It’s difficult to fathom mass murder. Mortality statistics feel impersonal and indigestible, and graphic images of atrocity are often too emotionally jarring to view or fully process. As a result, it is hard to conceptualize the act of genocide and its implications. Equally difficult to comprehend is the disturbing fact that orchestrators of genocide successfully convince a significant portion of their citizens that the eradication of an identity or ethnic group is justified. So when leaders use sadistic powers of persuasion to cover up or glamorize their tracks, much of the world does not notice.
In a time of mass globalization and international institutions, it would intuitively seem difficult to truly cover up mass atrocity in this way. But while modern information exchange, transparency, and accountability between countries make it increasingly difficult to do this in the traditional sense, those who commit genocide have managed to evade reproach even while operating within established structures of the international order.
What makes these humanitarian abuses so difficult to detect? Both past and contemporary cases of genocide indicate that strategic rhetoric is the key independent variable. Indeed, whether it be the Holocaust; the Rwandan, Armenian, and Bosian genocides; the death of over 500,000 Syrians under the Assad regime; or the Chinese government’s encampment and murder of Uyghur Muslims; leaders have and continue to employ cruel but highly effective rhetorical strategies to justify and cover up genocide.
Looking Back in time: Rhetorical Strategies Employed During the Holocaust
Before international institutions were widespread, it was difficult for allied countries to pursue a united and cohesive geopolitical strategy, even in dire times. This pitfall became especially pronounced during the Holocaust: Although the Allied Powers were aware of Nazi atrocities, internal divisions ultimately hampered their ability to effectively combat Hitler. Lacking accountability from the international community, Hitler’s fascist rhetoric, and nationalist ideology were effective in harnessing and activating Germany’s pre-existing anti-Semitic sentiment.
Daniel Ziblatt, a government professor at Harvard, told the HPR that Hitler’s personal rhetorical strategies were responsible for much of the way genocide played out in Germany. In the wake of Germany’s devastating World War I in loss, his rhetoric engendered a strong cohesive national identity among citizens, much of which was underpinned by anti-semitism. Even before the Holocaust began, Nazi rhetoric encouraged the vandalism and boycotting of Jewish businesses and singled Jews out by requiring they wear the star of David so they could be easily identified and, thus, easily persecuted. In vilifying and demeaning Jews, such rhetoric created an outgroup that all of Germany could demonize, regardless of a person’s profession or previous experience with the Jewish community. According to Hannah Arendt’s The Banality of Evil, the genocide of the Jewish minority was thus orchestrated through average people compelled by the chauvinistic statements of the Nazi Party. Even train schedulers, who would eventually be responsible for sending Jewish people to concentration camps, were galvanized to action through such rhetoric.
“Because it was so atrocious,” it is possible that German citizens were “intentionally turning a blind eye as their neighbors disappeared, [and] as properties were being taken over,” remaining unreflective and unable to recognize the pernicious nature of Hitler’s words, Ziblatt said. As a result, Hitler’s mobilizing rhetoric, which relied on notions of obedience to the state for the greater goals of unification, rebirth, and prosperity, as well as the idea of Hitler as a “savior” acting drastically out of necessity on behalf of true Germans, was able to exploit the everyday concerns of average Germans. The zeitgeist of “mitlaufer,” in German, meaning “follower,” defined this phenomenon and was the foundation of Germany’s highly personalistic state. Nazi Germany, under Hitler, acted as a “well-oiled machine,” drawing on the desire for national unity and the compulsion to obey. Most Germans, Professor Ziblatt said, were not looking to commit a genocidal act, they were merely undertaking the commendable action of committing themselves to the state, following orders, and “doing their jobs.”
To hide the gravity of his atrocities from the world, Hitler first hid them from Germans themselves by presenting anti-semitism as patriotism. Indeed, the powerful use of anti-semetic rhetoric to foster national cohesion obscured the true nature of the Holocaust right under the noses of average Germans.
The Amplification of Sectarian Rhetoric: The Case of Syria
Inflammatory rhetoric aimed at amplifying ethnic and religious divides also facilitated the concealment of mass murder in contemporary Syria, particularly by deepening tensions between the nation’s Alawite, orShia, and Sunni populations. Indeed, the exaggeration of this theological-turned-violent conflict, known as sectarianism, through channels like the media, proposed post-conflict structures, and aid allocation, has led to the deathof over 300,000 throughout Syria since the nation’s civil war began in 2011.
To note, the conflict in Syria certainly did not begin as a sectarian one: The Syrian civil war was originally one of many Middle Eastern democratic movements to take place during the Arab Spring. However, the regime of President Bashar al Asaad, which has been known to favor a particular Syrian Shia minority, manipulated this most recent period in Syria’s history into one of ethnic conflict “to encode events in ethnic terms in order to build coalitions of support” that ultimately prop up the regime.
In 2013, Adama Dieng, a former U.N. Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, urged Middle Eastern leaders to stray away from sectarian rhetoric, positing that “such rhetoric, when it constitutes incitement to violence on religious grounds, could exacerbate the already disastrous violence in Syria, lead to further war crimes and crimes against humanity and fuel tensions between different groups both in Syria and elsewhere in the region.”
Assad’s rhetoric has led to exactly this result. During the Arab Spring, according to the Economist, the Assad regime fueled sectarian tensions in order to create divisions within a broad-based opposition that had managed to unite hundreds of thousands of people from various faiths. Assad thus tightened grip on his base by persuading them against Sunni Muslims, imposing laws that permitted the seizure of Sunni assets, and releasing Jihadists from prison “in order to taint the uprising.” Assad also favored Alawites and Christians, thus garnering their support while encouraging them to mirror his regime’s hateful and sectarian language. Accordingly, Assad’s supporters often referred to Sunnis as “infidels” and “terrorists.”
Given this, it is clear that Bashar Assad, in activating sectarian sentiment throughout Syria, should be classified as an ethnic entrepreneur, a political actor who harnesses the power of identity politics to achieve personal political ends. Indeed, he employed rhetoric to demonize and justify cracking down on the majority Sunni population in order to gain greater favor with his non-Sunni supporters. In doing so, Al-Assad accomplished two things: First, he capitalized on Western notions that all Middle Eastern conflict is underpinned by primordial sectarian divisions, thus making the magnitude of death in Syria at his government’s hands easy to chalk up as “normal” for the region. Second, he further mobilized his base to genocidal action on the regime’s behalf. Consequently, even if the Syrian civil war did not begin as a sectarian conflict, it certainly harbors the characteristics of one today.
Thus, it is clear, contemporary Syria is yet another example of the unfathomable idea of mass murder being covered up by rhetroic. In this case, the language of genocide is rooted in a larger religious struggle, which Assad, like many other political entrepreneurs likely believe, is an appealing motivation to carry out the appalling act.
Appealing to the International Community: The Case of China
With the presence of international organizations and institutionalized accountability measures, autocrats have diversified their cover-up techniques. Where once, rhetorical strategies exclusively included domestic mass mobilization to hatred or violence, today’s methods also include masking atrocities in rhetoric that appeals to the international community. Countries must now justify their actions to the world in order to maintain legitimacy and a positive reputation in the international order. Otherwise, they place themselves at risk of global isolation, which poses great economic, security, and reputational risks.
China is engaged in such a delicate balancing act. Indeed, although China is governed by a single-party authoritarian regime infamous for myriad human rights abuses it must conceal its illiberal elements to protect the international standing of its active market-oriented economy and foreign investments.
China’s walk along this exceedinly fine line explains its framing of the Uyghur genocide. For years, the CCP has sought to eviscerate China’s Uyghur Muslim population through sterilization techniques, destruction of cultural groups, and family separation. All the while, the Chinese government actively frames their encampment of the Uyghur community as a move to combat Islamic extremism and promote “re-education.” These claims are bolstered by propagandistic videos from the camp in Xinjiang featuring Uyghurs who claim they are learning and ridding themselves of extremist tendencies.
The Chinese government’s decision to mask the atrocity in rhetoric based on education and counterterrorism is intentionally meant to phrase their actions in terms of issues on which there is a relatively strong international consensus. Rhetoric that revolves around education and counter-extremism, China arguably believes, should resonate with the key players in the international audience, the group that would likely place the most scrutiny upon China for their genocide and has also conducted their own counter-terrorism campaigns throughout the world. This strategy makes it easier for countries to turn a blind eye to the CCP’s crimes against humanity.
In an interview with the HPR, Stephen Rapp, former United States Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues in the Office of Global Criminal Justice stated that genocidal rhetoric “often involves euphemistic language, cover-ups, and excuses,” with countries often saying, “what we’re doing is no different than what other countries have done, we’re just doing it more effectively.” Countries often liken their efforts to the global push for counter-terrorism efforts, as China claims it wants to prevent terrorist attacks like those that have occurred in the United States and around the world from happening on its soil.
Although the U.S. has enacted a number of sanctions and issued a diplomatic ban of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, China has not suffered any substantial consequences for its actions nor improved the conditions of the Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang.
Next Steps in Combatting Genocide
With evolving and varied mechanisms for evading accountability — from Hitler’s normalization of genocide through mass mobilization to Assad’s amplification of historical divides to China’s recasting of genocide as internationally acceptable, even beneficial, activity — preventative measures and responses to genocide must be dynamic and case-specific. Alice Wairimu Nderitu, the U.N. Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide said as much in an interview with the HPR, saying that “there is no ‘one-size-fits-all solution to the prevention of atrocity crimes … given that atrocity crimes are not mono-causal and tend to exploit diverse grievances and tensions present in a society.”
However, Nderitu noted that there is at least one consistently efficacious approach to genocide prevention. “Broaden[ing] participation in decision-making processes, especially of minorities, women, and youth,” always helps “to foster confidence building between communities and to advance conflict resolution efforts.” No matter the setting, efforts to diversify the groups of people who get a seat at the governing table help to encourage and desensationalize the intermingling of different ethnic, religious, and other identity groups and prevent initial or further atrocity by diffusing tensions.
Nderitu also highlights a second trait that unites virtually every genocide response. “What all these measures have in common is that they require — in one way or another — a grappling with the truth,” she said. “Without addressing the facts as they occurred, justice cannot truly be served; societies cannot truly heal; peace cannot be sustainable.” It is imperative, then, that societies look beyond the shrewd rhetoric and justifications employed by genocide’s orchestrators to truly confront the facts of mass murder, no matter how difficult or emotionally burdensome they may be.
Correction 11/5/2022
An earlier version of this piece contained numerous typos that managed to escape the copy-editing process. Amendments to spelling, punctuation and other similar errors were made in this version.
