Motivation for Genocide

Why would anyone want to destroy all people of a race, religion or political stance? One motive is to destroy a threat to the current rulling power. In 1971 East Pakistan was attempting to gain independence from West Pakistan, a campaign of mass murder began durring West Pakistan killed millions of Bengali intellectuals, professionals, leaders, Hindus. In Rwanda, the Hutu majority government murdered all Tutsi they could because the Tutsis were rebelling against the Hutu government. In just over three months approximately 800,000 to 1,000,000 Tutsis were killed, about 10,000 deaths per day.

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Another motive for genocide is emotionally driven; this includes the destruction of any who are hated, despised or even envied. The holocaust is an example of an act of ethnic and religous hatred. The Nazis murdered millions of Jews because of their hatred for them and their beliefs. In 1915 Armenians were hated for being Christians in the largely Muslim Ottoman society, more than 500,000 were killed between 1914-1918.

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Communist societies have carried out genocides in the pursuit of an ideological transformation of society. Anyone perceived to oppose the ideology are murdered. Ethnic cleansing, purifications, or eliminating alien beliefs are also motives for genocide. All of these motivations are clear, but what is difficult to comprehend is convincing large numbers of people to believe in these means to an end.

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Works Cited
"Genocide in Rwanda." Propaganda of the Rwandan genocide. 12 Feb. 2009 .
Rummel, R. J. "Genocide*." Genocide. 23 Nov. 2002. Hawaii Education. 14 Feb. 2009 .