A CRIME CALLED GENOCIDE
By Bud Mortenson
University of British Columbia, Canada
Nov 1 2007
UBC Okanagan Scholar Seeks Knowledge from the Heart of Darkness
Near a small town in Bosnia this summer, Adam Jones watched in the
rain as a mass grave was exhumed, the remains of dozens of nameless
people brought forth from the sodden earth. It was a solemn reminder
of a terrible truth: "Genocide is woven inextricably into the fabric
of modern history," he says.
"We’re coming to a greater understanding of just how pervasive
this phenomenon has been throughout history," says Jones, an
Assoc. Prof. of Political Science who joined UBC Okanagan this year
from Yale University.
Until 1943, it was called the "crime without a name." Today, genocide
is a label judiciously applied to atrocities around the globe, as
experts like Jones build new understanding about what motivates one
group to seek the extermination of another.
"In studying genocide, I’ve come to appreciate how many societies
have been vulnerable to it. When we talk about genocidal prevention,
we’re coming to terms with the legacy of the past," he says.
"Hopefully, that makes us more aware of the destructive processes
when they arise today."
Jones has traveled the world to learn more about the places and people
involved in genocide. From Bolivia to Bosnia, he has seen first-hand
the horrific damage inflicted by one group against another.
The author of a new textbook, Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction
(), Jones was drawn to UBC’s Okanagan campus
by an interdisciplinary approach to research, and an opportunity
to delve ever deeper into what he calls "the heart of darkness" —
genocide through history and around the world.
He’s keenly interested in the role of gender in genocide. Examples of
gender-selective atrocities — "gendercide" — are found in the witch
hunts of Europe, colonial North America, and even modern-day Africa.
Gendercide also permeates Africa’s long history of conflict, where
invading forces cull battle-aged males from the population, thwarting
any resistance. In one historical case, that of Shaka Zulu’s imperial
armies in the early 19th century, the oppressing army did the opposite,
killing all the women and children, forcing the men into service
as soldiers.
"The role of gender in atrocities is under-explored," Jones says.
"I’m now looking at women and men as victims, perpetrators and
bystanders in genocide. Understanding the role of gender helps us
better understand the dynamics of genocide."
Jones has developed tools to expose and record genocide — so the
crime, the perpetrators, and their victims are not nameless.
Gendercide Watch, a non-profit organization he founded under the
auspices of the Gender Issues Education Foundation, is one of these
tools: collecting and publishing online a wide range of gendercide
case studies, from Armenia during World War One to Rwanda in 1994, and
more recent world media reports on gendercide. He has also published
a comprehensive look at media coverage and human-rights reports about
gender-selective killings in Darfur, Sudan.
Jones takes some comfort in knowing that against considerable
cultural odds, great social victories have been won in the past —
over slavery and in advancing women’s rights, for example. "Maybe
there is a chance to engineer similar transformations when it comes
to genocide," he says.
Two years ago, his explorations took him to Potosí, Bolivia, and
the Cerro Rico mountain, the richest silver mine in history. "For
two centuries, this mine fueled the epic excess of the Spanish
monarchs," Jones writes on his genocidetext.net website. "Still today,
it is excavated — mostly for other minerals — by a small army of
poverty-stricken miners whom I had the honour of joining for a couple
of hours deep in the humid bowels of the mountain."
During the colonial period, at least one million forced labourers,
and perhaps as many as eight million — mostly Aymara Indians, but
including some African slaves — died in the mines of Cerro Rico.
"There are grounds for believing that the Cerro Rico is the world’s
greatest single tomb," says Jones. "Potosí reminds us that our journey
into genocide is only beginning — and with it, our reckoning of our
past and present barbarisms, and our potential to banish the scourge
for good."
ports/2007/07nov01/genocide.html
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From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
