Worldwide Issues #3 - Why not label a conflict, genocide?

            This really is a political question with human lives at stake.  Countries like the US, and those involved with the UN are caught up in the bureaucratic debates so much that they metaphorically play Risk with disadvantaged countries.  Post-Holocaust, post-Rwandan genocide, and predictably, post-Darfur, we will be asking ourselves why we, as a country and as members of the human race, did not take action to stop what we knew to be systemic extinction of a demographic of people.  Why do we wait to call a spade a spade and genocide genocide?  In this ‘post’ period, we are wrought with cognitive dissonance because our actions do not match our self-image.  We see ourselves as moral, kind people, but when our nations do not stop the killing of others, our self-image and actions are in conflict.  Seemingly, this conflict and cognitive dissonance would occur during the genocide; however, history says that it does not occur in large enough magnitude since it does not impact the course plan of nations.  Why?  Why do we wait so long to recognize it for what it so clearly is?  Why do we wait until it has ended to feel this conflict and guilt which encourage us to say, “Never again.”? 

            The best excuse, I mean rational, that I have found is self-preservation.  The facts are that it is written into the laws of most countries and the laws of the United Nations, that they must take certain steps in the occurrence of genocide.  These steps presumably cost countries money, manpower, and resources and often implicitly involve a great deal of risk.  Thus, it is in their bodies’ best interest to avoid costly endeavors, which is impossible so long as a conflict is labeled genocide.  Therefore, in an effort to protect the self, countries and even the United Nations wait, until the proof in irrefutable to label with genocide.  

            Furthermore, principles of natural selection and kinship selection as a rational for why people help others shed light onto this issue.  Kinship selection is the body of the Selfish Gene View of helping.  It says that survival of the fittest principle dictates the likelihood of which we will help based on relatedness.  Kinship selection emphasizes that we are most likely to share our resources and place ourselves at risk for the benefit of those most biologically close to us.  In this way, nations oceans away and populations our ancestors never procreated with are not of top priority because we are, for the most part, biologically disconnected.  Luckily, cognitive dissonance and our egotistical biases and images of ourselves – which set high standards for our behavior do, eventually, override our selective helping.  In this way, genocides are recognized, rectified, and we apologize.