I subscribe the the magazine "The Week" which summarizes news stories from around the world. In an article about the French charity that recently "rescued" African children in Chad (which turned out not to be a rescue but more like a kidnapping), I came upon a paragraph which seemed to deny that the events in Darfur are "genocide."
Here is the paragraph:
There's a lager lesson in this affair, said Jean-Philippe Remy in France's Le Monde. In their zeal to save African babies, the aid workers apparently broke the law. But what "fired them with such self-righteousness" in the first place was the disinformation surrounding the crisis in Darfur. The Save Darfur campaign in the U.S. and its counterpart, Urgence Darfour, have adopted a thesis promoted by President Bush but "refuted by most experts": that Darfur is a scene of genocide. If you truly believe that evil Arab tribes are trying to exterminate black African tribes, then you probably would be inspired to break the law to save at least some of the children. The reality is more banal. Darfur is a scene of ethnic cleansing, not genocide. And it's simply not true that the world has ignored the situation. Darfur hosts "one of the biggest U.N. peacekeeping forces on the planet." In their zeal to free African children, charity workers have, regrettably, "freed themselves from the truth."
After hearing guest speakers talk about the reality of the events in Darfur, it was hard for me to comprehend how The Week could publish an article denying that the situation in Darfur is a genocide.
What is the difference between "genocide" and "ethnic cleansing" and why would the article categorize the Darfur situation as an example of ethnic cleansing?
The article states that most experts refute that Darfur is a scene of genocide. How are such vast numbers of experts being misled? Are we the ones being misled if the experts are right?
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5 comments:
I don't really see the difference between ethnic cleansing and genocide. Ethnic cleansing IS A FORM of genocide.
After searching online, I found something interesting on Encyclopedia Britannica.
Ethnic cleansing is defined as "the attempt to create ethnically homogeneous geographic areas through the deportation or forcible displacement of persons belonging to particular ethnic groups."
Later the article talked about ethnic cleansing's relationship to genocide. It stated, "Ethnic cleansing as a concept has generated considerable controversy. Some critics see little difference between it and genocide. Defenders, however, argue that ethnic cleansing and genocide can be distinguished by the intent of the perpetrator: whereas the primary goal of genocide is the destruction of an ethnic, racial, or religious group, the main purpose of ethnic cleansing is the establishment of ethnically homogeneous lands, which may be achieved by any of a number of methods including genocide."
I personally think that ethnic cleansing is genocide because whether the purpose is to kill a certain race or not, a whole group of people are still being exterminated--just like what happened to the Armenians and the Jews.
Aileen, I agree with your comment that ethnic cleansing is a type of genocide. As we learned earlier, the UN definition of genocide consists of "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."
So, if the purpose of "ethnic cleansing" involves "the establishment of ethnically homogenous lands," how else can that be acheived except for by "forcibly transferring" or killing people who are not part of the ethnic homogenousness? Also, if force is required to make a region ethnically homogenous, then that force implies the threat of violence or violence itself.
Also, even if ethnic cleansing were not the same as genocide, what is happening in Darfur fits the article's own definition of genocide: "the destruction of an ethnic, racial or religious group." For the article to say that this is genocide, and then say that the events in Darfur are not genocide, is contradictory.
Reading that paragraph upset me because I DEFINITELY see ethnic cleansing as a form of genocide. I think that that article is hurtful and provides misinformation for its readers. What I find especially ridiculous is the line "The reality is more banal. Darfur is a scene of ethnic cleansing, not genocide." It makes what is happening in Darfur sound innocent and not very harmful.
This article reminds me of some of the discussions we've had about intervention in genocides and about denial. It seems like the article is trying to downplay a need to intervene and feel a "self-righteous" anger toward what is happenining in Darfur. For someone who is not aware of the situation in Darfur or who does not understand the implications of the phrase "ethnic cleansing," this article is dangerous and misleading.
My family subscribes to The Week also. I wonder if either through a misleading summary or bad translation that the message of the article came across... frankly it doesn't make very much sense to me. Summaries in The Week can sometimes be heavy-handed interpretations of what were very subtle points. I've read columns previously in the newspaper and then read the Week summary and although they usually do an effective job, sometimes the difference is really jarring. (These are stories in the same language also: with a translation gap it could be even worse.)
I'm not skeptical that the message of the original article may be against intervening against genocide or ethnic cleansing, (or using resources to aid genocide victims) since many people are against that. It's just difficult when we're looking at something through this many lenses to know what the author's point was or how they crafted it. This is a secondary (possibly even tertiary) source and it's important to be careful of making judgments from it when it's not clear what the initial point is or how it was argued.
I think that one of the most shocking parts of the article is the use of the word "banal" in relation to ethnic cleansing. I dont think that ethnic cleansing can ever be described as "banal," especially in the modern world where globalization has made us all so interconnected and mixed. The forced separation or homogenization is contradictory to the way the world is currently working, and to "ethnically cleanse" a population by actively moving those who do not fit the paradigm can never be banal in today's world.
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