Evil, Power, and Perspective

While reading Fires of Hatred and watching Hotel Rwanda, I kept wondering why? Why did they start the ethnic cleansings in the first place? What possesses humans to do such things to another human? I got my answer while sitting in my psychology class one day. The answer is power and control. They cause man to do things they would not normally do. We all know that the three aspects to genocide are nationalism, bureaucracy and flashpoint, but let’s stop and think of how these so called leaders and their followers feel while doing such things.

Chapters 1-3 give a detailed account of three separate groups who got tossed out of their homes on the grounds of “you’re not good enough for us”. It starts with the Armenians who by the Turkish were seen as inferior because of their belief in Christianity instead of Islamic faith. Because of this they were made to pay high taxes and not allowed in the military. Standing up for themselves and uprising only landed them worse than where they were. As a “punishment”, they were made to walk for miles and miles in what we know as “death marches”. Those who made it all the way were then deported to Syria; this was the case for roughly 15% of the people.  Next off we have the infamous Germans under the command of Hitler. In a tale as old as time we read about the escalation of the Jewish extraction from Germany. What went from wanting all Jews to leave and move to Palestine willingly, turned into forcing some to move. When that did not work they moved all the Jews to ghettos, which then led to the concentration camps. German’s reasoning for their treatment of the Jews? They caused the war. Last but not least we have the every so unoriginal Stalin. A copycat of Hitler he and his following sought to break the Soviet Union into groups depending on nations and exterminate all who did not follow him. He worked his way from the bourgeoisie down to the poor systematically mobilizing people and getting rid of all who didn't follow his lead.

If we look closely at each event, we can see that each ethnic cleansing started from a certain someone or group of some that felt as if their word was law and preached to whoever would listen, and bada bing bada boom they have some semblance of power and think they can rule the world. Too bad they only get a country. The truth of the matter is the only reason these “rulers” get in power in the first place is because evil thrives on negative power. In my psychology class we learned that each person has an internal conflict of good vs evil. Every man and woman has an inner Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in them; which they choose to influence is up to that specific person. On the one hand we have our Hitler’s and Stalin’s of the world, while on the other hand we have our Martin Luther King Jr’s and Cesar Chavez’s. All these men had power, no doubt about that, and many followers, but two chose to be Dr. Jekyll and the other two chose Mr. Hyde. In the end it comes down to the person not the power.

2013. Photograph. n.p. Web. 4 Mar 2014. <http://www.kyprisnews.com/2013/12/26/good-vs-evil/>.

https://www.ted.com/talks/philip_zimbardo_on_the_psychology_of_evil

http://moralmindfield.wordpress.com/2011/02/25/is-power-evil-the-ethics-of-power/