The mission statement of the Genocide Watch is “…to predict, prevent, stop, and punish genocide and other forms of mass murder. [They] seek to raise awareness and influence public policy concerning potential and actual genocide. [Their] purpose is to build an international movement to prevent and stop genocide” (Stanton, 2004). Their website currently warns of six countries with potential for genocide in the near future, ten countries under watch for imminent massacres, and five countries which currently are declared as genocide emergency. In other words, according to the genocide watch website, twenty-one websites are currently experiencing genocide or will be soon. The website also features articles such as “The Ten Stages of Genocide”, “12 Ways to Deny a Genocide”, and “Genocides and Politicides” which educate visitors on the devastating results of genocide. Though the website appears slightly outdated, the research appears accurate, relevant and supported by reliable sources such as the International Association of Genocide Scholars and Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change.
The term genocide did not exist prior to 1944but was coined thereafter by the polish lawyer Raphäel Lemkin who sought to describe the Nazi policies of systematic murder. Genos, meaning race or tribe, and cide, meaning killing, is defined under by the united nations as “…any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethical, racial or religious group, as such: a. Killing members of the group; b. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; c. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; d. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group” (United Nations). That is to say, genocide is the deliberate killing of a particular national, ethical, racial, or religious group of people. It is evident in bibles and textbooks that mankind has a history of these mass killings. What disturbs my mind is that genocide continues to exist today. As evidenced by not only the genocide watch website, but by local news and my personal experience, I am convinced that genocide is a perpetual problem that has existed and will continue to exist in society. How exactly has it continued for so long though? Why has humankind refused to learn their lesson and allow themselves to fall again and again? What drives them through the vicious cycle even today?
Genocide is undeniably a heinous crime which exists in our world. The genocides of the past and the battles which continue to be fought are sobering reminders that we have an enormous challenge before us. With a focus on “intent to destroy” there is no question that genocide. shatters lives, leaving villages destroyed and children parentless. It is fair to say that there is no excuse for genocide and that there needs to be an end. What must be understood, though, is that there are motivations behind genocide. There are specific reasons why genocide occurs and that is why it began and continues to exist today. As we learn to study the risk factors and warning signs of what has caused it in the past we may have a better idea of how to prevent it in the future.
The purpose of this paper is to address the motives behind genocide. It is to explore a few known reasons why such an unspeakable act continues to occur. These reasons include the motivation to eliminate threats, the need to spread terror, the desire to obtain economic wealth, the belief that they must spread their ideology, extreme prejudice against other culture or races, a heightened sense of nationalism, and lastly, ill-informed ideas of how to conduct social change.
One of the primary motivators for genocide the feeling that there is a need to eliminate a threat, whether that threat is real or potential. A group may be convinced that another competing group is putting their group in harm’s way and they have no choice but to seek revenge. An excellent example of a modern-day genocide motivated by an elimination of a competing threat is the Srebrenica Mass killings. Srebrenica, Bosnia was the world’s first United Nations safe area. It was intended to be a place where regardless of world violence, civilians could be protected by the UN’s troops. Unfortunately, there were those who felt threatened by this new policy and sought to destroy it. Between July 6th and 8th of 1995 Serbs forces began invading Srebrenica. Thousands of civilians fled, but it is estimated that nearly 7,000 people were killed during the siege. This injustice was motivated by a threat that civilians had a safe haven under the United Nations. The Serbs did not agree with the new policy and therefore felt the need to rebel. They sought revenge and it, therefore, resulted in a genocide. We have also experienced a similar threat on our home soil as well. Author, Mahmood Mamdani, of “When Victims Become Killers” explains how a group of people should react to this kind of genocide. He declares, “A response other than revenge is possible and desirable. For that to happen, however, we need to turn the moment of injury into a moment of freedom, of choice. For Americans, that means turning 9/11 into an opportunity to reflect on America’s place in the world. Grief for victims should not obscure the fact that there is no choice without a debate and no democracy without choice.” Ultimately, I would argue that this feeling that there is a need to eliminate a real or potential threat is present in most if not all genocides. Many times, the perpetrator believes that the opposing group is at fault. They believe that there is something innately wrong with them that threatens their way of life. This sometimes causes enough for one to feel motivated to destroy.
“The exercise of violence with crass terrorism and even with gruesomeness was and is my policy” (Mamdani, 2001, p. 270). An unfortunate motivator of genocide is the feeling that one must spread terror. I believe, perhaps, one of the reasons why terror is used so frequently is because it can be used to exercise power over others. By spreading terror, one can gain glory and authority over others. In other words, it may be a means to an end itself. Acts or threats of violence are carried out every day with the sole intent of spreading terror among the civilian population. A prime example of this is ISIS. While living in Belgium for a church service mission during the late winter of 2016 I witnessed the bombing on the Brussels metro station. Not even having been directly affected myself, I was still shaking. It was apparent that ISIS had accomplished their goal because the Belgians also were devastated. Violent terrorist attacks can cause a people to surrender and fear. They can cause heartache. I do recall walking the streets with more swiftness. Every time we rode the train or a bus I had anxiety. There were soldiers lining the streets. The atmosphere truly did change and it no longer felt safe all because a group decided to spread a little terror. A second experience I had was when I encountered a man who was a member of ISIS. Also during my experience as a church service missionary, I recall knocking on an apartment door. An older middle eastern couple answered. We exchanged greetings and they welcomed us into their home gladly to discuss religion. After talking briefly, the husband informed us that he had invited his son, an ISIS member to come discuss his religion with us. When he arrived at the apartment he immediately began threatening us and tyrannized us. After several attempts to leave we finally left the apartment feeling intimidated and shocked by what had happened to us. My experiences with terror or minimal in comparison with the terror of genocide. I simply cannot comprehend or understand the feeling of ter
ror one must feel from genocide. A desire to spread this feeling of fear and distress exists. There are individuals in society who genuinely lack empathy for the human heart and want to spread terror. A final example of terror is an excerpt that comes from When Victims Become Killers. “To be sure, many a chief was deposed, and just as many received corporal punishment from Belgian authorities, for failure to deliver. Tutsi overseers were often required to force Hutu commoners to work. “If you didn’t meet your targets, the Belgians would whip you,” recalled John Kanyambo, age seventy-eight. Recalling massive terracing schemes and road projects, elderly Tutsi refugees in Uganda told Catherine Watson of how little choice the regime of forced labor gave them. The Belgian attitude was simple: You whip the Hutu or we will whip you” (Mamdani, 2001, p. 97).
A third cause which motivates killers in genocide is the desire to acquire economic wealth. This is a concept which before preparing this paper I had not previously explored. It seems logical, though, that there are certain individuals in history and modern day whose greed and desire for riches far outweighs the value of a human life. The genocide of the Native Americans is an example of this motivation. The native people of North America were removed from their homeland when it was colonized by immigrants who sought economic growth in a new country. The native groups of the Choctaws, Chickasaws, Seminoles, and Creeks lost 25 to 35 percent of their people. Of the Cherokee people, more than half of them were killed during the Trail of Tears. In the book “God, Greed, and Genocide” which discusses genocide motivated by a desire for economic growth this concept is further explained, “Genocides in the British colonies and the United States fall into what Fein calls developmental genocides, in which the perpetrator intentionally or unintentionally destroys people who stand in the way of economic exploitation. All the mass killings of indigenous people could fit into the category that Chalk and Jonassohn describe as genocides committed to acquiring economic wealth. They see this type of genocide as probably having its roots in antiquity, where the desire for wealth constituted one of the motives driving a city-state or empire to expand” (Grenke, 2005, p. 223).
One of the most discussed events discussed events in a US world history class began with a simple boycott of Jewish shops. This anti-Semitism belief was the central component of the Nazi ideology which ended in the gas chambers of Auschwitz. The Nazi rise to power brought about an ideology that not only was the Jewish people a dangerous people, but also were any political opponents, homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and many other minorities in Germany, Poland, Russia, Romania, Serbia, and Czechoslovakia. A considerable amount of propaganda was used to spread the belief that these people truly were dangerous. They were then sent to concentration camps where the Nazi Party was able to complete their ideas through mass murders. Exceeding six million deaths, the Holocaust genocide was likely the largest extermination of a population which mankind has witnessed. It is frightening to recognize that root of this eradication was a man’s ideology. Adolf Hitler was convinced that he found a solution to the complexity of society’s problems. Unfortunately, Hitler believed that the problem was within the person. He believed that a person’s characteristics, such as their race, religion, and sexual orientation, were simply hereditary. Because they could no man could overcome these traits and because some of them were flawed the only logical solution was to exterminate them. Hitler allowed this outward, physical appearance based ideology evolve. He eventually adopted the Darwinian theory. He also began targeting specific groups and individuals. While it is now apparent how flawed his thinking was, it was widely accepted by many of the soldiers and citizens under his ruling because of the propaganda which was spread. This motivated and justified the killing of many innocent lives which should have been spared.
What may be one of the most apparent reasons for genocide is the desire to eliminate those of another culture or race. There are many examples in history of such extreme prejudice against other culture or races. Perhaps one of the most apparent examples would be that of the Rwandan Genocide. Mahmood Mamdani introduces the subjects of the genocide by saying, “In colonial Rwanda, there were no ethnic groups, only races. The Belgian authority considered Tutsi and Hutu as two distinct races, in the manner of direct rule, without deconstructing the Hutu into so many ethnicities in the manner of indirect rule” (Mamdani, 2001, p. 99). The group of people called the Hutu, armed with machetes, began a campaign in April of 1994 in the Central African country of Rwanda. It was clear that the Hutu people had a mission to exterminate an entire group of people, the Tutsi. Lasting for about 100 days, the killings amounted to about a tenth of the population. That is an estimated 800,000 deaths in only a few short months motivated by a desire to exterminate another group of people. Not only did it destroy the population, but the industrial infrastructure had been left desolate as well. Regarding the immense suffering experienced as a result of the Rwandan Genocide Mahmood Mamdani explained, “No one can say with certainty how many Tutsi were killed between March and July of 1994 in Rwanda. In the fateful on hundred days that followed the downing of the presidential plane and the coup d’etat thereafter – a section of the army and civilian leadership organized the Hutu majority to kill all Tutsi, even babies. In the process, they also killed not only the Hutu political opposition, but also many nonpolitical Hutu who showed reluctance to perform what was touted as “national” duty. (Mamdani, 2001, p. 180) Mamdani continues, “The colonized man finds freedom in and through violence. If its outcome would be death, of settlers by natives, it would need to be understood as a derivative outcome, a result of a prior logic, the genocidal logic of colonial pacification and occupation infecting anticolonial resistance…The practice of violence binds them together as a whole since each individual forms a violent link in the great chain, a part of the great organism of violence which has surged upwards in reaction to the settler’s violence in the beginning” (Mamdani, 2001, p. 13). So, it seems that Mahmood Mamdani justifies this motivation of violence. It is logical that the native man acts in violence to bind his people together as a whole. The man continues to justify this logic today and as a society, I believe we support it. In Mahmood Mamdani’s novel “Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of” he explains that the local press is a large source of why we continue to see racially driven acts of genocide. He states, “Even the pages of the New York Times now include regular accounts distinguishing good from bad Muslims: good Muslims are modern, secular, and Westernized, but bad Muslims are doctrinal, antimodern, and virulent.” Whether the motives come from a history of discrimination or derogatory comments on the news channel, it is undeniable that prejudice is a leading cause of acts of genocide.
Another motive for genocide is a heightened sense of nationalism. Simply explained, this extreme nationalism is the belief that the world is divided up into different types of people. Other types of people cause problems, yet your people are perfect and should dominate all others. It is beyond just being loyal and proud of your country, but rather the feeling that your country is more important and better than any other country in the world. Ph.D. of Economics Daniele Conversi explained that, “In all cases, it is the state which can more easily harness patriotism in o
rder to prop up political, economic and military elites” (Horowitz, 1980). The introduction of illiberal laws under the pretext of protecting ‘national security’ is a first indicator of radical centralization attempts that may result in the persecution of minorities and their culture. Mann (2004) argues that the Nazis married extreme statism with extreme nationalism, hence Fascism can be defined as extreme ‘nation-statism’” (Conversi, p. 326) An example of genocide caused by extreme nationalism is the Armenian genocide. Roughly one million Armenian Christians were killed in 1915-16 under the protection of the Ottoman state. To fathom the genocide in its fullest sense requires not just a comprehension of the destructive patriotism of the CUP, or of the war, or of state-Armenian relations over the ages – it additionally includes having a grip of Armenian-Kurdish relations, the changing statistic history of the Footstool domain, the outer and interior strains the realm experienced in its last century, including the advancement of Armenian patriotism and its demeanor by patriot parties, and the inclusion of the European powers in the ‘Armenian inquiry’. However oppressive were conventional Footrest mentalities towards Armenians in a Muslim-commanded religious government, and however hopeless the life of the normal Stool Armenian laborer, it was simply after the Armenian inquiry was elevated to the global political table amid the ‘eastern emergencies of 1875-8 that it turned out to be such a harmful issue for progressive Hassock administrations as to be replied with occasional episodes of murder. These finished, if not definitely, in genocide. Thus, it seems that the Armenian genocide is, in fact, a result of nationalism. As Conversi believes, nationalism and genocide have a direct correlation.
The final motivation for genocide which I would like to address is the idea that there are individuals who have an ill-informed idea of how to conduct social change. Much like the individual who wants to spread an ideology, they believe there is something innately wrong with others in society and they are responsible to change it. What sets it apart from the ideology is that they often are not in a place of power, but rather are seeking social change purely for reasons such as revenge or other selfish endeavors. An example of such a motivation would be the Cambodian Genocide of the 1970’s. Khmer Rouge took control of the Cambodian government with the intention of turning the entire country into a communist utopia. The motto broadcasted amongst the citizens was “What is spoiled must be removed.” Ultimately this communist party took an estimated 1.7 to 2 million Cambodian lives. While the part believed that their intentions were pure, it is clear that it resulted in a ghastly genocide. The Khmer Rouge had the motive to conduct a change in their society, which felt logical and reasonable, yet in the end, it was extremely brutal. No one was immune from the change which the Khmer Rouge wanted to implement and that is when it became dangerous. That is when the genocide began.
These are what I believe are some of the true motivations for genocide. Genocide is truly a despicable element of society. I believe that genocide is caused by those who feel threatened. Others feel the need to spread terror. It is evident from our history that another motivation for genocide is a yearning for economic gain. Genocide is caused by people who want to spread their own theories and propaganda. It is also caused by extreme cases prejudice against any other group. Genocide is motivated by extreme patriotism. People who want to institute social change but are not informed how to properly do so may also be a cause of genocide. Regardless of the cause though, genocide is a recurring trend in our society which has touched nearly every life in some way. From the perspective of Anthropology, it is a subject which I sincerely wish scholars would not and will not have to study in depth. Unfortunately, it is a part of our history and is a foreseeable part of our future. As Mamdani so eloquently explained, “We may agree that genocidal violence cannot be understood as rational; yet we need to understand it as thinkable. Rather than run away from it, we need to realize that it is the “popularity’ of the genocide that is its uniquely troubling aspect” (Mamdani, 2001, p. 8). I do hope that this paper has provided insight in some way as to why genocide has it continued for so long, why humankind continues to learn their lesson from past genocides, and why we continue to go through genocide again and again. The answer may not be as simple as we think, but as Mamdani said, it is thinkable. There are motivations behind genocide and perhaps by exploring the “why” behind it genocide, someday we will discover the solution.