Modern Genocide: A Field Guide
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s new campaign of disinformation regarding the European Jewish genocide of half a century ago has had a positive effect for me: it’s inspired me to do a lot of thinking on this subject. Since writing this article, I’ve been studying up on the actual histories of the Jewish holocaust and several other holocausts of the 20th century, and learning some surprising things.
I wrote in the article linked above that, contrary to popular perception, genocide is anything but rare in the world today. I’ve been gathering more information (though my knowledge of the subject is still sparse), and I’m continuing to find many surprising patterns and similarities between what appear to be isolated histories. Here are some of the more well-known cases of genocide on our planet in the last hundred years, listed chronologically:
1. Turkish Armenians, 1915-1918
2. Russian Peasantry, 1932-33
3. Eastern European Jews, 1939-1945
4. Chinese Peasantry, 1958-1961
5. Cambodian Peasantry, 1975-1979
6. Iraqi Kurds, 1988
7. Rwandan Tutsis, 1994
8. Bosnians, 1992-1995
9. Sudanese, now
We are accustomed to examining these incidents in isolation, but what can we learn by comparing them, and why is that most popular treatments (books, movies) of genocide focus so tightly on specific incidents but draw back from any attempts at universal conclusions?
I believe this is a natural result of the intensely private experience we each have when apprehending the ugly facts of our own history. It is very difficult for me, as a Jew, not to see Hitler’s Jewish holocaust as a searingly unique event, despite the fact that a wider look reveals it was nothing of the sort. Historians with personal connections to any of the other ethnic groups or economic classes above will likewise tend to individuate, and if we stop our inquiries there we are likely to miss the obvious fact that genocide follows clear and distinct universal patterns. In fact, once we separate ourselves from our emotional reactions of victimhood and take a close look, a shocking truth quickly emerges: genocides happen because they serve a functional purpose.
This contradicts the prevailing idea of genocide as the work of madmen. I’m sorry to report that no such easy excuse can survive close examination. I only wish we could blame this horrible phenomenon on human insanity, but this explanation does not hold.
Today is Martin Luther King Day, which seems like an appropriate time to announce the beginning of a new inquiry that I will conduct here at the ol’ Cherry Orchard Blog, Fruit Stand and Political Theme Park. I am going to attempt a field guide — a broad, fact-rich overview — of the worst known incidents of man’s inhumanity to man (as we like to call it) in modern history. Please visit again during the next few weeks as I prepare my first summaries on this topic.