Nicholas Kristof, a righteous and daring journalist, exposes the unknown injustices and murders against a certain group of people in Myanmar in his journal “I Saw a Genocide in Slow Motion.” Being a Buddhist country, Myanmar has low tolerance for other religious groups trying to become prevalent. Although Myanmar is lead by a Nobel Peace Prize winner, Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader is using inhumane tactics to eradicate a group of people, the Rohingya, without having witnesses. Kristof mentions that this behavior of restricting food and resources and then attacking them after they have been weakened is a recipe for genocide. Accounts from village leaders, however, suggest that the Rohingya people have been put in isolation because they are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and that they purposely attack police stations and other authoritative positions to place blame on the Myanmar government. Kristof also adds that social media falsely portrays the Rohingyas as people who are trying to destroy the government and emerge as a powerful clan in Myanmar, further isolating the Rohingyas into concentration camps and villages with no resources. He mentions that there were two journalists before who tried to report the unknown genocide before but the government threatened them, but it was more reason for him to try to do it too because hiding injustices is wrong.

I think the way Kristof opened the journal by mentioning a mourning mother who just lost her newborn twins was an effective way to catch the reader’s attention by appealing to emotion. He made sure to mention “but as a member of the Rohingya ethnic minority she could not get a doctor’s help.” By mentioning that being a member of the Rohingya community poses disadvantages for the woman’s situation paves the way to the main topic of his journal. His use of logos to support that the isolation and murder of the Rohingyas is a genocide is useful because readers could think that it is only Kristof who believes that this an act of genocide. Mentioning the statements of scholars from Yale University and the Holocaust Museum also makes this issue and Kristof’s stance more credible by having a more intellectual and professional source provide their view on it. Including graphic accounts about having babies pulled away from mothers and thrown into fires also sets a scary and upsetting energy regarding the issue. By ending the journal by saying “‘Wherever men or women are persecuted because of their race, religion or political views, that place must — at that moment — become the center of the universe,’” it creates a motivating and almost inspirational impression on the reader as its purpose is to spread more awareness on the topic and to help the people at Myanmar.

The journal: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/02/opinion/i-saw-a-genocide-in-slow-motion.html?rref=collection%2Fcolumn%2Fnicholas-kristof&action=click&contentCollection=opinion&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=5&pgtype=collection