Features
7. Why does genocide 'happen'?
Rotimi Sankore
2004-04-01, Issue 150
http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/21207
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The genocide in Rwanda in April 1994 must not distract from the fact that genocide is a global phenomenon that knows no racial or geographical boundaries. In its modern form, genocide was perfected by the fascist Nazi regime led by Adolph Hitler in Germany from 1933 to 1945. The Khmer Rouge also demonstrated in the killing fields of Cambodia from 1975 to 1979 that genocide could be carried out as efficiently in a different social and political context.
In more recent times the world watched live on satellite television in the 1990’s while genocide was perpetuated in the heart of Europe as Serbia, Croatia and Kosovo became household names for the grimmest reasons known to history. Going back even further, the transatlantic slave trade has been described as genocidal, though the mass murder of millions of Africans over 400 years was more a by product of plunder, exploitation and repression rather than the specific goal of slave dealers and the states that backed the slave trade.
But why does genocide happen? Why do human beings, the so-called most civilised and intelligent of the species that inhabit the planet, turn to mass murder?
In answering this question, the most important point to make is that genocide does not just happen. It is prepared for, consciously executed and is based on reasonably identifiable social, political and economic conditions. What differs is the extent to which these conditions apply or exist, and the degree of preparation by the perpetrators.
The second most important point to make is that genocide is not ‘triggered’ by a single event that pushes the perpetrators over the brink. On the contrary, the so-called ‘trigger events’ are excuses for setting in motion the logical end to a process prepared for well in advance.
Only when the world appreciates the fact of these processes can we collectively identify the signs or beginnings of what is likely to end in genocide and douse the fire before it becomes an all-consuming flame.
In the case of Rwanda, it is a popularly held myth that the shooting down of the plane carrying the then Head of State Juvenal Habyarimana and the Burundian President Cyprien Ntayamira on 6th April 1994 triggered the genocide that followed over the next 12 weeks and left well over 700,000 dead (nearly 10% of the country’s population of over 8 million). Nothing can be further from the truth.
Before the shooting down of the airplane by yet unidentified persons, the social and political conditions had been prepared by various factors. One key factor was the dictatorship established following the seizure of power by General Juvenal Habyarimana in 1973.
Habyarimana ruled in the name of the “majority” and imposed a dictatorship on the entire country. In addition, the official discrimination against the Tutsi minority was so much that within two decades, half a million had fled the country.
The government estimated Tutsis at 9% of the population and restricted them to 9% of jobs and educational opportunities. (Many of the exiles later joined the rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front, RPF). In order to consolidate the hold on power, Tutsi’s were painted as the enemy within (and without), and anyone that did not treat them as such was a sympathiser of the enemy, deemed to be “no better than them” and likely to face the same fate.
This is a classic manoeuvre used by a variety of regimes throughout history to divide society, promote a climate of fear and insecurity, encourage racism, xenophobia or ethnic hatred and mobilise their supporters to systematically suppress and eradicate the so called enemy. The Nazis in Germany used this strategy to near perfection over the period of their rule.
Official discrimination on its own is not enough to involve a significant percentage of the population in mass murder. Hate speech (using crude or sophisticated propaganda) must be deployed on a mass scale, and organised armed bodies of men infused into society to provide the ‘back bone’ and direction for mass murder. Where the prerequisite social conditions do not exist, or hate speech does not achieve the desired effect of involving significant numbers of everyday citizens in mass murder, it still facilitates their acquiescence to genocide carried out by smaller organised units of killers.
But even hate speech must have a clearly identifiable target to lead to genocide. This means that the ‘targets’ must be isolated and identified as systematically as possible. This is achieved by obvious means such as clearly marked or distinct clothing, less obvious means such as identity cards, or crude social stereotyping using race, ethnicity, language or physical appearance etc.
In the case of Rwanda, this had already been pre-facilitated by the Belgian colonialists through the issuance of identity cards based on ethnicity and the classic colonial strategy of creating an artificial elite through which colonial powers rule in countries where colonialists are vastly outnumbered.
During colonial rule, the artificial classification and imposition of a minority elite created the basis for long lasting resentment seized upon after independence by Hutu extremists to build a power base. Similar creation of artificial borders, cynical divisions of ethnic nationalities, imposition of artificial elites and so forth by colonial powers have provided the basis for many conflicts in Africa.
Simply put, genocide has become the method though which organised groups within society, whether based on ideology, race, nationality, ethnicity, religion or language, consciously pursue a strategy of achieving or consolidating power, through manipulating economic, social or political conditions and insecurities to unite significant sections of society behind them and against a real or artificially created enemy whose extermination or repression is promoted as vital to the “survival of the species.”
The main tools are hate speech, use of mass propaganda to spread lies, insecurity and create myths promoting a climate of simultaneous fear and dehumanisation of the intended targets; and the organisation of armed bodies of men in preparation for, or to actually direct, instigate or carry out violence and mass murder. All of these factors and those mentioned earlier are clearly identifiable and if left unchallenged build up to make genocide almost inevitable.
But how can genocide be tackled?
General education and enlightenment, an understanding of social, political and economic issues and of individual and mass psychology will all help to make people less susceptible to manipulation of their fears and insecurities.
However, while sharp economic, social and political inequalities remain a characteristic of human society there will always be a possibility that people will be open to manipulation by those that see such cynical manipulation as their path to power and the trappings that go with it. Interventions by United Nations forces or others may stop specific cases of genocide from playing out, but this cannot be a permanent solution.
In Africa, the legacy of colonialism, serious economic problems, deepening inequalities and ongoing conflicts mean that there is a possibility that an increasing number of incumbent governments or powerful groups could promote religious, racial, ethnic or social differences and conflict as a way of acquiring or consolidating their hold on power rather than addressing the root causes of desperation. History shows that once set in motion conflicts are difficult to stop. How civil society and pro democratic forces tackle the issues is crucial to the future of Africa.
Overall, there is no doubt that the central challenge facing humanity today on all continents is to resolve the inequalities and injustices on which genocide can be built.
* Sankore is on the editorial board of Pambazuka and is Coordinator of CREDO for Freedom of Expression and Associated Rights which focuses on rights issues in Africa.
* NOTE FOR EDITORS: Please note that this editorial was commissioned from the author for Pambazuka News. If you would like to use this article for your publication, please do so with the following credit: "This article first appeared in Pambazuka News, an electronic newsletter for social justice in Africa, www.pambazuka.org" Editors are also encouraged to make a donation.
The genocide in Rwanda in April 1994 must not distract from the fact that genocide is a global phenomenon that knows no racial or geographical boundaries. In its modern form, genocide was perfected by the fascist Nazi regime led by Adolph Hitler in Germany from 1933 to 1945. The Khmer Rouge also demonstrated in the killing fields of Cambodia from 1975 to 1979 that genocide could be carried out as efficiently in a different social and political context.
In more recent times the world watched live on satellite television in the 1990’s while genocide was perpetuated in the heart of Europe as Serbia, Croatia and Kosovo became household names for the grimmest reasons known to history. Going back even further, the transatlantic slave trade has been described as genocidal, though the mass murder of millions of Africans over 400 years was more a by product of plunder, exploitation and repression rather than the specific goal of slave dealers and the states that backed the slave trade.
But why does genocide happen? Why do human beings, the so-called most civilised and intelligent of the species that inhabit the planet, turn to mass murder?
In answering this question, the most important point to make is that genocide does not just happen. It is prepared for, consciously executed and is based on reasonably identifiable social, political and economic conditions. What differs is the extent to which these conditions apply or exist, and the degree of preparation by the perpetrators.
The second most important point to make is that genocide is not ‘triggered’ by a single event that pushes the perpetrators over the brink. On the contrary, the so-called ‘trigger events’ are excuses for setting in motion the logical end to a process prepared for well in advance.
Only when the world appreciates the fact of these processes can we collectively identify the signs or beginnings of what is likely to end in genocide and douse the fire before it becomes an all-consuming flame.
In the case of Rwanda, it is a popularly held myth that the shooting down of the plane carrying the then Head of State Juvenal Habyarimana and the Burundian President Cyprien Ntayamira on 6th April 1994 triggered the genocide that followed over the next 12 weeks and left well over 700,000 dead (nearly 10% of the country’s population of over 8 million). Nothing can be further from the truth.
Before the shooting down of the airplane by yet unidentified persons, the social and political conditions had been prepared by various factors. One key factor was the dictatorship established following the seizure of power by General Juvenal Habyarimana in 1973.
Habyarimana ruled in the name of the “majority” and imposed a dictatorship on the entire country. In addition, the official discrimination against the Tutsi minority was so much that within two decades, half a million had fled the country.
The government estimated Tutsis at 9% of the population and restricted them to 9% of jobs and educational opportunities. (Many of the exiles later joined the rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front, RPF). In order to consolidate the hold on power, Tutsi’s were painted as the enemy within (and without), and anyone that did not treat them as such was a sympathiser of the enemy, deemed to be “no better than them” and likely to face the same fate.
This is a classic manoeuvre used by a variety of regimes throughout history to divide society, promote a climate of fear and insecurity, encourage racism, xenophobia or ethnic hatred and mobilise their supporters to systematically suppress and eradicate the so called enemy. The Nazis in Germany used this strategy to near perfection over the period of their rule.
Official discrimination on its own is not enough to involve a significant percentage of the population in mass murder. Hate speech (using crude or sophisticated propaganda) must be deployed on a mass scale, and organised armed bodies of men infused into society to provide the ‘back bone’ and direction for mass murder. Where the prerequisite social conditions do not exist, or hate speech does not achieve the desired effect of involving significant numbers of everyday citizens in mass murder, it still facilitates their acquiescence to genocide carried out by smaller organised units of killers.
But even hate speech must have a clearly identifiable target to lead to genocide. This means that the ‘targets’ must be isolated and identified as systematically as possible. This is achieved by obvious means such as clearly marked or distinct clothing, less obvious means such as identity cards, or crude social stereotyping using race, ethnicity, language or physical appearance etc.
In the case of Rwanda, this had already been pre-facilitated by the Belgian colonialists through the issuance of identity cards based on ethnicity and the classic colonial strategy of creating an artificial elite through which colonial powers rule in countries where colonialists are vastly outnumbered.
During colonial rule, the artificial classification and imposition of a minority elite created the basis for long lasting resentment seized upon after independence by Hutu extremists to build a power base. Similar creation of artificial borders, cynical divisions of ethnic nationalities, imposition of artificial elites and so forth by colonial powers have provided the basis for many conflicts in Africa.
Simply put, genocide has become the method though which organised groups within society, whether based on ideology, race, nationality, ethnicity, religion or language, consciously pursue a strategy of achieving or consolidating power, through manipulating economic, social or political conditions and insecurities to unite significant sections of society behind them and against a real or artificially created enemy whose extermination or repression is promoted as vital to the “survival of the species.”
The main tools are hate speech, use of mass propaganda to spread lies, insecurity and create myths promoting a climate of simultaneous fear and dehumanisation of the intended targets; and the organisation of armed bodies of men in preparation for, or to actually direct, instigate or carry out violence and mass murder. All of these factors and those mentioned earlier are clearly identifiable and if left unchallenged build up to make genocide almost inevitable.
But how can genocide be tackled?
General education and enlightenment, an understanding of social, political and economic issues and of individual and mass psychology will all help to make people less susceptible to manipulation of their fears and insecurities.
However, while sharp economic, social and political inequalities remain a characteristic of human society there will always be a possibility that people will be open to manipulation by those that see such cynical manipulation as their path to power and the trappings that go with it. Interventions by United Nations forces or others may stop specific cases of genocide from playing out, but this cannot be a permanent solution.
In Africa, the legacy of colonialism, serious economic problems, deepening inequalities and ongoing conflicts mean that there is a possibility that an increasing number of incumbent governments or powerful groups could promote religious, racial, ethnic or social differences and conflict as a way of acquiring or consolidating their hold on power rather than addressing the root causes of desperation. History shows that once set in motion conflicts are difficult to stop. How civil society and pro democratic forces tackle the issues is crucial to the future of Africa.
Overall, there is no doubt that the central challenge facing humanity today on all continents is to resolve the inequalities and injustices on which genocide can be built.
* Sankore is on the editorial board of Pambazuka and is Coordinator of CREDO for Freedom of Expression and Associated Rights which focuses on rights issues in Africa.
* NOTE FOR EDITORS: Please note that this editorial was commissioned from the author for Pambazuka News. If you would like to use this article for your publication, please do so with the following credit: "This article first appeared in Pambazuka News, an electronic newsletter for social justice in Africa, www.pambazuka.org" Editors are also encouraged to make a donation.