History Always Repeats Itself

Katie Vormittag

Z1574018

As I was reading through Norman M. Naimark’s “Fires of Hatred,” the topics of ethnic cleansing and genocide were clearly the prevalent themes, and they were compared and contrasted through different examples in history. What I realized is that no matter how society changes throughout history, the most resounding ideology I have found is that history will forever repeat itself. Just as the genocides in Rwanda and Darfur are current in this new millennium, the mass murders of the Jews in the Holocaust were the first to make a statement in the Second World War. As well as genocides repeating themselves, ethnic cleansings tend to repeat themselves as well. We see this in history when the Germans were deported from Poland and Czechoslovakia just after World War Two. We also see it when Yugoslavia broke up into different nation states and the animosity that sparked between the Serbians and the Croatians. In each of these instances dominant races try to force out others based on an ideology that there is an inferior race which is causing economic or political problems within other nations. In the case of the Czechs driving out the Germans, the Czechs were not approving of the Nazis and Hitler of World War Two and the Holocaust and this was a good enough reason to expel them and create a more unified country just like Poland wanted as well. In the division of nation-states when Yugoslavia broke up, the smaller nations became bitter over the areas which would be theirs and how land would be distributed. Both of these cases remind me of the current issue in the United States where Mexican residents are migrating up into the U.S. without green cards or citizenship. This becomes an issue in that non-citizens are not always responsible for United States’ laws because they are undocumented. Many Americans are finding this an issue also because many that are coming here from Mexico do not speak English and this makes interaction harder for American citizens. As a way to catch illegal aliens that are not documented, Arizona has passed a law stating that an officer can ask for documents which declares someone a U.S. citizen if the officer suspects an illegal alien in the country. This not only proves that the U.S. is attempting to deport illegal citizens of Mexico, but are becoming more forceful than before. This is not as forceful as the deportation of Jews into concentration camps or deporting the Germans out of Poland; however the U.S. is slowly making headway into a mass deportation, especially if the same law in Arizona passes elsewhere. As more and more aliens from Mexico migrate north, the more and more Mexican influence the United States experiences such as the Spanish language in stores. This then leads into a national pride amongst Americans and the deportation will become more forceful. Just as in the past, nationalist feelings reign over minorities even though immigrants will always be present in every nation around the world.

  http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/i/immigration-and-emigration/arizona-immigration-law-sb-1070/index.html

    https://www.google.com/search?q=illegal%20mexican%20immigrants&bav=on.2,or.r_cp.r_qf.&bvm=bv.53899372,d.aWc,pv.xjs.s.en_US.E_HR746bqA4.O&biw=1280&bih=709&dpr=1&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=1npYUuyaBsqQyAHOsoBY#facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=v7AtQWSt4jcVaM%3A%3BSYn4gRf6x49gfM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252F4.bp.blogspot.com%252F-3CnEFJpqBdI%252FT5bDS3ISIQI%252FAAAAAAAAASw%252FDHexRn7sfH4%252Fs1600%252FIllegal%252BImmigration.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.thedailyeconomist.com%252F2012%252F04%252Fillegal-aliens-head-back-home-as-they.html%3B907%3B632