Big Concepts In Small Spaces

Education in the Aftermath of Genocide: An Interview with Albert Rutikanga

So, Tibby, we’ve spent the last few episodes laying the groundwork for understanding the evolution of human rights in theory and law. I feel like today we’re going to undo that.  Oh yeah? Why’s that? To me, how we conceptualize human rights and what’s found in the law typically align. I don’t think there’s a lot that would leave you thinking about there being a significant difference.  And that’s not the case with genocide?  That’s a great question. We all have an idea of what constitutes genocide, and the “G” word gets thrown around a lot, but what we think of as genocide and what scholars think about that is quite a bit different, and then when we read the law, it’s different from even that.  So maybe we should take a step back and talk about the history of genocide as a concept, how that evolved into law, and why those don’t necessarily match up when we think about genocide. 

We finished the last episode with the end of WWII and the creation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations in 1948. What was happening around the world at that time?  Though it is impossible to give a short answer to this question, right after the war there was a period where different countries and people around the world were expecting to see what would happen next. After the atrocities committed by the Nazi Regime and the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with nuclear weapons by the US, the world was entering a period of time where countries were developing weapons that would change war and peace forever. 

In this episode, we will talk about human rights during the 20th century, how the two world wars influenced the development of the modern idea of human rights and the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations in 1948.

In this first episode, we will learn about the history of human rights, who is protected by them, the different types of rights, and their history and origin during the 18th and 19th centuries. You can visit our podcast resource page to learn more about some of the documents that we mention in this episode, and for resources and guiding questions at z.umn.edu/chgspodcast.