1

Never Again: The World’s Most Unfilled Promise

Identify claim, evidence and warrant

By: US Representative to the U.N. Samantha Power MLA In-Text Citation: (Power, paragraph #). MLA Works Cited Page: Power, Samantha. “Never Again: The world’s most unfilled promise.” PBS:

Frontline. WGBH Educational Foundation, 1995-2014. Web. August, 2013. <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/karadzic/genocide/neveragain.html>.

Fifty years ago the global community allowed governments to

treat their own citizens virtually as they chose within national borders.

Today the concept of human rights is flourishing, and the rights of

individuals are prized (if not always protected). Across the

contemporary legal, political and social landscape, we see

abundant evidence of the people supporting and advancing

human rights. There are global conventions that outlaw

discrimination on the basis of gender and race and outline the rights

of refugees and children. In short, when it comes to human rights as

a whole, states and citizens have made significant improvements.

But one ugly, deadly and consistent reality persists: genocide.

Genocide has occurred so often and so uncontested in the last

fifty years that the phrase often chanted, "Never Again" should

actually be, "Again and Again." The gap between the promise and

the practice of the last fifty years has been disappointing. How can

Name: _____________________________________________________ Period: __________Date: _________

MaryBeth Yerdon� 10/3/2013 11:29 AMComment [1]: This basically means, “the whole world, the community of the world.” MaryBeth Yerdon� 9/15/2014 12:16 PMComment [2]: This sentence means that the global community did not interfere in conflicts inside the political boundaries of countries. An example of this is how the U.N. did not interfere in Rwanda. This has to do with something called sovereignty. MaryBeth Yerdon� 10/3/2013 3:24 PMComment [3]: Remember contemporary means today, what is going on right now! MaryBeth Yerdon� 10/3/2013 3:28 PMComment [4]: Abundant means ‘a lot: A lot of evidence. MB YERDON � 9/15/2014 12:19 PMComment [5]: Conventions occur when world leaders get together and decided that there should be a standard about something. For example the Convention on the Rights of the Child. This convention states all the rights that are specific to children. MaryBeth Yerdon� 10/3/2013 3:34 PMComment [6]: Remember, states in this context means countries.

MaryBeth Yerdon� 10/3/2013 4:06 PMComment [7]: This is what the international community promised after the Holocaust, that “Never Again” would our world allow genocide to occur.

2

this be? In 1948 the member countries of the United Nations were

disgusted by the actions of the Nazis during the Holocaust. As a

response to the Holocaust the U.N. passed the Genocide

Convention and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The

members of the U.N. agreed to prevent and punish perpetrators who

slaughtered victims simply because they belonged to an

"undesirable" national, ethnic, or religious group.

Genocide has been practiced by colonizers, crusaders before

the word "genocide," even exited. Genocide means the "killing:

(Latin, cide) of a "people" (Greek, genos), this world had only been

added to the English language after WWII, to capture this special

kind of evil. In the words of the French Prosecutor at the Nuremberg

trials, "This [was] a crime so monstrous, so undreamt of in history

throughout the Christian era up to the birth of Hitlerism, that the term

'genocide' has had to be coined to define it."

Genocide is different from ordinary conflict because, while

surrender in war normally stopped the killing, surrender in the face of

genocide only makes it worse. Genocide was and is the organized,

systematic and large-scale massacre of innocent people based on

race, ethnicity, religion or nationality.

The United States led the movement to learn from the lessons of

the Holocaust and to once and for all ban genocide. After WWII

MaryBeth Yerdon� 10/3/2013 4:09 PMComment [8]: WWII ended in 1948. The war was between the Allied Powers: France, the US, Great Britain, China and Russia and the Axis Powers: Germany, Italy and Japan

MaryBeth Yerdon� 10/3/2013 4:11 PMComment [9]: A set of laws that all countries in the world have to obey, that are designed to prevent genocide. MaryBeth Yerdon� 10/3/2013 4:11 PMComment [10]: UDHR: The tattoo on my right arm is from the UDHR, Article I, “All people have the right to human dignity.” MaryBeth Yerdon� 10/3/2013 4:12 PMComment [11]: People responsible for a crime: In Rwanda it would have been the Interahamwe and the Hutu Army

MB YERDON � 9/15/2014 12:28 PMComment [12]: Lawyer. MaryBeth Yerdon� 10/3/2013 4:15 PMComment [13]: The trials to sentence the people responsible for organizing and carrying out the Holocaust.

3

there was a popular agreement in the United States and the rest of

the world that genocide should "never again" be perpetrated while

outsiders stand by and do nothing. Although, Americans study and

memorialize the Holocaust it has not inspired popular outrage over

acts of contemporary genocides. Ever since the Holocaust first

entered mainstream conversations U.S. leaders have gone out of

their way to promised to never again let genocide happen. Jimmy

Carter said it, Ronald Reagan said it, George Bush said it, and Bill

Clinton said it.

But in the last half century since, something has gone badly

wrong. In Bosnia Muslim men, women and children all learned that

the promise of "never again" did not count for much and they were

not alone. Since the Holocaust, the United States has intervened

militarily for the following reasons: securing foreign ports, removing

world leaders who did not match American ideals, Communism, and

protecting American oil interests. Yet the United States has never

intervened to stop the one overseas occurrence that everyone

agree is wrong, genocide.

Regardless if the President was Republican or Democrat, major

genocides have occurred and the US has stood bye and watched --

Cambodia (President Jimmy Carter), northern Iraq (Presidents

Ronald Reagan, George Bush Sr.), Bosnia (George Bush Sr., Bill

Clinton), Rwanda (Bill Clinton) and Darfur (George Bush Jr. and

MaryBeth Yerdon� 10/3/2013 7:29 PMComment [14]: To make memorials of

MaryBeth Yerdon� 10/3/2013 7:30 PMComment [15]: Common

MaryBeth Yerdon� 10/3/2013 4:29 PMComment [16]: Ports in other countries for docking ships for trade. MB YERDON � 9/15/2014 12:30 PMComment [17]: Like Patrice Lumumba. MB YERDON � 9/15/2014 12:31 PMComment [18]: Like in Vietnam MB YERDON � 9/15/2014 12:31 PMComment [19]: Now we are doing this in Iraq. In the past we have done this is Iran.

4

Barack Obama) – there has been very little American action.

American leaders have not merely refrained from sending soldiers to

combat genocide; when it came to atrocities in Cambodia, Iraq

and Rwanda, the United States also refrained from condemning the

crimes or imposing economic sanctions; and, again in Rwanda, the

United States refused to authorize the deployment of a U.N.

peacemaking force.

In the last fifty years, nothing has gone quite as planned. The

Universal Declaration of Human Rights has become a bedrock

document in international law, outlining the basic rights that

individuals all over the world are entitled to claim. However, as we

have seen the right all human beings have to be treated with dignity

and be safe from extermination and oppression has not been

fulfilled.

MaryBeth Yerdon� 10/3/2013 7:31 PMComment [20]: Terrible events

MaryBeth Yerdon� 10/3/2013 7:32 PMComment [21]: Saying something is bad and then refusing to trade with that country.

MaryBeth Yerdon� 10/4/2013 12:39 AMComment [22]: The law of the world.

5

Focus Questions: Answer the following questions in 6-10 sentences

So what? How do you feel about the discussion that has been presented? What responsibility do you have as a citizen of the human community to make sure that all human beings have the right to be free both in dignity and rights? What steps can you take as an ordinary citizen to make sure that genocide “never again” happens? __________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________