Racist Policies and Indifference

  Why had the many racist policies and administrations throughout history had lasted for relatively long periods of time? A key factor is the indifference displayed by most, if not all, of the less affected or benefited group of the policies. 

  

  Racist policies had been a historical part of many countries before reforms, as they had frequently been integrated into politics. In those instances, members of the “beneficial” or unaffected group usually do not care much about the racist government.  More extreme and radical instances of governmental discrimination include genocide, the mass and systematic murder of a racial, religious or ethnical group. The most famous genocide in all of human history is doubtless the Nazi Holocaust during World War II, with an estimation of the deaths of six million Jews living in Nazi Germany and the Nazi-occupied Europe and Soviet Union. However, most Germans are, although aware of The Holocaust, simply not caring about what happens to the Jews, and instead are far more interested in the war. As laconically put by the British historian Ian Kershaw, “The road to Auschwitz was built by hate, but paved with indifference.” Sometimes, after significant reforms in a country and the reversal of roles, the formerly oppressed group could try to take “revenge” on their former oppressors, resulting in tragedies like the 1994 Rwanda Genocide, in which an estimated 800,000 members of the minority Tutsi, whom had ruled Rwanda for centuries, are annihilated by the majority Hutus over 100 days and directed by the inner circle power group consisting of close friends and relatives of the head of government, the then-Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana, known as the Akazu.