A Thousand Voices Journal

Why the Silence?

Rwanda genocide survivor Paul Rusesabagina expressed his sentiments, “In 1994, during the one hundred days of the Rwanda genocide, I tried everything to get the international community to listen, to respond, to help—but nobody was ready to see, hear or, most importantly, to act.” His statement speaks the truth about the inaction of the international community throughout the genocide. During our course we have discussed genocide and the framing of genocide, and spent some time discussing the silence that surrounds genocide.

Through this discourse I will aim to answer the question “why the silence?” surrounding the 1994 Rwanda genocide, drawing from coursework covered in class as well as my online dialogue with students from Rwanda who recall the devastation of genocide. I am humbled to be a part of their dialogue and I hope that together we can come one step closer to not only answer the question but also try figure out a plan for action and implementation on the broad level for everyday citizens. Continue Reading…

Witnesssing Genocide: What Inhibits Intervention

Generally considered a twentieth century phenomenon, genocide has emerged as the pinnacle of all human rights tragedies upon garnering the attention of the United Nations in 1946. Two years later, the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide formally established a definition for the term coined by Raphael Lemkin. Excusing any inherent flaws that various segments of the global community vociferously decry, the presence of a legal definition for genocide, and its recognition as a crime, reinforce both the legitimacy of the act and the threat it poses to humanity. In spite of this, instances of genocide have occurred since 1948, in developing and developed regions alike. In each instance, most of the world sat idle. In fact, it wasn’t until fifty years after the inception of the treaty that anyone would be convicted of genocide (Power, 60). Continue Reading…