War Causes Genocide (Like Cigarettes Cause Cancer)
Before I dive into the following inquiry, I’d like to clear up why I think I’m qualified to write about history even though I have no training as a historian (though I have degrees in philosophy and computer science and consider myself well-read).
The fact is, our “experts” aren’t getting the job done. History is an absolutely critical piece for anybody trying to understand modern politics, and in fact a good understanding of the past and present is probably the single most important tool in the toolbox of anybody engaged in a political field (as a journalist, a candidate, a commentator or a supporting player). When it comes to strong popular coverage of the stunningly important debates of the day, though, it seems like we’ve let the room get taken over by yammering monkeys. There’s a lot of noise, but nobody’s saying much at all.
I think we should do better. In the series of posts I’ll be writing for the next few weeks, I’m focusing on one particular question, and I hope you’ll help me figure out the answer by posting comments if you’d like.
It’s a simple question, the kind only an amateur would ask. What is genocide?
What is genocide? Well, let’s see what some of these events share in common. Thinking about, say, the Turkish murder of a million and a half Armenians during World War I, the Nazi Holocaust during World War II, and the monthlong killing spree in Rwanda in which a million Tutsis were slaughtered by Hutus, one big fact pops out right away. All three of these events occured during wartime, and the victims were ethnic minorities who were considered likely to betray their nations to invading armies.
The nation of Turkey (during the last years of the Ottoman empire) was allied with Germany and Austria-Hungary against France, Britain and Russia in the First World War. After Turkey lost critical battles to the Russians, the government resolved that the minority population of Armenian Christians were likely to welcome the coming invaders, and planned to kill them all. They carried these plans out for three years.
The Jews of the varied nations of Europe were already reeling from the incredible discrimination and dehumanization of the German Nazi regime when the death trains began rolling in 1942. The Nazi brand of anti-semitism has deep roots, but the German drive to clear Eastern Europe of Jews during its vicious war against Russia was rooted in military strategy as well.
The Rwandan million-person massacre of 1994 was, incredibly enough, a carefully plotted and insidiously executed political maneuver. Hutus form the majority population of Rwanda, but remained in many ways economically and politically subservient to the wealthier minority Tutsis. In 1994, the weak Hutu-led government seemed about to collapse to a powerful invading force of Tutsi exiles when a Hutu radio station began broadcasting instructions that all Tutsis must die (the machetes had already been distributed).
What is genocide? Well, it seems to have a hell of a lot to do with war. Ahh, those masters of war! Genocide belongs to them too (no, to us, all of us, since we are all to blame).
Here’s a slogan more people should hear: War Causes Genocide. War causes genocide like cigarettes cause lung cancer. Something to think about the next time you’re about to reach for a pack, or call up some troops.
More on this subject to follow, of course! Please feel free to comment and tell me how you think this inquiry is going so far.
January 17th, 2007 at 3:25 am
in times of crisis, we need to strenghten our own status and identity. we’re doing so by defining and re-inventing ourselves by mistrusting, stererotyping, othering, scapegoating other groups of people. it may even begin with exoticism, then lead to envy and exclusion, before attacks upon the identity and legitimacy of the what we now call the enemy become the focus of our ideology.
xenophobia, nationalism, genocide, war.
they’re all based on a “feindbild” (don’t you guys have an english word for that? its literal meaning is “image of an enemy”) that we create in order to be sure and proud of our own identity again.
January 17th, 2007 at 9:37 am
Feindbild, huh … well, we don’t have a word for that but we sure use it a lot! Thanks Anemone …
January 17th, 2007 at 10:23 am
the dictionary says “bogeyman” or “concept of an enemy” for feindbild, which both come close but do not express the whole meaning.
… anyway, don’t you think that genocide and war are symptoms of the same cause, rather than causally giving rise each other (they often go hand in hand, or are followed by each other, but that’s because they’re siblings)?
January 17th, 2007 at 3:26 pm
I’m glad you asked that question, Anemone, because I guess I am trying to point out a cause-and-effect relationship that isn’t generally acknowledged. I do believe that war is an “enabler” of genocide. Of course any event in history can be interpreted various ways, but I think there’s a strong case to be made that:
1) if not for the First World War, the Armenian genocide could not have happened
2) if not for the Second World War, the Jewish Holocaust could not have happened
3) if not for the Rwandan civil war, the Tutsi genocide would not have happened
That’s not to say that there weren’t strong forces in Turkey, Germany and Rwanda sowing the seeds of hatred and violence. But war provides tempting motivation for a government to act quickly and decisively against suspect minorities (it’s an important point that all three of the nations above, Turkey, Germany and Hutu Rwanda, were *losing* their wars when they plotted these acts of genocide — in all three cases, these nations were operating under the threat of enemy invasion). War also provides the “smokescreen” that makes genocide possible.
I guess the reason I think it’s a critical point that war is actually a primary cause and enabler of genocide is that war is all too popular a political tool in our modern age. I’m ashamed (every day of my life) to realize that my own elected government is presided over by an administration that wholeheartedly embraces war (and even preemptive invasions of foreign countries) as a method of achieving political change. Needless to say, I am against this. Ironically, my country is now in the position of attempting to prevent civil war in Iraq for the very reason I’ve been spelling out — the potential Shiite genocide against the minority Sunnis of Iraq is all too clear.
War and genocide are co-dependents. I don’t believe you can embrace one without embracing the other. This is, I guess, the point I’m trying to shout from the rooftops here.
January 17th, 2007 at 6:20 pm
I worry that your conclusion precedes your supporting argument. The genocide of the American Indian was for territorial expansion - to steal someone else’s land/property. The genocide of German Jews accomplished the same thing - giving vacated Jewish stores/businesses to other Germans; and decreasing unemployment by creating job vacancies through genocide, were part of an economic boon that made Hitler’s slaughter able to be ignored by a depression-weary populace.
Turning to a related topic - the concept of killing, and how we’ve taught to view that in our society. One should conclude from the NRA’s position on hunting - that killing is fun. Or from Shakespeare’s Henry IV- that killing is noble. Or from Catholic Crusades and Inquisitions- that killing is good. Is not Hitler’s holocaust a natural follow-up to the Pope’s inquisition? But the latter was okay, because the good guys were doing it to the bad guys.
That’s how we’re taught to view everything related to this subject. Our books, movies, tv shows often end with the righteous killing of the bad guys. We trained to want that. We’re trained to feel good about that. Children usually don’t want to kill fish or pheasants or deer or anything. But they’re laughed at and shamed into thinking that being able to kill is part of being manly; manly like Hemingway. Perhaps in the ghettos of Baltimore or Palestine, killing the bad guys is the path to manliness.
Killing rids us of evil - from Homer, the Bible, and up to the present. As Rap Brown said - violence is as American as cherry pie. It is a very short step for us to go from 9/11 - they attacked us! To Iraq - we gotta get them before they get us. I’m surprised that in a culture such as ours, that is so ingrained to killing (we slaughter, just to eat meat) that genocide even arouses an emotional reaction. Headlines in my little town newspaper: “For Local Soldiers, Death of Sadham is Good News.” I would suppose that for many people in many parts of the world, the converse would be true - death of Americans is good news.
So I have two questions - why our fascination with killing; and what makes some people good guys and others bad guys. We have to acknowledge that from 1930 to 1970, slaughtering Indians in western movies was thought to be a good thing. And to some Arabs, the holocaust would be similar.
January 17th, 2007 at 9:34 pm
Good questions, Stokey. In lieu of a direct answer, I’m going to post tonite’s installment, featuring the inestimable Joseph Stalin and Chairman Mao.
January 18th, 2007 at 8:11 am
yes, indeed, levi — a war provides a neat smokescreen for genocide; it creates the perfect background for its justification.
in times of war, morals and ethics are suspended to a great extend. this supports and makes easier the enforcement of degrading laws, and the realization of inhumane and cruel acts.
in a way, war is a form of genocide, and genocide is a form of war. they are closely related. they cling to each other. yet they do not need the other one to happen (there have been wars without genocide, and genocides without war).
one can emerge from the other, but rather than being parent and child (one causing the other), they are siblings from the same breed (born from crisis, which is born from identity struggles, which is born from fear). to understand one of them, you have to take the whole family into account.