What is Genocide

Daniel Feierstein
The term genocide was coined by the Polish jurist Raphael Lemkin, who
wrote that By genocide we mean the destruction o a nation or ! ethnic group"#
Lemkin went on to argue that $enocide has two phases% one, the destruction o the
national identity o the oppressed group, the other, the imposition o the national
identity o the oppressor#"
The distincti&e eature o genocide, according to Lemkin, is that it aims to
destroy a group rather than the indi&iduals that make up the group# The ultimate
purpose o genocide is to destroy the group's identity and impose the identity o the
oppressor on the sur&i&ors# This idea gi&es us a useul insight into the workings o
power systems in the modern era# (n particular, the nation state has tended to destroy
the identities o ethnic and religious minorities within its boundaries and impose a
new identity on them% the national identity o the oppressor#
)y contention is that modern genocides ha&e been a deliberate attempt to
change the identity o the sur&i&ors by modiying relationships within a gi&en society#
This is what sets modern genocide apart rom earlier massacres o ci&ilian
populations, as well as rom other processes o mass destruction# (t is a process that
starts long beore and ends long ater the actual physical annihilation o the &ictims#
The *rticle (( o the +,-. $enocide /on&ention deines genocide means%
Any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national,
ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical
destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
But in contrast to the legal deinition o genocide, the concept o genocide as a
social practice allows historians and sociologists to adopt a broader and more le0ible
approach to the problems o causality and responsibility# (t also helps to distinguish
genocide rom other social processes o mass destruction that ha&e occurred at
dierent periods o history, such as high death rates among certain segments o the
population as the result o economic policies, or the more or less intentional
destruction o the en&ironment#
1ow, despite the ob&ious dierences between law and social sciences, we
should point out that it is organi2ation, training, practice, legitimation and consensus
that distinguish genocide as a social practice rom other more spontaneous or less
intentional acts o killing and mass destruction# *lso, because a social practice is
comprised o shared belies and understandings as well as shared actions, a genocidal
social practice may be one that contributes to genocide or attempted genocide,
including symbolic representations and discourses promoting or justiying genocide#
(n addition, it is clear rom this deinition that social practices are ongoing and
under permanent construction# (n many instances, the appropriateness o the term
genocide has been 3uestioned on the grounds that the process has not gone ar enough
to speak o ull4blown genocide# But when does genocide actually begin5 *t what
moment can we consider that the term is being correctly applied5 *dopting the
concept o genocidal social practices allows us to address a thorny methodological
issue in history and the social sciences, namely, that o periodi2ation#
Bearing all this in mind, ( ha&e deined a genocidal social practice as a technology o
power 6 a way o managing people as a group 4 that aims 7i8 to destroy social
relationships based on autonomy and cooperation by annihilating a signiicant part o
the population 7signiicant in terms o either numbers or practices8, and 7ii8 to use the
terror o annihilation to establish new models o identity and social relationships
among the sur&i&ors# 9nlike what happens in war, the disappearance o the &ictims
orces the sur&i&ors to deny their own identity 6 an identity created out o a synthesis
o being and doing 4 while a way o lie that once deined a speciic orm o identity is
suppressed#
* sociological understanding o genocide as a modern social practice needs to
take into account three interconnected processes% the construction, destruction, and
reorgani2ation o social relations# ( will present a si04stage process o genocidal social
practices, beginning at the moment that a group o indi&iduals with an autonomous
social identity is negati&ely constructed as :ther," and continuing until its symbolic
e0termination in the minds o the sur&i&ors, which may happen after the physical acts
o e0termination themsel&es#
+
1ot all the stages described are strictly se3uential# (n
practice, there is oten considerable o&erlap between the dierent stages, although
each o those on the path to mass murder constitutes a necessary step in the process#
The model emphasi2es the negati&e ways in which the state brands those who
think or beha&e dierently in such di&erse areas as se0uality, politics, religion and the
workplace, but also the act that the e0termination o those groups that lie outside the
norm" is a clear message to the population that no de&iation rom the norm" will be
tolerated# The ruthless eiciency o state punishment, reinorced by oicial rhetoric
and allowing no e0ceptions, is designed to make the standardi2ation o society seem
ine&itable#
Stage One: Stigmatization: the construction of negative otherness
The irst step in destroying pre&iously cooperati&e relations within or between social
groups is stigmatization# (n order to construct the negati&e :ther" as a distincti&e
social category, those in power draw on symbols in the collecti&e imagination, build
new myths, and reinorce latent prejudices# Two groups are thus created% the majority
or in4group 7us"8 and a minority or out4group 7them"8 that do not wish to be like
e&eryone else 6 and thereore do not deserve to e0ist#
Stage Two: Harassment
This stage marks a 3ualitati&e leap rom symbolic to physical &iolence# (n general, it
ad&ances more 3uickly in times o crisis, as the an0iety and latent &iolence resulting
rom current depri&ations and uncertainty about the uture can be directed against
those who insist on maintaining a separate identity# Typically, the stigmati2ed group
is accused o causing the crisis by corrupting public morals, undermining national
unity or conspiring with oreign agents in ways that would not normally stand the test
o common sense#
1
This structure is derived from my earlier work, Cinco estudios sobre genocidio, Acervo Cultural
Editores, Buenos Aires, 1997 and later Seis estudios sobre genocidio. Anlisis de relaciones sociales:
otredad, exclusin, exterminio, EUDEBA, Buenos Aires, !!!" At the time of #u$lication, these $ooks
were only availa$le in %#anish"
;arassment is characteri2ed by two types o simultaneous and complementary
actions% bullying and disenranchisement#
First, radicals or shock troops" carry out sporadic attacks, claiming that their
tolerance" is at an end and calling or irm action#" These attacks achie&e se&eral
goals simultaneously# They deepen the process o stigmati2ation< they test society's
readiness to buy into physical &iolence< and they pro&ide an e0cuse to recruit and
organi2e a repressi&e apparatus to manage" the situation#
=

>econd, the authorities gradually depri&e the stigmati2ed group o its ci&il rights# This
begins with restrictions on property and marriage, as well as on practicing certain
proessions and customs and ends in the loss o citi2enship#
Stage Three: Isolation
*t this stage, the ocus shits to social and territorial planning# This stage has
taken dierent orms at dierent moments in modern history, but the goal is always
the same% to demarcate a separate social, geographical, economic, political, cultural
and e&en ideological space or those who are dierent," and at the same time to
se&er their social ties with the rest o society#
Stage Four: Policies of systematic weakening
*t this stage the perpetrators set priorities# They distinguish between those that
must be e0terminated, and those that may be e0terminated, depending on the political
and social circumstances and the perpetrators' capacity to kill# :nce the &ictims ha&e
been isolated rom the rest o society, the perpetrators typically implement a series o
measures aimed at weakening them systematically# These consist o strategies o
physical destruction through o&ercrowding, malnutrition, epidemics, lack o health
care, torture, and sporadic killings< and o psychological destruction, maniested in
humiliation, abuse, harassment or killing o amily members, attempts to undermine

This effect should not $e overlooked" &n 'a(i )ermany, the victims often asked to $e isolated in order
to esca#e the harassment to which they were su$*ected" At the same time, others demanded that the
victims $e removed so that they would not have to witness more un#leasant scenes of #u$lic
de+radation" Thus, once the other has $ecome a ,ne+ative other,, the victims are $lamed for any
discomfort or un#leasant situations that occur when they are #unished for continuin+ to live amon+
-normal folk." &n Ar+entina, the actions of the AAA /Anti0Communist Alliance Ar+entina1 and other
#aramilitary forces durin+ the years 1972 and 1973 caused lar+e sectors of the #o#ulation to ar+ue for
the -need. to re+ulate these actions within an institutional framework" The state terrorism of the
military dictatorshi# was im#lemented to meet this -need and to or+ani(e terror, murder and re#ression
from the a##ro#riate institutional $odies4 the security forces /i"e" the #olice and the military1"
solidarity through collecti&e punishment, the encouraging o collaboration in
categori2ing and classiying prisoners, and denunciation and peer abuse#
Stage Five: !termination
The e0termination stage is characteri2ed by the physical disappearance o
those who once embodied certain types o social relations#
Stage Si!: Sym"olic enactment
?
Destruction only beneits the perpetrators i it can be turned into certain orms
o social narrati&e 4 that re4present 6annihilation# $enocidal social practices do not
end in the physical annihilation o the &ictims, but rather in the symbolic ways that
this trauma is represented# ( the o&erarching purpose o genocide is to transorm
social relationships within a gi&en society, it is not suicient to kill those who think or
beha&e dierently# The types o social relationships that these people embodied 7or
potentially embodied8 must be replaced either with traditional in4group models o
relating or, more commonly, with new ways o relating# The most eecti&e orm o
symbolic genocide is not obli&ion, which ignores the disappearance o a way o lie as
i it had ne&er disappeared, but does not preclude its reappearance# The most eecti&e
orm o symbolic genocide is the pious pretense that genocide is somehow irrational
and ine0plicable#
For genocide to be eecti&e while the perpetrators are in power it is not
enough or the perpetrators to kill and materially eliminate those who stand or a
particular social order the perpetrators wish to destroy# They need to spread the terror
caused by genocide throughout society# /on&ersely, the best way to perpetuate the
eects o terror a post-genocidal society is by dissociating genocide rom the social
order in which it occurred# 1ot in a crude and ob&ious way by denying the acts, but
by changing the meaning, logic and intentionality o genocide#
The si0 stages o modern genocide described abo&e orm a cycle, the central
aim o which is to transorm the society in which genocide takes place by destroying a
way o lie embodied by a particular group, and thus reorgani2ing social relations
5
6or a more e7tended account of what & understand $y this conce#t, see my Cinco estudios sobre
genocidio /Buenos Aires4 Acervo Cultural Editores, 19971, and Seis estudios sobre genocidio. Anlisis
de relaciones sociales: otredad, exclusin, exterminio /Buenos Aires4 EUDEBA, !!!1"
within the rest o society# The disappearance o the memory o the &ictims brought
about by symbolic enactment 6 that is, by the enactment o genocide through
discursi&e and other symbolic means 6 is an attempt to close the cycle# 1ot only do
the &ictims no longer e0ist, but they allegedly ne&er e0isted" 6 or, i we know that
they e0isted, we are no longer able to grasp how they li&ed or why they died#