Learning from Harry Potter

            I, like many of those from my generation, grew up reading the Harry Potter series.  The series introduced me to many complex concepts that helped guide my understanding of the world throughout my childhood.  People often point to the important themes like dealing with death and doing what is right versus what is easy, but I would argue that Harry Potter also helped introduce me to the very difficult notion of genocide.  I do not know how old I was when I first started drawing connections between Voldemort’s persecution of muggle-borns and Hitler’s persecution of the Jews, but it is definitely a connection I discussed with other members of family.  Both Hitler and Voldemort focus obsessively on the notion of blood purity.  Just as the genealogy of Jews was very closely examined in Germany, the Ministry of Magic establishes a Muggle-Born Registration Commission, which relies heavily the atmosphere of fear and nepotism seen in Nazi Germany.  By confiscating muggle-borns’ wands, the Ministry prevented muggle-borns from being able to make a living in the magical world, similar to how Germans destroyed and boycotted Jewish owned shops.  Additionally, both muggle-borns and Jewish Germans were banned from the school systems.  Though Voldemort never implemented systematized mass-murder, reports of unprovoked deaths and disappearances of muggle-borns and their allies were frequent during Voldemort’s reign.  By introducing young audiences to these dark concepts, Rowling helps readers develop an understanding of the dangerous implications of systemized prejudice.  Voldemort is a very archetypal modern villain, resembling many of the authoritarian leaders of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.  In reading Harry Potter, children (hopefully) learn to judge people by the nature of their character and not the purity of their blood.  They also learn to recognize and protest the types of language and actions that can progress into full-blown genocide.  The Harry Potter series is an effective way to introduce young audiences to the concept of genocide, a concept that is essential to understand when studying the recent history of the world.  

Mexican-Americans in the United States

          Mexicans in the United States are often treated as second-class citizens, regardless of legal status.  Although I do not believe the treatment of this population qualifies as genocide, there are many comparable overlaps such as “us-and-them” rhetoric that describes Mexican immigration as a threat to our national identity, the use of Mexicans as scapegoats for poor economic conditions, and government enforced population displacement.

In his book, The Latino Threat, Constructing Immigrants, Citizens, and the Nation, Leo R. Chavez describes how Latino immigration is seen as a threat to the United States. Mexicans, he says, have become a “legally racialized ethnic group” through use of “labels that are socially and culturally constructed based on perceived innate or biological differences and imbued with meanings about relative social worth.”[1] Mexican immigrants are often stereotyped in public discourse as being uneducated, failing to assimilate, consuming public resources and taking jobs from deserving non-Latino Americans.

             The Mexican-U.S. boarder, which before 1848 was much further north than it is today, has created conflict around immigration policy between the two nations. Restrictions on Mexican immigration to the United States have fluctuated in the past. In the 1920s when the U.S. economy was booming, Mexican immigration was encouraged and “many employers, assisted at times by government-sponsored ‘bracero programs,’ recruited men” for labor.[2]  When the great depression hit attitudes changed drastically and the Mexican population was targeted as a scapegoat for the bad economy. “In a frenzy of anti-Mexican hysteria, wholesale punitive measures were proposed and undertaken by government officials at the federal, state, and local levels. Laws were passed depriving Mexicans of jobs in the public and private sectors. Immigration and deportation laws were enacted to restrict emigration and hasten the departure of those already here…[and] an incessant cry of ‘get rid of the Mexicans’ swept the country.”[3] Ultimately, over a million Mexican-Americans, (many of which were U.S. citizens) were forced to move out of the United States and “back” into Mexico in what is now known as the “Mexican Repatriation,” an event largely ignored or about forgotten today.

            Mexican culture is often targeted as an invading and threatening force within the United States. In the current republican presidential campaign, for example, many candidates have promised extreme anti-immigration programs including building a 35-foot double fence, employing thousands of Department of Homeland Security personnel to patrol the border, and use of an e-verify system that would allow employers to check on the legal status of job applicants.[4] Rapael Lemkin’s definition of genocide focuses on the destruction or attempted destruction of a culture. While Mexican culture persists in Mexico, it has been attacked within the United States. Arizona, for example, has recently banned ethnic studies programs, specifically ones teaching Mexican-American history.[5]

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[1] Chavez, Leo R. The Latino Threat: Constructing Immigrants, Citizens, and the Nation. Stanford, CA: Stanford UP, 2008. Print. (p. 24).

[2] Romero, Mary, Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo, and Vilma Ortiz. Challenging Fronteras. New York: Routledge, 1997. Print. (p. 116).

[3] Balderrama, Francisco E., and Raymond Rodriguez. Decade of Betrayal: Mexican Repatriation in the 1930s. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico, 1995. Print. (p. 1).

[4] Full Transcript: CNN Arizona Republican Presidential Debate Feb, 22, 2012." Ironic Surrealism. Web. 22 Feb. 2012. <http://ironicsurrealism.com/2012/02/23/full-transcript-cnn-arizona-republican-presidential-debate-feb-22-2012/>.

[5] 20, Gregory Rodriguez February. "Why Arizona Banned Ethnic Studies." Los Angeles Times. 20 Feb. 2012. Web. <http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-rodriguez-ethnic-studies-20120220%2C0%2C773799.column>.

The Importance of Cultural Heritage

Raphael Lemkin on genocide (in his own words - reproduced by A. Dirk Moses): “‘[M]ass-murder or extermination do not convey the elements of selection and do not indicate the losses in terms of culture represented by the nation’s victims.’”[1]  In other words, Lemkin’s definition of genocide focuses on the destruction of a culture rather than restricting the word to mass killings. 

To elaborate:  in A. Dirk Moses’ analysis, Lemkin believed that “[g]enocide could occur...when libraries, houses of religious worship, and other elite institutions of cultural transmission were destroyed, even if the mass of the population survived and continued some hybrid popular culture.”[2]  This can lead to potentially confusing conclusions - as Moses again reports, there were those who believed “it showed ‘a lack of logic and of a sense of proportion to include in the same [definition] both mass murder in gas chambers and the closing of libraries.’”[3]

Such a viewpoint as Lemkin's, especially when considered in the aforementioned context of human interest, can seem at best the product of a mind trapped in an ivory tower, and at worst grossly callous.  Holding such a viewpoint requires one to place utmost importance in the preservation of culture (as opposed to, potentially, human life).  This is perhaps an unfairly polarizing characterization – humans (when not committing genocide) surely ascribe at least slightly more value to the lives of others than to the preservation of a ‘culture.’  Don’t they? 

            Probably.  That does not mean, however, that an ‘average’ person does not ascribe importance to the protection of their cultural heritage. 

Consider recent and ongoing events in Afghanistan.  What the New York Times has reported as two NATO personnel burning approximately ten to fifteen copies of the Koran (allegedly sans knowledge of the act’s significance) has incited massive riots in Afghanistan with massive international implications.[4]  Official apologies from the highest levels (General John Allen of NATO and President Obama) have been issued for the burning.  Afghanistan’s stability is at stake. 

People are dying.[5] 

While it would be close-minded to attribute the explosive response solely to the sacrilegious Koran-burning (U.S.-Afghani relations weren’t particularly rosy before the incident), the tremendous popular reaction offers a strong argument against the implied criticism of Lemkin’s emphasis on the cultural aspect of genocide as ‘too academic.’  The average person - or at least the average Afghani - clearly cares about their cultural heritage and will go to great lengths to protect it if they feel it threatened.  Sometimes, as evidenced by the Afghanistan riots, said average person will prioritize the preservation of said heritage ahead of the preservation of their own life.  Which means Lemkin, in ascribing importance to culture in his definition of genocide, was far from an out-of-touch academic, but instead party to an impulse buried deep within the human soul.  He got it.  And, given the right set of circumstances, so, apparently, do we. 

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[1] A. Dirk Moses, “Raphael Lemkin, Culture, and the Concept of Genocide,”  in The Oxford Handbook of Genocide Studies, eds. Donald Bloxham and A. Dirk Moses (New York: Oxford University Press), 28, quoting “Memorandum from Raphael Lemkin to R. Kempner, 5 June 1946.  United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, R. Kempner Papers (RS 71.001). 

[2] Moses, 29. 

[3] Moses, 38, quoting Matthew Lippman, “The Drafting of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide’, Boston University International Law Journal 3:1 (1985), 45. 

[4] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/22/world/asia/nato-commander-apologizes-for-koran-disposal-in-afghanistan.html?pagewanted=2&sq=koran%20burning&st=cse&scp=5

[5] http://rendezvous.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/23/damage-control-again-in-afghanistan/?scp=1&sq=koran%20burning&st=cse

French Bill on Armenian Genocide

NY Times Article: French Council Strikes Down Bill on Armenian Genocide Denial

On February 28th, the French Constitutional Council struck down a bill that would have criminalized the act of denying that the Armenian genocide occurred, specifically by Ottoman Turks. The bill was backed by Nicolas Sarkozy, who vowed to resubmit the bill with different language. The opposition, by French and Turkish politicians, to the bill was that "the legislature did unconstitutional harm to the exercise of freedom of expression and communication.” This sequence of legal and political events brings up the issue of the importance of language when discussing genocide. Lawmakers across the political spectrum in France said that "it was not the place of the legislature to impose its own explanation for the hundreds of thousands of Armenian deaths that began in 1915, amid the chaos of World War I and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire."


One question is when did Turks begin this campaign of denial? Was the Ottman-Turkish public ever fully aware of the extent of the genocide committed against the Armenians? It would have been difficult for the Ottoman-Turks to know about the ethnic cleansing that took place, during WWI, at the time of the war because communication was not nearly as rapid and advanced as it is today. If this denial of the events that occurred began before communication technologies were advanced in these areas, it would be hard to suddenly change the mind of the people, who now have access to many sources on the internet that detail the facts of the Armenian genocide.


The accusation that it is not the place of the French lawmakers to dictate history is a fair one, but it is important to note that amongst historians and experts on the events in WWI the general consensus is that 1.5 million Armenians were systematically killed by Ottoman Turkish troops. Despite this fact, "Turkey maintains that no more than 500,000 Armenians died, with many of them victims of starvation or exposure, and not targeted killings." It is also important to recognize that historians and academics on the subject do not have much sway or power in influencing the beliefs of the general public and that it is admirable of France to try to get this genocide recognized out of respect and sympathy for the Armenian people.


Discussing genocide today and in the last half century has been different than in times before Lemkin because genocide was not an established, recognized academic term. Thinking about the horrific phenomenon of genocide is different when instances of it can be compared to each other and common patterns can be recognized to qualify these instances. Since the term has such strong connotations, the Turkish people are likely very hesitant to admit what happened to the Armenian people because they do not want themselves to be compared with the Nazi regime in Germany during WWII. When historic facts are disputed about the number of deaths and geopolitical intentions of these killings that is a serious case of denial. However, when the term genocide is one of the things that keeps the Turkish people from admitting what happened in Anatolia, that is a product of how the discussion about genocide has changed in the discussion on it today because of the terminology.

Bullying in Japan: "Discrimination in a Homogenous Society"

     After our discussion in class today, I found an article on bullying in Japan among school-age children and how sociologists use the homogenous society of the country to examine a different set of interactions. Unlike the United States and most of Europe as well, the population of Japan is almost completely made up of native people without any other ethnic, lingual, or cultural backgrounds. While the genocides that we have studied thus far have centered around one ethnic group targeting another, usually a minority, there are no such groups in the hallways of Japanese schools. Yet children still manage to find differences among one another and use them to exert power and authority over victims.
      The author of the article, Charlie Atsushi Inoue, identifies the main characteristics of bullying in Japanese schools. First, Inoue cites the conditions of when academic pressure is at its highest. The social structure that surrounds Japanese school-age children is one of intense competition where value is measured by success. In this sense, looking at Dadrian's argument of the local analysis as being key to understanding the dynamic of a people is applicable because the society of Japan is an individual one that would be lost in a both a macro and microhistorical viewpoint. However, Atsushi Inoue also refers to the home life and family of both victim and bully as being triggers for their behavior, which goes against Dadrian's dismissal of personal psychoanalysis of those involved in genocide as a window into why it occurs. Perhaps the combination of these two different lenses provides the best viewpoint in the case of the Japanese.
         Atsushi Inoue then identifies the victims as transfer students that are targeted before they can fully integrate into the new school system. He argues that the ethnic diversity of the US makes it far more accepting of outsiders, and that bullying is usually restricted to group-on-group of differently identifying people, whereas in Japan, those who are considered different do not have that other group to identify with because of the homogenous setting. Thus, the bullying is more group-on-individual. It is interesting how this relates so intensely to Dadrian's point of minorities being vulnerable in multiple ways, mostly because they do not have a home country to stand behind them. In the case of the Japanese, they all have the same background but the transfer students Atsushi Inoue sees as the common victims do not have the stability of the school life. They are the vulnerable minority in the homogenous setting.

http://educationinjapan.wordpress.com/education-system-in-japan-general/our-children-are-being-bullied/bullying-behavior-in-japanese-schoolsdiscrimination-in-a-homogeneous-society/

Why, Hillary, Why?

New York State senator Hillary Clinton has recently referred to the Armenian genocide as a matter of "historical debate," sparking protest from both the Armenian National Committee of America and the lead authors of the Armenian Genocide Resolution, Adam Schiff and Robert Dold. Having been presented with irrefutable evidence that a genocide did indeed occur, I was shocked and ashamed to discover that such a widely- regarded representative of our government was so ignorant of the facts. 

However, it did prompt me to wonder about how the American population views the Armenian genocide (if they do at all). Thinking back to my high school days, I realized that I had never, in any of my history classes, heard mention of an Armenian genocide. What little I had known about it before this class had been gleaned from non-reliable sources such as Wikipedia. As someone who has had access to a good education, it stands to reason that I knew more about the genocide than the average American.

This lack of knowledge is significant because it corresponds to our government's reluctance to officially acknowledge the Armenian genocide, which both dishonors the memory of the survivors and encourages the Turkish government to continue their campaign of denial. It also prevents the American public from learning about and developing interest in the drive for official United States recognition of the genocide, which has been promised by Presidents Clinton and Obama but never delivered. 

The motivations for the US government's refusal to acknowledge the Armenian situation as a genocide  brings to mind an argument presented by Mark Levene in his article, "Why Is the Twentieth Century the Century of Genocide?" Levene claims that powerful states act within their own interests when it comes to preventing a genocide or recognizing that one has occurred. Turkey is a powerful ally due to its proximity to the unstable Middle East, and the Turkish government has actually threatened the safety of American troops if the Armenian Genocide Resolution is passed. 

The United States government's reasoning is not outrageous, but nor is it ethical. There will never be a "good time" to pass the resolution, and the longer it takes, the less information circulates through the American public,  and the less likely it is to happen at all. 

Concerns of Authoritarianism in Macedonia, EU Membership, and Dadrian's Comparative Aspects of Genocide

A New York Times article from October 2011, Concerns Grow About Authoritarianism in Macedonia, explores recent developments in the country’s ongoing search for identity and stability since its independence from the former Yugoslavia in 1991. In the article, published the same week the European commission released its report concerning the country’s progress toward EU membership, journalist Matthew Brunwasser calls attention to a rise in Macedonian nationalism through reconstruction of historical pride and increased modernization through growing businesses: statues of Alexander the Great and shopping centers popping up throughout nation.

The author addresses domestic and international unease about growing authoritarianism in the region describing the increasing power of a patriotic, right-winged political party, the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization. He highlights a decline in press freedoms, an increase in political influence and intimidation in media, as well as increase pressure from political parties on governmental judges. Brunwasser also reports growing inter-ethnic tensions in the last five years leading to an increased alienation of the Albanian minority.

In a report from August 2011 the International Crisis Group (“working to prevent conflict worldwide”) summarizes concerns Brunwasser is reportning on: “worrying trends—rising ethnic Macedonian nationalism, state capture by the prime minister and his party, decline in media and judicial independence, increased segregation in schools and slow decentralization—risk undermining the multi-ethnic civil state Macedonia can become.”

To me, the domestic and international criticisms of conditions in Macedonia mentioned in this article relate strongly to the comparative sociohistorical genocidal threads that we discussed today from the Dadrian article. In these recent reports of the state can see a national search for identity, a growth in national pride, memories of past greatness, a push to modernize, an increase in central government’s grip on democratic freedoms, political party abuse, and a historically vulnerable minority. The concerns noted in this article made by groups such as the International Crisis Group and the European Commission highlight the presence of larger international organizations that exist to recognize patterns telling of instability/fragility today. With the creation of the European Union, Europe is obviously more of a politically and economically interconnected and codependent place than it was in the context of the two world wars that we have been discussing so far. These international changes become noticeable when simultaneously considering criticism of current conditions in Macedonia and the fragile conditions we are historically examining in 1914 Turkey and Nazi Germany. This article can help to highlight the continuing question of extent of intervention of outside groups, and the role of economic/political interconnectedness in possibly preventing potential escalation, oppressive authoritarian regimes, or tragedy.

NYT Article: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/14/world/europe/concerns-grow-about-authoritarianism-in-macedonia.html?pagewanted=1&ref=macedonia 

International Crisis Group: http://www.crisisgroup.org/~/media/Files/europe/balkans/macedonia/212%20Macedonia%20---%20Ten%20Years%20after%20the%20Conflict.pdf

Acquittal after revisiting Franco's Spain

Yesterday, Baltasar Garzon, a Spanish judge and well-known human rights activist who previously issued a warrant resulting in the 1998 arrest of Chilean president and alleged human rights violator Augusto Pinochet in London, was acquitted in a 6-1 vote regarding a breach of power.  He was accused of violating a 1977 amnesty law by investigating crimes against humanity in his home country that had taken place during the Spanish Civil War and the following fascist dictatorship of Francisco Franco between 1936 and 1975.
While gaining support as "a champion of human rights" from the left, two right-wing groups called Clean Hands and Liberty and Identity accuse Garzon of reopening wounds, which the groups claim that Spaniards, regardless of political beliefs, "had totally recovered from".  The main critique of the right is that the 1977 amnesty law was created "to allow Spain to forget the alleged crimes of that era and move on", which Garzon had done the opposite of in 2008 by deciding to begin his investigation, which included the excavation of mass graves.  In response to the rights allegations, Garzon says "crimes against humanity should not be subject to an amnesty" and treated separately.  However, in an unrelated case still damaging Garzon, he received a suspension of 11 years after being convicted of illegal phonetapping and is currently facing bribery charges.
The civil war saw "the disappearance of tens of thousands of people" while Franco's government continued these atrocities during his reign, which included the oppression of all cultures he did not feel were Spanish.  One of the more radical examples of Franco's attempts to create an absolutely united Spain was the prohibition of all languages other than Spanish, which, had it been continued, could have resulted in the complete loss of the Basque language.  He also was responsible for many laws aimed at wiping out the cultures of minorities in Spain.
The support from the right reminds me of the absolute denial of the Turkish government regarding the atrocities of Anatolia.  As Ronald Suny states, the "Turkish parliament responded witha joint declaration signed by all parties denouncing the French bill" recognizing the genocide as a genocide "as motivated by domestically political concerns and predicting that it would harm...prospects for normalization of relations between" Turkey and Armenia.  While Garzon's situation doesn't face the same international problems, the refusal by those politically allied with the regime that had committed the atrocities to revisit or reexamine them is similar.  Those being blamed accuse the allegations against them as being politically motivated, but their claims of denial can also be seen in the same light.  Although the right claims that Spain has recovered from Franco's dictatorship, Garzon's acquittal saw rejoicing from the victims' relatives, showing that the country has not yet truly recovered.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17176638

Censoring Genocide Denial?

The atrocity of the Armenian genocide continues to impact the world today because of the ongoing struggle of the Armenians to have the genocide recognized globally. Turkey denies the incident and avoids apologizing for it. Ongoing debates concerning the recognition of this genocide by powers such as the US are extensive with strong arguments from both sides. The crucial point of controversy is Turkey's role as an ally and the negative consequences such a recognition might have.

One nation that boldly recognized the event and ignored possible fears of alienating Turkey is France. France has gone beyond simply recognizing the genocide and has attempted to curtail denial of the event. Recently, its legislature passed a bill criminalizing the denial of the Armenian genocide. The bill imposes a fine and a one year prison sentence on anyone denying officially recognized genocides. France already has criminalized denial of the Holocaust. This bill has expanded the crime to include all official genocides, which to France are the Holocaust and Armenian killings.

Although Turkey's denial of the Armenian genocide may be unfounded, does such reasoning allow those who deny it to be persecuted? As opponents to this bill in France have pointed out, this is clearly a violation of freedom of speech. It is essentially arresting people who speak in opposition to the government's policies. This is a form of censorship and an attempt to eliminate an unsightly or bothersome opinion. Such a precedent is dangerous because it implies that that state, France, has the ability to regulate speech and the discussion of ideas. Although France may be trying to right a situation they perceive as wrong, they are violating basic rights of speech to accomplish this.

Most historians outside of Turkey will rightfully attribute the Armenian genocide to Turkey; however, those who deny it should be immune from persecution. Typically, speech is permissible even when it dissents from the majority or the government, even if the speech may be incorrect. One may expound that the Earth is flat, but avoid imprisonment from the state even if such a statement is false. France is truly being ironic in this legislation. It is attempting to protect the historical rights of the Armenians, but infringes the rights of others at the same time.

Read about the legislation briefly here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/24/world/europe/french-senate-passes-genocide-bill-angering-turks.html

The NYPD makes me nervous

Human Rights Watch released this report yesterday (http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/02/27/new-york-investigate-police-surveillance-muslims) entitled "New York: Investigate Police Surveillance of Muslims". The report documents how in 2007 the New York City Police Department infiltrated and spied on mosques, Muslim student groups, and businesses owned or visited by Muslims, without any warrant or probable cause. Furthermore, after the NYPD created databases documenting where the Muslim citizens of New York lived, ate, prayed, and shopped, they found no evidence of any criminal or suspicion activity. However, the New York State Attorney General won't investigate this blatant abuse of power by the NYPD due to unexplained "legal and investigative obstacles."

Why should this make us very nervous? To start, this report should remind us that minority communities in America continue to be targeted by our government. But in the context of this class, the fact that officers dressed in plainclothes were targeting minority communities of New York based solely on their religion, should raise come serious alarm. The United States government has a history of perpetrating genocide and ethnic cleansing against American citizens based on their race, ethnicity, or religion. It also has a history of enacting violence against Muslim communities all over the world. Detaining entire minority populations, such as the Japanese internment camps, has also been a tool the US government has used. When viewed in the context of the US' genocidal past, NYPD illegally spying on and tracking a minority community should make us very, very nervous.

Furthermore, we should worry about the context in which this breach of privacy and civil liberties took place, especially if we've learned anything from Winter or Bartov. The US is becoming increasingly more worried about the "situations" in the Middle East, West Asia, and North Africa. Not only are our various "wars" (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Terror) backfiring in horrific ways, but our nuclear-chicken game with Iran becoming increasingly awkward and heated. The US is also extremely worried about a possible "Shia uprising" between a defiant Iran, a revolting Syria and an unstable Bahrain. Though I don't think "Total War" will erupt, the US will go to any lengths to secure its global hegemonic primacy in the international community, and that means not only completely dominating the global oil market but controlling the various Middle Eastern and African leaders who keep oil flowing. Under these pretenses, and coupled with the already fear-mongering propaganda the US government has spread about Muslim people, I fear that the US has created a lot of excuses for itself to justify illegal and  violent action toward American Muslim communities.

Finally, the complete lack of accountability or even acknowledgement of wrongdoing by Bloomberg and the New York Attorney General should remind us that if the US government decides you are on the wrong side you will not be allowed access to the democratic systems that others of us in the US enjoy. Essentially, when our government decides to enact violence of any kind in the name of "war" or "national security",  those who are targeted are pushed outside of democracy and are not allowed access to justice.

When to Use "Genocide"

David Scheffer, a law professor at Northwestern and the U.S. ambassador at large for war crimes issues between 1997 and 2001, recently wrote an op-ed in the New York Times about the use of the term "genocide." He argued that it should be left to historians and jurists to declare what was and wasn't genocide, as politics make things too messy. What he wants, instead, is for governments to use the terms "atrocity crimes" until the label has been decided one way or the other.

Scheffer brings up the Holocaust, the Armenian genocide, Darfur, Rwanda, the Balkans and Syria to emphasize his point, referring to 'genocide' as defined by the 1948 Genocide Convention. He points out the fact that in some cases, so much time was spent deliberating about whether the events constituted a genocide or not, that foreign aid didn't come quickly enough. If these governments labeled them as 'atrocity crimes,' went and helped, and then decided what it was in the aftermath, we wouldn't be running into these problems.

However, I disagreed with his argument about using the term loosely. He implied that calling the Armenian atrocity crimes a genocide was slapping the label around, and that to do such a thing would be "tragically ineffective or self-defeating." His argument that it would intimidate powerful nations from helping quickly to stop atrocities I found to be ineffective. I believe that the nature of calling something a genocide would instigate people to help, because the term connotes such horrors and monstrosities. I also believe that genocide is absolutely involved in the world of politics, as is evidenced in the fact that it was the government itself that committed these atrocious acts in several examples (the Young Turks against the Armenians, the Nazis against the Jews, Gypsies, etc). Scheffer's decision to leave it to historians and jurists strikes me as counter intuitive, considering the fact that historians might not come back to this event for a while. The deliberations of the government are relevant and important for the recognition of such crimes. It makes the events seem irrelevant if the government, seen as such a big and important factor for so many people, neglect to have anything to do with the issues at hand. As we saw in the documentaries, it's up to the governments to recognize the Armenian genocide and acknowledge that this occurred. Otherwise, these people have no sense of validation. The dehumanization process doesn't end.

I don't deny the fact that getting "unified international responses to ongoing massacres" is important. I just think that Scheffer's solution isn't necessarily the right one, and that his idea of leaving politics out of an inherently political event is a little counterintuitive.

Article: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/24/opinion/defuse-the-lexicon-of-slaughter.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=prejudice&st=cse

feeling turkish

The Betrayed offered a disconcerting glimpse of what Turkish national representatives and regular citizens alike know/believe/understand about the Armenian genocide. Has the state succeeded in historical erasure? How guilty/complicit are those who knew it was taking place but did nothing? How does this socio-cultural policy of denial make Turkey and Turkish people appear to rest of the world?

The Black Power Mixtape: 1967-1975 self-identifies not as the complete history of the black power movement, but of how the movement was observed and understood by two Swedish filmmakers.
By demonstrating the extent to which our country has intentionally crippled African Americans, The Black Power Mixtape is helpful in dispelling the narrator's (and as a result most viewers') naivete and assumptions of righteous innocence.

J. Edgar Hoover spearheaded the FBI's campaign of political genocide against the panther party and other radicals under auspices of COINTELPRO. In addition to murdering and locking up many of that generation's most prominent thinkers and leaders, the FBI also targeted non-violent social programs whose only subversive agenda was for black people in america to be healthy and survive. For example, The Black Panther Party's free breakfast program (for children mostly), was admitted to be considered the greatest threat to national security.

I think the Feds perceived the panthers as the vanguards of a broader, somewhat marxian struggle. As a result, they assassinated particularly threatening individuals, and threw figurative small-pox blankets to the  wider, low-income, black populous. First with heroin, then crack, our government divided and conquered some of its most vulnerable communities by establishing violent, underground economies. This is in the context of American deindustrialization, within which working/middle class Black people were being laid off across the country. Times have changed, but the federal government's treatment of African Americans in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries resemble its treatment of indigenous Americans in earlier centuries. Think of projects as reservations/food-aid (controlling lifeways & forcing dependency); Cultural/spiritual violence vis a vis alcohol&disease/heroin&crack; death by murder.

Even with the 'proof' of government documents, many people perceive my words as bottom-shelf conspiracy theory. In this sense, I associate Americans and Turkish people: both countries have recent (or contemporary) histories of severe ethnic cleansing -- in each, those who acknowledge and study their state's behavior are marginal and relatively few. If you were weirded out by Turkish people's ignorance of the Armenian genocide and are unfamiliar with America's war(s) on people of color, I very seriously recommend The Black Power Mixtape.

Gentrification and Cultural Genocide

            Last semester, I took a seminar on the 1970s in the United States. During that seminar we read a book called The Invention of Brownstone Brooklyn: Gentrification and the Search for Authenticity in Postwar New York. When I was trying to think about something relevant to write concerning genocide, this book immediately came to mind because of Raphael Lemkin’s definition of cultural genocide, and how that can be equally as damaging as the physical genocide of a people.

            In gentrification, better well-off people begin moving into poorer areas, cleaning up houses, starting new businesses, and overall overhauling the image and state of the area to be “better” than it was. However, in this process, the poorer population that lives in those areas is often slowly pushed out to make more room for a wealthier population that will keep the place “nicer”.  In the process of gentrification, it is not uncommon for the poor population of a neighborhood to be completely pushed out of an area because of rising house prices, etc. because of the influence of their new, wealthier neighbors and what they have done to improve the houses, the streets, etc. Additionally, both in trying to reinvigorate the area and in sometimes literally pushing the residents out of the area, I think that in some ways Lemkin’s definition of cultural genocide can be applied.

            Obviously, looking at the gentrification of a neighborhood such as Brooklyn is not the same as looking at the dynamics of a whole country. However, I think it is relevant because gentrification is something that a lot of people generally see as positive or don’t think about either way (though I know some disagree), but I do not think that those people think about the culture that was there before the wealthier people arrived and what could be gained from preserving part or all of that culture that had been created.

            I see gentrification, and specifically the gentrification of Brooklyn beginning in the 1970s, as a microcosm of cultural genocide. One group (poorer persons) lived somewhere, and then another group (wealthier persons) moved in, wiped away anything they saw as unsavory and imposed what they thought a neighborhood should be like on top of that, effectively overpowering the culture that was there before and in many cases causing it to be lost entirely.

            One could possibly argue some kind of stance about what pushing the original residents out of gentrifying areas is, but I don’t think that it is ethnic cleansing or anything like that because the people moving in generally do not have the intention of pushing out the residents, but it ends up happening extremely often because when they improve houses and streets, they raise house values, which raises taxes, and makes it more difficult for the poor to stay. I would say that gentrification ‘cleanses’ the neighborhood of unsavory aspects, but really as a byproduct of what the new residents’ goals are – making an area better and more suitable for themselves.

Mass Incarceration as Genocide: Re-Framing the P.I.C.

   I missed class on Tuesday, February 14th in order to attend Confronting the Carceral State II: Activists, Scholars, and the Exonerated Speak - A Symposium. Within the discipline of African American studies, many recognize the trajectory of state violence against black people over the past several centuries as a singular, fluid genocide project. One specific mantra presented at the panel testifies to this idea: "mass incarceration + silence = genocide". In my experience, many Americans are unwilling or unable to recognize the truth of that statement, and how it informs our national legacy in the present and future.

   In Raphael Lemkin, Culture, and the Concept of Genocide, Dirk Moses reconciles misconceptions associated with genocide by exploring its taxonomy. Raphael Lemkin coined the term carefully and intentionally, writing in 1946 that genocide is, "the criminal intent to destroy or cripple permanantly a human group," (p.21) The important point here, is that, contrary to popular to belief, genocide is not synonymous with mass murder; although genocide and mass-murder have historically often accompanied each other, the terms are categorically different.  Military-style policing, mass-incarceration, and corporate media representations of crime/criminality coalesce in a genocide project disguised in racist appeals to law and order. Moses cites Lemkin, "Obviously throughout history we have witnessed the decline of nations and races. We will meet this phenomenon in the future too, but there is an entirely different situation when nations or races fade away after having exhausted their spiritual and physical energies, and there is a different contingency when they are murdered on the highway of world history. Dying of age or disease is a disaster but genocide is a crime," (p.28) The dark irony at work here is that mass incarceration - one of the largest scale crimes in U.S. history - operates under the pretense of justice itself. Conference panelist Dr. Khalil Muhammad calls this process the construction of crime.

   In a presentation entitled Occupied Blackness: Urban Policing and the Inevitability of Stop and Frisk, Muhammad discusses how, within the "pyramid of the prison industrial complex" every individual's imprisonment began with an individual police interaction; moreover, most stop-and-frisks are provoked not by crime, but by "bad attitude" on the part of the colonized. Muhammed's point is that in general, poor, black and brown people are being sent to prison not for breaking a law, but because incarceration is the law; once again this is entirely identity driven.

   Lieberman's piece, "Ethnic Cleansing Versus Genocide" simultaneously supports genocidal interpretations of the U.S. prison state, and introduces the geographical imperatives which define a pattern as ethnic cleansing. The configuration of the prison industrial complex displaces young men of color from their homes and communities, to spaces of grouped isolation. This speaks to elements of ethnic cleansing which go deeper than simplistic notions of genocide as extermination. In this context, Lieberman describes how ethnicity, "may also refer broadly to a group seen as possessing a different and distinct identity from others," (p.44) In this sense, American youth of color are marked with an inherent criminality which justifies (or at least explains) mass incarceration in the public's eye.

   President Ronald Reagan declared the war on drugs against American citizens recently enough that the first wave of people locked up are still alive, and getting older. As more and more generations pass through prison gates, hopefully the genocide taking place right now all over the U.S. will be popularly acknowledged for what it is.

Obedience & Basketball

            On February 24, 2010 in Carmel, Indiana John Williams, principal of Carmel High School, and Carmel Police Chief Michael Fogarty held a press conference to discuss an incident that occurred on a school bus following a Carmel High School basketball game. On the bus ride home from a game on January 22, an event categorized by most local media outlets as “bullying” or “hazing” occurred. The initial reaction by the student body, staff, sports teams and parents was a reflection of the deep roots of obedience in the high school’s sports mentality. The abuse, which was of a sexual nature, was targeted at a freshman on the third-string basketball team by three senior members of the varsity team.

            One CHS teacher, who preferred to remain anonymous, spoke out to the press to acknowledge the systematic character with which bullying was part of the athletic team atmosphere, “It’s creating an atmosphere of mistrust between the student body and the administration… This only came to light through back channels and when it did – if the rumors are anything close to true [the two students] don’t feel like they will be represented and protected.” This comment elucidates on the general atmosphere of secrecy concerning the situation. Not only were administrators hesitant to condemn the students who perpetrated the crimes, but also members of the basketball team were unwilling to discuss or express even general concern about the incident. 

Because there was limited information about the incident due to what served as an effective order of silence on basketball team members given by coaches, it was difficult to understand exactly what occurred on that school bus. In the broader perspective, though, this proved to be the less important issue. In the process of gathering information for the newspaper article I was writing about the incident for the HiLite, the Carmel High School newspaper, I understood just how important allegiance to the team was for members of the basketball team. Due to conditioning on the part of senior members of the team, even the victim’s peers were unwilling to discuss the events that occurred or condemn the actions of the three senior members of the team in defense of the victim throughout the police and media investigation into the event.

Only after all of the information regarding the incident was processed and the students responsible for the hazing were incarcerated and expelled from school were parents, team members and the administration willing to condemn the events that occurred. There is a clear parallel to be drawn between this incident and Stanley Milgram’s experiments on obedience and control. Because the students on the basketball team who refused to come to the defense of their teammate even when faced with a clear case of sexual and physical harassment had successfully convinced themselves that their moral responsibility had transferred to the team, and in particular the senior members of the team, they were able to order their commitment to the group above their own understanding of morality.

Arab Spring Not So Sunny?

            The instability of some of the “Arab Spring” countries in the Middle East shares some alarming characteristics with certain theories of genocide and ethnic cleaning we have discussed in class.  In particular, Weitz puts forward arguments that are relevant to the current political situation in countries such as Egypt, Libya and Syria.  For example, Weitz argued that revolutionary regimes that seized state power were more likely to look for extreme ways to maintain that power; the military junta that currently rules Egypt came into power because of the revolution, and has already suspended the constitution and only partially lifted the state of emergency in the country.  It remains to be seen whether they will actually step down following the parliamentary elections in June.  Furthermore, Weitz identified race as a primary aspect of many mass murders during the 20^th century, and as this report shows, the Libyan freedom fighters weren't immune to racial brutality as they fought to overthrow Gaddafi.

            When thinking about the current state of the “Arab Spring” countries, it is difficult to predict the direction the new regimes will head in because the majority of the new governments are still in a transitional phase.  However, some countries are already showing signs of extremism and similarities with the genocidal governments Weitz described, as mention above.  Even if Nazi Germany and Pol Pot’s Cambodia seem like products of 20^th century ideologies and historical factors that are irrelevant for the 2011-12 Middle East, one need only look back a little over a decade to find a much closer worst-case analogy.  In 1996, after having emerged victorious in the Afghan Civil War, the Taliban took advantage of an already unstable country by consolidating their power and imposing an incredibly strict interpretation of Sharia law.  For five years, they committed mass murder and de-humanized women, while imposing a totalitarian regime that ruled through terror. 

 

The conditions in Afghanistan that led to the rise of the Taliban were more akin to Germany after WWI than present day Egypt or Syria.  That being said, there are enough similarities between the situations in the Middle East, Taliban Afghanistan and the traits Weitz discusses in his article that the region warrants a sustained watch, and if need be pressure, by the international community rather than a “hope for the best” attitude.  I believe that this is the best way to avoid extreme governments and fulfill the democratic ideals that were at the heart of the revolutions.

China's Missing Girls

Since China instituted it's One Child Policy in 1979, an estimated 50 million women in China are conspicuously missing from the population.  By limiting the size of families in a strongly patriarchal society, the government, perhaps unintentionally, instituted a policy that has led to the one of the worse femicides in history.  But can what is happening in China be considered a genocide?

Lemkin limits the types of groups that can be the victim of genocide to national, ethnic, religious, and cultural identities.  Gender is notably absent from his definition.  Additionally, the people targeting women in China do not belong to any particular group.  They are not simply acting out orders or succumbing to the group mentality often seen in perpetrators of genocide, as noted by authors like Staub.  The events in China are not institutionalized or systematic, which goes against many authors conceptions of genocide being the tool of a government.  Some argue that the disparity in the birth rate is a result of female births merely going unreported, not female offspring being killed, which goes against notions of genocide as strictly the physical extermination of a group.  Thus, the events in China do not resemble genocide by many traditional definitions and applications.

Even so, the destruction of a group united by their identity undeniably resembles Lemkin's definitions of genocide.  The girls are targeted for their gender, an unchangeable aspect of their identity.  Unborn and newborn girls are deliberately killed while authorities look on passively.  Others girls are killed by neglect or displaced in orphanages.  Mass extermination by murder, neglect, or displacement all adhere to Lemkin's notion of genocide.  Furthermore, unreported girls face great difficulty in accessing state benefits like education, thus preventing them from participating in the national culture.  In this way the female culture is crippled or eliminated from the culture as a whole.  Culture as well as physical extermination are factors of Lemkin's definition.  In these ways, the methods used against women in China resemble those described by Lemkin in his definition genocide.

When discussing the case of girls in China, the media is quick to use terms like "gendercide", "femicide", and even "Holocaust", and yet they are extremely reluctant to use the word "genocide".  In fact, some articles note that concept of female infanticide as a type of genocide is often disputed.  This reluctance to define what is happening in China as a genocide perhaps stems from the complex and often contradictory nature of how we conceive of genocide.  Yet I would argue that, other than being excluded from Lemkin's list of group identities, the war on women in China strongly resembles Lemkin's original definition of what constitutes a genocide.

Hatred is Not a Foreign Concept: A Minnesota School District's "Neutrality Policy" and Its Devastating Consequences

Minnesota's Anoka-Hennepin School District has come under national scorn for its district-wide "neutrality policy". This sexual orientation curriculum policy, which it finally did away with on February 14th of this year, mandated that teachers remain neutral on issues regarding sexual orientation1. Although the District argues that this policy was intended to only apply to a school's curriculum, teachers contended that the policy’s wording was ambiguous and could easily be construed to apply beyond the classroom and into the hallways, preventing them from intervening in anti-gay bullying. In an interview with Rolling Stone, Jefferson Fietek, an art teacher at Anoka Middle School for the Arts, argued that, “LGBTQ students don’t feel safe at school [...] there's no one to stand up for them, because teachers are afraid of being fired,"2. An excerpt from the Rolling Stone article details a conversation that a girl, Brittany, had with her school’s administration following a bullying incident in which she had been called a “fat dyke”:

The school's principal, looking pained, had suggested Brittany prepare herself for the next round of teasing with snappy comebacks – "I can lose the weight, but you're stuck with your ugly face" – never acknowledging she had been called a "dyke." As though that part was OK. As though the fact that Brittany was bisexual made her fair game.3

Anti-gay bullying and the school staff’s seeming acceptance of it were followed by six student suicides within two years, all of whom had been gay or had been victims of anti-gay bullying4. Some students, represented by advocacy groups, are filing charges against the school, arguing that Anoka-Hennepin’s “neutrality policy” led to the death of these students5.

In reading about the above controversy, my mind went immediately to Stanley Milgram’s obedience studies and how the teachers in the Anoka-Hennepin School District demonstrated the power obedience can exert on individuals. As Mr. Fietek demonstrates above, there were at least a handful of teachers who opposed the policy and the bullying that was occurring, but the overwhelming pressures of complying with the District’s mandate (and ensuring one’s livelihood) outweighed their individual morality. Assuredly some of the teachers blamed the policy for their silence, “unable to realize their values in action[,] and found themselves continuing in the experiment [or in this case adhering to the policy] even though they disagreed with what they were doing,”6.

On a more systemic level, certain concepts found in the Ervin Staub article can also be seen at work in the “neutrality policy” case. Michele Bachmann was born and raised in this school district, and her conservative ideology is very much alive in her hometown. US politics is becoming incredibly polarized, with conservatives genuinely feeling threatened by an increasingly liberal polity. Tea Party slogans like “Take America Back” imply that there is a ‘they’ from which ‘we’ must take the country back, demonstrating the “us” vs. “them” thinking detailed by Staub7. This threat to their sense of self is demonstrated by a mother in the School District who supported the “neutrality policy”:

"We are at a crossroads. You either cave in to the demands of the homosexual activists, an action that will make our schools unsafe for all kids, or you stand firm and protect the children," Anderson said.

The inherent connotation that homosexuality poses a danger to our children shows not only a devaluation of those who are homosexual but a scapegoating of a weakening sense of identity on homosexuals, both of which are detailed by Staub8. It is unfortunate that the students are the ones caught in this ideological crossfire.

It is easy to criticize foreign governments and actors for their genocidal acts, but it is important to remember that anyone, regardless of nationality, can find themselves in a morally compromising situation. As Milgram repeatedly asserts, anyone can commit these crimes given our human propensity to obey authority. As demonstrated in the case with Minnesota's Anoka-Hennepin School District, it could be happening right at your local school.

I affirm I have adhered to the Honor Code in this assignment.


1  http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=146882552


2  http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/one-towns-war-on-gay-teens-20120202#ixzz1n4WMIOhc

3  Ibid.

4  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/14/minn-school-board-ends-po_n_1275843.html

5  Ibid.

6  Milgram, Stanely. “The Dilemma of Obedience.” 1975. Print. pp. 6

7  Staub, Ervin. “The origins of genocide and killing: core concepts.” 1989. Print. pp. 17

8  Ibid.

What My Lai Can Tell us About Theories of Group Violence

The massacre in the village of My Lai during the Vietnam War remains one of the blackest marks on the record of the American military.  Over the course of about four hours, the American GIs of the 1^st platoon, Charlie Company killed 504 Vietnamese noncombatants of all ages.  Three men, however, attempted to stop the killing.  Hugh Thompson, Jr., Glenn Andreotta, and Lawrence Colburn put themselves between advancing American soldiers and a bunker of Vietnamese civilians, later evacuating them to a South Vietnamese hospital.  In the actions of those soldiers who participated at My Lai we are able to see a clear illustration of many of the points Staub, Milgram, and others make about the nature of mass killing.  In addition, we can look to the varied American response to the actions of Thompson, Andreotta, and Colburn, as well as the Vietnam War in general, as evidence of Mann’s claims about stratified societies and the effect of stratification on the public discussion of war.

The actions of the soldiers of Charlie Company are cited in the epilogue of Stanley Milgram’s Obedience to Authority as a prime example of ordinary men transformed into heartless killers.  In essence, the army, by isolating cadets from potential competing authorities, establishing conformity among the men, and forcing them to accept the dominance and infallibility of military leadership, creates a monolithic society, as defined by Ervin Staub.  “In a monolithic society,” he says, ”there is limited variation in values and perspectives on life…strong authority or totalitarian rule enforces uniformity. The authorities have great power to define reality and shape the people’s perception of the victims.”

Monolithic societies, according to Staub, create an “us-them” mentality, a precondition for extraordinary violence.  In the case of American GIs in Vietnam this mentality was also promoted by differences in race and nationality.  We can link this to Eric Weitz’s “The Modernity of Genocide,” in which he highlights revolutionary movements and race as two factors that create a hospitable environment for mass killing.  It is sometimes forgotten that the Vietnam War was, in fact, a revolution-turned-civil war between North and South Vietnam, with the United States backing South Vietnam.  Although the American troops would not have seen themselves as revolutionaries per se, the conflict itself created “difficult life conditions” as referenced by Staub.  American forces in the field were almost constantly under attack.  Indeed, the night before the My Lai massacre one of Charlie Company’s men was killed by a Viet Cong land mine, and less than a month before My Lai the radio operator and friend of Second Lieutenant William Calley, who led the assault, was killed by a Viet Cong sniper.

            Charlie Company’s attack on My Lai, “justified” as retaliation for the death of their comrades, was also, as Weitz posits of many types of killings, quite ritualized.  The GIs entered an area (a house, or square where peopled had gathered), forced those people in that area to move to a different area (a bunker, well, or ditch) and then fired on them or dropped grenades in with them, and torched all remaining property.  Those Vietnamese who were not killed in a large group were often eviscerated with bayonets, killed while fleeing, or executed while begging for mercy.  These killings lost some of the set ritual of the others, but took on a whole new aspect of performance:  an American soldier encountering a Vietnamese villager killed him or her to show his comrades that he could, and to cement his presence in the group.  Thompson, Andreotta, and Colburn, by insinuating themselves into the situation and trying to stop the violence, interrupted the ritual killings and performances of their fellow GIs and were met with strong opposition from Second Lieutenant Calley, who ordered them away, an order which was refused.  Thompson proceeded to fly twenty Vietnamese civilians to safety in his helicopter as Andreotta and Colburn remained to protect those awaiting rescue. 

            Following the return of Charlie Company to the United States and the eventual revelation of what occurred at My Lai, the reaction of the public was quite mixed.  Few people would argue that Americans were unified in their support of the Vietnam War, and both those who were and those who weren’t were quite vocal and willing to act on their convictions.  “Baby killers” became a disparaging moniker for veterans following the infamous “And babies” interview on national television, and Second Lieutenant Calley was court marshaled and sentenced to life in prison for his part in the massacre.  On the other hand, Thompson received death threats, dead animals left on his doorstep, and calls from congressmen for his court marshaling for being un-patriotic.  Calley was also pardoned by the president two days after his sentencing and spent three years under house arrest and received, among other things, a Mercedes-Benz from a wealthy, anonymous supporter.

            All of these occurrences serve to illustrate some of what Mann says about stratified societies.  In a stratified society, rights have slowly been extended to all groups, generating a climate where conflicts of opinion between groups are legitimized, allowing (ideally) the free expression of political ideas and support.  If the United States had been an organic society, what’s to say that disagreements between hawks and doves wouldn’t have turned into open warfare on the home front as well?

            The events of My Lai, generalized as the assault of a defenseless “other” group by a monolithic society forged by a military and deposited in the middle of a hostile territory, shows us a prototypical example of many of the theories of group motives for mass killing.  The American response, both positive and negative, also shows us how stratification can prevent violent conflict among ourselves, and allows, if not facilitates, public discussion and expression.

Sources:

http://www.usna.edu/Ethics/publications/documents/ThompsonPg1-28_Final.pdf

http://www2.vcdh.virginia.edu/HIUS316/mbase/docs/mylai.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-485983/Found-The-monster-My-Lai-massacre.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTJgMmHZNYQ&feature=results_main&playnext=1&list=PL67E9354D52985F2A

http://books.google.com/books?id=R-QCAAAAMBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=thompson&f=false 

Libya in the wake of Qaddafi

Libya has been torn apart by the fighting surrounding the rebellion against Qaddafi, and though he is now gone, tensions are far from reduced and peace has been far from achieved. Reminiscent of the treatment of the Germans and Nazi supporters after the end of WWII, Libyans who supported Qaddafi, or even lived in areas where support of his regime was general, have now been driven out of their homes. They have been accused of crimes that many claim they did not commit, imprisoned awaiting a distant trial, and whole towns have been completely cleared of the previous residents.

Tarik Kafala of BBC news describes the situation in a town called Tawergha:

"For three months between early March and the middle of May, the forces of Muammar Gaddafi laid siege to Misrata. These forces were partly based in Tawergha, and the people of the town are accused of being complicit in the attempt to put down the uprising in the city. They are also accused of crimes including murder, rape and sexual torture. 

The fighters of Misrata eventually prevailed, breaking out of their battered city, and Misratan brigades made up part of the force that overran the capital Tripoli in August. They also captured and killed Gaddafi and one of his sons in late October, and put the corpses on display in their city. 

In the middle of August, between the end of the siege and the killing of Gaddafi, Misratan forces drove out everyone living in Tawergha, a town of 30,000 people. Human rights groups have described this as an act of revenge and collective punishment possibly amounting to a crime against humanity" (Kafala).

This vilification of all 30,000 members of a town when support of Qaddafi was known is a backlash against their perceived crimes. Unfortunately, it is difficult to know how widespread the crimes were, or even how severe. The people won't talk about specifics, especially concerning rape, as it is not a topic to be discussed in their society (Kafala, BBC). As Waller discusses, members of a group can be easily susceptible to group think, and if members of the town of Tawergha perceived the Misratans to be their enemies, it is not inconceivable to think that some of the members of the town may have participated in the alleged mistreatment or even torture of the Misratans. Those in support of the regime would have felt that their aide against the enemy was necessary in order to protect the government and vanquish the dissenters and rebels, and may not have seen their acts as atrocities, but merely state-mandated acts of war. As Stanley Milgram speaks about in analysis of his authority and obedience experiment, basic human decency can be easily suspended if one believes that authority mandates their actions, that they are aiding a higher purpose.

In Milgram's relatively simple experiment, members who had no relationship with the "authority" other than that they had volunteered to help in the experiment, were capable of doling out (as far as they knew, real) painful shocks to people while they begged the participants to stop. His findings are eye-opening because they explain how people who feel that their homes, families, livelihoods, and countries are threatened can act in seemingly inhuman ways.

Though the members of the town of Tawergha initially were the ones in a position of power, now that Qaddafi has been vanquished the members of the winning side are retaliating and, so they claim, working for justice. Again, this turning of the table is reminiscent of the situation after WWII. Now there are reports of torture, and many previous residents of Tawergha are imprisoned. Though war crimes naturally deserve punishment, many claim innocence, not even knowing if the crimes happen at all. The question must be asked, what is the correct way to deal with the situation? Violence returned with violence is a commonly recurring theme in history, but grouping members into broad segments of society is problematic. The members of Tawergha were "mostly descendants of black slaves", bringing race into the situation along with the nationalistic division lines. The city has been completely emptied out:

"Building after building is burnt and ransacked. The possessions of the people who lived here are scattered about, suggesting desperate flight. In places, the green flags of the former regime still flutter from some of the houses. 

Buildings show the scars of heavy bombardment, some are burnt out shells, some are just abandoned. The town is empty of humans, apart from a small number of Misratan militiamen preventing the return of the town's residents" (Kafala).

The town has effectively been "cleansed" (Kafala). As Staub hypothesizes, genocide and ethnic cleansing are brewed and born in nations and societies that suffer from poor conditions, especially as a result of warfare or political or ethnic strife. It is reasonable to say that the situation in Libya is currently dangerous because it is undergoing political change and, as illustrated by this example, tension between different areas who were on different sides during the rebellion. What can be done to prevent the devolving of areas into violence and retaliation, bordering ? The country will have to pick up the pieces, appropriately punish those it deems are deserving and rebuild, and promote the continuation of civilized practices, rather than striking back with violence. Hopefully the path to democracy will be as smooth as possible and further atrocity can be avoided.

Madeleine Harnois

source: Kafala, Tarik. "'Cleansed' Libyan town spills its terrible secrets". 12 December 2011. BBC copyright 2012. <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16051349>.