Abstract:This study analyzes the Soviet politics of silence during Stalin's collectivization campaign in the context of peasant resistance, state violence, and the famine in 1928–1929, and illuminates the primary function of strategic silence—an information blockade which creates a space for violence and human suffering. Only in silence does the landscape of violence emerge and its spiral dynamics consume everyone, assailants and victims, proceeding swiftly to the eventual destruction of this landscape. In Ukraine, strategic silence and the relatively hermetic information blockade highlights the intentional nature of state violence: it produced a ghetto of exclusion that helped crush peasant resistance to collectivization and prevented Ukraine's potential secession from the Union. More profoundly, the politics of silence is analyzed as "cultural" violence and one of the most important building blocks in the foundation of genocide that routinely provokes and escalates direct violence, a phenomenon which culminates in massacres, repressions, and famines, as happened in the Ukrainian case.
{"title":"Starvation and Violence amid the Soviet Politics of Silence, 1928–1929","authors":"Olga Bertelsen","doi":"10.3138/GSI.11.1.02","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3138/GSI.11.1.02","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This study analyzes the Soviet politics of silence during Stalin's collectivization campaign in the context of peasant resistance, state violence, and the famine in 1928–1929, and illuminates the primary function of strategic silence—an information blockade which creates a space for violence and human suffering. Only in silence does the landscape of violence emerge and its spiral dynamics consume everyone, assailants and victims, proceeding swiftly to the eventual destruction of this landscape. In Ukraine, strategic silence and the relatively hermetic information blockade highlights the intentional nature of state violence: it produced a ghetto of exclusion that helped crush peasant resistance to collectivization and prevented Ukraine's potential secession from the Union. More profoundly, the politics of silence is analyzed as \"cultural\" violence and one of the most important building blocks in the foundation of genocide that routinely provokes and escalates direct violence, a phenomenon which culminates in massacres, repressions, and famines, as happened in the Ukrainian case.","PeriodicalId":40844,"journal":{"name":"Genocide Studies International","volume":"11 1","pages":"38 - 67"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-12-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48699664","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract:This paper examines Australian attitudes and decisions which undermined East Timorese self-determination between 1973 and 1979—beginning before the illegal Indonesian invasion in 1975 and ending in February 1979 at the commencement of Australian-Indonesian maritime boundary negotiations. During this period, key diplomats and politicians from both sides of Australian politics minimized, ignored, and overlooked human rights abuses in East Timor to advance Australian interests. This approach to East Timor was maintained for over two decades, but had been adapted from an earlier diplomatic blueprint established in the mid-1960s. The main Australian achievement from this approach was accessing East Timor's oil and gas reserves by a 1989 treaty with Jakarta. This was made possible by undermining the legal rights of the East Timorese and tacitly accepting the Indonesian occupation. In this period (1975–1979) around 84,200 Timorese from a pre-invasion population of 600,000–800,000 died as a direct or indirect consequence of the Indonesian invasion. By 1999, as many as 200,000 East Timorese had died since the 1975 invasion.
{"title":"\"Living with Ourselves\"—Australia and East Timorese Self-Determination, 1973–1979","authors":"A. Henry","doi":"10.3138/GSI.11.1.05","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3138/GSI.11.1.05","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This paper examines Australian attitudes and decisions which undermined East Timorese self-determination between 1973 and 1979—beginning before the illegal Indonesian invasion in 1975 and ending in February 1979 at the commencement of Australian-Indonesian maritime boundary negotiations. During this period, key diplomats and politicians from both sides of Australian politics minimized, ignored, and overlooked human rights abuses in East Timor to advance Australian interests. This approach to East Timor was maintained for over two decades, but had been adapted from an earlier diplomatic blueprint established in the mid-1960s. The main Australian achievement from this approach was accessing East Timor's oil and gas reserves by a 1989 treaty with Jakarta. This was made possible by undermining the legal rights of the East Timorese and tacitly accepting the Indonesian occupation. In this period (1975–1979) around 84,200 Timorese from a pre-invasion population of 600,000–800,000 died as a direct or indirect consequence of the Indonesian invasion. By 1999, as many as 200,000 East Timorese had died since the 1975 invasion.","PeriodicalId":40844,"journal":{"name":"Genocide Studies International","volume":"11 1","pages":"105 - 131"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-12-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.3138/GSI.11.1.05","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43786513","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Starvation has been used against populations throughout history. Siege warfare of course is partly a tactic of starvation, and settler genocides frequently used destruction of food sources as well as separation of indigenous peoples from food sources as a means of group destruction. Food deprivation was similarly an important tool in the execution of the Holocaust and, as we shall read, a central means of genocide in the Armenian case, the Ukraine Famine (Holodomor), and Cambodia. It is, of course, a primary method in Darfur and elsewhere in Sudan, where direct starvation has claimed many victims and malnutrition has weakened targeted groups and driven them into vulnerable positions that expose them to violence by Janjaweed forces as they search for food, firewood for cooking, etc. That food deprivation can be a means of genocide was clear to Raphael Lemkin and the framers of the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. It is a primary example of ‘‘deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part,’’ the third form of genocidal action identified in the convention’s definition of genocide. While food deprivation has received consideration in many works on particular genocides, it has only recently claimed broader and deeper theoretical consideration in its own right in the field of Genocide Studies. The concept of ‘‘genocide by attrition’’ that has emerged in the past decade manifests this increased attention on what might be termed ‘‘indirect’’ yet fully intentional methods of destroying a group, including, quite principally, starvation. Recent books such as Rhoda Howard-Hassmann’s State Food Crimes, which is reviewed in this issue, offer important new insights and research on the topic. In recognition of the increasing attention to the topic as well as the need for further research, the editors have devoted the current issue of Genocide Studies International to the role of starvation in genocide. This journal issue owes a special debt to the symposium ‘‘Starvation as a Political Tool from the Nineteenth to the Twenty-First Century,’’ which examined four case studies (the Irish Famine, the Armenian Genocide, the Ukrainian Holodomor, and genocide by attrition in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan) to shed light on the politics of starvation, examining methods, their effectiveness as instruments of government policy, and the devastating effects on target populations. The symposium, held at the University of Toronto on 22 October 2015, was co-organized by the International Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies and the Holodomor Research and Education Consortium (HREC) of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian
纵观历史，饥饿一直被用来对付人口。围攻战当然在一定程度上是一种饥饿策略，定居者的种族灭绝经常利用破坏食物来源以及将土著人民与食物来源分离作为群体毁灭的手段。同样，剥夺粮食也是执行大屠杀的一个重要工具，正如我们将读到的，它也是亚美尼亚事件、乌克兰饥荒(Holodomor)和柬埔寨种族灭绝的主要手段。当然，在达尔富尔和苏丹其他地方，这是一种主要的方法，在那里，直接饥饿夺去了许多受害者，营养不良削弱了目标群体，使他们处于脆弱的地位，使他们在寻找食物、柴火做饭等时，暴露在金戈威德部队的暴力之下。对拉斐尔·莱姆金(Raphael Lemkin)和《联合国防止及惩治灭绝种族罪公约》(UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of genocide Crime)的起草人来说，剥夺食物可以成为种族灭绝的一种手段是显而易见的。这是“故意对该群体施加生活条件，以导致其全部或部分肉体毁灭”的主要例子，是公约对种族灭绝的定义中确定的第三种形式的种族灭绝行动。虽然食物剥夺在许多关于特定种族灭绝的著作中得到了考虑，但直到最近才在种族灭绝研究领域要求对其本身进行更广泛和更深入的理论考虑。过去十年中出现的“消耗式种族灭绝”概念表明，人们越来越重视所谓的“间接”但完全是故意的消灭一个群体的方法，主要包括饥饿。最近的一些书，如罗达·霍华德·哈斯曼的《国家食品犯罪》，在本期中进行了回顾，为这个话题提供了重要的新见解和研究。认识到对这一主题的日益关注以及进一步研究的必要性，编辑们将本期《国际种族灭绝研究》专门讨论饥饿在种族灭绝中的作用。本期杂志特别感谢“从19世纪到21世纪作为政治工具的饥饿”专题讨论会，该专题研究了四个案例研究(爱尔兰饥荒、亚美尼亚种族灭绝、乌克兰大饥荒和苏丹努巴山地的消耗性种族灭绝)，以阐明饥饿的政治、研究方法、它们作为政府政策工具的有效性以及对目标人群的破坏性影响。研讨会于2015年10月22日在多伦多大学举行，由国际灭绝种族与人权研究所和加拿大乌克兰研究所的大屠杀研究与教育联盟共同组织
{"title":"Editors' Introduction: Starvation and Genocide","authors":"F. Sysyn, H. Theriault","doi":"10.3138/GSI.11.1.00","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3138/GSI.11.1.00","url":null,"abstract":"Starvation has been used against populations throughout history. Siege warfare of course is partly a tactic of starvation, and settler genocides frequently used destruction of food sources as well as separation of indigenous peoples from food sources as a means of group destruction. Food deprivation was similarly an important tool in the execution of the Holocaust and, as we shall read, a central means of genocide in the Armenian case, the Ukraine Famine (Holodomor), and Cambodia. It is, of course, a primary method in Darfur and elsewhere in Sudan, where direct starvation has claimed many victims and malnutrition has weakened targeted groups and driven them into vulnerable positions that expose them to violence by Janjaweed forces as they search for food, firewood for cooking, etc. That food deprivation can be a means of genocide was clear to Raphael Lemkin and the framers of the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. It is a primary example of ‘‘deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part,’’ the third form of genocidal action identified in the convention’s definition of genocide. While food deprivation has received consideration in many works on particular genocides, it has only recently claimed broader and deeper theoretical consideration in its own right in the field of Genocide Studies. The concept of ‘‘genocide by attrition’’ that has emerged in the past decade manifests this increased attention on what might be termed ‘‘indirect’’ yet fully intentional methods of destroying a group, including, quite principally, starvation. Recent books such as Rhoda Howard-Hassmann’s State Food Crimes, which is reviewed in this issue, offer important new insights and research on the topic. In recognition of the increasing attention to the topic as well as the need for further research, the editors have devoted the current issue of Genocide Studies International to the role of starvation in genocide. This journal issue owes a special debt to the symposium ‘‘Starvation as a Political Tool from the Nineteenth to the Twenty-First Century,’’ which examined four case studies (the Irish Famine, the Armenian Genocide, the Ukrainian Holodomor, and genocide by attrition in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan) to shed light on the politics of starvation, examining methods, their effectiveness as instruments of government policy, and the devastating effects on target populations. The symposium, held at the University of Toronto on 22 October 2015, was co-organized by the International Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies and the Holodomor Research and Education Consortium (HREC) of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian","PeriodicalId":40844,"journal":{"name":"Genocide Studies International","volume":"11 1","pages":"1 - 7"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-12-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45582570","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract:Over the last several decades, scholars have lamented the lack of a clear definition of genocide, and many have then proposed one of their own in an attempt to fill this gap. The majority of the definitions put forward, and the discomfort from which they arise, express an explicit or implicit attachment to essentialism, the assumption that the definition need reflect, in an unadulterated fashion, the objective reality out in the world. In other words, many take our failure to settle on a single definition of genocide across fields as a sign that we don't yet know what it is. We seem to want to know not so much what genocide means to us and how this construct might be more useful in our attempts to create a better world, but rather, what it really is at its core. In what follows, we will examine our ongoing attachment to essentialist understandings of genocide, some of the problems that arise as a result, how we have attempted to free ourselves from this approach, and how we might go further in doing so.
{"title":"Essentialist Thinking Underlying Definitions of Genocide","authors":"Lucas B. Mazur","doi":"10.3138/GSI.11.1.06","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3138/GSI.11.1.06","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Over the last several decades, scholars have lamented the lack of a clear definition of genocide, and many have then proposed one of their own in an attempt to fill this gap. The majority of the definitions put forward, and the discomfort from which they arise, express an explicit or implicit attachment to essentialism, the assumption that the definition need reflect, in an unadulterated fashion, the objective reality out in the world. In other words, many take our failure to settle on a single definition of genocide across fields as a sign that we don't yet know what it is. We seem to want to know not so much what genocide means to us and how this construct might be more useful in our attempts to create a better world, but rather, what it really is at its core. In what follows, we will examine our ongoing attachment to essentialist understandings of genocide, some of the problems that arise as a result, how we have attempted to free ourselves from this approach, and how we might go further in doing so.","PeriodicalId":40844,"journal":{"name":"Genocide Studies International","volume":"11 1","pages":"132 - 149"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-12-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47510729","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract:Food access and food production played a number of roles in the Cambodian genocide and revolution. I argue that these roles were driven by two "logics" of destruction. The first, genocidal logic, saw food access used as a weapon to destroy so-called counterrevolutionary "enemies" defined right from the start as permanently outside of and hostile to the revolution. The second, revolutionary logic, was grounded in two key ideological principles: the insistence that observing the "correct line" and proper "revolutionary consciousness" and "action" could overcome all obstacles to collectivization and communist modernization; and the critical, yet impossible, requirement that all members of the new revolutionary community only act from all and for all while eschewing any form of what the Khmer Rouge decried as "individualism." These rigidly enforced principles gave rise to a negative feedback loop between the Khmer Rouge's unworkable collectivist agricultural policy, policy failure, and an ever-increasing search for enemies supposedly threatening the survival of the Party and the revolution itself.
{"title":"Genocide, Revolution, and Starvation under the Khmer Rouge","authors":"Maureen S. Hiebert","doi":"10.3138/GSI.11.1.03","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3138/GSI.11.1.03","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Food access and food production played a number of roles in the Cambodian genocide and revolution. I argue that these roles were driven by two \"logics\" of destruction. The first, genocidal logic, saw food access used as a weapon to destroy so-called counterrevolutionary \"enemies\" defined right from the start as permanently outside of and hostile to the revolution. The second, revolutionary logic, was grounded in two key ideological principles: the insistence that observing the \"correct line\" and proper \"revolutionary consciousness\" and \"action\" could overcome all obstacles to collectivization and communist modernization; and the critical, yet impossible, requirement that all members of the new revolutionary community only act from all and for all while eschewing any form of what the Khmer Rouge decried as \"individualism.\" These rigidly enforced principles gave rise to a negative feedback loop between the Khmer Rouge's unworkable collectivist agricultural policy, policy failure, and an ever-increasing search for enemies supposedly threatening the survival of the Party and the revolution itself.","PeriodicalId":40844,"journal":{"name":"Genocide Studies International","volume":"11 1","pages":"68 - 86"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-12-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46242494","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2017-05-18DOI: 10.1515/9780822392361-006
L. Dwyer
{"title":"4. A Politics of Silences: Violence, Memory, and Treacherous Speech in Post-1965 Bali","authors":"L. Dwyer","doi":"10.1515/9780822392361-006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822392361-006","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":40844,"journal":{"name":"Genocide Studies International","volume":"11 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-05-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88167916","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Scott Straus, a sociologist at the University of Madison in Wisconsin, is well known to genocide scholars for his brilliant, theoretically ambitious, and empirically rich first book, The Order of Genocide. Race, Power, and War in Rwanda, on the mindset of perpetrators and the local dynamic of mass violence in Rwanda. His latest work, Making and Unmaking Nations, stays in sub-Saharan Africa and continues to inquire in to the genealogy of genocide, but does so in a rather different way. It shifts from local actors to national elites, provides in-depths comparisons of five countries, and eventually seeks an answer to the question of why genocide happens by, paradoxically, examining ‘‘why genocide does not happen.’’ (ix). This is an innovative contribution to the field. Straus’ comparative endeavor is not limited to cases of genocide—Rwanda, Darfur—but also draws attention to three countries—Senegal, Mali, Côte d’Ivoire— that at some point were at the brink of genocide but ultimately managed to avoid it. The five case studies consider a broad specter of possible factors for genocide— colonial baggage, political continuities and discontinuities since decolonization, economic growths and declines, demographic, social, and ethnic structures, and not least political and military interventions from outside. Eventually, however, Straus tells us that it is ideologies and ideas—or ‘‘founding narratives’’—and the way these inform the strategies, tactics, and decisions of political leaders that matter more than anything else. Founding narratives are, according to Straus, those mythically framed national ideologies that define who is in and who is out, or who rules and who is ruled—ideologies that establish hierarchies between primary and secondary citizens and juxtapose the ‘good,’ statesupporting part of the population and the ‘evil’ part that is blamed for undermining and destroying the state. While national ideologies of this sort may be encountered and inform violence in many states, including the ones examined in this book, the step towards genocide is taken only if the outsider-group is constructed as an ‘‘unwinnable collective identity category’’ (276) because it is perceived as ‘‘inherently dangerous’’ and ‘‘uncontrollable and uncontainable’’ (26, 33) so that cooperation or negotiation are no longer options. This was the case with the Tutsis, according to the ethnic imagery of the Hutus. The Tutsis were suspected of working to overthrow the Hutus and return to oppressing the Hutus as they had in the colonial and postcolonial past. And it is this construction of ideologies and their appropriation by political actors that lead, or do not lead, to genocide, as Straus asserts throughout the book, not only with regard to Rwanda. The political actors decide which narrative they appropriate and deploy, and how to adjust those narratives in order to perpetrate genocide or not. Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, and Senegal provide examples of rather different, in fact oppos
斯科特·斯特劳斯是威斯康辛州麦迪逊大学的社会学家，他的第一本书《种族灭绝的秩序》在研究种族灭绝的学者中很有名，这本书在理论上雄心勃勃，而且经验丰富。《卢旺达的种族、权力和战争》，关于卢旺达行凶者的心态和大规模暴力的当地动态。他的最新作品《建立与毁灭国家》(Making and Unmaking Nations)停留在撒哈拉以南的非洲，继续探究种族灭绝的谱系，但以一种相当不同的方式进行。它从地方行动者转向国家精英，提供了五个国家的深入比较，并最终通过检验“为什么种族灭绝没有发生”来寻找种族灭绝为什么发生的问题的答案，这是自相矛盾的。“这是对该领域的创新贡献。斯特劳斯的比较努力并不局限于种族灭绝的案例——卢旺达、达尔富尔——还引起了人们对三个国家——塞内加尔、马里、Côte科特迪瓦——的关注，这些国家一度处于种族灭绝的边缘，但最终成功避免了种族灭绝。这五个案例研究考虑了种族灭绝的可能因素——殖民包袱、非殖民化以来的政治连续性和不连续性、经济增长和衰退、人口、社会和种族结构，尤其是来自外部的政治和军事干预。然而，最终，斯特劳斯告诉我们，意识形态和理念——或“建国叙事”——以及它们为政治领导人的战略、战术和决策提供信息的方式比其他任何事情都重要。根据施特劳斯的说法，建国叙事是那些神话般的国家意识形态，定义了谁在谁不在，或者谁统治谁被统治——这些意识形态在初级公民和次级公民之间建立了等级制度，并将支持国家的“好”部分与被指责破坏和摧毁国家的“邪恶”部分并列在一起。虽然这种民族意识形态可能会在许多国家(包括本书所研究的国家)遇到并引发暴力，但只有当外部群体被构建为“无法获胜的集体认同类别”(276)时，才会采取种族灭绝的步骤，因为它被认为是“固有的危险”和“无法控制和无法遏制的”(26,33)，因此合作或谈判不再是选择。根据胡图族的民族形象，图西人就是这种情况。图西人被怀疑试图推翻胡图人，并像他们在殖民和后殖民时期那样重新压迫胡图人。正是意识形态的构建以及政治角色对意识形态的挪用导致了，或者没有导致，种族灭绝，正如施特劳斯在整本书中所断言的那样，不仅仅是卢旺达。政治行为者决定他们采用和部署哪种叙事，以及如何调整这些叙事，以实施或不实施种族灭绝。Côte科特迪瓦、马里和塞内加尔提供了相当不同的，实际上是相反的建国叙事的例子。例如，在2000年代和2010年至2011年期间，在Côte科特迪瓦发生了针对平民的大规模暴力事件，这可能与种族灭绝的发生有关，并植根于排外的民族主义意识形态，以及“该国南部和西部地区明确的反外国人、反北方人和反穆斯林情绪”(123)。然而Côte科特迪瓦并没有沉没
{"title":"Making and Unmaking Nations. War, Leadership, and Genocide in Modern Africa by Scott Straus (review)","authors":"Thomas Kühne","doi":"10.3138/GSI.10.2.07","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3138/GSI.10.2.07","url":null,"abstract":"Scott Straus, a sociologist at the University of Madison in Wisconsin, is well known to genocide scholars for his brilliant, theoretically ambitious, and empirically rich first book, The Order of Genocide. Race, Power, and War in Rwanda, on the mindset of perpetrators and the local dynamic of mass violence in Rwanda. His latest work, Making and Unmaking Nations, stays in sub-Saharan Africa and continues to inquire in to the genealogy of genocide, but does so in a rather different way. It shifts from local actors to national elites, provides in-depths comparisons of five countries, and eventually seeks an answer to the question of why genocide happens by, paradoxically, examining ‘‘why genocide does not happen.’’ (ix). This is an innovative contribution to the field. Straus’ comparative endeavor is not limited to cases of genocide—Rwanda, Darfur—but also draws attention to three countries—Senegal, Mali, Côte d’Ivoire— that at some point were at the brink of genocide but ultimately managed to avoid it. The five case studies consider a broad specter of possible factors for genocide— colonial baggage, political continuities and discontinuities since decolonization, economic growths and declines, demographic, social, and ethnic structures, and not least political and military interventions from outside. Eventually, however, Straus tells us that it is ideologies and ideas—or ‘‘founding narratives’’—and the way these inform the strategies, tactics, and decisions of political leaders that matter more than anything else. Founding narratives are, according to Straus, those mythically framed national ideologies that define who is in and who is out, or who rules and who is ruled—ideologies that establish hierarchies between primary and secondary citizens and juxtapose the ‘good,’ statesupporting part of the population and the ‘evil’ part that is blamed for undermining and destroying the state. While national ideologies of this sort may be encountered and inform violence in many states, including the ones examined in this book, the step towards genocide is taken only if the outsider-group is constructed as an ‘‘unwinnable collective identity category’’ (276) because it is perceived as ‘‘inherently dangerous’’ and ‘‘uncontrollable and uncontainable’’ (26, 33) so that cooperation or negotiation are no longer options. This was the case with the Tutsis, according to the ethnic imagery of the Hutus. The Tutsis were suspected of working to overthrow the Hutus and return to oppressing the Hutus as they had in the colonial and postcolonial past. And it is this construction of ideologies and their appropriation by political actors that lead, or do not lead, to genocide, as Straus asserts throughout the book, not only with regard to Rwanda. The political actors decide which narrative they appropriate and deploy, and how to adjust those narratives in order to perpetrate genocide or not. Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, and Senegal provide examples of rather different, in fact oppos","PeriodicalId":40844,"journal":{"name":"Genocide Studies International","volume":"10 1","pages":"251 - 253"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"69300237","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In this article, I examine legal, political, and cultural reasons behind the genocides in Iraq and Syria of 2007–2015, that decimated the Yezidi communities of Sinjar or Shingal (Şengal/Şingal/Şingar). It is typically argued that failures to prevent genocide occur due to imaginative deficits or fear of a military quagmire. However, I show that atrocities are quickly recognized and sanctioned in some cases, and that substantial resources in terms of international support, military assets, and political rhetoric have been generated in several cases in which groups were less threatened than the Yezidis. To explain the disparate responses to claims of imminent persecution or massacre, I develop the theory of the "Reverse CNN Effect," in which some tragedies do not receive the requisite attention of the mass media to mobilize action. The phenomenon extends beyond the media to the resolutions and reports of the United Nations and, at times, those of the US government.
{"title":"Why Was Benghazi \"Saved,\" but Sinjar Allowed to Be Lost?: New Failures of Genocide Prevention, 2007–2015","authors":"Hannibal Travis","doi":"10.3138/GSI.10.2.03","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3138/GSI.10.2.03","url":null,"abstract":"In this article, I examine legal, political, and cultural reasons behind the genocides in Iraq and Syria of 2007–2015, that decimated the Yezidi communities of Sinjar or Shingal (Şengal/Şingal/Şingar). It is typically argued that failures to prevent genocide occur due to imaginative deficits or fear of a military quagmire. However, I show that atrocities are quickly recognized and sanctioned in some cases, and that substantial resources in terms of international support, military assets, and political rhetoric have been generated in several cases in which groups were less threatened than the Yezidis. To explain the disparate responses to claims of imminent persecution or massacre, I develop the theory of the \"Reverse CNN Effect,\" in which some tragedies do not receive the requisite attention of the mass media to mobilize action. The phenomenon extends beyond the media to the resolutions and reports of the United Nations and, at times, those of the US government.","PeriodicalId":40844,"journal":{"name":"Genocide Studies International","volume":"10 1","pages":"139 - 182"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.3138/GSI.10.2.03","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"69300362","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In instances of widespread conflict and mass atrocities, socially prescribed and perpetuated gender roles often begin to dissolve alongside the rule of law and state institutions. Mass violence tears at the social fabric of the community and accepted norms of gendered behavior are suspended. Recent conflicts, including the genocide in Rwanda, have created a temporary space for the inclusion of women in previously restricted public spheres and capacities. Rwanda stands out as unique because these changes were not temporary. Following the end of the genocide, Rwanda's state organs, nongovernmental organizations, and community members did not close off these public spaces or advocate for the return of girls and women to pre-genocide gender structures and patriarchal practices. This paper will analyze Rwanda's gender mainstreaming and gender equality initiatives, identifying three influential factors, and make recommendations for the replication of Rwanda's success in other post-conflict countries.
{"title":"Reshaping Gender Norms in Post-Genocide Rwanda","authors":"Sara E. Brown","doi":"10.3138/GSI.10.2.06","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3138/GSI.10.2.06","url":null,"abstract":"In instances of widespread conflict and mass atrocities, socially prescribed and perpetuated gender roles often begin to dissolve alongside the rule of law and state institutions. Mass violence tears at the social fabric of the community and accepted norms of gendered behavior are suspended. Recent conflicts, including the genocide in Rwanda, have created a temporary space for the inclusion of women in previously restricted public spheres and capacities. Rwanda stands out as unique because these changes were not temporary. Following the end of the genocide, Rwanda's state organs, nongovernmental organizations, and community members did not close off these public spaces or advocate for the return of girls and women to pre-genocide gender structures and patriarchal practices. This paper will analyze Rwanda's gender mainstreaming and gender equality initiatives, identifying three influential factors, and make recommendations for the replication of Rwanda's success in other post-conflict countries.","PeriodicalId":40844,"journal":{"name":"Genocide Studies International","volume":"10 1","pages":"230 - 250"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"69300512","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The sixth issue of Genocide Studies International takes up the issue of non-state aspects of genocide. The editors originally conceived the topic as non-state actors and genocide, with the term ‘‘non-state actor’’ referring to non-governmental organizations and institutions; official and unofficial political organizations and groups; civic organizations; political and social movements; terrorist organizations; ‘‘deep state’’ networks; paramilitary or armed rebel groups; corporations; criminal organizations; educational, religious, spiritual, cultural, artistic, athletic institutions, organizations, and groups; and any other such entity that is not part of a national, regional, or local government or an international organization created by and comprised of state members, committing or complicit in genocide, bystanders to genocide, victims of genocide, interveners against genocide, or supporters of victims after genocide. GSI received excellent submissions within this range of issues, including a research note that considers the role of NGOs during the Rwanda Genocide and the functioning of the so-called Islamic State as a pseudo-state terrorist organization committing genocide in a war of conquest against various non-state minority groups, including the Yezidis, who have been relegated to the margins of twentieth and twenty-first century politics because of their non-state or low status even among minority groups. But, as we received submissions in response to the call for papers, it became clear to us that the term ‘‘non-state’’ is much more complex and far-reaching than we had previously considered, and refers not only to types of actors but also levels of impact and activity. This is demonstrated by a submission that is one of the first works to look at members of a post-genocide diaspora of perpetrator, rather than victim, group (Germany) and their role in Holocaust denial and identity construction, which is at variance with recognition of the genocide and contemporary notions of German identity in the home state. It then became apparent that even two manuscripts not originally intended for inclusion in this special issue are in fact of great relevance to non-state aspects of genocide. Contrary to the typical focus of victim group political self-advocacy, one of these highlights the means by which memory is transmitted across victim group generations in forms intentionally removed from state intrusion and control. The other sheds light on the complex and intricate process by which genocide has reshaped gender norms in Rwandan society, with both state and non-state forces being integral. With these varied articles in mind, the topic of this special issue evolved into ‘‘non-state aspects of genocide.’’ The first two articles in this issue, Fazil Moradi and Kjell Anderson’s ‘‘The Islamic State’s Êzı̂dı̂ Genocide in Iraq: The ‘Sinja #r Operations’ ’’ and Hannibal Travis’ ‘‘Why
{"title":"Introduction: Non-State Aspects of Genocide","authors":"H. Theriault, Hazel M. G. Cameron","doi":"10.3138/GSI.10.2.01","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3138/GSI.10.2.01","url":null,"abstract":"The sixth issue of Genocide Studies International takes up the issue of non-state aspects of genocide. The editors originally conceived the topic as non-state actors and genocide, with the term ‘‘non-state actor’’ referring to non-governmental organizations and institutions; official and unofficial political organizations and groups; civic organizations; political and social movements; terrorist organizations; ‘‘deep state’’ networks; paramilitary or armed rebel groups; corporations; criminal organizations; educational, religious, spiritual, cultural, artistic, athletic institutions, organizations, and groups; and any other such entity that is not part of a national, regional, or local government or an international organization created by and comprised of state members, committing or complicit in genocide, bystanders to genocide, victims of genocide, interveners against genocide, or supporters of victims after genocide. GSI received excellent submissions within this range of issues, including a research note that considers the role of NGOs during the Rwanda Genocide and the functioning of the so-called Islamic State as a pseudo-state terrorist organization committing genocide in a war of conquest against various non-state minority groups, including the Yezidis, who have been relegated to the margins of twentieth and twenty-first century politics because of their non-state or low status even among minority groups. But, as we received submissions in response to the call for papers, it became clear to us that the term ‘‘non-state’’ is much more complex and far-reaching than we had previously considered, and refers not only to types of actors but also levels of impact and activity. This is demonstrated by a submission that is one of the first works to look at members of a post-genocide diaspora of perpetrator, rather than victim, group (Germany) and their role in Holocaust denial and identity construction, which is at variance with recognition of the genocide and contemporary notions of German identity in the home state. It then became apparent that even two manuscripts not originally intended for inclusion in this special issue are in fact of great relevance to non-state aspects of genocide. Contrary to the typical focus of victim group political self-advocacy, one of these highlights the means by which memory is transmitted across victim group generations in forms intentionally removed from state intrusion and control. The other sheds light on the complex and intricate process by which genocide has reshaped gender norms in Rwandan society, with both state and non-state forces being integral. With these varied articles in mind, the topic of this special issue evolved into ‘‘non-state aspects of genocide.’’ The first two articles in this issue, Fazil Moradi and Kjell Anderson’s ‘‘The Islamic State’s Êzı̂dı̂ Genocide in Iraq: The ‘Sinja #r Operations’ ’’ and Hannibal Travis’ ‘‘Why","PeriodicalId":40844,"journal":{"name":"Genocide Studies International","volume":"10 1","pages":"115 - 120"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"69300339","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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