Is genocide just another form of war?
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sianatulleygmailcom (student)
Is genocide just another form of war?
The first half of the 20th century saw the destruction of approximately 150 million lives according to Matthew White and Steven Pinker in Atrocities, in which they account “Humanity’s 100 Deadliest Achievements” (Pinker, White, 2013, p. 34). The underlying causes of the tragic acts of genocide during this period have deep historic roots and scholars have searched far and wide in order to provide an explanation for this phenomenon. Academic discourse on the topic varies, including questions as to the role played by modernity and the effects of war and revolution on the political sphere. However, despite the conflicting arguments amongst researchers, there are common themes within their analyses. This essay will explore some of those common themes, arguing that genocide and war are closely linked while also recognising the distinctions between genocide, war, revolution and degenerate killing as proposed by Martin Shaw (Shaw, 2003). It will conclude, to a certain extent, that genocide is a manifestation of modernity by drawing on the works of thinkers such as Bauman, Horkheimer and Adorno. Ultimately, it will be found that there is no definitive explanation for genocide and that it is the product of a combination of factors.
The Oxford Dictionary says genocide is “The deliberate killing of a large group of people, especially those of a particular nation or ethnic group.” This is a definition, which stems from the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, a legal document agreed by the United Nations General Assembly, defining genocide in a legal sense and committing the signatories to prevent and punish crimes of genocide accordingly in the future. Initially, the term genocide had been created following both the Armenian Genocide and the Nazi’s systematic extermination of Jews during the Holocaust. However, looking more closely at the UN’s definition, it’s clear that there are gaping holes in its formation. An example of this is the fact that political and social groups were effectively left unprotected under the agreement, resulting in campaigns of genocide like the mass murders committed under the Stalin regime to go uncounted. Also, the Convention states that genocide refers to “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group…” - this statement is yet another dangerous grey area within the Convention which fails to clarify what exactly constitutes the destruction of a group and also how many deaths are required in order for the act to be deemed as genocide. Martin Shaw, in his book War and genocide: organised killing in modern society, highlights that this ambiguity lead to differing interpretations of the Convention with some using the term ‘genocidal massacre’ to describe mass killings with intentions of genocide that didn’t quite meet the numbers for the whole destruction of a population. While others only used the term genocide to refer to full-scale extermination like the acts committed during the Holocaust – a view, Shaw argues leads to a misunderstanding of the concept of genocide as strictly being the total extermination of a population, without incorporating the smaller, yet equally significant, violent massacres (Shaw, 2003). There’s also the issue of application when it comes to the Convention – yes, as previously mentioned, signatory states are committed to prevent and punish acts of genocide but in practice, this has been largely ignored by the UN and many of the signatories since the agreement was made in 1948. Thus, it’s clear that there are many issues in trying to define genocide. However, regardless of the limits and exclusions set out by the Convention, there is no denying that genocide is fundamentally linked to war. In fact, the majority of acts of genocide have occurred under the context of war and during periods of severe social and political crisis.
The Armenian genocide in 1915, Stalin’s liquidation of the ‘kulaks’ from 1929-32 and the Holocaust are just a few examples of episodes of genocide that took place in the 20th century during periods of interstate and civil war. Though technically, due to the definition of genocide put forth by the UN Convention, many of these episodes do not qualify or only partly qualify, as the violence was not aimed at groups based on their nationality, ethnicity, race or religious affiliation. However, central to all of these episodes was the fact that there was a clear enemy as the ...
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The Armenian genocide in 1915, Stalin’s liquidation of the ‘kulaks’ from 1929-32 and the Holocaust are just a few examples of episodes of genocide that took place in the 20th century during periods of interstate and civil war. Though technically, due to the definition of genocide put forth by the UN Convention, many of these episodes do not qualify or only partly qualify, as the violence was not aimed at groups based on their nationality, ethnicity, race or religious affiliation. However, central to all of these episodes was the fact that there was a clear enemy as the focus of the violence and that enemy was always a social group of some kind: Jews, Gypsies, peasants, communists and more were the unarmed, threatened social groups that were perceived as the enemy by the perpetrating states. And it’s this concept of the social group vs. the state, which has genocide appear as a form of war. Shaw explains this link simply, yet profoundly in his understanding of genocide “as a form of war in which social groups are the enemies.” (Shaw, 2003). There are common themes in the role played by war and the state in the majority of cases of genocide. The key connections being that the massacres were carried out by the state through an organised system, the armed forces and other militarised groups were employed in it’s execution and finally, that the episode occurred during a war between the perpetrating state and an outside, armed enemy, in most cases another state. This supports the notion that there are connections between war and genocide, however this isn’t to say that by default, war leads to genocide. This would of course have resulted in a great deal more cases of genocide throughout human history, but the argument here is not that genocide accompanies war, it’s that under the cover of war, acts of genocide are much easier for states to commit. In times of upheaval and uncertainty, with organised armed military forces fighting against other armies, state leaders were able to exploit these situations and target enemy groups from within their territories as part of the process of war. It must be stated however, that fascist and totalitarian dictators aren’t the only ones guilty of targeting unarmed civilians as part of the process of war, in fact during the second world war, the Allies routinely bombed areas inhabited by civilians, such as railways and industrial districts as a means of weakening the armed opposition. Markusen and Kopf argue in their book The Holocaust and Strategic Bombing: Genocide and Total War in the Twentieth Century, that strategic bombing such as that carried out by the Allies is genocidal in itself (Markusen, Kopf, 1995). Shaw expands this argument further with his proposition of the concept of ‘degenerate war’, which he describes as the “annihilation of civilian populations for strategic reasons.” (Shaw, 2003). Although this form of warfare is also responsible for the massacre of civilians, the UN Convention fails to recognise this in the same breadth as genocide, which is arguably justifiable when looking more closely into some of the core dimensions of degenerate war in contrast to genocide and regular warfare. Shaw explains that, as a type of social action, there is a clear distinction between war and genocide in that war is about the destruction of an organised army or enemy whereas the destruction in an episode of genocide is aimed towards an unarmed social group. Crucial to Shaw’s distinction here is that degenerate war is also characterised by the destruction of unarmed civilian social groups with a key difference being that these social groups are linked to the organised, armed enemy. Another key dimension of war and genocide, which Shaw explores, is that of legitimacy. Wars fought between states and opposing armies are usually regarded as legitimate whereas acts of genocide, with civilian populations being the target of the violence are, by definition, illegitimate. This issue of legitimacy is crucial in that, under the cover of war, states have been successful in using their armed forces, bureaucratic structures and other components of state power in order to openly perpetrate genocide. (Shaw, 2003)
Shaw makes a compelling argument with a strong display of the characteristics of genocide as a type of war but in order to gain a broader understanding of genocide, one must question whether or not it is a distinctly modern phenomenon. This is a view held by many scholars, including Bartov, Arendt, Bauman and more. Theorists such as these argue that genocide is the product of various elements of modernity, ranging from the Age of Enlightenment, new technologies of warfare, the arrival of the nation-state and instrumental rationality. In 1972, Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer argued, in The Dialectic of Enlightenment, that the Holocaust was a representation of the “fulfilment of the instrumental rationality of the Enlightenment.” (Horkheimer, Adorno, 1972). This coincides with the approach taken by Arendt who, in her book The Origins of Totalitarianism, cites the racism that characterised new imperialism during the 19th century and the development of “mass society” as reasons for the widespread violence of the 20th century (Arendt, 1973). This is clearly a controversial argument, particularly as the very essence of enlightenment philosophy is based upon ideas of rationality and progression, not the blind hatred and barbarism of the First World War and subsequent fascist regimes. A more recent critic of modernity is Zygmunt Bauman. In Modernity and the Holocaust he focuses his argument less on the Enlightenment and places more emphasis on the harmful impact of states’ policies and practices aimed at reshaping populations. He talks about the control obsessed modern state and likens it to a gardening society, always striving to cleanse itself of the weeds or the ‘others’ – he writes, “Modern genocide is an element of social engineering, meant to bring about a social order conforming to the design of a perfect society.” Essentially, Bauman concludes that key markers of modernity, such as enhanced surveillance capabilities and state practices which sought to exert power and control over all aspects of human life were at the heart of the brutal purges of the 20th century (Bauman, 1989). Yet, there is an alternative argument which points to the fact that there were mass killings and acts of violence against large groups of citizens well before the Age of Enlightenment, with stories of whole cities being burned to the ground as far back as the biblical era. It’s difficult therefore, to rely solely on modernity as a valid explanation for the violent biopolitics of the 20th century. Indeed, acts of genocide occur as a result of a combination of different factors but what remains consistent throughout is that these violent episodes almost always occur in the midst of war and during times of social and political unrest. And what does remain distinct about modern acts of state-led violence in comparison to those of earlier histories is the emergence of the nation state and the success of revolutionary movements heavily engaged in population politics. This new dynamic between war, race and revolution dramatically intensified both the rate and scale of genocidal episodes.
The relationship between war, revolution and genocide is explored thoroughly by Eric Weitz in The Modernity of Genocides. War, Race and Revolution in the Twentieth Century. Here, he argues that the roots of genocide are complex and lay not only in advances in technology but also in the aftermath of WWI, which he argues “created not only a culture of death but also a culture of killing, and one that was often tied to the ideology of race…[and] easily transferable to the huge political projects of the revolutionary regimes that emerged first out of the Great War.” (Weitz, 2003) The revolutionary regimes of the twentieth century weren’t just focused on establishing a new political order or reorganising wealth in society, these regimes were ruthlessly committed to reshaping the very essence of men and women in society, creating homogenous populations in line with the utopia towards which they were driving. This new dynamic between revolution and genocide doesn’t explain all episodes of violent mass killings against targeted social groups and of course, not all revolutions are genocidal. However, taking into consideration some of the most notorious, widespread acts of genocide in history like those committed in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, there’s no denying the pattern that appears to emerge in the 20th century of revolutionary movements characterised by genocide and ethnic cleansing, conducted against the backdrop of war or within militarised societies.
Thus, it remains that the roots of genocide are complex to say the least. The twentieth century was a major turning point in the history of violence and armed conflict in society, which was reflected in both the increased number of genocidal episodes and inter-state and civil wars. It would appear that there are strong correlations between genocide and war, with evidence suggesting that although war does not necessarily cause genocide, it is fundamental to it’s nature. Various features of modernity such as enhanced technologies and changes to bureaucracy allowed states to systematically exterminate the undesirable groups within their populations, with certain ideas around nation and race born out of the Enlightenment also having played a part in this. As well as a form of war, genocide also acts as a key component in many of the revolutions, which emerged out of WWI, revolutions grounded in the creation of a new, homogenised society.
Bibliography
Pinker, S., White, M. (2013). Atrocities: The 100 Deadliest Episodes in Human History. New York, Norton.
Genocide. (n.d.) In Oxford Dictionary. Retrieved from https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/genocide
Shaw, M., War and genocide: organised killing in modern society. Cambridge, Polity Press
Markusen, E., Kopf, D. (1995). The Holocaust and strategic bombing: Genocide and total war in the twentieth century. Boulder: Westview Press.
Horkheimer, M., Adorno, T. W. (1972). Dialectic of Enlightenment. New York, Continuum
Arendt, H. (1973). The Origins of Totalitarianism. New York, Harvest Books
Bauman, Z. (1989) Modernity and the Holocaust. Cambridge, Polity Press
Weitz, E. D. (2003) “The Modernity of Genocides. War, Race and Revolution in the Twentieth Century”. In The Specter of Genocide: Mass murder in historical perspective; edited by Robert Gellately and Ben Kiernan. New York, Cambridge University Press. pp. 53-71