Becca Hairer, David Jung, Kara Dudas-Ballone, Mackenzie Bernard

Mrs. Cartier

Honors English 2

February 7th 2012

Genocide Prevention Speech

“The most violent element in society is ignorance.” This quote sums up the whole reason that Elie Wiesel told of the darkest period in his life. They say that if we don’t learn from the past, we are destined to repeat it. All students at Affton High School should know of Wiesel’s remarkable struggle before they leave our school. Elie Wiesel wrote this novel as a call to action. His purpose for writing about his experiences during the Holocaust isn’t just for his own healing, but for the greater good of mankind. He wants us all to know what happens when hate breeds hate and destroys millions upon millions of innocent lives. It’s important that we learn about the past so we won’t be victims of the same hate.

Genocide is alive and happening around the world today. Genocide is the deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or social group. It exists today in places like Darfur where since 2003 over 400,000 Darfurians have been killed in a battle of racial genocide. Darfur is not a country; it’s a region between Africa and Arab nations. The battle isn’t religious, it’s racial. Arab Muslims against Black Muslims, 150 lives are lost every day. 90% of the villages of Darfur’s targeted ethnic groups have been destroyed. On September 9th 2004,

United States Secretary of State Colin Powell said the Darfur conflict was genocide, and called it the worst humanitarian crisis of the 21st century. This is the first time the United States has ever declared genocide while the genocide was still happening (11 Facts About Darfur) The Hatred and ignorance that causes genocide, is alive and well in the United States today. White supremacists, like the KKK, promoted hate. Westborough Baptist Church spreads propaganda of teaching intolerance and non-acceptance. We must fight this ignorance with education. Through out history genocides have occurred all over the world in places like, Namibia in 1904, The government started to demand high amounts of grain that were not able to be produced, government leaders knew it would cause a food shortage. Stores were locked up and kept under guard Up to 7 million people died of hunger, if they didn’t die fast enough they were shot mass numbers. Demands were lifted but just a couple years after people were deported to labor camps where they died of the harsh conditions. In Armenia, 1915, covered up during the war, many

Armenians were forced from their towns and homes and made to march until they died or were massacred. They made use of new technology that was available and made use of the Istanbul-

Baghdad railway. They packed tens of thousands of Armenians onto railway wagons and sent it into the desert to die of starvation and dehydration (Genocide) We all know well of the destruction that happened at the hands of German, Adolf Hitler. The ‘racial purity’ started in

1926 and continued until 1945. During the Holocaust, over 6 million Jews were killed along with over 5 million others. Everyone, Jews, gays, and many more people, were shoved into labor camps, ghettos, transit camps, or, extermination camps. People were dying of starvation, disease neglect, maltreatment, used as ‘medical experiments’, poisoned, and shot. These are all similar because they have all generated from hate. All used the newer technology of the time, they killed in mass numbers if people didn’t die naturally, and were brutally run out of their homes and into harsh labor camps (Introduction to the Holocaust) .

It is so important to be aware of past and current genocides because history does repeat itself. If people all over the world aren’t educated about something as important as killing whole races of people, we can already insure this WILL happen again. By reading and watching books, videos, movies, talking to survivors, ect… We can learn more and more about the terrors that go on in these places and try to help those people in that situation as much as possible. We are the last generation to hear the survival stories from the survivors themselves and written accounts like Wiesel’s, and many others. It’s out hope that our children will never have to meet genocide survivors because genocide should never happen again. Works Cited

Dosomething.org. Save Darfur, n.d. Web. 07 February, 2012

Melicharova, Margaret. Peace Pledge Union Information: Genocide. Peace Pledge

Union, 2002. Web. 07 February, 2012

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Web.

07 February,2012