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GENOCIDE, RELIGION AND POLITICS: SPEAKING TRUTH TO POWER
The Economist
June 11 2013
IN THE days to come, we may be hearing a lot more about the question
of genocide, for at least two reasons. A row has broken out between
the Turkish government and Pope Francis over his use of the word
"genocide" to describe the slaughter of Ottoman Armenians in 1915.
Given that the holy see is an agency in global diplomacy as well as
a religious body, this could be the start of an escalating public
dispute between the world's largest Christian group and one of the
most important Muslim-majority nations.
Meanwhile Barack Obama has nominated as his ambassador to the United
Nations a courageous scholar and journalist, Samantha Power, who has
devoted much of her life to analysing and decrying the phenomenon of
genocide, and to arguing that stopping it should be a higher priority
in American foreign policy.
Genocide is a word whose very use has vast moral and political
consequences. What exactly is it? The UN Convention on Genocide,
agreed in 1948, offers a range of actions (killing, harming, imposing
harsh conditions, restricting birth, forcible adoption) which are
genocidal if committed with intent to "destroy, in whole or in part,
a national, ethnical, racial or religious group."
As an attempt to ring-fence a particular category of mass annihilation,
this presents huge problems. How big a proportion of the "group" does
the perpetrator have to intend destroying to merit the g-word? Is
it less bad to massacre 100,000 members of a numerous group (because
the group's survival is not in question) than to take an equal toll
from a small group? Is the mass murder of an economic class, like the
"wealthy" peasants annihilated by Stalin, marginally more tolerable,
because the group's definition is not religious or "ethnical"?
Still, the fact is that we know genocide when we see it. I would argue,
though, that there is a big difference between the enunciation of
the g-word by spiritual leaders, whose authority is mainly moral,
and its use by governments, especially very strong ones.
Religious leaders surely have a basic duty to grapple with the question
of genocide, partly because they are seen as moral compasses by many
people...but also because of the depressing fact that religion, at
its darkest, has often fomented genocidal acts. It is true that in
modern history, religion has inspired brave foes of totalitarianism,
from the German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer to Maria Skobtsova, a nun
based in Paris who died in the gas chambers. But religious rhetoric
has also provided cover for many acts of multiple slaughter. During
Rwanda's genocide, there were doubtless priests or nuns who protected
the targets of mass murder; but there were also priests and nuns who
participated. The Serbian warlord Arkan, one of the most ruthless
characters to emerge from the post-Yugoslav wars, used to say that
his only boss was the Serbian patriarch. While this loyalty was
unsolicited, it was not publicly rejected either.
So religious leaders must be concerned with genocide: not just with
denouncing it, but being careful not to foment it. One does not have
to be an atheist to agree with the scientist Steven Weinberg's dictum
that religion has a unique capacity to make good people do bad things.
For political leaders with the awesome responsibilities that go with
wielding huge firepower and geopolitical heft, the calculus can be
different. A policy whose declared principles include a huge stress
on stopping genocide can have perverse effects; it can actually make
genocide more likely. Such a policy signals to a local warring faction
that all it needs to do, to trigger outside intervention, is provoke
an act of genocidal proportions by the other side. "Get some of your
people slaughtered and we will come fight your nasty little war,
which otherwise wouldn't interest us..."
Nobody is suggesting that mighty governments should not be concerned
by genocide. But in a messy world, powerful governments may have to
pull punches or make agonising choices between several courses of
action which would all cost innocent lives. Religious leaders, on
the other hand, are at their best when they speak truth to power-and
that is probably a reason why they should avoid building up too much
earthly power for themselves.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/erasmus/2013/06/genocide-religion-and-politics
From: A. Papazian
The Economist
June 11 2013
IN THE days to come, we may be hearing a lot more about the question
of genocide, for at least two reasons. A row has broken out between
the Turkish government and Pope Francis over his use of the word
"genocide" to describe the slaughter of Ottoman Armenians in 1915.
Given that the holy see is an agency in global diplomacy as well as
a religious body, this could be the start of an escalating public
dispute between the world's largest Christian group and one of the
most important Muslim-majority nations.
Meanwhile Barack Obama has nominated as his ambassador to the United
Nations a courageous scholar and journalist, Samantha Power, who has
devoted much of her life to analysing and decrying the phenomenon of
genocide, and to arguing that stopping it should be a higher priority
in American foreign policy.
Genocide is a word whose very use has vast moral and political
consequences. What exactly is it? The UN Convention on Genocide,
agreed in 1948, offers a range of actions (killing, harming, imposing
harsh conditions, restricting birth, forcible adoption) which are
genocidal if committed with intent to "destroy, in whole or in part,
a national, ethnical, racial or religious group."
As an attempt to ring-fence a particular category of mass annihilation,
this presents huge problems. How big a proportion of the "group" does
the perpetrator have to intend destroying to merit the g-word? Is
it less bad to massacre 100,000 members of a numerous group (because
the group's survival is not in question) than to take an equal toll
from a small group? Is the mass murder of an economic class, like the
"wealthy" peasants annihilated by Stalin, marginally more tolerable,
because the group's definition is not religious or "ethnical"?
Still, the fact is that we know genocide when we see it. I would argue,
though, that there is a big difference between the enunciation of
the g-word by spiritual leaders, whose authority is mainly moral,
and its use by governments, especially very strong ones.
Religious leaders surely have a basic duty to grapple with the question
of genocide, partly because they are seen as moral compasses by many
people...but also because of the depressing fact that religion, at
its darkest, has often fomented genocidal acts. It is true that in
modern history, religion has inspired brave foes of totalitarianism,
from the German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer to Maria Skobtsova, a nun
based in Paris who died in the gas chambers. But religious rhetoric
has also provided cover for many acts of multiple slaughter. During
Rwanda's genocide, there were doubtless priests or nuns who protected
the targets of mass murder; but there were also priests and nuns who
participated. The Serbian warlord Arkan, one of the most ruthless
characters to emerge from the post-Yugoslav wars, used to say that
his only boss was the Serbian patriarch. While this loyalty was
unsolicited, it was not publicly rejected either.
So religious leaders must be concerned with genocide: not just with
denouncing it, but being careful not to foment it. One does not have
to be an atheist to agree with the scientist Steven Weinberg's dictum
that religion has a unique capacity to make good people do bad things.
For political leaders with the awesome responsibilities that go with
wielding huge firepower and geopolitical heft, the calculus can be
different. A policy whose declared principles include a huge stress
on stopping genocide can have perverse effects; it can actually make
genocide more likely. Such a policy signals to a local warring faction
that all it needs to do, to trigger outside intervention, is provoke
an act of genocidal proportions by the other side. "Get some of your
people slaughtered and we will come fight your nasty little war,
which otherwise wouldn't interest us..."
Nobody is suggesting that mighty governments should not be concerned
by genocide. But in a messy world, powerful governments may have to
pull punches or make agonising choices between several courses of
action which would all cost innocent lives. Religious leaders, on
the other hand, are at their best when they speak truth to power-and
that is probably a reason why they should avoid building up too much
earthly power for themselves.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/erasmus/2013/06/genocide-religion-and-politics
From: A. Papazian