Processing All of This

At the very beginning of this course, we heard a little bit about the methods of genocide...the gas chambers in the Holocaust and "deportation" of the Armenians, etc. It didn't really bother me that much to hear about these methods, not because I don't think they're awful, but because it was all stuff I had learned about before. Now though, as we have been getting deeper into our readings and class discussions, learning about the various methods of torture used, especially in the Armenian and Rwandan genocides leaves me speechless. Smashing heads in vice grips, beheading, burning alive...all these brutalities are just awful. I just can't believe, Just World Theory or not, that people can do this to each other! How incredibly selfish governments are- taking innocent lives because they are in the way of more power. Learning about all this makes me so mad- and I wish I could directly do something about it- like making governments see that people's lives and freedom are more important than power- but I know that governments don't even care. I guess it's probably not right to stereotype all governments, but it seems like they are so selfish- even the United States government! So anyways, learning about the many genocides that have occurred, and that are still occurring in our world really takes me a while to process. I like learning about this stuff, but at the same time it sets my emotions awhirl.