The difference in human attitudes is one of the most amazing things about us. When we look at animals for example, it seems most of the same types of animals act the same way. Almost every tiger in the wild would attack us, because that is the nature of the beast. Excuse the use of such over-used phrases. If you fell into a lake full of piranha they would all be taking chunks out of you. It does seem we are not always the enemy or food source among other animals such as dolphins and chimps and many times they can be quite friendly. But it seems the more intelligent an animal is, the harder it is to predict how it is going to behave. Since humans are probably the smartest animals on the planet, we can never be sure how they will react to a certain situation. One of the biggest failings of the human race is many times a human cannot be trusted.

If we look at human history what do we see? While there is a lot of good which has been done, it is probably outweighed by the cruelty humans have shown to other humans. Sometimes entire ethnic groups of humans have acted as one in their pursuit of some goal which was aimed at wiping out another ethnic group. In 1990 a tremendous genocide took place. In just 100 days over 800,000 Tutsi people were slaughtered by the Hutus. It seems the Tutsis were in power in Rwanda, but the country was 85% Hutu. Tutsis which had fled Rwanda had come back with a rebel group. Fighting continued until 1993 until a treaty was signed. Things erupted again and the genocide was carried out. The United Nations never gave a mandate to stop the killing. This has proved hate can overcome the human ability for mercy.

In the years 1992 to 1995 the Bosnian Genocide took place. Bosnian Serbs had targeted Muslim Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats. Some of these people had been their neighbors for years. The most terrible things humans could do to other humans took place. Not only was there mass murder but rape, sexual assault, torture, beating, robbery and other criminal acts which were carried out against the Muslims and Croats. Civilian populations were shelled, places of worship destroyed and homes along with business taken. The courts in Germany had three convictions for genocide and the United Nations passed a resolution stating this was genocide. Even with all this there is still debate that this didn’t measure up to genocide. How could anyone feel this way? Debates are fine, but sometimes they can get ridiculous and this is one of those cases, especially when Radovan Karadzic, the president of the Republika Srpsha was found guilty of genocide in Srebrenica and crimes against humanity. The Serbian army had been convinced they were doing the right thing.

The Nazis are a very good example of humans gone wrong. How could any group of people believe herding people into concentration camps and then trying to exterminate an entire race of people was the correct thing to do? It was almost as if every moral fiber had been wiped out of the Nazis. Murder was routine for those Nazis who were trying to get into power before World War II and it was just as easy for them to turn on former compatriots and friends and murder them as it was to kill Jews, Gypsies, Poles and others. Nazi doctors, doctors who supposedly devoted themselves to helping the human race, were just as comfortable torturing and killing humans in the name of science. They had convinced themselves certain races of people were nothing more than some type of sub-human. One has to wonder how this thought could have spread through the ranks of intelligent people the way it did.

The problem is many of us are vulnerable to acts which seem incredibly cruel and wrong. It would seem many of us have a dark side and we might not even realize it. It’s not a very long journey to take before we can convince ourselves that cruelty and killing are the correct thing to do. I am not talking about fighting wars as we did to protect our country, I am talking about thinking it is alright to destroy a race of people, because we somehow think it will make things better for us.

Cambodia is a very good example of the extreme cruelty humans are capable of. The Khmer Rouge were among the most-cruel killers who ever existed. They were led by Pol Pot and from 1975 to 1979. The estimates of the amount of people they killed falls between 1.5 million to 3.0 million, no one is quite sure of the amount. They wanted to force a form of communism on the people and decided extreme cruelty would scare them into submission. One of the things they loved to do was use a tool they developed. It was a sort of hook and they would take a child and use the hook to tear out his or her liver. The idea was to let the child slowly die in front of everyone. It would take about 24 hours. Of all the horrible acts of murder ever committed this had to rank up at the top. They also used mass executions and killed about 25% of the population and only ended when Vietnam invaded the country.

What happens to people to turn them into such monsters? Many of the people committing these acts were said to just be ordinary people, before becoming indoctrinated into the idea torture and killing was okay. Does this mean our neighbors might someday turn against us for some reason? It does mean we never know what route human nature might take and we constantly have to guard against hating a race or type of people so much we convince ourselves it is okay not to treat them like a human being and even torture and kill them. We do not need to like everyone and can even dislike them and what they stand for, but we should never hate them so much we forget they are humans too.