Blame-Who is morally responsible for the genocides that occurred outside of the people who actually committed the acts? Are we Morally Obligated to help those in Need? (The Global Question)
When We look at genocide, we often wonder who is to blame. Sometimes, it is easier to answer the question and sometimes, it is much harder. It is easy to blame the Turkish government for the genocide against the Armenians. It is easy to blame President Juvenal Habyarimana for the crimes against the Tutsi. We can also blame Hitler for the Holocaust. We can blame government officials and those directly involved in killings, rapes (in the case of Rwanda), etc., but what about the seemingly neutral citizens. The online articles talk about some of the reasons citizens either didn't get involved or helped in nondirect ways.
"The Monster Within". Evil a Primer
There were two answers to this. Either they had something to gain as mentioned in the Chapter of William Hart's book, "The Monster Within",
OR
there was something to lose.
However, we must also look at this queestion on a global level. Are the people (nationwide and internationally) who had the power to take action, partly to blame? First, we must recognize the pattern of the reluctance of U.S. involvement and try to undertand why. Then, we must decide whether there is a moral obligation to help others in need.
First, we can look at the pattern that keeps repeating itself. The U.S. has been reluctant to get involved in the attrocities that occur in other nations.
The Atlantic Monthly link talks about Bill Clinton's failure to act on the problems in Rwanda. He knew what was going on and seemed to be shocked, and yet didn't feel it was an issue worthy of his time.
The U.S. was more worried about isolation than human rights when the Turks decided to "ethnically cleanse" their community of Armenians.
Sudan is still a huge existing problem and still, the U.S. is not doing all they can to help those in need.
And The Holocaust was a known problem but not as big of a concern as letting too many "outsiders" into the country.
In case it has not become evident yet, the U.S. has failed to be what they once wanted to be know as; "The Moral Example for the World". Although there were other countries that could have gotten involved, I will, as an American citizen, the U.S. as an example to demonstrate the moral policies of the world. Now that we have noticed that victims are not strongly protected by other nations, we must ask ourselves why. The answer is, we can guess all we want but we probably will never know the agenda of the presidents and government officals that have the power to change things. Maybe they are afraid of making enemies and losing allies. Or maybe they are afraid of being responsible for a large number of immigrants. Now comes the important question.
Are we (as a whole) morally obligated to help those in need. The consensus with all genocides seem to be yes and no. Things seem to be a wrong when helping either benefits us or not helping bruises our reputation too much.
There are a lot of articles that could help with this question.
One pattern I found was that helping those in need (at least through the perspective of those who didn't help right away) would be detremental to themselves.
There are two extreme positions on whether we are obligated to help those in need. The text along with the internet sources help to demonstrate that although in all of the cases of genocide their was a reluctance to help, the fact that the U.S. did get involved in most cases shows that they truly believe that we are obligated to help those in need.
Articles:
Peter Singer -
Famine, Affluence and Morality
This article argues, 'If it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought, morally to do it." It becomes horribly evident that the U.S. felt as though by helping, they were sacrificing the security to their country. First, it would cause them to gain more enemies. Second, too many immigrants woud have to locate to the U.S. and that would pose a threat to jobs, the economy, etc. However, if we agree with singer's article, we have to recognize that the sacrifice the U.S. was showing was not comparable to the moral wrong that was going on in any of the cases of Genocide.
In the article by Garrett Hardin entitled "Lifeboat Ethics", Hardin says that helping those in need pose a huge threat to everyone. This article is particularly useful because it is referring to the refugee issue. He basically says that if we are obligated to help those in need, we will be killing ourselves off. The world is overpopulated and there are not enough resources for everyone to live comfortably. Therefore, it is essential that soem suffer and he may even go as far as to say die. For example, if you help to many people, there won't be enough resources for everyone. Therefore, everyone will die off. But let's be realistic. We could help out any group of people who need it without using up all of our resources is we were less wasteful and lived as Peter Singer says in his article, with "minimal utility". So, what does this have to do with genocides? It has to do with not only U.S. interest, but the bystanders in each of the countries that have had issues with genocide. All of the citizens had something to lose by helping those in need. This, in many cases, prevented them from getting involved.
One World, a book by Peter Singer explains how any one of us could be perpetrators. he doesn't just approach the issue of genocide from the point of those involved. He also shows us that the U.S. is responsible, bystanders are responsible, and anyone CAN become responsible. He also mentions the need for intervention.
Now we must relate this to the relationship of the Holocaust to other genocides. Besides the lack of involvement of the U.S., in order to address the topic, we must look at the pattern of people's reluctance to get involved in general. As mentioned several times above, there were things to gain and to lose. Many of the online articles go into specific detail about what was to be lost. For example, people within Rwanda were afraid to get involved because of the risk of violence against them.