendency of the few to oppress the many”(History.com). This created a feeling of anger towards the Tutsis, because they had much more power then Hutus.
Africa has been an interesting location of conflicts. From the conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea to the revolutionary conflict in Libya and Egypt, one of the greatest conflicts is the Rwandan Genocide. The Rwandan Genocide included two tribes in Rwanda: Tutsis and Hutus. Upon revenge, the Hutus massacred many Tutsis and other Hutus that supported the Tutsis. This gruesome war lasted for a 100 days. Up to this date, there have been many devastating effects on Rwanda and the global community. In addition, many people have not had many acknowledgements for the genocide but from this genocide many lessons have been learned around the world.
When the Rwandan Hutu majority betrayed the Tutsi minority, a destructive mass murdering broke out where neighbor turned on neighbor and teachers killed their students; this was the start of a genocide. In this paper I will tell you about the horrors the people of Rwanda had to face while genocide destroyed their homes, and I will also tell you about the mental trauma they still face today.
The Rape of Nanking, also known as the Nanking Massacre was a six week period when mass numbers of Chinese men and woman were killed by the Japanese. Embarrassed by the lack of effort in the war with China in Shanghai, the Japanese looked for revenge and finally were able to win the battle. The Japanese moved toward the city of Nanjing also known as Nanking and invaded it for approximately six months. Even though the people of Nanjing outnumbered the 50,000 Japanese, they were not as masterful in warfare as their opponents. Chinese soldiers were forced to surrender to the Japanese and the massacre began in which around 300,000 people died and 20,000 women were raped. The Japanese leaders had different methods of killing that were instructed to the soldiers. However, the prisoners of this “City of Blood” soon found their liberation and their justice was served.
When 1937 arrived, Japanese soldiers raided China’s capital of Nanking and began to mass murder citizens. A sole leader of the Japanese Imperial Army was non-existent. There were many of people in power such as generals who allowed these behaviors to occur. Baron Koki Hirota, Foreign minister at the time, proceeded to do nothing while being well aware of the Japanese’s persecution of the Chinese. These unsympathetic murders of those who were thought to be Chinese soldiers as well as woman, children and elderly. This massacre lasted between the 1937 and 1938. Within this time 300,000 Chinese citizens were viciously killed. This genocide is called Rape of Nanking because of raping the woman before killing them. Most likely this group was selected because the second world war happened in Asia. This was significant because a country was able to kill half the population of another. I believe the reason of this Genocide was for Japan to take advantage of China while expand Japan. Most likely the Japanese wished to exterminate China’s entire population.