GENOCIDES

March 15, 2012

Tecnológico de MonterreyCampus Querétaro

The Four Main Causes

Convenience—instrumental:

disposing of a weaker

population that occupies

wanted land and resists

19th and 20th century colonial policies: Australia, Americas (Cherokees), Russians (Circassians), Libya, German policy in occupied Ukraine, many massacres that were less than genocidal

Older examples: William in Yorkshire, Caesar in Gaul, probably many Chinese cases, many unknown cases everywhere

Revenge: They did something

that deserves to be punished

Mongols in Herat (combined with

instrumental reasoning, to make an

example), Romans in many cases,

including Carthage

Germans with Herero in Southwest

Africa, Japanese in Nanjing, many local

cases in World War II (Oradour in France)

that were massacres, if not genocides as

such

Fear: If we do not do this to

them, they will destroy us

Armenian genocide of 1915, Rwanda

genocide of 1994, Darfur early 2000s.

Chinese ethno-religious wars against

Muslims in Southwest China in the mid-

19th century

Fear of Pollution: To leave

these people alive is to risk

polluting the earth and

destroying all that is good

Biblical stories – Amalekites, Canaanites

in the Book of Joshua

Wars or religion, as in Europe between

Protestants and Catholics in the 16th and

17th centuries (where the term massacre

comes from 1570s in France), Cromwell’s

men in 17th century Ireland citing the

Book of Joshua as their model

First crusade in Europe and Jerusalem

Nazi anti-Semitism and the Holocaust

War on kulaks by Stalin, Khmer Rouge

attempt to eliminate all traces of

Vietnamese influence and of

“bourgeois” or “urban” culture

What Can Be Done?

Most ethnic, religious, nationalist, and regional conflicts stop far short of genocide even if they are violent

To stop genocide is hard once it has begun -- military means necessary --but signs can be seen long before and that is the time to try to prevent them