Oppression and Genocide
Introduction
British historian Lord Acton once said, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Though this could be considered a universal truth, it becomes especially brutal when applied to the topics of oppression and genocide. "Absolute power" describes the extreme control of governments and dictators who do not allow their people freedom or a voice. However, the phrase "corrupts absolutely" hardly seems adequate to describe the excessive waste of human lives and the refusal of basic human rights that many must endure under an oppressive governmental regime. Examining the literature produced under these inhumane conditions reveals humanity's incredible capacity for suffering and cruelty. But these works also reveal man's capacity to survive.
Although the time period of eighteenth-century England in Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal" provides modern readers with a comfortable distance from England's oppression of Ireland, the uncomfortable closeness of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, as told by Philip Gourevitch, proves that "civil" is a root word that has been forgotten in many civilizations. Analysis of literary works created as a result of unthinkable oppressive and genocidal acts reveals a common denominator of cause: governmental abuse of power that results in the manipulation or attempted extermination of a political or racial minority.
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