Genocide denial

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Genocide denial occurs when an otherwise accepted act of genocide is met with attempts to deny the occurrence and minimize the scale or death toll. The most well-known type is Holocaust denial, but its definition can extend to any genocidal event that has been minimalized or met with excessive skepticism, notably denial of the Armenian Genocide.

Most instances of genocide denial are usually considered a form of Historical revisionism. However, in circumstances where the event in dispute is not seen to constitute genocide by the majority of scholars, the use of the term may be instead considered propaganda. The extremely serious nature of the crime of genocide, along with the terrible reputation it creates and potential repercussions that may come against a nation as a result of committing it, ensures that whenever genocide is charged, there will be parties that attempt to avoid or divert blame.

1 Techniques used by Genocide Denialists
2 Denial of Particular Genocides
3 Denial of More Than One Genocide
4 Writing On Genocide Denial in General
5 References

[edit] Techniques used by Genocide Denialists

While the arguments made by a genocide denialist vary depending on which genocide is being denied, most arguments have a common basis. Typical denialist accusations include conspiracies stating that the targeted ethnic group conspired against the accused state with its enemies, that death tolls have been exaggerated in order to create undeserved sympathy, that the victims provoked the actions against them, through either armed insurrection or exploitation of the majority, and that the evidence supporting a genocide thesis was largely fabricated. Denialists often argue from ignorance, approaching the subject without acknowledging eyewitness records or previously made studies, or previous conclusions, and claim falsehood based on lack of direct evidence. Denialists also accumulate pieces of data from less-cited or less-used sources that do not support a genocide thesis and exaggerate them in an attempt to counter records indicating such.

The list of acts of genocide denial is extensive, and proof of genocide is often difficult to obtain, either because governments are involved in the denial or because there is debate whether the occurred atrocities can be considered genocide (especially within a culture discussing its own recent events). For example, Ward Churchill, a controversial scholar and activist in the area of Native American studies, asserts that the concept of holocaust denial applies to the minimization of the significance of attempted extermination of other victims of the Nazi holocaust such as Roma and to the marginalization of other "holocausts" such as the near elimination of Native Americans.

[edit] Denial of Particular Genocides

Deniers of the Holocaust state that the genocide of Jews during World War II, referred to as the Holocaust, did not occur.
The death toll of the Great Chinese Famine caused by the government of Mao Zedong was higher than China's death toll in the Second World War. This could only be proved some decades later with demographic evidence;
The Nanjing Massacre (1937) by the Japanese army has been denied by many Japanese politicians, such as Ishihara Shintaro, and mainstream historians;
The Armenian Genocide (1915-1917) which was committed by the radical Young Turk government of the Ottoman Empire is today denied by the government of Turkey, asserting that the mass deaths of Armenians were the result of a civil war coupled with famine, despite the standpoint of the majority of western, Russian and Armenian scholars. Although some Turkish writers are being persecuted for going against the state's official standpoint concerning the event, the situation might change complexion in the coming years, mainly as a result of Turkey's attempt to join the European Union. The Pontic Greek and Assyrian Genocides that occurred around the same time are similarly denied;
The Holodomor famine in Ukraine in 1932-33 killed at least 3 million victims after agricultural produce has been confiscated from peasants by the communist authorities of the Soviet Union. Its genocidal character is denied by authorities and researchers in Russia. In the West, an example of a Holodomor objector is Canadian journalist Douglas Tottle.
The Ustaše genocide by the Croats, who killed hundreds of thousands of Serbs during WWII in Jasenovac and other places, was denied by Croatian president Franjo Tuđman and by many others in present day Croatia.
The genocide of Bengali Hindus and some Muslims in the 1971 Bangladesh atrocities is denied by Pakistan, whose military perpetrated the acts when they were in control of the East Pakistan region.
The Indonesian genocide in East Timor during its occupation of the country between 1975 and 1999 was also denied. The figure of 200,000 dead, first put forward by the Catholic Church in East Timor in 1982, accounted for nearly a third of the original population of nearly 700,000. This figure was rejected by the Indonesian government as an exaggeration ^[1], as was the figure of 180,000 in a report by East Timor's Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation ^[2] in January 2006;
Various war crimes in the former Yugoslavia have been denied by participants in the wars there, and by some in the West. The 1995 Srebrenica massacre, judged to be an act of genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) it the case Prosecutor vs. Krstic, is still denied by some Serbs (in some cases the denial is whether or not it constituted an act of genocide, not whether or not the massacre took place). American journalist Diana Johnstone is among those accused of denying or minimising these massacres ^[3], as well as Noam Chomsky and defunct British magazine LM. (see below).

[edit] Denial of More Than One Genocide

The British magazine LM, previously Living Marxism, adopted a highly skeptical attitude to the general consensus of events in conflicts such as Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. This attitude was criticised as being in effect support of mass murderers. In the case of Rwanda the magazine did not deny that mass murder had taken place, but argued that it was a vicious civil war rather than a deliberate attempt to wipe out an ethnic group. The magazine also ran an article which claimed that a picture supposedly showing a Serbian prison camp, was in fact of a safe haven for refugees. They were sued for libel, lost, and as a result went bankrupt in 2000.^[4]^[5]^[6]^[7]
Noam Chomsky has been accused of minimising or denying genocide in at least two contemporary cases; the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia.^[8]^[9], and the conflict in the former Yugoslavia. He has also been accused of supporting a Holocaust denier, Robert Faurisson. Supporters of Chomsky generally argue that the allegations against him are made in bad faith, and that he did not in fact defend or support any genocidal government. The implication is often that his critics are motivated by a desire to smear a prominent leftist, as in for example this article by Christopher Hitchens which defends Chomsky in relation to the Khmer Rouge and Faurisson. Similarly, Chomsky claimed that the context of the quote in which he denied the Srebrenica massacre^[10] was invented. The newspaper that published it later apologised and retracted the story.^[11] For more detail, see Criticism of Noam Chomsky.

[edit] Writing On Genocide Denial in General

Gregory H. Stanton, formerly of the US State Department and the founder of Genocide Watch, lists denial as the final stage of a genocide development:

“

Denial is the eighth stage that always follows a genocide. It is among the surest indicators of further genocidal massacres. The perpetrators of genocide dig up the mass graves, burn the bodies, try to cover up the evidence and intimidate the witnesses. They deny that they committed any crimes, and often blame what happened on the victims.^[12]

”

George Orwell writes in 'Notes on Nationalism' that

“

The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them. For quite six years the English admirers of Hitler contrived not to learn of the existence of Dachau and Buchenwald. And those who are loudest in denouncing the German concentration camps are often quite unaware, or only very dimly aware, that there are also concentration camps in Russia. Huge events like the Ukraine famine of 1933, involving the deaths of millions of people, have actually escaped the attention of the majority of English russophiles. Many English people have heard almost nothing about the extermination of German and Polish Jews during the present war. Their own antisemitism has caused this vast crime to bounce off their consciousness. In nationalist thought there are facts which are both true and untrue, known and unknown. A known fact may be so unbearable that it is habitually pushed aside and not allowed to enter into logical processes, or on the other hand it may enter into every calculation and yet never be admitted as a fact, even in one’s own mind.^[13]

”