Analysis / Final Solution

There are numerous cases in the history of an entire people being violently exterminated. Why does this happen? What drives human beings to embark on a murder spree against random civilians?

A Crime Without A Name^note Winston Churchil used this to describe Nazi brutality against Soviet civilians

To understand genocide, one must understand the origin of the term.

In 1944, Raphael Lemkin, a Polish-Jewish lawyer and refugee from Nazism^note In one of the most bitter ironies, Lemkin would lose almost all his relatives to the Holocaust published Axis Rule in Occupied Europe. Aghast by the murderous persecution of the Armenians in the late Ottoman Empire, Lemkin sought to create an international body that would punish racial mass murder. So in his book, he gave this ghastly phenomenon a title and a definition, combining the word "genos", Greek for "race", and "cide", Latin for "kill". And he defined genocide as:

Generally speaking, genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by mass killings of all members of a nation. It is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves. The objectives of such a plan would be the disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of the personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and even the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups. Genocide is directed against the national group as an entity, and the actions involved are directed against individuals, not in their individual capacity, but as members of the national group.

Genocide takes on many forms and is not limited to mass murder but also includes acts that destroy the culture and life of a target group, such as the destruction of cultural artifacts, sexual abuse, and forced assimilation.

Risk Factors For Genocide

But what causes genocide to take place? Under what conditions does a dominant group seek to eliminate or destroy another?

1. War: Wars can either be a cover for a genocide (i.e., a dominant group wages war as a pretext to a genocide) or a state sees a dominant group as a threat to its war effort.
2. Autocracy: Autocratic states with a history of human rights violations are not opposed to eliminating "internal enemies." Genocidal fearmongering is a tool that autocracies use to gain legitimacy.
3. Instability: A civil war can see various factions vying for power, with extremists filling a power void and committing massacres to secure their power.
4. Poverty: Poverty can increase the risk of genocide in different ways: a state with little citizen involvement in genocide has little problem murdering a marginalized community.
5. Economic problems: A state in economic crisis can use the stigmatization and scapegoating of "others" to distract the population. Demagogues can rise to power in economic disasters.

10 (originally 8) Stages of Genocide

Gregory Stanton, a genocide studies professor, drew up the stages of genocide to make acts of mass murder easier to recognize and thus prevent.

1. Classification: People are sorted into distinct identities.
2. Symbolization: Symbols and colors are given to these identities.
3. Discrimination: A dominant class gives a designated social group second-class citizenship and denies them civil rights and civil equality.
4. Dehumanization: The targeted group is denounced by the dominant group as subhuman and a threat to national security.
5. Organization: Special militias and armies are raised and trained to murder civilians.
6. Polarization: Moderate figures are targeted by genocidal extremists, either through propaganda denouncing them as traitors, arrests, or extrajudicial murder.
7. Preparation: The dominant group begins devoted resources to planned killing. The bureaucracies of the state use coded language to mask their planned mass murders.
8. Persecution: The target group is isolated from society, their culture is suppressed, and the state actively tries to destroy their livelihoods and culture.
9. Extermination: The target group is slaughtered, and the killers treat the act like extermination since their victims are no longer human in their eyes.
10. Denial: The perpetrators deny their acts of genocide. Evidence is destroyed, opposing voices are silenced, and the victims are labeled as traitors and threats needing to be destroyed. This is a sign that the dominant group will commit further genocide.