One Million Dead in 50 Years. A culture Destroyed. What’s New in the World?

One Million Dead in 50 Years. A Culture Destroyed. What’s New in the World?

It may be considered slow by genocide standards, on comparison perhaps with the attempted genocide of Native Americans in the United States.

50 years ago today, China began its genocide against Tibet. Since 1959, over one million Tibetans have been killed by the Chinese Army. Equally appalling, the Chinese government has systematically worked to destroy all aspects of Tibetan life and religion.

It won’t be long before the entire Tibetan culture and race are gone. A peaceful people totally dedicated to their religion wiped off the face of the earth. Lost forever while the world offers a blind eye to this genocide.

Again.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama has been in exile since that time, pleading for the governments of the world to intervene. His pleas have fallen on deaf ears. Recently, most of these countries can’t hear the pleas for mercy because of the ringing of cash registers due to trade with an ever growing Chinese economy. We overlook the genocide in favor of the almighty dollar.

After all, the US has to think about what’s most important and today, that’s money. China holds most of our debt paper, buys our products and supplies us with merchandise for resale. Why screw up a potential economic windfall with something so inconsequential as genocide?

It’s not like the United States has much of a record caring about this moral issue.

Shortly after the United Nations came into being, its members passed the U.N. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes of Genocide (September 1948). To its everlasting shame, it took the United States 40 years to finally ratify this Convention.

In 1998 120 countries set up the International Criminal Court to investigate and try individuals accused of war crimes and genocide. The US voted against the court.

It’s been more than 50 years since the world came to grips with its latest and most blatant genocide, the Holocaust. The nations of the world agreed that genocide is a crime against humanity and must be punished.

The world collectively vowed that genocide would never happen again.

For decades, investigators combed the world looking for Nazi perpetrators of the genocide of Jews. Those found were punished.

The Holocaust Museum and The Elie Wielsel Foundation for Humanity were created to expose the evil of genocide. And while these two organizations continue to demonstrate the horrors of the Nazi genocide against Jews and other minorities, they do little with present day genocide.
“The Holocaust might serve a powerful purpose if it led us to think of the world today as wartime Germany--where millions die while the rest of the population obediently goes about its business. It is a frightening thought that the Nazis, in defeat, were victorious: today Germany, tomorrow the world, That is, until we withdraw our obedience.”
-Howard Zinn, The Progressive.
For Tibet, we’d rather listen to the cash register ring. It drowns out the cries of another people being wiped off the face of the earth.

The Nazi mindset on cultural and racial extermination has won. Here in the 21st Century we have acts of genocide being committed across the globe yet we sit on our collective rear ends and do nothing. The evidence is everywhere, brought into your living room by satellite television and the Internet.

Yet the gore and bestiality of today’s genocide has no more effect on most people than the latest blood and guts TV show, movie or video game you allow into your home under the guise of entertainment. No wonder we don’t care. We’re numb from the constant barrage of man’s inhumanity to man.

Today we look away as genocide is committed under our very eye. Where? Here’s a partial list of places where genocide is actively taking place:

Darfur
Rwanda
Sri Lanka
Somalia
East Timor
Bosnia
Sudan
Congo
Ethiopia
Tibet

And let’s not forget some genocides of the past we ignored:

Native Americans
Armenia
Cambodia
Soviet Union
Iraqi Kurds

What the hell is wrong with us? What has happened that we as the human race care so little about our fellow man that we allow these beasts to continue their attempts to wipe out tribes or religions or races?

We learned nothing from the Holocaust. We give it lip service and jump up to condemn it whenever possible. We see the plight of Darfur in living color, shake our heads in disbelief and then ignore the problem.

The truth is we just don’t care.

Shame on us.