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, the Arab-Israeli crisis, and The Holocaust during World War II.

One important ethnic conflict was the Hutu and the Tutsi conflict in Rwanda. There are two major ethnic groups in this African country: the Hutu and the Tutsi. When the country was colonized by the Belgians in 1916 they claimed that the Tutsi were superior to the Hutu based on the idea that their skins were lighter and their features more European. As a result, The Hutus suffered years of repression by the Tutsi. In 1994, the Hutus took revenge. Tutsi people were slaughtered, hunted out of their homes, killed with guns or machetes and left to die on the road by unofficial militia group called the Interahamwe (‘those who attack together’) and Hutu civilians were forced to murder their neighbors and children were not spared in an insane effort to wipe out the next Tutsi generation. Over 800,000 Rwandans were killed in the space of 100 days.

Another important conflict already mentioned is the Arab-Israeli crisis, mainly attributed to the continous efforts from the so-called Arab League (Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Irak) to attack Israel and to regain the stolen Arab territory. Always ending with big losses for all these Palestinian countries for example, In 1949, more than 600.000 palestinian refugees (mostly peasants) were removed from the Israeli State and established in refugee camps. In 1967, during the Six Days War, Israel considerably increased its territory which allowed them to establish a security area around their territory. Hundreds of Palestinian cities were taken, thousands of people were homeless.

There is also a very important ethnic conflict, The Holocaust, which was the bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of almost 6 million Jews by the Nazis. This German regime believed that Germans were racially superior and that the Jews were not only inferior, but a threat to the so-called German Community. During this years the Germans were also killing other groups because of their perceived racial inferiority such as Russians, Gypsies, Poles and some other other Slavic people. Other groups were persecuted and executed for their ideals and political matters among them Communists, Homosexuals, Socialists and others.

Ethnic conflicts such as in Rwanda, the Arab-Israeli crisis, 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 humanity committed in different times and places.