Thursday, October 10, 2013

Eugenics and Genocide Today



             In the book Fires of Hatred: Ethnic Cleansing in Twentieth-Century Europe by Norman M. Naimark, Naimark distinguishes the difference between the terms genocide and ethnic cleansing by discussing prior tragic events in history to highlight the distinctiveness of the two aforementioned terms. According to Naimark genocide can be defined as “the intentional killing off of part or all of an ethnic, religious, or national group; the murder of a people or peoples is the objective,” whereas the goal of ethnic cleansing is “to get rid of the “alien” nationality, ethnic, or religious group and to seize control of the territory they had formerly inhabited” (3). Although these words slightly resemble each other they are not used interchangeably. Genocide and ethnic cleansing have both been demonstrated by separate horrific instances in history.

            In chapter 2 Naimark discusses the tragedy that was the Holocaust, the mass murder performed by the Nazis of millions of innocent Jews as well as others who did not fit into the stereotypical “pure” Aryan race. Hitler’s initial plan was to ethnic cleanse German society of the Jewish race because he believed them to be infected, disease-like creatures that if not removed would ruin the pure German race. In order to properly begin the process of eliminating the Jews Hitler used propaganda to expose the Jews and make it so that they were hated by all societies. In order to effectively enforce an ethnic cleansing or genocide upon a group of people the use of modern media, a bureaucratized state and nationalism is essential as well as a flashpoint that triggers the downward spiral of events to come. When the removal of the Jews from Germany was not taking place as quickly and efficiently as Hitler had planned, forcibly displacing the Jews was no longer an option and soon ethnic cleansing turned into genocide. Hitler used dehumanizing violence to kill his innocent victims by means of starvation and brutal torture in labor camps, tricking them into gas chambers and flat out shooting them without warning.

            During the time of the Holocaust the discovery of eugenics-“the attempt to identify and, through selective breeding, to improve the racial characteristics of humans,” when in the hands of Hitler was a deadly weapon used to stop the reproduction of Jews and people with physical and mental disabilities (Naimark, 60). The use of eugenics still continues today but in a much different form than the forced sterilization that was required of those who would not benefit the increase of the Aryan race. Today people have the ability to choose to have tests done to find out if their baby is free from disability and disease and if not the parents can choose to abort the child if they wish to do so. Although eugenics has made some great strides in science when compared to its degrading past; however, there is still much debate whether it is immoral for parents to be able to genetically select how they would like their child to be born. Typically Hitler targeted innocent women and children to be killed almost immediately because they were of no use to him, whereas boys and men could be put to work in labor camps. He planned to kill them all anyways but he was able to force the men to do work and suffer before they eventually died. Still today in Syria there have been reports of attacks on cities and the murders of hundreds of innocent civilians and the attackers have been known to do atrocious things to the bodies of the victims. Although the Holocaust took place many years ago there are still similar instances occurring throughout the world today.

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