Genocide, refugees, exiles, displaced persons: Help me think of a topic..

Loren Michael

So, here's my deal: I'm taking a class regarding exiles, refugees and displaces persons. Eventually I'm going to have to write a paper on the topic. The topic of genocide is also something I can explore, as it almost invariably involves one or more of the aformentioned groups.

Help me think of an enjoyable and interesting angle to approach this paper. I need to choose a [refugee group], [policy issue] or [some other relevant topic] for intensive study.

If I concentrate on a group, it can be a recent or historical group, I could work on some group from the Bible if I really wanted to. I have a lot of options. But I'd like to tie this to something I really enjoy knowing about.

I am personally very interested in human migration, though not necessarily forced migration. I'm sort of a free migration zealot in the same way some people are free market zealots. I'm interested in xenophobia and humanitarian intervention, and I'm particularly interested in China.

My class just started so I have plenty of time to think about this, but I want to get started early and hammer something out. Hopefully you all can help me think of a topic that's cool and fresh and interesting.

So. Any suggestions? Help me align the topic of this paper with my interests!

HeraldS

You could focus on the Rwandan genocide of '94 and the chaos that followed it. Rwanda, Uganda, DRC, Tanzania, and Burundi have all been affected by it to varying degrees. You've got all sorts of angles to choose from too. What makes people into citizens of a country, the interplay of tribalism and politics in the third world, flaws in the humanitarian support system, difference between refugee/ freedom fighter/ murderer, ways guerrilla forces game the humanitarian systems in third world countries to gain legitimacy, how rebel forces run into trouble with mission clarity once they achieve some of their goals, etc, etc. The whole region is a slow burning mess and has been since WWII or thereabouts so you can pick other events if you're not interested in the '94 genocide. What makes it interesting is that most of the countries (though just the eastern part of DRC I think) have similar tribal makeups- Hutu & Tutsi- but differing percentages and different political makeups so you can compare/ contrast historical problems along those lines too. Also, aside from the DRC under Mobutu, most of the region was ignored by the US & others so most of the situations that arose were home grown.

Not sure if this is exactly what you're looking for but it's the first thing that came to mind when I read your post. A good place to start if you're gonna focus on the '94 genocide and ensuing events is this book. It's a great read, if more than a little sad and disturbing. The author talks to everyone he comes across, from a Hutu pastor that helped kill his flock and then fled to the US, to the guy Don Cheadle plays in Hotel Rwanda, to Paul Kagame when he was just the leader of a ragtag rebel group from the fringes of Uganda. Even if you don't do your paper on this part of the world, you should still read the book.

BlindZenDriver

You could dig into the history of Australia. Many of the first immigrants from England was convicted criminals so there you have the wave and from that followed a second wave where many of the original people of Australia was killed, forced to move and so on.

You can also do something on the original people of North America, the history of Israel, Palestine, Turkey, Serbia/Bosnia, Poland (Hint - it was not only the Nazi which did really horific acts)...

Still you mention China so looking at what is going on in Tibet could be an option. Or you could look into the dealings around the build of the great Dam.

Sentry

Armenian genocide. It combines genocide and forced migration, and has lasting implications to this day.

ascannerlightly

you could write it about saddam ordering the gas attack on halabja during the last year of the iran-iraq war. when you put it up against other genocides/ethnic cleansing it's not as big on a scale of total casualties. what sets it apart is how quickly it happened (3,000-5000 dead and another 10,000 injured over just a two-day span).

Loren Michael

Australia sounds interesting, and I'm at least a little interested in the really awful stuff that happened to the American aboriginals. I've kind of been briefed on the subject via Jared Diamond's writing on it. Which reminds me: I think the idea of genocide as an evolutionary adaptation is an interesting one, but it may be too far removed from the core subject to make writing about it feasible. Any suggestions on this front?

In the vein of psychological and evolutionary explanations for genocide, Steven Pinker wrote an interesting and I think compelling article about how human beings are becoming increasingly nonviolent over the ages, and I'd love to be able to explore that concept as well... but for the fact that Pinker and others already covered it pretty extensively.

I also do think Rwanda is interesting, but I'm afraid it's, I dunno, overexposed. I'm afraid that I'd get bored retreading info on that and refamiliarizing myself with it. I've already read We Regret To Inform You... and the like.

One other angle I think may be interesting is the roll of second-class citizens in forced migration, genocide and the like.

lifeincognito

Japanese American Internment camps during World War Two come to mind in terms of displaced persons. I find it pretty interesting considering they sent numerous Japanese Americans boys/men to fight in the Pacific Theater despite herding up their families.

Saddler

If you want a really specific topic, there's a lot to discuss with this case, or the issues surround the work that No More Deaths does in general: http://www.nomoredeaths.org/index.php/Press-Releases/13-humanitarians-to-be-arraigned-on-littering-charges.html

Hundreds, perhaps thousands of people die of thirst when crossing the U.S. border on foot without the proper papers each year. One humanitarian group has received permission to maintain water tanks on the border, but they are often sabotaged by militia groups, who empty out the tanks, defecate on them, and knock over the flags that mark their location. The Minutemen and other militia groups consider leaving water for immigrants to be abetting fugitives. Additionally, the Indian tribe on the border (Tohono) won't allow the water stations to be placed on their land, and more dead are found there than anywhere else. The humanitarian position is that while immigration is a crime, it is not a capital crime. No More Deaths also fully cooperates with the border patrol. The border patrol in turn does not stake out the water tanks, since doing so would defeat their purpose.

Migrants often leave a trail of pieces of clothes to show others what is a safe path through the inhospitable terrain. Anti-immigrationists complain that this amounts to littering in state parks, and on private land. They oppose it on what they claim to be environmentalist grounds, although if you actually research the people leading the charges, they are some well known racial separatists. Sometimes humanitarians will leave full bottles of water on the ground if they have reason to believe that migrants are nearby, and now those humanitarians are being prosecuted for littering.

Speaker

The influx of Han Chinese to Xinjiang in recent decades has made the Uighurs exiles in their own homeland.