Beach Reading

I have never had ordinary taste in leisure activities. There are many examples of this, but one that sticks out in my mind is the fact that for as long as I can remember, I have sought out books to read in my spare time about genocide. There are a variety of reasons for why this is the case, but the reasons aren't relevant. While as a society we seem to collectively admit to one event when describing genocide--the Holocaust--(of course, there are vocal segments of our collective that deny the existence of that one as well), I personally am interested in the whole of what we have named as modern genocides, including genocides in Armenia, Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda, and Darfur. Our own history of genocide of Native and African Americans, while not considered "modern" (perhaps incorrectly) provides important context and can be related directly to these state-sanctioned tragedies around the world. There are other massive atrocities that killed millions but for specific reasons we do not refer to as genocide, though they used many of the same tactics and the same precursors can be seen in them, such as the regimes of Stalin or Mao or the past thirty years of rule in North Korea. I like to read about those too. While others could be found on the beach reading romance novels or mysteries, I might be reading a book on reconciliation policies in Rwanda. It's an eccentricity, I suppose. And this habit does not in any way make me a scholar or an expert, but it allows me to see patterns across the worst moments in human history.

It is easy to ask "how could such a thing happen" and equally easy to say "never again." It is harder to look at these events, which seem so different on their face, and find the precursors, the commonalities, that encompass the calm before the storm. In order to be considered genocides, these events cannot simply be "wartime" atrocities or the collective brutality of neighbor against neighbor, but must include an express state-sanctioned decision to rid the culture of a specific type of people. This inevitably involves exalting one religious, ethnic, racial, or other social group (such as the peasant class) above all others. But that is definitional; I'm interested in the tactical. From what I--again, I am no expert--can tell, modern genocides have several preceding factors in common.

1. A charismatic leader more interested in loyalty than policy. It's arguable that many of the genocides that have happened in modern history did not happen because the leader or group in charge of ordering the genocide was personally committed to the cause. Rather, genocide can be used as a tool to create and maintain absolute power in the hands of one or a few. Genocidal leaders know the worst sins of their followers--their deep prejudices against others based on race or religion--and use them to their advantage by creating complicity among the populace.

2. A split from the old ways of governing. Genocides are usually preceded by popular uprisings. Individual leaders or groups of leaders, such as what we see with military coups that lead to genocide, are plucked from unlikely places and seek to erase the culture built by the old established order. If elected, they are rarely elected by a majority (Hitler had 33% of the vote), and if unelected, they are rarely experienced governors. The regimes that build genocidal societies are uninterested in governing per se, they are interested in controlling, and in upholding their own unquestioned authority.

3. It might seem small, but many regimes that eventually lead genocides wear some type of uniform to identify themselves in a "you are for us or against us" play. The uniform might be brown shirts, "country" dress, certain types of hats, or some other form of self-identification not normally found in an open, democratic society. Of course, in strictly race- or ethnicity-based genocides, the supposed physical attributes of the ruling class have been used against those who are about to be oppressed: not having a certain skin color, hair color, nose or head shape, or having a physical disability can be an immediate sign of being "other" and therefore worthy of targeting. Language can be a uniform of sorts, as those not speaking the "dominant" language or those with "undesirable" accents are targeted as well.

4. Related to the above, in pre-genocidal societies see an increase in attempts at "passing" as people begin to be aware of the brutality to come. Vulnerable people who are able to "pass" attempt to hide their race, religion, sexual orientation, political affiliation, educational background, sexual preference, or other "mark" of the coming oppression.

5. The government in power keeps a list of the enemy. Modern genocides all rely on lists of enemies of the state or the race. Lists can be actual, or symbolic. They can include forced registries of people based on religion, nationality, or ethnicity. This was extremely effective in leading to the genocides of the Third Reich and Rwanda, for example. They can include things like forcing certain groups to identify themselves in public (stars of David) or forcing citizens to provide papers, even when providing such papers might be impossible (the current treatment of Haitians in the Dominican Republic). Lists are gleaned from the places the soon-to-be oppressed gather: universities (Cambodia) Lists of "enemies of the state" that are not based on ethnicity or race or religion are imperative to pre-genocidal regimes as well. No genocide is effective without keeping tabs on sympathizers of the oppressed and silencing, persecuting, or executing them as well.

6. A remarkably consistent way of dehumanizing the target of the genocide in speech. This is something that personally astonishes me: no matter the time in history, the continent, or the type of genocide, the language used to describe the group to be exterminated is the same: people are referred to as animals, or insects (apes, cockroaches), reduced to perceptions of their inherently criminal nature (savages, crooks, rapists), seen as unwholesome burdens on good society (a cancer, a blight, a pox) or considered inherent enemies of the state simply by nature of being who they are (traitors, terrorists). Further, the oppressors flip the language, forcing words that should be used to describe their actions onto the oppressed. Those who oppose them are "unreasonable," "racist," "totalitarian," "liars," and, even "genocidal."

7. Threats against political rivals. Before beginning to assassinate or imprison the opposition, a crucial aspect of pre-genocide seems to be the threat of doing so. This helps to normalize it once it happens. Political opponents are threatened with jail or legal action or are ousted from their positions, and opposing political parties are deemed illegitimate. This goes hand in hand with the focus of genocidal leaders on putting real power in the hands of a very few people, often family members. Truly dangerous demagogues rarely have a solid group of close advisors they can trust, because on some level, they know that most people know they are extraordinarily dangerous and unfit. While here we focus on family political dynasties (The Bush, Clinton, Kennedy families as example), that is a different problem than the leader in power at the time ensuring or attempting to ensure that family members are given state secrets and clearance and are put in positions of high power...because no one else can be trusted.

8. Repression or takeover of the press. While having a casual conversation over scotch the other night, my husband declared that every new form of telecommunications had a corresponding genocide, and we have yet to see one directly related to the Internet or social media age. I say that as a simple aside. Anyway, persecution of reporters and a dismantling of any press other than propaganda for the ruling regime might seem like obvious ploys of authoritarianism. There are other subtle ways to destroy the ability of the country to get accurate information, however. Some are related to the above tactics. Media outlets can be threatened with lawsuits or claims of "libel." Entire media industries can be labeled as corrupt ("Jew Media" is still a term used by white supremacists). Putting masters of propaganda in high political positions has been a precursor to every genocide named in the first paragraph of this essay. The radio was used so expertly in the Rwandan genocide that the entire venture took just 100 days. Other propaganda movements are slower burning, and some are total (North Korea, where no information is allowed to be transmitted in any way by almost anyone).

9. Criminalization of everyday activities. This sets the stage for what is to come. People are incarcerated for long periods of time for a variety of things that in ordinary circumstances would never be considered problematic: adults breaking state-sanctioned curfews; having jobs (depending on who you are or what you do); not carrying identification; being a drug addict (which is different than being arrested for possessing illegal drugs); having sex in certain ways or with certain people; the list is limited only by the imagination of those in power. I would include here the idea that every genocide carries with it a limit on reproductive freedom and the criminalization of those who do not comply. This can be done in extreme ways (mass rape as a form of genocide and population control or racial "cleansing," mass forced sterilization); or by forcing individuals to seek state approval to plan their families. I'm sure there are less obvious ways to criminalize reproductive rights, but I'm drawing a blank at the moment.

10. Normalization of genocidal and authoritarian language. While it has long been understood that there are three phases of genocide (attempts to exterminate a people, attempts to culturally exterminate or assimilate the survivors, and denial of the existence of the genocide), it seems to me that what we see in history is a denial that begins BEFORE the event itself. In every case mentioned, there were warnings and people willing to disseminate those warnings, sometimes for months or years beforehand, and in the case of Germany, for at least a decade. In every case, those people were brushed off as crazy, paranoid, unwilling to compromise, and, as, simply, wrong. All of the above are made normal through language, acceptance of policy positions and an intense focus on reiterating that the impossible will not come to pass. The denial continues through the genocide itself and is intensified once the event is over. This is what enables us in the United States to call our genocide of Native Americans a "war" and our genocide attempted through centuries of race-based chattel slavery an "economic condition of the South." It is what enables the world at large to give Turkey a pass and allow them to insist the Armenian genocide never happened, and the Armenians were in fact the oppressors. It leads to Holocaust-deniers, attempts to rewrite the history of what happened in Bosnia, a total erasure of Pol Pot from history books, and an insistence that Rwanda and Darfur were somehow "inevitable African problems." The denial wouldn't work if it didn't start early.

These are the types of things I think about on an abnormally warm and sunny day in November. Obviously, there are societies that exhibit all of the above and do not carry out mass exterminations, and there are numerous contextual things that make each genocide event unique. Comparisons that fail to take into account the specific place in time, socioeconomic factors, and corresponding world events might be spurious at best. I am no expert, obviously, and my interest in genocide is abnormal. It's an eccentricity, I know. It never seemed to serve much purpose but to make me aware of the worst possibilities. And so this essay is perhaps purposeless--it is just to say.

Today I sat down to write and I thought about this:

The years when I was single, before the intense love and corresponding terror that parenting wrought, when on a Saturday afternoon I would take public transportation through a troubled and diverse city to a beach in an historically gay neighborhood and lie on the sand and read a book or two on a subject that seemed out of place, on a day that seemed impossibly warmer and brighter than this.

This is just to say.