Genocide in Rwanda

I attended a presentation on Rwandan Genocide which was categorized as meeting the academic requirement for events. Obviously, genocide is a difficult topic to tackle because it’s emotionally and mentally intimidating, but what’s unexpectedly hard to face about the issue is how rarely genocide is caught in time to prevent mass casualties and pain. Through the lens of international affairs, it seems that a major issue for national and international governing bodies should be to confront major issues such as the unwarranted killing of peoples, but it remains terrifyingly avoidable. We discussed the categories that qualify an event as genocide and how that continues to expand and be more inclusive in order to try and protect a wider range of groups (i.e. LGBTQ+, those of certain genders) yet action is rarely taken against genocides until it is far too late. If there are so many guidelines, how is it that countries tiptoe around the term “genocide” to avoid outright international involvement? The issue is, of course, complicated by boundaries set between nations and their allies, but it greatly concerns me that international governing groups such as the UN have few to no accessible examples of how outside nations step in in these situations. International affairs are significant to me because it indicates that interaction occurs between nations occurring and often carries the connotation that these interactions are educational and used in beneficial ways. This activity served as a reminder of why one of the paths that I look towards as a way out of the undecided label is public service and government work. I want to be involved in some way to the world’s international affairs because major issues like the lack of pushback as genocides take place shouldn’t be something that takes forever to face. There are strategic stalemates than occur in government operations to prevent mass movements (i.e. length of senator terms in the U.S.) but stalemates should never spell out passivity towards human suffering, especially when the perpetrators are aware of the atrocities occurring.

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