The Far Side of Revenge

Idolatry

2010-10-13T17:37:00.002-04:00

There is a statue of Bill Clinton in Kosovo.

And there is a George W. Bush St. in Tbilisi, Georgia.

Clinton in Bosnia, Kosovo

2010-10-13T15:36:00.006-04:00

There's something rather condescending about Westerners traveling to post-conflict areas devastated by genocide and giving a pep talk.

I'm reminded of Philip Gourevitch's slam against the international community in post-genocide Rwanda (that would be the genocide with Tutsi victims, not the recently reported cleansing of Hutus -- more on that, and Gourevitch's discussion of it in the New Yorker, later). Gourevitch quotes a UN diplomat based in Rwanda: "relief workers in Rwanda were often heard making statements such as 'Yes, the genocide happened, but it's time to get over it and move on,' or 'Enough has been said about the genocide, let's get on with rebuilding the country.'"(206)

Enter Hillary Clinton into Bosnia. Here's a paragraph from her remarks at a townhall meeeting with students in Sarajevo:

So the progress is encouraging, but it is far from complete. Yes, people can now go to work and children can go to school, but there are not enough good jobs. Hatreds have eased, but nationalism persists. And the promise of greater stability and opportunity represented by integration into Europe still remains out of reach.

The take-home message: get over your nationalist differences and integrate so you too can join the party that is the EU! Get it together folks, get over those difficulties!

It's an odd message to give in Sarajevo rather than in Republika Srpska, where threats of secession are a common political theme. Likewise, it ignores the American culpability in creating a system with the Dayton Accords that organized institutions and territories in such a way that mitigates ethnic integration. The Guardian slyly points to this in its coverage: "'I came to see how the Americans are viewing us now,' said Aleksandra Vejnovic, 20, a law student. 'They have started this project, they wrote our constitution and it doesn't work.'" (I need to teach my students such effective quoting of sources!)

And the assessment of the hatreds is what seems so insipid. The Clinton administration (Bill, clearly) hid for awhile behind the ancient hatred canard in their early framing of the conflict, partially as a way to avoid intervention. It seems rather paternalistic to congratulate a society on the diminishment of "hatred" after the experience of ethnic war, cleansing and genocide.

“I guess you could say that’s when the U.N. woke and said, ‘Hmm, we can accomplish something here.'”

2010-10-03T09:04:00.001-04:00

The above title is taken from the last line of a recent New York Times article, and are the words of an unidentified senior U.N. official. The senior official is referring to the U.N.’s overdue investigation into the humanitarian crisis that has occurred in the Congo, formerly Zaire, in the ten years following the 1994 genocide in Rwanda—an investigation that yielded an official U.N. report just two days ago. Drafts of this report were released in late August, and they accused Congolese rebels and Tutsi-led forces from Rwanda of committing genocide against Hutu populations in U.N.-administered camps in the Congo. The final report offered less direct accusations regarding acts of genocide, as told in the latest Times article on the matter.

President Paul Kagame of Rwanda and his government are furious about the accusations in the drafted reports and the final report. Though this is the case, Rwanda decided not to follow through on its threat to remove the thousands of its committed troops from ongoing U.N. peacekeeping missions—including a significant number currently contributing to the peacekeeping efforts in Sudan.

The validity of the U.N.’s accusations and findings are still to be evaluated, but there is one aspect of these findings that one should question. The U.N. refugee camps that were established in what was then Zaire, housed and protected an abundance of Hutu extremists and Interahamwe soldiers who participated in and led the genocide. The U.N. either made little effort to extract these genocidal perpetrators from the camps or made little effort to consider the nature of the refugees that they were housing in their camps. Either way, the negligence of the U.N. caused the new Tutsi-led government in Rwanda immense frustration, knowing that many of the leaders and militants who slaughtered masses of their ethnic brethren were in U.N. safe havens.

The Rwandan government and forces took it upon themselves to try to apprehend the genocidal participants and encourage Hutu populations to return to Rwanda. I do not know whether the U.N. accusations of genocide carried out by the Tutsi-led Rwandan government against Hutus in the Congo are accurate, but I do know that the U.N.’s misguided actions after the 1994 genocide in Rwanda were one cause of the atrocities. And it should also be noted that because of its mishandling of the situation, the U.N. may have a vested interest in casting blame away from themselves and on another actor for these atrocities in the Congo (the report was investigated and written by the U.N.’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, despite requests from Rwanda to include a second independent source for investigating the conflict).

Now to consider the title of the post. After several attempts to investigate incidents in the Congo, the U.N. was finally able to gain access to the Congo in order to look into the post-genocide humanitarian disasters and the following decade of atrocities in the broken down country. The senior U.N. official said to this breakthrough, “I guess you could say that’s when the U.N. woke and said, ‘Hmm, we can accomplish something here.’”

If only the U.N. were to wake up and utter that phrase when genocide, mass murder and other crimes against humanity were happening. The types of investigations, like the one on the Congo, are helpful for studying humanitarian crises, finding solutions for these calamities and obtaining justice, but the U.N. needs to do more than that. Why didn’t the U.N. realize that they could accomplish something in Rwanda during the genocide? Why, when the U.N. supposedly takes action, its soldiers standby and allow slaughtering to continue, as in Srebrenica? The peacekeeping missions that the U.N. employs, like those in Rwanda and Bosnia, during humanitarian disasters and genocides do not accomplish anything in respect to protecting lives and combating the perpetrators of atrocities.

The U.N. fails to produce effective policies and action at the times of the greatest humanitarian crises—genocide, ethnic cleansing, mass murder and the like. Moreover, despite its total lack of contribution to solving these crises, the U.N. has the audacity to point fingers at groups for their brutal acts without claiming any shred of responsibility for itself. Rwandan officials are particularly upset, because, in spite of the evils that the Tutsi forces may have committed after the genocide, they were the contingent that put a stop to the genocide. The U.N. stood by and did nothing. In dealing with humanitarian crises, the U.N. needs to be more than a post-catastrophe analyst.

If Tutsi forces and Congolese rebels committed the atrocities delineated in the U.N. report, then the proper diplomatic and legal steps should be taken by the international community. But for the U.N. to be a credible source for making accusations and solving problems regarding humanitarian crises, it needs to prove that it can actively effect outcomes of humanitarian disasters in a positive way. That means protecting lives and stopping genocidal and inhumane regimes, whether it be diplomatically or militarily. The U.N. must also acknowledge and take responsibility for its plethora of disgraceful decisions in times of great humanitarian need.

The Dangers of Reckless Reading

2010-07-04T11:46:00.017-04:00

I was sitting on the floor in a Barnes and Noble the other day, gazing down at one of the bottom shelves of the history section to see Hitler’s Mein Kampf. At first I was surprised that it was just there, at a book store, ready to be bought and read by anyone. I was simply fascinated, knowing all I do about the racist ideology of the Nazis and the Nazi genocide, to realize that the hateful, repugnant, destructive and propagandized words of mass murderer and tyrant Adolf Hitler were just there, for sale.

Mein Kampf has been banned in Germany since the end of World War II and in many other countries at different points in time. Most recently, it was banned in Russia due to a spike in violence by far right extremist groups thought by the government to be aided on some level by Hitler’s text. It is of course, legal to publish and sell in the United States, as well as various other countries; it is an important historical text that scholars and the like can use responsibly to study Hitler and the Third Reich—of course some will use the text irresponsibly, but as is the case with any political text, thinking or idea.

When the 2015 cutoff for the ban in Germany rolls around, the Institute of Contemporary History in Munich plans to release a version of Mein Kampf that includes critical commentary and annotations. In Germany, although the ban is in place, those who really want to read the work can get their hands on it—multiple unofficial versions are available online. Lifting the symbolic ban and taking steps to release the annotated version as well as regular, unannotated versions will be positive steps for the German government; the annotated version will inform the reader of the brutal realities and dangerous nature of the text, while the unannotated versions will preserve freedom of thought for the reader, a concept of fundamental importance. In other words, balance is key when the German government releases a new policy on the matter. (The different takes on the planned ban lift are outlined in a New York Times Article from February).

In the same breath that I say Mein Kampf should be made available for the public in Germany and elsewhere, I must address various news articles that sprung up earlier this year discussing this topic and India, which leave me back at a point of utter confusion. The headline on the Huffington Post’s website from April reads, “Hitler’s Mein Kampf Seen as Self-Help Guide For India’s Business Students.” I have not read Mein Kampf, but the knowledge I have of it allows me to say, with conviction, that Mein Kampf should not be used as a tool for self-help or self improvement—as the Daily Telegraph put it in the original story—personal guidance or career advancement in any way. The Daily Telegraph article cites that the book’s popularity in India may also be due to the political convictions of some Hindu nationalist and fascist organizations. Whatever the mix of factors be that contribute to the rise of popularity, these articles show probable connection between Mein Kampf, Indian business students and misuse of a dangerous text—one which prompted genocidal violence and ideology.

It is considered, by a growing number of business students in India, as a guide to management, and as the Daily Telegraph cites the owner of an Indian company that publishes Hitler’s text, “[Students] see it as a kind of success story where one man can have a vision, work out a plan on how to implement it and then successfully complete it.” Knowing the racist and destructive contents of Mein Kampf, the eventual Nazi policies of eradicating all “Non-Aryan” peoples, which reflected Hitler’s views in Mein Kampf, and the genocide committed by Hitler and his regime all make the previous statement perplexing and disturbing. This “plan” that the owner mentions was one centered around mass murder, taking over the world and attempts to create a superior race. Hitler’s plan and the words behind his actions in Germany—Mein Kampf—should not be looked to in hopes of emulation for any purpose. Hitler's writing, which is so entrenched in racist hatred, is particularly dangerous due to its deep connections with genocide. It is this connection with the most horrific and terrifying type of human catastrophe that forces particular notice be taken of Mein Kampf and its potential reckless mishandling.

Suing the UN?

2010-03-31T11:17:00.005-04:00

Sorry for the hiatus.

A recent article in the NYT mentioned that a group of victims of the Srebrenica massacre had attempted to sue the Netherlands and the UN for their failure in defending that "safe haven" from Bosnian Serb forces in 1995. A Dutch court found that they could not, noting further that, if sued, the UN would desist arming its peacekeeping missions worldwide. One does wonder how the UN, as a body, could be held accountable for its blunders. Or if it should.

On another note, the discussion of the roles of homosexual soldiers in the Srebrenica massacre is being appropriately mocked.

Thoughts on "Linguicide"

2009-12-29T14:56:00.002-05:00

The 1948 Genocide Convention doesn't specifically enumerate the intentional destruction of a group's culture as an act which constitutes genocide. When speaking of destruction of the group, the Convention specifies that this destruction is "physical" in nature. While it does cite "mental harm" intentionally inflicted upon members of the group, this has generally been interpreted as psychologically warfare as most often associated with terror campaigns, torture, and rape (as noted here and here). Thus, the language of the Convention does not specifically cite cultural destruction as an act of genocide.

However, Raphael Lemkin - the principle force behind the Convention - wrote at length about the importance of culture in the sphere of genocide. The devastating consequences reaped by genocide, he argued, far exceeded even the most heinous forms of physical destruction, because genocide involves wiping out a people's memory, as well as countless individuals who may otherwise have contributed greatly to the world's culture (let alone the specific group's culture). This, even if one does limit the scope of the discussion to physical destruction, it is difficult to deny the cultural implications of the elimination of an entire people. Entire cultures are lost to the world, and this, Lemkin argues, is as powerful a reason to resist genocide as the physical elimination that causes the devastation of culture.

Bearing these arguments in mind, I would like to introduce the concept of "linguicide," pondered by various scholars, including Skutnabb-Kanga and Ngugi wa Thiong'o. The word refers to the destruction of language: as so many have argued across time, language is the key to culture itself and the transmission of cultural mores. In his 2009 book Something Torn and New: An African Renaissance, Ngugi asserts that the destruction of colonized people's languages imposed by colonialism constitutes a significant destruction of the very group itself. In the case of the English colonization and - arguably - genocide against the Irish in the late 16th century, the elimination of Irish names and most aspects of Irish language disconnects the Irish people from a sense of identity and their own cultural history. The history that comes to replace it is that of England's construction of Irish history: yet, as Irish identity is destroyed with the elimination of names and language, Irish history becomes a lost concept. Ngugi gives examples which imply that this emphasis on the destruction of language and the original names of peoples can be found in many genocides throughout history, in a variety of geographic and sociopolitical contexts. Social memory is lost when language is lost; if social memory is lost, identity is lost; if identity is lost, can it not be argued that the group itself has been lost, or rather, destroyed? Thus, can genocide be committed through making it illegal to speak one's native tongue; educating people only in foreign tongues that their parents do not speak; or imposing new names to replace old family names, as in the case of African slaves and (on occasion) immigrants arriving at Ellis Island? I will leave it up the reader to evaluate these questions.

Genocide by... Abortion?

2009-12-17T08:05:00.004-05:00

While perusing the internet during my finals week for news on genocide (as, alas, I am prone to do), I found a post which accuses President Obama of beginning a genocidal policy against African Americans in the United States. What's the argument for this? It is based upon two principal notions: the first is the assertion that the health care provisions Obama is struggling to get would encourage abortions, and the second is that an exceptionally large number of African women already have abortions per year, and encouraging this would be tantamount to genocide.

For the sake of this posting, I want to leave aside the debate surrounding health care and abortion per se. Rather, I wish to focus simply on the alleged relationship between abortion and genocide. This claim asserts that encouraging - not necessarily forcing - abortions among a certain group can constitute genocide. (It was not made clear in the posting whether this allegation is supposed to be taken in context of the historical [and contemporary] oppression of African Americans in the United States. ) According to the UN Genocide Convention of 1948, genocidal acts do include "Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group." This is thus dependent upon the debate I said I would avoid - whether Obama's health care proposals will, indeed, encourage abortions or - more significant to this argument - whether it is intended to do so. I've said that I won't get into this here, and I won't, because I see a larger point here (I'm sure there are many).

The argument presented on the post I am referring to did not refer to the economic situation which does, indeed, lead many African American women to get abortions. I would argue that it is economic class, rather than a 'racial identity,' which fuels high rates of abortion, particularly in young women. Thus, if one wants to argue that imposing situations where abortion is encouraged amongst members of a group constitutes genocide, I think the argument can be better made on the level of class rather than racial categorization. This is somewhat sticky, though, because the Genocide Convention does not list 'class' as a protected group.

This raises the question: do members of groups that are not 'national, ethnical, racial, or religious' not receive protection under the Convention? Are those four groups meant to be exclusionary of other groups, like 'political' or 'economic class'? In the context of the time that the Convention was drafted, this certainly was the case (as the Soviet Union feared that its actions could be perceived as genocide if 'class' or 'political groups' were considered explicitly). Are documents of international law ones whose interpretation is supposed to change over time, or are they supposed to be destined to remain, forever, trapped in the context of their original ratification?

Stanley Milgram redux?

2009-12-02T09:11:00.007-05:00

Some final thoughts on Kathleen Taylor's Cruelty. The book's key puzzle addresses the "unthinkable" human behavior of human cruelty and our capability to engage in cruel, tortuous, sadistic behavior. Is such behavior really so unthinkable, she asks, or is it part of our very nature, part of our biological make-up? The answer, not surprisingly, is the latter.

Taylor contends that the evolutionary path humans took meant that discriminating between groups ("us" versus "them") became a favored trait for self-protection. Humans are hard-wired to "otherize." Our brains also take short-cuts to minimize reaction time and cognitive dissonance, particularly in times of stress. These two impulses permit people to treat those they deem "not one of us" with incredible cruelty and avoid introspection concerning the real implications and consequences of our actions. The more we think of others as "vermin" or "cockroaches" and the more pressure we get from authority figures who portray these others as dangers to ourselves, our way of life, or our existence, the less likely we are to question them.

This conclusion is not particularly surprising. Stanley Milgram, Yale psychologist and Queens College alumni, found that people would render torturous electroshock to people upon instruction by an authority figure. Philip Zimbardo has a webpage devoted to his all too successful effort to recreate a prison experiment, complete with sadistic guards. But the neuro focus of Taylor's book is useful. She uses a style of noted in recent non-fiction books that deal with scholarly subjects but written for a general audience: a smart literature review without much new evidence or independent empirical testing. It does give me some fodder for adjusting my thoughts on the instrumental versus primordial debate in the social sciences, but I talked about that already.

Donating Machetes

2009-09-23T11:18:00.005-04:00

According to the AP and a lawyer, Rwanda's Director of Planning in 1994 diverted IMF and World Bank funds for use against Tutsis during the genocide. Admittedly, the charge is that he embezzled the money -- which is not as bad as actually having the fund set up to do that sort of thing officially. The former planning director has pled not guilty to the charges.

And they said that the West didn't do enough in Rwanda in 1994.

Ahmadinejad says, once again, that the Holocaust is a myth

2009-09-18T08:28:00.003-04:00

The New York Times reports that Iranian president Mamoud Ahmadinejad has made his essentially annual declaration that the Holocaust did not occur. This time, according to the reporting, clashes broke out -- not about the discussion at hand (a pro-Palestinian rally) but rather disputes concerning this summer's Iranian election results.

Cartoon title: The Ahmadinejad Code, from Cox and Forkum, or Hugh Bradley. There is evidently a code embedded in the image.

Reading List?

2009-09-17T10:39:00.004-04:00

I write for this blog in part so that I have a forum to write about what I'm reading. I need to expand my knowledge and thought about the subject. I'm curious to know what books that our blog readers find engaging, enraging, or of general interest along the lines of the subject matter. This plea includes my co-bloggers, if y'all have suggestions. My Amazon shopping cart is empty, waiting to be filled with fun stories of death and mayhem.

Kathleen Taylor and Crash Davis

2009-09-16T16:33:00.003-04:00

In Cruelty, Taylor (a neuroscientist) explores why emotional beliefs are so unchanging for people while other sort of beliefs, scientific understanding, for example, are subject to change based on evidence. She observes: "beliefs which rely on reason are at risk from errors in reasoning.... Beliefs associated with strong emotions do not need to track changeable reality, nor do they need to be disturbed by errors of thinking." (p. 148, emphasis added)

Or in the immortal words from Kevin Costner's best film: "Don't think; it can only hurt the ballclub."

More on Cruelty

2009-09-09T10:48:00.006-04:00

So I'm still reading Kathleen Taylor's Cruelty (it's been a busy summer and it's not exactly light bedtime reading) and have come to the realization that political science's emphasis on understanding ethnic mobilization within the frames of primordialism, instrumentalism, and constructivism is rather limited. That political science is limited -- as any discipline must be -- is not the most interesting observation, I guess.

Taylor contributes a cognitive and biological layer to the social sciency conception of creating "others" and defending one's position. Her argument centers on the tendency for humans to dehumanize enemies, a process that opens the door to envisioning members of other groups as less than human and -- importantly -- dangerous to one's own group or existence. This insight is not particularly new (which Taylor concedes): one need only to see the use of the term "cockroaches" for Tutsi or "lice" and "vermin" for Jews in 1930's Germany to see this sort of thing in action.

The books' portrayal of patterns of human decisionmaking, especially the sort of shortcuts the brain makes in sifting information for accuracy, has considerable impact how social scientists understand instrumentalism, however. The brain, as amazing a machine as it is, makes errors when forced to adjust to stimuli quickly.

As such, according to Taylor, people are more prone to succumb to "othering" claims when such appeals are framed in terms of self-defense and especially if they have a time pressure and urgency attached. Small wonder that genocides and cleansings occur during conditions of war or ideology construction -- both political events that have much urgency attached. This also helps us understand how ethnic boundaries can literally develop overnight -- with mobilization by trusted political leaders amidst difficult and fraught political times. So a Hutu husband may indeed turn against his Tutsi wife who just a month ago he trusted. As long as he doesn't have too much time to think about it.

State and Federal Genocide (recognition, that is)

2009-08-26T20:51:00.002-04:00

The powers that are not explicitly granted to the federal government in the United States Constitution are powers of the individuals states. Officially recognizing genocide probably was not on the founders' minds when they drew these guidelines up. Yet this has become an issue, as the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled that a California law passed in 2000 cannot be upheld because the U.S. federal government has not officially recognized the Armenian genocide of 1915-1918. The law allowed surviving Armenian family members to sue foreign insurance companies for damages that remained unpaid since the massacres.

Despite Candidate Barack Obama's insistence that the United States government would officially recognize the Armenian genocide as such, since being elected, President Obama has muted these assertions. His overtures to Turkey now include notations that he still 'personally' believes his previous statements (ie, that genocide occurred), but the federal government still has not - as he said he wanted it to - recognize the massacres as genocide.

According to Los Angeles lawyer Brian S. Kabateck, "If taken to its logical extension, what [the U.S. 9th Circuit Court's] decision means is that all 40 states that have recognized the Armenian genocide have to set aside that recognition." According to the Court, however, California law cannot impinge upon the President's ability to conduct foreign diplomatic relations as he sees fit: in this case, that involves leaving a genocide unacknowledged.

Balancing the law with justice

2009-07-14T14:54:00.004-04:00

This article in the New York Times has me musing about the nitty-gritty of the legal framework when it comes to meting out justice for war crimes or genocide. The article is part of the NYT's on-going coverage of the trial of Duch, who we have also discussed. Evidently, witnesses in the trial have been offering jarring and profound evidence, much of which cannot be corroborated and some of which is different from their own depositions. The article refers to the practical issues of the case, where "the testimony of these witnesses has not been vetted by prosecutors, and most have arrived poorly prepared by overburdened lawyers."

How should judges respond? In domestic trials in the U.S., the standards of evidence can be quite high. What is the right way to balance the accusations, when the witnesses are the victims of genocide or mass killing? (After all, there are reasons why there might not be eye witnesses.) These questions carry even more implications because a standard immediate response to accusations of genocide, at least by the media or governments who might then be compelled to act, is disbelief, as Samantha Power has documented.

Genocide Charges in Two Tribunals

2009-07-09T16:52:00.002-04:00

Several months ago, when an arrest warrant was issued for Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir, it was issued on the basis of several charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The charge of genocide, however, was not among them, even though International Criminal Court chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo had requested it. He has just successfully filed an appeal against the reasoning for the absence of the genocide charge. The appeal was made on the basis that the level of evidence of genocide he was held to was appropriate for the trial itself, not the issuance conviction and arrest warrant. Whether or not his appeal is ultimately accepted, it may prove extremely difficult to convince the ICC to rule that genocide has been committed. As International Bar Association chair Mark Ellis highlights, "[Charging one with genocide] requires the prosecutors to prove the individual had a specific intent to destroy an ethnic group."

There is much resistance to the arrest warrant, with or without the genocide charges. It is perceived by many - most vocally by Bashir himself - as neo-colonialist, and in violation of state sovereignty. While many may interpret certain aspects of international law - including Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter and the 1948 Genocide Convention - to override state sovereignty in very extreme situations of violence and oppression, many also insist on the supremacy of state sovereignty in all circumstances. Along these lines, a man from Khartoum giving his name as Mohammad wrote in to the BBC to express the much-shared view that "this is an internal affair in a sovereign country with a judicial system."

In a similar vein, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda has just gotten approval by the UN Security Council to continue hearing cases until the end of 2010. This deadline will probably be extended subsequently for an additional two years, as there are 11 cases currently beofre the judges and many suspected of helping to commit the Rwandan genocide of 1994 are still at large. The Tribunal has thus far issued 38 judgements in its 15-year span (6 were acquittals).

Cruelty

2009-07-02T16:58:00.002-04:00

One of the reasons I write for this blog (that is, when I actually do write for it) is to create an opportunity to respond to stuff I'm reading in a thoughtful way. I want a way to create a platform to maintain intellectual accountability but also to provide real incentives for actual writing and thinking.

So I'm reading Kathleen Taylor's Cruelty, a biologicaland psychological examination of why people engage behavior that most folks typically imagine as unimaginable. Torture, genocide, mass killing, that sort of thing. Thus far, the tone of the book (I'm on page 55) is similar to Milgram, Zimbardo, and Browning -- that is, that ordinary people are quite capable of committing horrific and heinous crimes.

Taylor seems to be kind of an academic -- she is affiliated with Oxford University, but has a rather opaque discussion of her credentials on her website. The book is -- thus far -- a fascinating read and follows an interesting narrative structure. As far as page 55, though, I'm not sure what sort of comprehensive theory on cruelty is being offered, nor how or what data might be considered. But this is perhaps an academic's criticism and is certainly premature. I'll think more on that as I move through the rest.

Taylor certainly uses language that I generally avoid in my own writing, though, to smart effect. In a section considered how perpetrators of cruelty rationalize their own place in the process, she includes a long quotation from the Marquis de Sade: "I can agree not to employ force against him whose own strength makes him to be feared; but what could motivate me to moderate the effects of my strength...?" Taylor's commentary? "This is the psychopath's charter: To the strong: I'll be civilized. To anyone else: I'll do what I like, and f*ck you." (p. 55) [Taylor included the "u."]

As I deal with my own copyediting in my book and fret over my careful and sometimes quite laborious writing, I find myself wishing that I had the cojones to drop the occasional f-bomb in there. Would certainly lighten it up a bit.

News: Shooting at the U.S. Holocaust Museum

2009-06-10T16:48:00.004-04:00

We are sad to note the death of a security guard at the Holocaust Museum. The New York Times reports that the shooter was a white supremacist who "who embraces various conspiracy theories involving Jews, blacks and other minority groups and has at times waged a personal war with the federal government."

The alleged shooter is in critical condition. He maintains a telling website. He is, among other things, a WWII vet and member of Mensa.

On the Politics of Denial

2009-04-29T21:10:00.005-04:00

After the airing on the local-language Kinyarwanda BBC radio of a broadcast dealing with the events in Rwanda of April 1994, Kigali has suspended the BBC's operations in the country. The broadcast featured an interview with former Rwandan Prime Minister Faustin Twagiramungu, who stated positions of blatant denial of the genocide against Tutsis and moderate Hutus during 1994: these explicit denials were not juxtaposed by official statements from the government, because (according to the BBC), when asked to offer a statement for the story, Kigali turned down the opportunity. Accusing the BBC of having "become a real poison with regard to the reconciliation of the Rwandan people," Kigali has stated that until the BBC alter "the divisive and disparaging nature" of its broadcasts, it will not be able to operate in the country.

Since the (internationally acknowledged) genocide against Tutsi and moderate-Hutu people in Rwanda in April 1994, the country has made the use of ethnic labeling illegal, considering "divisionism" (which is loosely-defined as speech which can lead to genocidal propoganda) a crime. The legacy which the use of "hate radio" (via the station RTLM) during the genocide has left on the recovering country is clear: the utter destruction that was arguably enabled in large part by the power of speech has left Rwanda in a position where it may be quite difficult to not define certain kinds of expression as "unacceptable speech." It is clear through this incident that genocide denial is one of the main things to be condemned as unacceptable by Kigali: while the interpretation of the Rwandan government is that limited expression of genocidal denial will allow the country to proceed in reconciliation and recovery, groups like Human Rights Watch disagree. Georgette Gagnon (HRW's Africa director) has stated that "If Rwanda is truly committed to the fundamental right of free expression, it should allow differing viewpoints on genocide issues and related government policies."

The Rwandan government has clearly chosen to ban genocide denial as a hindrance to progress: while an analysis of the potential effects of this decision is outside the scope of this post, it is also interesting to note a different kind of policy towards genocide denial regarding another genocide. Turkey has adopted a stringent policy against genocide admittance with regards to the events of World War I. When President Obama visited the country, he shied away from repeating his belief that the events constituted genocide, although he noted that his views "on that history [has] not changed]" since statements he made in the US. Yet, according to the Turkish foreign ministry - which vehemently denies that genocide had taken place - has stated that "history can be construed and evaluated only on the basis of undisputed evidence and documentation," and in the case of the Armenian killings during World War One, this documentation and evidence does not constitute such proof.

Thus, perhaps the type of freedom of speech that will be encouraged or denied after a genocide depends largely on whose voice emerges in the aftermath and ruling party.

Genocide Only by the Army?

2009-03-23T22:04:00.004-04:00

As the BBC has reported, Joseph Mpambara - who is a Rwandan Hutu - has just been found guilty of torture by a Dutch court. He was not found guilty of charges of war crimes, however: despite his role in ordering the torture and brutal execution of at least two women and four children, Mpambara was not found guilty of war crimes "because he was not part of the Rwandan government army fighting Tutsis." The implications of this conclusion include concern about the rise of a fundamentally different kind of warfare; the 21st century world is one in which more people are coming to commit horrific acts against civilians even if/when they are unaffiliated with a governmental army. Does this lack of affiliation legally imply that civilians cannot - for whatever reasons - commit acts with the "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group" and thus not be found guilty of genocide or even war crimes?

Absence and Facebook

2009-03-19T18:28:00.003-04:00

Many apologies for some continued absence. Mid-terms are hell for academics -- one of us in the midst of taking exams, another is finishing a dissertation, and I have a looming book deadline. The fleeting nature of semesters, however, means that all this will end all to soon.

In the meantime, we leave you with..... the Facebook page......of Iosif Vissarionovich Jugashvili, aka Stalin. Perhaps not surprisingly, he has no friends.

‘Unacceptable’

2009-03-10T23:49:00.004-04:00

In his first public reaction to the expulsion of 13 aid groups from Sudan last week, President Obama has said that "It is not acceptable to put that many people's lives at risk...We need to be able to get those humanitarian organizations back on the ground." While many might applaud his expression of concern - and certainly the decision by Khartoum to ban these groups from aid operations puts at least 2 million people at dire risk in Sudan - President Obama’s response is similar to the form which has become typical of much of the West. In addressing world problems (and even those physically closer to home), it is tempting to address symptoms, not causes. Surely the starvation, gross deprivation of medical care and shelter, and lack of established education that is sweeping across conflict affected areas of Sudan are symptoms which must be addressed, and immediately: it is for this reason that the Obama administration can and has criticized Khartoum for the aid expulsion without any political repercussions. Yet the roots of these problems - war crimes, crimes against humanity, allegations of genocide, and even the socioeconomic, political, and resource-oriented conditions which allow for the former three causes - often remain unanalyzed and unaddressed, even though a concerted move towards addressing actual causes of devastation would be more efficientand therefore beneficial to all parties involved.

Whether one’s political orientations guide one towards or away from intervention in the case of mass atrocities and war crimes (which Susan Rice, the US’s Ambassador to the UN, has called - in the case of Darfur - an "ongoing genocide"), it is undeniable that the Obama administration was addressing symptoms, not causes, through his statement today. The implications of offering humanitarian assistance as a band-aid for greater social, political, and militaristic problems are far-reaching and far from unprecedented: speaking about the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, internationally-acclaimed journalist Philip Gourevitch has said:

"The humanitarian aid and relief industry consists of multi-hundred million dollar organizations run by the United Nations and private nongovernmental organizations, whose business is to rush into crisis situations and dispense aid and medical relief automatically. I was quickly struck by how often the genocide was called a "humanitarian crisis." The phrase itself began to operate as a way of divorcing the political reality from the human suffering. It is like calling a sucking chest wound a respiratory problem after somebody has just been shot in the chest."

Humanitarian aid can certainly be interpreted as important - and essential in saving countless lives - as a short-term measure for addressing horrific situations people are trying to survive through. Yet, expressing true concern for people being victimized by natural or human-made disasters may have to come in the form of reaching far beyond the condemnation of the expulsion of humanitarian aid groups: instead, a concerned party may wish to examine and address the factors that produced the situation in which people are in need of vital assistance to begin with (works - not limited to but exemplified by - such as Darfur: The Ambiguous Genocide by Gerard Prunier and ENOUGH Project reports by John Prendergast and Colin Thomas-Jensen offer this sort of analysis).

Some Implications of the ICC's Arrest Warrant

2009-03-05T19:43:00.006-05:00

In keeping with the two preceeding posts, herein lies more commentary on the ICC's unprecendented decision to issue an arrest warrant for crimes against humanity against a sitting president, namely Omar Hassan al-Bashir of Sudan. The implications of the warrant can easily be seen in the short term, as the UN is becoming increasingly concerned over Sudan's expulsion of 13 aid organizations, including Oxfam, CARE, and MSF: these organizations have not only been expelled from Darfur, but from the East and North of the country as well. According to the International Rescue Committee, these organizations collectively aid upwards of 1.75 million people, and thus the question is again begged: to what extent does this International Criminal Court itself share any responsibility for these immense short term dangers?

While this legal and humanitarian question is of pressing importance, it is also essential to bear closely in mind the longer-term implications of the arrest warrant. As for the future of Sudan, it has been argued that the warrant will completely destablize an already precarious peace effort: it is for this stated reason that the Arab League has taken such a firm stance against the ICC's decision. Yet it has also been argued that the arrest warrant for Bashir is a long-awaited beacon of hope for those being victimized in Sudan, signifying a potentially large stride towards attaining peace in the region. Examining the arrest warrant in the context of previous indictments of Liberian President Charles Taylor and the former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, as well arguing that the dramatically increased pressure that the warrant places on all parties involved with Bashir will be conducive to a halt in the bloodshed, the ENOUGH Project's recent report illustrates the counterpoint to the position of the Arab League and, indeed, Khartoum itself.

Such are the broad strokes of the debate surrounding the longer-term implications for Sudan itself. Perhaps even more murky - if indeed that is possible! - are the wider implications for the future of international law and prosecution of the crime of genocide. It must not be forgotten that ICC Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo did not only request that Bashir be arrested for crimes against humanity and war crimes: the Prosecutor also called for charges to be pressed against Bashir for genocide. Yet, in a 2-1 vote, it was decided that genocide would not be included on the arrest warrant because it was alleged that the Fur, Masalit, and Zaghawa ethnic groups being targeted in Sudan did not constitute a "national, ethnical, racial, or religious group" as specified in the Genocide Convention of 1948.

While it is unlikely that activists will now drop the term - many will undoubtedly raise the points that Moreno-Ocampo was denied an investigation within Darfur, as well as the fact that no one called the genocide in Rwanda genocide while it was occurring - the legal implications of the decision to drop the genocide charges are enormous. To what extent and for how long will the Court's strict interpretation of what constitutes a potentially victimized group hold for future cases? In what way will the dropping of the charge of genocide affect the legacy of the mass destruction in Darfur? Ultimately, are horrific acts horrific acts because we label them as such or because they are instrinsically terrible? Yet it is this precise labeling practice which allows - and obligates - the international community to take action on behalf of those being victimized: legally, there is a lot to be beheld in a name.

Figes and Kristof

2009-03-05T17:20:00.008-05:00

Orlando Figes, scholar of Russian history, reports that his recent book on the lives of Stalin's victims and their families has had its Russian edition contract revoked. The organization with which he collaborated to do his archival research, Memorial, has had its office raided by police in St. Petersburg, its materials confiscated. Figes maintains a fascinating website with downloadable interview transcripts and archival documentation. Much of it is in Russian, but the site is worth perusal nonetheless.

Nicholas Kristof writes that the Sudanese government has responded to Al Bashir's arrest warrant by kicking out all aid workers, effectively reconstructing a regime of starvation and deprivation for civilians of Darfur. He also includes one of those "pay attention to the suffering" photographs of a Sudanese boy with no hands and a face half scarred, both after a grenade accident. Kristof's tagline is that the boy would applaud the warrant....but cannot. Yuk.

Photo credit: Mikhail Metzel

The ICC and Omar Al Bashir

2009-03-04T17:03:00.005-05:00

The International Criminal Court has issued a warrant for the arrest of current Sudanese president Omar Al Bashir, accusing the leader of war crimes and crimes against humanity for, in part, ordering troops and militias to terrorize the population of Darfur.

The arrest warrant represents the first time a standing president has been pursued for crimes against humanity. The warrant can create a precedent in international human rights law. What the body will achieve is unclear. There is little sense that Al Bashir will be turned over (or turn himself in). The Financial Times editorial writers anticipate renewed and punitive violence against the African populations in Sudan in the Darfur region. It could be that Al Bashir will benefit from politicians rallying to his aid against perceived Western imperialism.

One wonders: if there is a crackdown as predicted, to what extent does the ICC hold any blame? Or will the sufferings of those in Darfur be measured against the (assumed) deterrent that the ICC is attempting to construct?

And, linking to my previous post, does Al Bashir stand as a proxy for any number of politicians behind the scenes? Some Sudanese officials have also been the subjects of arrest warrants (although remain at learge), but the Financial Times editorial linked above seems to think that the concentration on Al Bashir overestimates his direct role. I mention this not to absolve him, but rather to draw a line toward the murky process of blaming.

The Holocaust and Legos

2009-02-22T12:17:00.020-05:00

This blog is interested in how genocides are portrayed, both in traditional and untraditional settings. Likewise, we are interested in the responses these presentations attract.

We present, with this in mind: the legoization of the Holocaust. I should note that by posting these we do not mean to diminish the events, but rather introduce images that have been controversial and merit, in our minds, some discussion.

These are the work of the Polish artist Zbigniew Libera. Some (or perhaps all) of these were featured in a controversial 2002 exhibition at the Jewish Museum in New York, entitled Mirroring Evil: Nazi Imagery/ Recent Art.

Libera describes his intent: "My ability to work with objects is taken from everyday urban contemporary life. In my study of the development of correctional devices and educational toys, I see such devices reveal more about a society and its mechanisms for creating and enforcing its norms that any study of a society could."

Yet these images are brutal (I have posted some of the less overt examples). The fact that they presented as children's toys is discomfiting (note the age limits for the boxed sets on the left).

I wonder if we tend to envision genocides so completely from the perspective of the victims that presentations of perpetrators -- particularly ones that do not make a clear stance on the crimes involved -- seem offensive.

Do we need representations of these events necessarily to involve judgment? Might a depiction of this sort, one that does not comment on the brutality of the event, even as it packages it in as something as common as a popular toy, be interpreted as a slight? And if it is interpreted as such, how should we understand the artist? Or the role of the viewer? Are these images dangerous?

Libera has done more related art. The Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Minnesota has a comprehensive presentation both of the Lego set and others.

State-led killings and Justice: How to prosecute the enthusiastic masses

2009-01-28T16:25:00.012-05:00

Cambodia is having its first -- and some imagine its only -- trial for the atrocities committed under Pol Pot. (There are, however, four others from the senior leadership awaiting trial). A school teacher turned torturer, Kaing Guek Eav, whose nom de guerre was Duch, oversaw the Tuol Sleng prison. The Khmer Rouge embarked on a four year spree of killing from 1975-1979, as part of the regime's attempt to construct a utopian society and bring the country back to "Year Zero," to take it back to a time unsullied by a petty bourgeois sentiment.

The Khmer Rouge regime brutalized its population, killing over 1.7 million, according to the New York Times accounting. The killing stopped upon a Vietnamese invasion and occupation of the governmental structures. One obstacle to swift justice in the case of the Khmer Rouge has been the fact that the party and its members are still active in Cambodian politics.

So how to feel about a defandant facing trial so many years after the crimes were committed? This was 30 years ago. Duch is an old man (okay, he's 66, but he looks much older). He is weak and, one might say, rather pathetic looking. He's also, in the minds of some of his victims, lucky. He gets food and television time. He has a lawyer. He will not be put to death, since his trial is under the auspices of an odd tribunal that includes the UN as a sponsoring institution.

Others, though, feel sorry for him and urge us all to see his humanity. In a remarkable op-ed for the New York Times, academic Francois Bizot recounts his own incarceration by the Khmer Rouge although he was protected by Duch even as his two assistants were murdered. Bizot writes:

It could be that forgiveness is possible after a simple, natural process, when the victim feels that he has been repaid. And the executioner has to pay dearly, for it is the proof of his suffering that eases ours.
Let us not fool ourselves. Beyond the crimes that Duch committed against humanity, those of the Khmer Rouge will also be judged. And beyond the crimes of the Khmer Rouge, the capacity of the tribunals to mete out justice will be tested, as well as our ability to judge man himself, and history. We shall all be at the trial — not just as judges, but also as victims, and the accused.

All of this gets me thinking about how justice is meted out to the perpetrators of genocides and mass murder events (some categorize the Khmer Rouge as genocidal, others describe it as *merely* a mass murderous regime). Clearly, more than 5 people carried out the murders from 1975-1979. Yet we generally find fault with the higher ups, not the rank and file.

Mahmood Mamdani observes in his book When Victims Become Killers that academics in particular are very wary of allocating blame to mass populations -- that somehow we focus on elite actions, enticements and planning to the detriment of accuracy -- that genocide can also be a popular and desired event by mass populations. Notably, his book considers the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. This was an event that has been characterized by observers as remarkably popular. Philip Gourevitch refers to the Rwandan genocide as "an exercise in community building." (95)

One notable caveat to this is some work on the Holocaust. For example, Daniel Goldhagen's very controversial book Hitler's Willing Executioners specifically ties the targeting of the Jewish population during the Holocaust to a pernicious history of German anti-Semitism. Yet this mass based element -- the argument that the Holocaust occurred because of a large generalized cultural history, rather than necessarily Hitler's mobilization -- is one reason why his book is so controversial.

Welcome

2009-01-28T12:47:00.005-05:00

This blog was inspired by a series of blogs written by my students during a course I taught that explored comparative genocide. The idea that we can subject genocides, ethnic cleansing events, and mass killings to systematic analytical and scholarly inquire surprised my students. In the course of teaching the class, I began to find more and more linkages in genocidal or mass killing events that occurred across cultures, regime type, and historical experience.

I also discovered a meta-politics of genocide: political concerns such as Holocaust or genocide denial, perceptions of perpetrators, and the capabilities or interest of outside forces to intervene or seek justice excite passions and compel systematic inquiry.

This blog is the beginning of my own effort, and efforts by my co-bloggers, to explore these questions, to assess new literature, and to follow unfolding events.