The Board Room

The Dark Sides of Democracy and NationalismBeyond Genocides, Ethnic Cleansing and Civil Wars

DisclaimerThe contents of the upcoming slides may or may not agree and disagree with your political/ religious views.Viewer discretion is advised.Contents borrowed from works of writers like Weber, Milgram, et al.

An appeal to emotionsBatisha Hoxhas happily ever after story

What is Democracy?The Greek term demos in itself has 2 meaningsDemos- people, the ordinary people, commoners.Demos- people, the nation by itself, in contemporary terminology.Democracy in either ways is bound to define the rule by people, ie., the commoners or the nation by itself.

Ethnicity and NationalityEthnic Groups:Large groups of people classed according to common racial, national, tribal, religious, linguistic or cultural origin or background. Nation: A territorial division containing a body of people of one or more nationalities and usually characterized by a relatively large size and independent status

Nation- States and Ethnic CleansingNation- States:A form of political organization in which a group of people who share the same history, traditions or language live in a particular area under one government, a sovereign state; especially one containing one as opposed to many nationalities.Ethnic Cleansing:Cleansing an ethnic region off foreigners*Primitive? Ancient? Modern?

PerpetratorsIf the question would be as to who is the actual perpetrator- the nationalist masses or the authoritarian elites: the answer is, both!Are these perpetrators influenced rationally?Are they influenced emotionally?Or is it normativity that influences them?

Causal Human ActionsMax Weber (1978: I, 25) identified four main types of human action Instrumentally rational,Instrumentally habitualInstrumentally affectual (i.e., emotional) and value-rational. Instrumentally rational action.

DEHUMANIZATION This process implies that members of one group are dehumanized. They are likened to animals, vermin or disease.Why is dehumanization important? By dehumanizing a group, those planning genocide feel justified and the killing of the other group is not seen as murder. Dehumanization overcomes the normal human revulsion against murder.

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Types of KillersStanley Miller classifies genocidal killers into 9 types

Ideological KillersIdeological killers believed in the righteousness of murderous cleansing.Found especially among the higher ranks of perpetrators, they pursued. According to them, murderous means supposedly justified by higher goals. Such an ideology might resonate in certain contexts (like war) or in core constituencies like refugees who have already suffered at the hands of the out-group. Doctors and biologists in the early 20th century found biomedical models of ethnicity and race particularly attractive. But the most common ideological motive is to self-righteously justify killing as self-defense. The killer protests that he is really the victim.

Bigoted KillersBigoted killers are motivated by a more mundane ideology. Especially rank-and-file perpetrators share the casual prejudices of their place and time and so engage in what Weber called affectual (emotional) action. Jews, Muslims, and colonial natives evoked physical disgust from their killers. We all know bigoted people who in very different contexts might be led to condone mistreatment of disliked minorities especially if feeling threatened by them.

Violent KillersViolent killers are drawn to murder themselves. A few sadists experience. It was emotionally pleasurable. Far more feel themselves driven to it, experiencing violence as a release or freedom from emotional anxiety. Jack Katz (1988) has described the seductions of violent crime in the United States. He says murder is usually a highly emotional action. Most commonly a sense of threat leads to an all-enveloping sense of personal humiliation, followed by a self-righteous rage to expunge it.

Fearful KillersFearful killers feel credibly threatened, fearing harm to life or limb if they do not kill. These are physically coerced, sometimes reluctant killers. This motivation is instrumentally rational.

Careerist killersCareerist killers are employed in organizations involved in murderous cleansing. Their compliance with killing orders is perceived by them as materially advantageous, leading to greater career prospects or to worse prospects if they do not assist killing. This is more common in the more bureaucratized murderous cleansings.

Materialist killersMaterialist killers are lured by the prospect of direct economic gain by looting or taking the victims jobs, businesses, or property. Some are freed from prison, provided that they kill. These are also highly instrumental motives.

Disciplined killersDisciplined killers are caged within legitimate organizational authority, where noncompliance with orders is considered deviant. Less fear than the necessity of routine compliance with directives is at the forefront of their minds. People of all nationalities present, past, or future can be made conformists by pressure from above. They might become habitual killers in Webers sense.

Comradely killersComradely killers are caged into conformity by peer group pressure, especially by fear that the peer group might withdraw its emotional support. It evokes Webers affectual action. It is partly how Browning (1993) explained the mass murder committed by ordinary German policemen.

Bureaucratic killersBureaucratic killers are caged inside the bureaucracies of modernity.Their obedience is rather habitual, in Webers sense, produced by institutionalized routines trapping them into what Arendt (1965) famously termed the banality of evil institutionalized in modern societies.This is where Milgram fits best. Ordinary modern people can murder, say Baumann (1989) and Katz (1993). Bartov (1996) agrees, tracing the origins of the trap to the mechanized, rational and impersonal killing machine of World War I.

The Assyrian CaseAssyrians made the mistake of mistreating the Jews, whose chronicles became sacred texts of the worlds biggest religions. The books of Isaiah and Kings detail their atrocities, and their own bas-reliefs and inscriptions seem to confirm them. The successor Babylonian and Persian regimes were milder.

Religious Frontier CleansingThe Iberian Peninsula had been uniquely multi- religious in medieval Western Europe. All but a small northern enclave of the peninsula had been conquered by Islam in the 8th and 9th centuries, but the Islamic rulers tolerated religious minorities if they remained obedient and encouraged Jewish immigrants.There may have been more Jews in Spain than in the whole of the rest of Christian Europe. Then the Christian reconquista of the peninsula absorbed many Muslims (Moors) and Jews.

OrganizationThe genocide is organized. Hate groups are organized and militias are formed, trained and armed. Plans are made for the genocide. At this time propaganda institutions like newspapers and radios are strengthened and propaganda increases.

PolarizationPolarization is used to describe the way that extremists drive the two groups involved in genocide apart. The us versus them attitude is emphasized.At this time a new view is formed, if you are not with us, you are against us. Moderates (those in the middle) are called traitors and are persecuted. Some are even killed. It now becomes a kill or be killed situation.

PreparationPlans are made for the fast approaching genocide. Lists are drawn up of those who are to be killed. Trial massacres are conducted to give the murderers practice. If these massacres go ignored by the international community, genocide is ready to proceed.At this time an international force should be sent to intervene and humanitarian assistance should be organized for the inevitable tide of refugees.

DenialDuring and after every genocide the crime is denied by the perpetrators.Most say that the genocide was justified by claiming that the killings were part of a war or a repression of terrorism.The best response to denial is punishment by an international tribunal or national courts. There the evidence can be heard, and the perpetrators punished.

The Eight StagesDescriptive examples and citations for the eight stages of genocide.

Dr. Gregory StantonGenocide Watch

The Herero GenocideThe Herero Genocide occurred between 1904-1907 in current day Namibia. The Hereros were herdsmen who migrated to the region in the 17th and 18th centuries. After a German presence was established in the region in the 1800s, the Herero territory was taken as part of German South West Africa. A series of uprisings against German colonialists, from 19041907, led to the extermination of approximately four-fifths of the Herero population.After Herero soldiers attacked German farmers, German troops implemented a policy to eliminate all Hereros from the region, including women and children.

Genocide of Native AmericansGenocide of the Native Americans began in 1607 when England's Jamestown colonists arrived in present-day Virginia with instructions to "settle" the already heavily populated coastal area. Beginning in 1830, the U.S. undertook a policy of "removing" all native people from the area east of the Mississippi River. In the series of internments and thousand-mile forced marches which followed, entire groups of people were nearly obliterated. The Cherokees, for instance, suffered 50 percent fatalities during the "Trail of Tears"; the Choctaws, Chickasaws, Seminoles and Creeks, 25 to 35 percent apiece.

Genocide of African SlavesUnlike most twentieth-century cases of premeditated mass killing, the African slave trade was not undertaken by a single political force or military entity during the course of a few months or years. The transatlantic slave trade lasted for 400 years, from the 1450s to the 1860s, as a series of exchanges of captives reaching from the interior of sub-Saharan Africa to final purchasers in the Americas. It has been estimated that in the Atlantic slave trade, up to 12 million Africans were loaded and transported across the ocean under dreadful conditions. About 2 million victims died on the Atlantic voyage (the dreaded "Middle Passage") and in the first year in the Americas.

The Armenian GenocideThe Armenian Genocide was carried out by the "Young Turk" government of the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1918. Starting in April 1915, Armenians in the Ottoman armies, serving separately in unarmed labor battalions, were removed and murdered. Of the remaining population, the adult and teenage males were separated from the caravans and killed. Women and children were driven for months over mountains and desert, often raped, tortured, and mutilated. Deprived of food and water, they fell by the hundreds of thousands along the routes to the desert. Ultimately, more than half the Armenian population (1,500,000 people) was annihilated.

Understanding the genocidal process is one of the most important steps in preventing future genocides.The Eight Stages of Genocide were first outlined by Dr. Greg Stanton, Department of State: 1996. The first six stages are Early Warnings:ClassificationSymbolizationDehumanizationOrganizationPolarizationPreparation

The Eight Stages

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Stage 1: ClassificationUs versus themDistinguish by nationality, ethnicity, race, or religion. Bipolar societies (Rwanda) most likely to have genocide because no way for classifications to fade away through inter-marriage. Classification is a primary method of dividing society and creating a power struggle between groups.

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Classification (Rwanda)

Belgian colonialists believed Tutsis were a naturally superior nobility, descended from the Israelite tribe of Ham. The Rwandan royalty was Tutsi.Belgians distinguished between Hutus and Tutsis by nose size, height & eye type. Another indicator to distinguish Hutu farmers from Tutsi pastoralists was the number of cattle owned.

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Prevention: Classification

Promote common identities (national, religious, human.)

Use common languages (Swahili in Tanzania, science, music.)

Actively oppose racist and divisive politicians and parties.

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Stage 2: SymbolizationGiving names or other symbols to the classifications.Names: Jew, German, Hutu, TutsiDistinguished on the basis of color, dress etc.,Colors and religious symbols:Yellow star for JewsBlue checked scarf Eastern Zone in Cambodia

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Nazis required the yellow Star of David emblem to be worn by nearly all Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe by 1941.

Symbolization (Nazi Germany)

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Prevention: SymbolizationGet ethnic, religious, racial, and national identities removed from ID cards, passports.Protest imposition of marking symbols on targeted groups (yellow cloth on Hindus in Taliban Afghanistan).Powerful denial of symbolization.E.g. in Bulgaria, the govt. refused to supply enough yellow badges and at least 8% did not wear them.

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Stage 3: Dehumanization

Hate propaganda in speeches, print and on hate radios vilify the victim group.

Members of the victim group are described as animals, vermin, and diseases. Hate radio, television Libre des Mille Collines, during the Rwandan genocide in 1994, broadcast anti-Tutsi messages like kill the cockroaches and If this disease is not treated immediately, it will destroy all the Hutu.

Dehumanization invokes superiority of one group and inferiority of the other.

Dehumanization justifies murder by calling it ethnic cleansing, or purification. Such euphemisms hide the horror of mass murder.

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Kangura Newspaper, Rwanda: The Solution for Tutsi CockroachesDer Strmer Nazi Newspaper:The Blood Flows; The Jew GrinsDehumanization

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Prevention: DehumanizationProvide programs for tolerance to radio, TV, and newspapers.Enlist religious and political leaders to speak out and educate for tolerance.Organize inter-ethnic, interfaith, and inter-racial groups to work against hate and genocide.

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Genocide is a group crime, so must be organized.The state usually organizes, arms and financially supports the groups that conduct the genocidal massacres. (State organization is not a legal requirement --Indian partition.)Plans are made by elites for a final solution of genocidal killings.

Stage 4: Organization

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Organization (Rwanda)

Hutu Power elites armed youth militias called Interhamwe ("Those Who Stand Together).

The government and Hutu Power businessmen provided the militias with over 500,000 machetes and other arms and set up camps to train them to protect their villages by exterminating every Tutsi.

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Stage 5: Polarization

Laws were passed that forbade intermarriage or social interaction.Political moderates were silenced, threatened and intimidatedPublic demonstrations were organized against Jewish merchants. Moderate German dissenters were the first to be arrested and sent to concentration camps and killed.

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PolarizationAttacks are staged and blamed on targeted groups.In Germany, the Reichstag fire was blamed on Jewish Communists in 1933.Cultural centers of targeted groups are attacked. On Kristalnacht in 1938, hundreds of synagogues were burned.

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Stage 6: PreparationMembers of victim groups are forced to wear identifying symbols.Death lists are made. Victims are separated because of their ethnic or religious identity.

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Preparation

Forced Resettlement into Ghettos Poland 1939 - 1942Segregation into ghettoes was imposed, victims were forced into concentration camps.Victims were also deported to famine-struck regions for starvation..

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Preparation

Weapons for killing are stock-piled.Extermination camps are even built. This build- up of killing capacity is a major step towards actual genocide.

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Prevention: PreparationWith evidence of death lists, arms shipments, militia training, and trial massacres, a Genocide Alert should be declared.

UN Security Council should warn it will act (but only if it really will act.)Diplomats must warn potential perpetrators.

Humanitarian relief should be prepared.

Military intervention forces should be organized, including logistics and financing.

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Stage 7: Extermination (Genocide)

Einsatzgrupen: Nazi Killing SquadsExtermination begins, and becomes the mass killing legally called "genocide." Most genocide is committed by governments.

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Extermination (Genocide)

Government organized extermination of Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994

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Extermination (Genocide)

Roma (Gypsies) in a Nazi death campThe killing is extermination to the killers because they do not believe the victims are fully human. They are cleansing the society of impurities, disease, animals, vermin, cockroaches, or enemies.

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Extermination (Genocide)Although most genocide is sponsored and financed by the state, the armed forces often work with local militias.

Rwandan militia killing squads

Nazi killing squad working with local militia

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Extermination: Stopping GenocideRegional organizations, national governments, and the UN Security Council should impose targeted sanctions to undermine the economic viability of the perpetrator regime.Sales of oil and imports of gasoline should be stopped by blockade of ports and land routes.Perpetrators should be indicted by the International Criminal Court.

Extermination: Stopping GenocideThe UN Security Council should authorize armed intervention by regional military forces or by a UN force under Chapter Seven of the UN Charter.The Mandate must include protection of civilians and humanitarian workers and a No Fly Zone.The Rules of Engagement must be robust and include aggressive prevention of killing.The major military powers must provide leadership, logistics, airlift, communications, and financing.If the state where the genocide is underway will not permit entry, its UN membership should be suspended.

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Stage 8: DenialDenial is always found in genocide, both during it and after it.Continuing denial is among the surest indicators of further genocidal massacres.Denial extends the crime of genocide to future generations of the victims. It is a continuation of the intent to destroy the group. The tactics of denial are predictable.

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Denial: Deny the Evidence.Deny that there was any mass killing at all.

Question and minimize the statistics.

Block access to archives and witnesses.

Intimidate or kill eye-witnesses.

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Denial: Deny the EvidenceDestroy the evidence. (Burn the bodies and the archives, dig up and burn the mass graves, throw bodies in rivers or seas.)

Holocaust Death-Camp Crematoria

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Denial: Attack the truth-tellers.

Attack the motives of the truth-tellers. Say they are opposed to the religion, ethnicity, or nationality of the deniers.

Point out atrocities committed by people from the truth-tellers group. Imply they are morally disqualified to accuse the perpetrators.

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Denial: Deny Genocidal Intent.Claim that the deaths were inadvertent (due to famine, migration, or disease.)Blame out of control forces for the killings.Blame the deaths on ancient ethnic conflicts.

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Denial: Blame the Victims.Emphasize the strangeness of the victims. They are not like us. (savages, infidels)Claim they were disloyal insurgents in a war. Call it a civil war, not genocide.Claim that the deniers group also suffered huge losses in the war. The killings were in self-defense.

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Denial: Deny for current interests.Avoid upsetting the peace process. Look to the future, not to the past.Deny to assure benefits of relations with the perpetrators or their descendents. (oil, arms sales, alliances, military bases)Dont threaten humanitarian assistance to the victims, who are receiving good treatment. (Show the model Thereisenstadt IDP camp.)

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Denial: Deny facts that fit the legal definition of genocide.Theyre crimes against humanity, not genocide.Theyre ethnic cleansing, not genocide.Theres not enough proof of specific intent to destroy a group, as such. (Many survived!- UN Commission of Inquiry on Darfur.)Claim the only real genocides are like the Holocaust: in whole. (Ignore the in part in the Genocide Convention.)Claims declaring genocide would legally obligate us to intervene. (We dont want to intervene.)

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ConclusionKilling is condemnable.No means of killing is justified on the ultimate humanitarian level.Democratic and nationalistic reasons are no exceptions.

AnnexuresThe Man He Killed, by Thomas HardyFirst They Came, by Martin Niemller

The Man He Killed- Thomas HardyHad he and I but metBy some old ancient inn,We should have sat us down to wetRight many a nipperkin!But ranged as infantry,And staring face to face,I shot at him as he at me,And killed him in his place.I shot him dead because-Because he was my foe,Just so: my foe of course he was;Thats clear enough althoughHe thought hed list perhaps,Off- hand like- just as I-Was out of work- had sold his traps-No other reason why.Yes; quaint and curious was is!You shoot a fellow downYoud treat if met where any bar is,Or help to half a crown.

First They Came- Martin NiemllerFirst they came for the socialists, and I Did not speak out-Because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the communists and IDid not speak out-Because I was not a communist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out-Because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out-Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me- and thereWas no one left to speak for me.

Thank You