Genocide Denial - the Midianites and the Holodomor

I am still trying to decide for myself what the term' genocide' means with all its nuances and difficulties, but I feel pretty secure in saying that I do not believe that there is a lot of middle ground in the definition. If you have a desire/intent to rid yourself of a group of people specifically for something that they 'are' or what they have, it's genocide in my definition- no matter how successful you were at doing so. I take issue with the term 'somehow less genocidal' because genocide = genocide period. Causing the death of people for their politics is just as much a genocide as doing so for the excuses of race or religion. As we have studied this semester, I have found myself going back to things I have read or heard about that dilute the intensity of the word genocide by excusing or diverting the conversation away from the facts. An example is the attempted extermination of the Midianites by the Israelites in antiquity. The Israelite and their prophet Moses were frustrated by growing religious tensions between the two groups of people and that some Israelites were converting or following teachings that came from the Midianites religion. The God of the Israelites told Moses to kill all of the Midianites and the Israelite armies were sent out and conquered their foes returning home with all of enemy's property/ livestock as well as the women and children who survived the battle. Accordingly, when the soldiers returned to Moses with all the bounty, he is angry and tells them to kill everyone but the virgin girls. That was done and the passage ends with ritual purifying.

Some apologists suggest that God – and therefore Moses- only allowed the virgin girls to live because they would have had nothing to do with idol worship and that was why everyone else had to die. Others state that killing and war were necessary evils at the time and this was normal behavior. At least one source suggests that as Midianites are mentioned later in the Bible, this couldn't be a genocide because not all of the Midianites were killed- They were able to fight another war with the Israelites later. However, boy children and infants would also have had nothing to do with idol worship and they were killed and if some people managed to escape death that doesn’t make a genocide 'not a genocide'.... it simply changes the evaluation of its success.

Today the Russian government still denies the existence of the Holodomor in Ukraine in 1932-33. (For a brief description and information see here.) I think the fact that the Russian government and diplomats took the time and opportunity to help shape the language of the “Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide' to exclude a 'targeted group' in their country makes one thing really clear to me... the men who helped craft the definition knew that what they did was genocide and so worked to make sure it wouldn't 'qualify'. I frankly find that heinous. I find the denial and the active participation to bury the crime almost as heinous as the original transgression. I believe this partly because I think that people who deny it because they genuinely do not believe the 'crime' happened and believe it has been made up are people that are so ignorant I can feel sorry for their lack of knowledge and understanding. Having a full knowledge and working to deny something for financial motives or to give yourself more credibility in front of other governments and the international community is pretty challenging for me to understand. I also find it provocative that a signatory of this convention who has basically agreed to try to 'prevent and punish actions of genocide in war and peacetime' ... is actively trying to distract the world from their own culpability and failings in the same areas. So to look at the Holodomor as 'somewhat less genocidal' seems a bit distracting and disingenuous; i.e. it's either a genocide or not. The major reason that seems to be given – that Stalin’s plans killed millions... many of whom were not Ukrainian, seems disingenuous at best because what that statement tells me is that those who say it recognize that it is a genocide.... just a much bigger one that encompassed a large 'class' of people rather than just Ukrainians.. (Lastly, I find a small irony in the fact that Russia has politically accepted the existence of the Armenian Genocide in Turkey and denies this one... they seem to be so alike in my mind that every argument to prove the “Great Catastrophe' proves the Holodomor as well.... deportations, false political accusations, government seizure of property, denial of food shipments and journalists, etc...)

That begs the question then as to whether the Holodomor is a genocide or not? The legal definition of genocide includes acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national ethnical, racial or religious group. Acts include killing or causing serious physical/ mental harm and imposing measures intended to damage the group, prevent re-population and/or forcibly removing youth from the group to integrate them into other populations. When the whole of the Holodomor is looked at in this perspective and broken down, we can see how clearly this 'series of decisions/acts fits into the legal definition. Joseph Stalin created the artificial famine by decreeing impossible quotas on grain/ other food products and tight enforcement of them. When it was obvious that his plan was causing starvation and mass death, he did not change anything about the policy and actively denied food aid offered from other countries. If he didn't know what the consequences were when he started his plan, he certainly had the information to figure it out and stop it as time went by. However, written evidence suggests he knew full well what the consequences would be for the peasants by ordering 'the destruction of the kulaks as a class'. When he was told about what was happening from some of his own men, Stalin was quoted as saying, “Wouldn't it be better for you to leave your post and become a writer so you can concoct more fables!” He created orders to shoot anyone who stole even a small amount of food and reflected that it would be much easier to just deport all the Ukrainians but that wasn't possible. Along with other evidence, it seems clear that the intent to kill and demoralize the Ukrainian population has been proved. The Holodomor included millions of deaths as well as serious mental and physical harm as has been testified to by the survivors in their stories of cannibalism, deaths and oppression. Starvation as well as the inability to disperse themselves to safer areas also curtailed births as family relationships and communities collapsed. The Holodomor fits the definition of genocide without any difficulty. It is regrettable that its existence is still being denied and a source of contention between Russia and the Ukraine. The challenges that both countries are going through now seem to stem from the same problems and ideas that caused this genocide in the first place. Moving forward from a place of contention doesn't seem like a great way to move forward... more like a way to potentially have another serious conflict arise again that has the potential to turn into a genocide. I hope that will change… another genocide would be more than tragic, it would be… I just don’t have the words…

pictures from: http://freethoughtnation.com/moses-and-the-midianites/, http://www.patheos.com/blogs/tinseltalk/2012/01/was-moses-black-urban-daily-proposes-black-actors-for-spielberg-biblical-epic/, http://rt.com/news/holodomor-famine-pirozhenko-ukraine/, http://ocfordarfur.wordpress.com/2008/09/

Thoughts on the Armenian 'Catastrophe' ... and Why do Americans Have No Knowledge of This?

This week I read most of the book “The Sandcastle Girls” by Chris Bohjalian. I was really impressed with the writing of the author and how he did seem to capture so much of what the experience might have been like in the recollections and visuals of the characters. I was also pretty astonished by how well he writes in the perspective of the gender he is not- I think that takes a great amount of brilliance, observation and listening. It also suggests that we are human beings divided into man and woman are not as different as we believe that we are.

After doing my reading I decided to tackle the first question that was brought up about the genocide in our class- Why do American's know so little about the genocide? I found while I have tackled this question I have gotten a firmer idea of what a genocide actually is and why the Salem witch trials , while pretty horrific and had almost all of the same motivating factors, were at least different in a few ways. I took the time this week to try and do a short informal poll. I have 100 or so Facebook friends and so I asked point blank on my page last Thursday if anyone had heard of the Armenian genocide and what they knew about it. I got seventeen responded and all of them were negative - “What is that?”, “ Is that recently?”, and other generic responses. I also asked very quickly at the beginning of my medical assistant class on Tuesday and all five students plus the teacher denied ever hearing about it. I asked at church and simply seemed to cause confusion including people asking who the Armenians are... When I mentioned that ISIS yesterday had destroyed a memorial dedicated to the Armenian genocide in a class, the only comments seemed to be outrage that a church was hit and confusion as to why it was a memorial. So I spent a few hours in the library trying to research the question as to why we as Americans hear nothing. I looked at the books I used when I studied World War I two semesters ago and there was no reference at all. (Heck, I looked at all the sources that I used internet, etc... for my paper that semester and found pretty much nothing.) So I think that one reason that Americans do not know about it is that the majority of the books and sources that we can use for studying that period of time focus on the 'Western' and 'Eastern' Fronts and the death and military strategy there as well as success, failure and stalemates. It feels that where our troops were and what they were doing as well as our allies are considered much more important for us to know and study. I think that is only a part of the reason though because one source I found suggested that the Armenian genocide is the second most studied genocide – second only to the Holocaust. Yet, everyone polled knew of the Holocaust and not the other.

I think a big part of why Americans are not taught about the Armenian genocide is actually political- politics now and in the politics after the end of World War II. I have come to this conclusion for a few reasons. The first reason is after the readings and some research it appears that all genocides have governmental involvement in common and as such, politics must necessarily be involved to a certain degree. For the Armenians, it was the members of the political parties/ groups of the Young Turks and the Committee of Union and Progress that designed and carried out this genocide. It appears that only governments can really create genocides because only organizations that are that big and wield that much planning and power can effectively achieve these aims. While others may dream of doing so in small groups or individually, they can't do so effectively without all the pieces that are necessary and it appears that for the most part, only governments have ties to all the pieces required... a military, central planning, ability to develop machinery and secret organizations and police forces, etc... So political groups may have as part of their platform a policy or a platform that encompasses ideas that make the genocide not only possible, but more likely. The government of Turkey has a lot to lose if they 'admit' and acknowledge the genocide. First, the government itself owes most of its assets to the acquisition of them from the Armenians. That in itself is a large motivation to keep quiet. The longer that the Turkish government denies it, the harder and more difficult it will be for them to eventually back down

One of the challenges of learning about the Armenian genocide was to discover its existence. Over my lifetime, history has been an important aspect of my education and my life. It has marked itself upon my mind and with few exceptions all my college electives have been history based. So how was this piece of recent history missed? Isn't it interesting that candidate Obama would use the word genocide when talking about this act... and President Obama will not?

So… how many of my readers have heard about this genocide? What do you know about it?

pictures from: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13330603-the-sandcastle-girls, http://www.genocide-museum.am/eng/armenian_genocide.php, http://www.crethiplethi.com/for-turkey-as-a-model-in-the-middle-east-america-remains-crucial/usa/2012/, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama

Genocide in Our Time – Introduction to February’s Topic

Over the last few years, I have found out so much information on the act of genocide and man’s inhumanity to man that I feel pretty well verses in it. This month I am going to focus on some modern day genocides as well as my thoughts on them, actions and ideals that are more likely to lead to violence, ethnic cleansing and genocide as well as a few books and related topics. There are many more genocides that I studied but I will not include writings about because they are pretty graphic and I am not sure a PG -13 blog is the best place for all of it. I do think it’s important to start the conversation and not hide the reality of humanity and what we are capable of… we have genocides happening in our world right now…. This is not an act we have become to civilized to perform.

So this is your introduction to the topics and ideas that will be discussed throughout February. Welcome! : )

1. picture from http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/04/02/11-powerful-photos-from-the-aftermath-of-the-rwandan-genocide/