Ramon: District 9 and Genocide as a Whole

The 2009 film directed by Neill Blomkamp, District 9, is a futuristic representation of genocide in a more humorous way than the other films we have seen in the course. I am not saying that the extermination of the aliens from Johannesburg is a funny situation, but Blomkamp purposefully placed the issues of genocide in this situation in order to remove a bit of human emotional attachment to the persecuted aliens. When a being that no human can associate to on a physical dimension is persecuted, there is a sense of ease when it comes to examining a situation. However, this leads into the point of why the simple root of genocide is persecution of the non-conformist in a society.

Now, genocide usually is not rooted in pure physical differences in peoples. The genocide of a certain race is the due to primarily the demands of an oppressive race and/or the disapproval of the cultural practices of the suppressed race. We see this in Powwow Highway. In this film and in District 9, the suppressed race is placed in reservations. The reservations are areas in the country/city that separates them from the “normal” members of the society. In the article Denial, Shadow, and Recovery, Jana Rivers- Norton says in reference to capitalist Americans as a whole, “they materialize through various forms of acting out (racism, scapegoating, national chauvinism).” In both films, the oppressive race wants to eliminate the lower race because of economic means to gain land. The case of Powwow Highway is to build a refinery, and in District 9 is to further develop the slums to benefit the city.

Secondly, District 9 and the Rwandan holocaust relate together because much of the Rwandan holocaust was based off of the face that Tutsis looked a lot different from Hutus. Paul’s wife in Hotel Rwanda is much taller than him, is much lighter skinned than him, and has a much thinner nose than he does. They do look drastically different from one another. I was reading the book Left to Tell by Immaculee Ilibagiza. She points out her own experiences of how at an early age she was taught the physical distinctions from Hutu and Tutsi. Also, she learns that no matter how similar she thinks she looks to the majority Hutu class, she is drastically different from the other students. In an interview article by Carl Wilkens, Jerri Sheperd speaks heavily of the “other” in relation to the Rwandan genocide. The aliens in District 9 were constantly viewed as “the other.” In allegory to the apartheid in South Africa and the civil rights movement in the United States, the aliens were very much treated like the “other.” The film shows a montage of shots showing different signs that separate the aliens from the humans. This is much like the signs placed in buses and on water fountains during the civil rights movement. These signs were the result of the immediate physical differences seen by the natives.

Tregre: Week 8, District 9

I have seen "District 9" before and never saw the allegory of apartheid in South Africa. It makes complete sense now. This was a great way to end the course with a summary of the root of genocide. Genocide is not just about the murder of an ethnic group, but also about the murder of souls, spirits, and wills. It has been clear through the course that genocide is not just scary because of the mass killings, but the hatred and immense terror involved in these systematic plans. 

In "District 9," the "Prawns" were the others. They were identified as a derogatory term after their spacecraft landed on Earth. Prawns were the others that deviated from the norm. At first they are labeled as inferior and then confined to District 9. They were excluded from the humans to live with others like them. This made it known that being a Prawn would set them apart from the human population. The steps to a genocide starts with identification and identifying the ethnic group who do not belong and are inferior to the rest. Then the exclusion. This creates isolation where, psychologically, the gap between the two different species starts to grow and become larger. This can also aid in depersonalization. When it is one unit of something unfamiliar, such as the unfamiliar aliens, then it is easier to amass them as one group instead of individuals. This makes it easier to start to exterminate the mass. As the steps begin to progress to exclusion, that is when tension starts to become stronger. It is the calm and waiting before the storm. Then sometimes usually happens to make it snap. This was when Smit and his father-in-law start to relocate the aliens again with eviction notices. This is to separate the Prawns even more from normal life. They were the invaders that did not deserve to live a normal life. Then the extermination begins. When the Prawns, or suppressed people begin to feel the need to rise up in order to feel alive and having a life again, that is what sparks the hatred which usually boils over. In "District 9" it was when Christopher's (an alien) friend was killed by a xenophobic soldier. This started a series of events. It gets really tricky when lines start to get blurred, like when Wikus turns into a Prawn. When it is realized that this situation is no longer black and white and a Prawn and human can be interchangeable, it fuels the fear in the genocide and getting rid of the aliens. From here on in the movie, more and more deaths occurred. It also changes the viewpoint of the people or Prawn who was transforming. When Wikus transformed into a Prawn, he saw their point of view. The less human he became, the more humane he became. It was an irony like one sees in many of our previous assignments. When one would see that everyone bleeds red and that they are not all that different besides the color of one's skin or different beliefs, no one is really inferior after all. 

The same things happened in the movie, "Hotel Rwanda" and the "Conspiracy Theory." The Jews and the Tutsis were known that they were the inferior race. They were labeled as outcasts. Then they were separated from the "norms" in society. The Jews were sent to ghettos and then extracted and put into concentration camps, while the Tutsis were separated from their families who were non-Tutsis and the white people. They were set apart and not around the normal people. When people are confined to one place, it is easier to kill masses and to individualize people, therefore one cannot get emotionally attached. Next the killing occurred. The Jews and Tutsis were just slaughtered. It did not matter if they were female, had children, or pled for their life. It was the end for them simply because of their ethnicity and culture. Both films had people on the "supremacy" side who did not agree with what their own kind was doing. When a man did not believe that all Jews should be killed in "The Conspiracy Theory," he was threatened with a concentration camp himself. Then in "Hotel Rwanda" the main character had to risk his life in order to save his family. He felt their isolation and these characters felt torn. 

Important articles to reflect this methodology is the Elie Wiesel's Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech and the Rwandan Genocide Lessons Learned article. Both of these knowledge the tragedy, but how to learn from these mistakes. This genocide method is clearly explained and then how to learn and stop it. It is so important not to classify people in a hierarchy and to exclude others. That is how genocide starts. Wiesel believed that if more people spoke up and indifference was not shown, lives could have been saved. The Lessons Learned in the Rwandan Genocide article explained that awareness to serious problems must be answered to. The identification of those less desirable in a given society is what fuels the fire and is escalates from there. It was seen in each movie the identification. One was a Jew, a Tutsi, a homosexual, a Prawn, etc. All of these names enabled hatred and fear from the different grow into a full-blown genocide. Their personalities did not matter, nor did their family, status, etc. It was their label. Then they were excluded from the rest. This made the outcasts and made it easier for one to go along with the crowd and hate the less desirable humans and then go as far as killing them. Each genocide could have been stopped if one looked past the surface of a person and into their hearts (not to be cheesy!) Every person has an innate desire to belong to a home and function in a society. Disrupting this need can be detrimental to a race.

This was a great wrap up assignment for the course.

Trujillo, District 9, Let's fit into the box

It was extremely clear how District 9 was able to really portray all of the genocides we have studied over the course of eight years. What it shows me is that it all seems to come down to appearance. Well, physical appearance and cultural standings and beliefs. The people who don’t fit into the mold that others have made for them are immediately cast out and in the most extreme of cases, tortured and killed.

They’re not good enough, not fast enough, not light enough, not Christian enough, not beautiful enough, not straight enough, not human enough…

Excuse me, what? Not human enough? Aren’t we all human beings? I mean, we all look too damn alike to be anything else. But what District 9 portrayed was that these people, who were just a little different, just a little bigger than the tiny box they were being squeezed into, were looked at like aliens, like beings that didn’t deserve love, compassion and equality.

I look at the film Bent and Good and see men who were treated like aliens, like beings that didn’t deserve to life because of sexual preference. They looked the same as everyone else; you probably couldn’t tell one of these gay men from their Nazi counterparts, but they were persecuted and executed for not fitting in the box.

I look at Hotel Rwanda and see Africans against Africans, Africans against their own people (as if there aren’t enough problems in Africa threatening to wipe out thousands even millions every day). No, let’s kill each other off because some of us have been treated better. Let’s kill each other off because you’re lighter skinned or your nose isn’t quite as long as mine. Because, as Wikus Van der Merwe would say, you are a prawn.

It’s disgusting.

Prawn, a derogatory term used by the non-aliens in District 9, funny because it’s like Judenscheisse, Hitler’s personal favorite to use towards Jewish people. It’s also like cockroach, a term used to address the Tutsi people. Have I forgotten redskin, injun, Uncle Tom? All terms meant to dehumanize.

And what is more disgusting is that all of these genocides, the Holocaust, Rwanda, the Native American genocide, Apartheid, all of these attacks against other human beings keep happening and they keep destroying the good in people. All of these disgusting names and terms keep happening as we are constantly faced with the need to bring ourselves above everyone else and as we continue dehumanize people.

As said in the “Native American Genocide” article: “For us the shadow is psychic energy that may take on negative qualities that manifest outward as acts of violence and fear when inner knowing and responsibility fail. Acts of genocide and oppression can be seen in this light”.

When there is fear because we might not be the ‘big man on campus’ or because we see something that is different or that goes against what we might think is right, this is where we make the mistake of thinking that there is only one select way that people can be.

Gommel: District 9

This photo, for me, illustrates how Wikus regains his humanity in the end and reaches out to help the alienated gain independence despite the cost.

Using District 9 as an allegory of the apartheid in South Africa was quite effective. Even if one didn't connect this with apartheid, the underlying truths of the irrational inhumane treatment of others can be grasped. District 9 allowed us to see the insensitivity of humankind that can lead to genocide. Initially, the movie was a bit difficult to digest; but ultimately it was quite moving. As an allegory of genocide in general, throughout District 9 one is attuned to the varied elements of genocide that has been encountered throughout the study of the Holocaust in Literature and Film.

Part of the process of identifying others as less desirable are pointing out the differences among thinking upright walking beings: such as physical attributes, belief, cultural lifestyle. Isn't it interesting how appreciative we are of the differences in all other creatures in the animal kingdom? But when it comes to the former, differences can make people indifferent to others denying them dignity that can lead to genocide. Seemingly insignificant differences such as physical attributes-the color or tone of one's skin, eye color, or hair color has lead to genocide. This was most prominent in Rwanda. The greatest reason for this genocide was jealousy over the differences in physical attributes espoused by the Belgians that Tutsis were more like them and deserved power. The Hutus retaliated using machetes to kill nearly one million people in only three months. The aliens of District 9 not only looked, but sounded and acted totally different from humans; except that they walked upright. Unlike the animated movie, in our real world the aliens would have been annihilated on the spot because of their vastly different physical attributes.

Unfamiliar cultural beliefs and lifestyles bring misunderstanding and harsh judgment unto others. Philbert in Pow Wow Highway represents the victim trying to reclaim his Native American culture that has been excluded from society by the United States government. Indians who survived disease and genocide lost their freedom and identity and were sent to live on the reservations in poverty. Before this era they were free to roam the country gathering food and caring for their families in their unique ways. Their culture appreciated the gifts of the earth and did not violate the earth destroying its resources out of greed. They worked hard and took only what they needed for their immediate survival. However that manner of living also provided for future generations. Philbert gained a sense of his ancestral past, yet was still confined to the reservation. The aliens being so culturally different wrought fear of the unknown to the humans. No attempt was made by the humans to understand the differences. They were just considered undesirable and labeled dangerous to society; therefore excluded. Beyond fear - power, greed, and control were usurped which reigned over twenty years. The victimizers found it better to confine the victims to one area to observe and control their behavior, to subdue them into submission and make them dependent. Exclusion from society destroys human dignity and fosters the concept of "otherness" justifying immoral behavior as it crushes the freedom and self-esteem making victims feel worthless and empowering victimizers. The exclusion of some victims such as the aliens of District 9 and the Africans sent to the reserves is cruel; yet for some exclusion leads to outright extermination,

Once one is seen as "other," actions of the victimizers become justifiable. The Wansee Conference was a perfect example of this. Immoral acts can be presented to appeal to one's rationality in a given situation. Language can be used to misrepresent and decisions are hurried before one has time to actually ponder approved actions. Also the need for conformity arises. A person's ideas may be different from those of the group that are all in agreement, but the tendency is to go along with the tyranny of the majority. In Nazi Germany the horrendously inhumane result was to justify the slaughter of the Jews as quickly and as efficiently as possible through use of the gas chambers to purify the nation. In Sarajevo it was a matter of "shelling, sniping and starvation" to exterminate the lives of thousands of people. The siege was executed in the name of nationalism, but it went against the Law of Armed Conflict killing innocent citizens and destroying protected institutions. The severity of the alien genocide was most profound with the killing of the eggs, the young aliens, that would prevent a future generation of aliens from existing.

So identifying others as less desirable and excluding them from society are strategies that lead to the eventual justification of genocide - the extermination of a certain group. But just as Wikus came to see through different eyes (literally) in District 9 when he was exposed to the alien fluid and came to understand their plight; he conversely saw the absurd persecutions by the multinational unit for which he worked. Experiments were performed on him and the aliens by the governmental MNU, just as the Germans did to the Jews in the concentration camps. All was in the name of justifiable research to those who had been identified as "other" and excluded from society. But we must look through the lens of respect for the dignity of humanity and discern the path that leads to true wisdom, knowledge and understanding in our interaction with others.

Rogers: District 9 in relation to the Holocaust and the Rwandan Genocide

Wikus Van der Merwe is at first representative of the cruelty and racism perpetrated by the white South Africans against the black Africans. As he sets fire to the prawn baby-pods, he laughs at their screams, reminding me of the deliberate cruelty of the nazi's. In particular I was reminded of the SS guards in the ghetto in The Pianist that would force the Jewish residents to pair up into dance partners and dance for their amusement. They paired them up in ways to amuse themselves; a little boy with an old grandmother, a tall woman and a short man. Wikus makes fun of the prawns and goes about his job cheerfully, completely unable to see any wrong in his actions. He is totally convinced that their alien-nature makes the prawns lack any kind of emotions that are usually conceived of as human, like love.

In Carol B. Thompson's Forum:Investing in South African Apartheid, I learned that the South African government in 1951 decided that, "To maintain their economic and political dominance as a minority, the whites…instituted a "homelands" or bantustan policy. Eighty percent of the population is living on thirteen percent of the land. Each African ethnic group is to have its own bantustan. The land designated for the Africans contains none of the major mineral resources and most of the unproductive land….the government has forcibly moved three million people from the urban areas to the bantustans (54)." I was again reminded of The Pianist and how we watch as the Nazi's forcibly evict the Jews and set them up in the ghetto and then later, of course, they are taken to the concentration and/or death camps. Thompson also informs us that through the 1952 Abolition of Passes and Coordination of Documents Act, black South Africans were forced to carry around their passbooks to assure police authorities of where they were from. Both the prawns and the Jews (and all of the other groups persecuted by the nazis) were required to show proof of their citizenry, also.

Immediately I was struck by the word "prawn." A derogatory term for the aliens, I was reminded of the Hutu preference for calling the Tutsi's "cockroaches." This is nothing but pure de-humanization so that those in places of power and influence, like the Hutu radio DJ or the South African government, can drive home the fact that the prawns (allegorically the black south Africans) and the Tutsi's are sub-human. As Carl Wilkens discusses in his interview: Last Man Standing, the American who stayed during the Rwandan Genocide, "othering," as he calls it is something that we all do inherently. We tend to start "othering" when we are in times of crisis as it seems to be a deeper form of scapegoating. Finding a common enemy is important to people (Wilkens 145). The Tutsi's in a time of national unrest become the "other" in Rwanda. In a society that has been in a state of upheaval over race politics, the prawns are the ideal "other" and because of the poor state of Germany post WWI, Hitler was able to give his followers a scapegoat in the Jewish "other."

Raymond Week 8: Disrtict 9

In Districts 9 we are provided great insight for us to experience and learn the events that take place during genocide, with a science fiction twist. We are once again exposed to many of the trials and tribulations seen in other genocides we have studied. In The Pianist we see Szpilman forced out of his home into the Warsaw ghetto. The living conditions were very deplorable, with almost no resources to live left there to starve or become exposed to disease. In District 9 the prawns are living in the very same type of conditions, rooting through garbage for food and using the bathroom where ever they can. The scene shows the houses in which they are living in, that have dirt floors and tin roofs. They are experiencing this because of separation; all the “less desirable” being attacked in genocides are forced out of their normal lives into horrific living conditions and removed from the rest of the community. The less desirable type of society must be removed and excluded; this is how the society attacking gains power. Having the less desirable remain in the population they are not as easily controlled.
The Article What We Learned from the Siege of Sarajevo, in the very being says “given the city’s poor defenses, few imagined the siege would last some three and a half years” (Andreas). This quote shows how the less desirable are sought out against. The places and people who are targets generally do not possess the defense mechanisms to help aid in defending their communities. District 9, we see the scene in which the hut is filled with thriving babies this is quickly set on fire. The babies are a defenseless piece of the pie and is very easily controlled or destroyed. The MNU felt that destroying the reproduction, would make things much easier in moving all the prawns along to the designated area.
The extermination of the prawns was not initially the intended purpose. The MNU was hired to go into district 9 and have the prawns sign eviction notices. This was to serve as notice they were being forced out of district 9 and going to moved to another area far away from the rest of the community of Johannesburg. MNU was forced to do this because of violent events taking place between the citizens and the prawns outside of district 9 where they were originally assigned to live. Many of the prawns through this eviction process were being killed off. The prawns did not want to live what they have established as their community and refused to sign the papers. This resulting into the prawns fighting back at the MNU using violence at times, in return the MNU military retaliated with shooting them. Powwow Highway we see a type of extermination without a massacre of death. The Indian community is being threatened by being taken over by a mining contract. This is result in the Indian community moving out of their homes as they know them and into other land to start all over and reestablishing themselves. Along their travels to save Red Bow’s sister, they see how the Indian community is being targeted and treated very poorly and even violently at times. Red Bow’s sister is arrested for drugs found in her trunk and her children are taking from her as well. Bonnie knows she did not have the drugs in her trunk and the police were seeking her out, due to her Indian ethnicity. Native American Genocide, conversation Jana speaks about an article written by David E. Stannard called The American Holocaust. She speaks of a thesis that Stannard says “claim that European cultures were obsessed with the annihilation of those individuals categorized as life-unworthy” and also that “Individuals associated with the earth (such as non-Christians, women, and the native populace of the Americas) needed to be subdued and converted, if not eliminated.” Both of these quotes are great summaries of less desirable in a given society and elimination used in genocides.

Tran: District 9

I think if someone simply watches District 9 as a sci-fi film or have no knowledge of South African history, then the allegories to apartheid and genocides would easily be missed. Since we have in this class and learning about these issues, the connections between this film and the materials we have studied is quite clear.

One of the scenes that really set the tone for District 9 was when the humans finally cut into the spaceship and found the aliens to be malnourished, sickly, covered in filth, and overall disgusting creatures. This scene reflects similar themes of groups that were exterminated by presenting them in a way that makes them less than human and unrespectable as creatures. The film could have easily shown weak, but highly intelligent and efficient aliens, but they chose to make them seen in an unfavorable light. The humans call the aliens prawns because they resemble them and this identification dehumanizes them into a lower sector of creatures. Decades later, the aliens are still shown as cat food loving, lazy, violent, and uncontrollable creatures and they are all herded together in a slum known as District 9. They are also seen fighting with one another, getting drunk a lot, and rummaging through garbage. There are a lot of unrest between the aliens and the locals and it shows how the aliens are segregated into their own community and not allowed to use facilities as the locals do like the buses or restaurants. It becomes so much of a problem that the government to decide what they think is best for the aliens by moving them to a new district outside of the city and away from people.

These issues are also portray in like the films Hotel Rwanda and Powwow Highway, in which Tutsi and Native Americans treated in a way which made them feel less than others. In Powwow Highway, the Native Americans mainly live on their reservation land which is being exploited by the White Man when they see it as necessary or beneficial. In the film, Bonnie is framed with having drugs just so Buddy will have to come down to get her and he won’t be there to speak out about the vote for the new mining plant. The film also shows how Indians are violent when Buddy trashes the radio shop because he thought the system wasn’t working. They make the Indians out to be incapable and worthless so they feel like it is okay that they take advantage of the people and their land. In the article on “Native American Genocide,” Jana mentions two quotes about the genocide: “the death of thousands of innocent native people is often depicted as ‘inevitable’ or ‘necessary’ for Western expansion (Rawls 1984)” and “the native people, it is argued, were heathens, incapable of utilizing the vast stretches of fertile soil that beckoned to various European interests” (Castillo 1978). I think these quotes reflect the mentality that genocides have and how with the Native Americans, it was about utilizing the resources on their reservation to serve American and development needs. As in District 9, we can see how MNU are performing experiments on the aliens to see if there is anything to gain and figure out how to use the alien’s weapons for their own benefits.

During the Rwandan Genocide, there was a division within the country between the Tutsi and the Hutus. The Hutus wanted to take revenge on the Tutsi who used to be favored as the better ethnicity of the country, though it was a socially constructed divide. Propaganda from the Millies Collines radio denounced Tutsis as cockroaches that the country needed to rid itself of. In the film Hotel Rwanda, the radio station blames the assassination of the president on the Tutsi and encouraged Hutus to exterminate the Tutsi and the genocide swiftly proceeded. As we seen throughout the course of the class, there is idea of the ‘other’, as in the other that isn’t with us and has to be exterminated. Carl Wilkens who was the only American who stayed during the Rwandan genocide says “I think they start killing each other because they have ‘othered’ them. But ‘other was a part of it when it came time. I think a lot of times we don’t start ‘othering’ people until a time of crisis. And then in a time of crisis, we want to blame someone.” In many cases of genocides, when you are not with a group, then you are with the ‘others’. In order to be considered part of the group, often you will have to do what they want you to do or to hurt the ‘others’. In Hotel Rwanda, Paul didn’t want to be like the other Hutus and went against them by sheltering the Tutsi which endangered his life many times. As we seen in the film, many of the Hutus enjoy killing the Tutsi and helping in their extermination. In District 9, when Wikus begins transforming into the ‘other’, MNU and his father forces him to test out his new arm with the weapons and kill one of the aliens which Wikus tries to strongly refuse. Wikus might not want to kill an alien, but people like Colonel Venter does and says “I love killing prawns” when he has found Christopher sheltering Wikus.

Though District 9 is a science fiction movie, we can see all of the elements that resemble the process of genocide. The aliens are seen as filthy and subhuman creatures. They are seen as less intelligent a nuisance to the general population. They are segregated from the rest of the city in a confine place like a ghetto in order to prevent them from being treated the same or having the same benefits as humans. Then the government simply evicts them from their home and move to another district which is like a camp. For those who don’t compile, they are taken in, arrested, beaten, or killed. The government uses the alien for experiments and confiscates their weapon because it’s dangerous though they just want to use it for themselves. We have seen this play out again and again. Since the film is from South Africa, it reflects what has happened over the centuries in that country. Europeans have come and taken over South Africa, they put natives in certain portions of the country where there aren’t a lot of resources, they have limited their human rights and treated them less than European settlers, and have just treated the native Africans as these others that they have to rid of in order to benefit greatly in that country.