Newspaper Contribution 4: Ethnic Conflicts

In many countries and many periods a person’s ethnic identity has had profound consequences for his or her physical safety, political status, and economic prospects. Violent confrontation along ethnic lines is the most apparent form of ethnic conflict, and it recently has claimed lives in such diverse places throughout the world. The three most terrible ethnic conflicts have been the conflict in Rwanda, in former Yugoslavia, and The Holocaust during World War II in Europe.
The conflict in Rwanda started with the arrival of the Tutsis, it was the Tutsi dominated the Hutu turning it into servitude, but this disappeared with time. Rwanda became Belgian territory, and they created some reforms that were in favor of the Tutsis. This enraged the Hutus, who was the first in 1957 issued a manifesto calling for more rights for the Hutus, and then in 1959 began a revolt against the Tutsi, who seek to overthrow the Tutsi monarchy. Causing a riot, where more than 160,000 Tutsis fled to neighboring countries, where Hutu rulers again.
In the former Yugoslavia, the problems have been by cultural differences, attempts at unification were up until after the First World War, when the urge to come together to enhance safety and economic reasons. However, the nation that emerged was always fragile, because the union did not meet the needs of all groups equally. Tensions bubbled under the surface for the period of independent government, and continued under the rule of the Communists, who were able to keep groups together only by the threat of force and through the imposition of the whole structure and regulation from above. In this environment, ethnic differences produced vitriolic actions taken by one group against another, giving rise to what have been defined by the international community as a war crime.
The Holocaust was the systematic annihilation of six million Jews by the Nazi regime during World War 2. In 1933 approximately nine million Jews lived in the 21 countries of Europe that would be occupied by Germany during the war. By 1945 two out of every three European Jews had been killed. The European Jews were the primary victims of the Holocaust. But Jews were not the only group singled out for persecution by Hitler’s Nazi regime. As many as one-half million Gypsies, at least 250,000 mentally or physically disabled persons, and more than three million Soviet prisoners-of-war also fell victim to Nazi genocide. Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, Social Democrats, Communists, partisans, trade unionists, Polish intelligentsia and other undesirables were also victims of the hate and aggression carried out by the Nazis.
Ethnic conflicts such as in Rwanda, former Yugoslavia, and The Holocaust during World War II triggered the worst feelings a human being can have. Any country or society can go through such terrors. Different religion, race, and beliefs are not good reasons to kill each other. It depends on new generations not to repeat the terrible crimes against.