(n) The deliberate killing of a large group of people, especially those of a particular ethnic group or nation.
Project Reflection For this project, we began by studying the Rwandan genocide in 1994. We spent two months examining the relationships between the Hutus and the Tutsis, and looked at the cause and effect of the European influence on the country. After we had extensively studied the Rwandan genocide, we delved into Political Ideology, Foreign Policy, and Social Psychology. Finally, we were instructed to do independent research on a 20th century genocide of our choice. The final product was an opinion editorial on a specific part of the genocide and a political cartoon that related back to your thesis statement.
My cartoon relates to the United States' influence on the Guatemalan genocide, and seeks to show the responsibility of the US in the deaths of the Guatemalan people. The Guatemalan soldier on the right represents, clearly, the Guatemalan military and government. Half of his face is a skull to symbolize the lives that were taken, and that death was supposed to be a "solution". The man on the left, who is whispering into the ear of the soldier, is an American. He has an anti-communism symbol on his cheek to represent America's feelings toward communism at the start of the genocide, as well as to expose their motives in getting involved in Guatemala in the first place. Writing an opinion editorial was a nice change of pace from the writing that is usually done in Humanities. Opinion editorials are focused on short, concise sentences that draw the reader in as opposed to my natural style of writing. Normally, I tend to write long, descriptive sentences that have complex structure, whereas in this project, the goal was to fully express your opinion and provide extensive evidence to back it up. I believe that writing this op-ed will help me in the future with fact-focused writing such as essays, because of the concise nature of the way the opinions and facts are presented to the reader. This project definitely helped me grow as a writer, and pushed me out of my comfort zone. Why Genocide? It's a question that I started to think about from the moment we started this unit. Ultimately, I believe it boils down to exposing us to reality, no matter how gruesome. Just because we don't experience these things firsthand doesn't mean that we shouldn't be aware of their existence. Though some days it was exhausting and depressing studying mass murder and political responsibility, I feel that I have grown as a person and I have a newfound sense of appreciation for the sheltered life that I live. I am grateful that I had the opportunity to learn about genocide, as I'm sure there are a lot of schools that would not have allowed it. |
Opinion EditorialGenocide In-Class EssayPolitical Realism vs. Political IdealismObedience ActivityJustice and Human FlourishingBystanders of Genocide |