Like many of my colleagues, I would like to touch on some points that we briefly discussed in class today but that I feel were not fully addressed. The primary question that remains unanswered, for me, is the question of applying the term genocide to circumstances much different than that of the Holocaust. It is unlikely that there will ever again be such a paradigmatic example of a genocide. I say this not because I believe humanity's morality has evolved to preclude acts as atrocious as the Holocaust, but because modern forms of technology and communication might, and hopefully will, prevent genocide from occurring in such a systematic manner.
That said, phenomena and humanity evolve to suit shifting circumstances. Though genocide in the form of the Holocaust might never recur, there will almost undoubtedly be other instances of genocide. These instances will be experienced, perpetrated and interpreted in a manner distinct from the Holocaust and any other genocides before it. Because of this, in conjunction with the shifting nature of global relations and identity relations in the modern epoch, I think it is imperative that historians and political scientists decode genocide's constitutive features from outside the framework of the previous genocides. Many of the historians we have read thus far, including Naimark, have posited the question of understanding genocide without the Holocaust, and specifically, if it can be done. Though the Holocaust provides a valuable case study for humanity's potential for depravity in the form of genocide, I think it's essential that we understand genocide as a phenomena without relying on allusions to the Holocaust or other historical instances of genocide.
If we are to be able to identify genocide when we witness or experience it, despite its obscuration by globalism, capitalism, borders or any other complicating feature of modernity, then we need to look past the Holocaust and understand genocide in its own terms. As we discussed in class today, mass murder and cultural genocide can occur through the negligence of some and the intentional actions of others. The actors in these instances of genocide include governments, citizens, NGOs and corporations who rely on one another to fail to address genocidal acts (or, at the least, acts that share many characteristics acts of genocide) and hold those responsible accountable for their actions. Because of modernity's complicated web of interrelatedness, it is easier to lose track of who it is that is ethically responsible for preventing and addressing genocidal actions. If we do not even give ourselves a better understanding of genocide, so that we are able to transpose and reinterpret new occurrences of genocide in different circumstances, I do not believe we will stand a chance to identify, prevent or address genocides that will inevitably occur in our lifetime and after.
I agree with Rosemary that modern media has the capacity to prevent genocidal crimes from going as far as the Holocaust did, in the sense that public reactions abroad to these acts can influence the actions of political leaders responsible for genocide. I think that modern technology and the accessibility of information will also make historical accounts of past genocides more available to the public. This will lead to an understanding of history that can help prevent other genocidal acts from taking place. We need to understand, however, just what genocide is in order to prevent it from happening.
ReplyDeleteA strong emphasis on preventing cultural genocide should be added to the UN definition of genocide, in order to prevent acts that dehumanize or demean a group of people. This requires people to have an open mind when it comes to cultural differences, and this can come out of exposure to those cultures or at least access to information about them. Internet media such as Wikipedia and YouTube can help in this effort as well.
As Bergen points out, the Holocaust could not have taken place outside the context of WWII. Knowing that technological conditions that relay information to other parts of the work can be disabled or destroyed during times of war, and that these technologies are not permanent, it is hard to say that a genocide like the Holocaust could never occur again, but it seems likely that with the technology available, we can work to prevent these acts from happening by gathering support of the international community in order to stop them.
I also agree with both of the arguments made above, but I feel it is necessary to also talk about why it is so difficult for us to remove ourselves from the Holocaust when both recognizing and defining genocide. To me, it is an epic conundrum: we are unable to move past the Holocaust when speaking of genocide because it is the one concrete example we have until we learn to recognize other forms of genocide BUT there is the struggle to identify these other forms due to the constant comparison to the Holocaust. Not all genocides were and will be on the scale of the Holocaust, which is what makes recognizing them so difficult.
ReplyDeleteCompared to the megadeath of the Holocaust, and having that be the most commonly identified "definition" of genocide, all subtler forms of what may or may not constitute as genocide will be hard to distinguish. Yes, it is easy to detect symptoms of genocide when they are like those of the Holocaust because we have that example to go by. But as both Rosemary and Peter stated above, these crimes will never occur they way they did during WWII due to technology. So now one must look deeper into acts to define them as genocidal.
That being said, understanding genocide without the prime example of the Holocaust is a daunting task. Even Naimark is unable to remove it from his identification of the Armenian genocide - stating that it must be called a "genocide" because there was so much death - in a direct comparison to the Holocaust. Yet he also makes a point to say that we must take lessons from the Holocaust and apply them - when appropriate - to other situations. There was genocide without the Holocaust, but the current understanding will always incorporate it until different examples come to light.