On Genocide
Richard L. Rubenstein (2002)
[From, Carol Rittner, John K. Roth, and James
M. Smith, Will Genocide Ever End? (Aegis in Conjunction with Paragon
House)]
There have
been many attempts to define genocide since World War II. In 1944 Raphael Lemkin,
an international lawyer, offered the first, defining it as “the coordinated and
planned annihilation of a national, religious, or racial group by a variety of
actions aimed at undermining the foundations essential to the survival of a
group as a group.”[1]
Lemkin also noted that genocide is a “form of one-sided killing” in which the
perpetrators intend to eliminate their victims who by contrast have no
comparable intention. Lemkin’s definition was followed by many others such as
the 1946 UN Resolution that defined genocide as “the denial of the right to
exist of entire human groups, as homicide is denial of the right to live of
individual…”[2]
I would like to propose an alternative definition: genocide can best be
understood as the most radical method of
implementing a state or communally-sponsored program of population elimination.
I believe that this definition facilitates an understanding of the larger
historical conditions under which populations have been targeted for
elimination.[3]
Genocide can be understood as the last stop on a journey of destruction that
starts with the least harsh form of population elimination, namely, emigration
schemes in which unwanted individuals are provided with transportation from
their home community to a foreign destination, but
not the means to return. For example, in the early decades of the nineteenth
century, a number of English parishes sent their paupers and other
“undesirables” with only a few pounds sterling to
Compulsory expulsion is a harsher method of population
elimination. Jews were expelled from
Although they seldom, if ever, succeed completely, perpetrators of genocide seek the total elimination
of the target population. The Nazis expressed this succinctly in the term “Final
Solution of the Jewish Problem.” The Turks expressed their genocidal intentions
with even greater frankness. On
…determined completely
to exterminate the Armenians living in
Between 600,000 and
1,000,000 Christian Armenians were killed. The exact number cannot be
determined. Whatever the number, there is a scholarly consensus that the
Armenian genocide anticipated the Holocaust. Nevertheless, here again there was
a fundamental difference. The Turkish genocide was aimed primarily at
inhabitants of Turkish Armenia, a region that straddled the border between
No combination of conditions will necessarily lead to genocide but there are some conditions that are
likely to foster state-sponsored genocide. The most fundamental condition is population redundancy. A governing
authority is far less likely to consider a program of population elimination
where there is a labor shortage. For example, after World War II, with millions
of Germans soldiers held as prisoners of war in the
The terms “redundant” or “surplus” population are not
absolute. Whether a society has such a population depends on how it is
organized. The Nazis classified Germans of all ages with debilitating diseases
as “useless eaters.” As such, they were considered surplus and were targeted
for extermination. Pre-modern societies with protective extended families as
their fundamental units were less likely to have surplus populations than
modern societies that value productive efficiency and economic rationality,
although the rootless foot soldiers of the Crusades are an indication that
Europe was beginning to develop a surplus population as early as the twelfth
century. Nevertheless, mass redundant
populations are largely a by-product of modernity.
Yet another reason why genocide has been more likely to
develop in the modern period has been the organization of the world into states
with well-defined borders and bureaucracies capable of limiting immigration.
The borders of most countries were largely closed to European Jews during the
nineteen-thirties including the
Nevertheless, even under
conditions of a population surplus, no government is likely willingly to
perpetrate large-scale mass murder unless its leaders are convinced that their
actions are beneficial to those members of their own community whom they value.
Put differently, no government will enter upon a program of mass murder absent some form of
religious or moral legitimation. That was true even of the Nazis.[7]
Such legitimation requires the radical
demonization of the target group and its depiction as capable of inflicting
significant harm on the perpetrator community. In the case of the Jews, a
religious legitimation was ready at hand in the accusation that by their
disbelief the Jews were collectively in every generation the murderers of God
and, as such, in league with Satan. The demonization was further intensified by
the identification of the Jews with Judas, the disciple who betrays Christ with
a kiss. Because these identifications were inextricably woven into the heart of
the Christian story, they operated at the level of pre-theoretical consciousness
and were normally opaque to critical scrutiny. The congeries of demonizing
accusations carried with them the implicit warning that Jews would use the
powers that had allegedly enabled them to “murder” God to destroy the enemies
in whose midst they dwelt. At bottom, there was a fear component in Nazi
anti-Semitism.
In the case of
the Armenians, the Turks were convinced that their Christian minority would
betray them to Christian Russia, their wartime and hereditary enemy, and had to
be exterminated. In the early thirteenth century, Pope Innocent III regarded
the Cathars, the advocates of the Albigensian heresy, as mortal enemies of the
Catholic Church. When the Pope became convinced that the Cathars could not be
persuaded to return to the Church, he wrote to King Phillip Augustus of
However, demonization alone will not
lead to genocide. The Jews were held in contempt for almost two thousand years
before they became the target of outright genocide. In addition to demonizing a
target group, a perpetrating community is likely to experience radical
socio-economic and/or political stress and upheaval before embarking on such a
program. Such stress may be caused by a humiliating defeat in war for which the
target community is blamed. Against all rational calculation, the German right
was convinced that the Jews were responsible for their country’s defeat in
World War I and, if left unchecked, would plot Germany’s destruction in World
War II.
Another
example of destabilizing stress was the victory of the radically anti-Christian
Bolshevik Regime in
A final ingredient necessary for the
perpetration of genocide is the cover of
war. Killing the enemy is considered legitimate in wartime and, if one can
identify the target population as the enemy, there are few, if any, scruples
left to prevent the project from proceeding.
In
conclusion, I would like to suggest that many of the same conditions are also
likely to foster programs of terrorism on the part of non-governmental groups.
Non-state terrorism is not likely to flourish absent a redundant population
with angry males who lack either vocational slots or regard the available slots
as beneath their training, competence or dignity. Like genocide, terrorism
requires moral and/or religious legitimation which in turn requires the
demonization of the target community. Like genocide, terrorist groups seek the
disruption and ultimate destruction of the target community. There are, of
course, differences; genocide cannot be
successfully implemented by non-government organizations; terrorism can.
Governments usually sponsor terrorist activities surreptitiously when overt
military strikes carry too great a risk of punishing retaliation. Finally,
although both genocide and terrorism have been practiced for many centuries,
the era of high technology and globalization is especially conducive to such
activities and requires heightened, sophisticated vigilance among those who seek to diminish or eliminate
them entirely.
[1] Raphael Lemkin, Axis Rule in Occupied Europe (Washington, DC: Ca rnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1944), p. 92.
[3] For an elaboration of this theme, see Richard L.
Rubenstein, The Cunning of History: Mass
Death and the American Future (New York: Harper and Row, 1975) and The Age of Triage: Fear and Hope in an
Overcrowded World (Boston: Beacon
Press, 1983).
[4]
[5]
The telegram is quoted in Manuel Sarkisyanz, A Modern History of Transcaucasian Armenia (Nagpur, India: Udyam
Commercial Press, 1975), p. 196.
(Distributed by E. J. Brill,
[6]
See The Cunning of History and The Age of Triage.
[7] This point is made effectively by Peter J. Haas, Morality After Auschwitz: The Radical Challenge of the Nazi Ethic (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988).
[8]
The letter was written