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Racism: Mankinds Most Dangerous Weapon

How Racism is the Only Ingredient Necessary for Genocide
The term genocide is defined as a willful killing, massacring a large group of people
often an ethnic, national, religious group. In searching answers to why any group would strive
towards the foreboding task of eradicating another, there are a myriad of explanations: the human
desire to exercise domination, perhaps greed and means to subject another group to slavery or
serfdom for economic gain. Likewise, looking into the three cases of genocide throughout
history The Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, the genocide of the Herero and Nama in
German Southwest Africa, and the Armenian Genocide there are different ethnic groups
involved, varied wanton means of waging the killings, and perhaps even differences in motives
from the surface. However, a thematic common thread that weaves these three events and any
genocide, for that matter together is the cancer of humanity: racism. Although there are many
differing variables in logistics for these three events the weapons used, timeframe, duration,
geography and cultural climate, political backdrop it was racism and the thought that one is
superior and entitled to wield power over the lesser group that fueled and expedited the
process of the mass killing. Henceforth, racism was the sole ingredient necessary in orchestrating
these destructions. Other motives may be cited such as greed, hunger to domineer and pure
maleficent cruelty. But to pinpoint the most quintessential sole cause, the overlying leitmotif is
racism. In this essay, I will compare and contrast the three genocides as I tie all these genocides
with the shared motivator of racism amidst its differences from each other.
At first glance, these three events differ immensely in terms of the historical, political
context. For the Spanish conquest of the Aztec, they were in search of resources most

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primarily in search of a trade route to the eastern world. With ambitions to gain money, they saw
the Aztec land as territory as potential lucrative business for agricultural goods the inhabitants,
more specifically the native Aztecs, were only obstacles in achieving this goal and they had no
qualms in wiping them out as they were beasts and subhuman. In the case of the
Herero/Nama, the German Kaiser and his subordinates were interested in having any chunk of
land in Africa to follow the patterns of colonization many of their surrounding European nations
were doing; in a pre-World War-I Europe that was obsessed with nationalism and national
identity, Germany too, was perhaps inexorably caught up in the same breed of national pride.
This pride inevitably extended to the desire to demonstrate volk and lebensraum on non-German
territory as so many of Germanys competing European nations seized colonies for themselves
too. They were so willing to have whatever modicum of land, that the lifeless desert and
treacherous, unwelcoming shores of Skeleton Coast did not discourage their thirst for land. With
the German population having more than doubled in such a short amount of time between the
unification and 1914,1 the nations primary concerns naturally became lebensraum, the seizure
of land for the German people. Coupled with this urgency of needing more space, the Germans
also prided themselves with the strong, unified identity of volk, thought of superiority in race that
pervaded to their national, cultural identity. As many Germans emigrated to the U.S cities like
Cincinnati, Milwaukee and St Louis, German nationalists were upset by the fact that the German
Americans were abandoning their German-ness.2 Hence, colonial settlement was the panacea
cure for this issue of Volk Ohne Raum.3 The political background of the Ottoman Empire
during the Armenian genocide was a layered one, somewhat similar to the fierce and indelible
1 David Olusoga, Casper W. Erichsen. Kaisers Holocaust. (London, UK: Faber and Faber Ltd, 2011) pg.
85.
2 Ibid., 87.

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ideology of national identity of the Germans the extreme-nationalist thought that the Turkish
land only belonged to Turks alone. This excluded Armenians who despite their long history as
the first Christian nation established (AD 301) in the territory of Anatolia, the last ruling sultan
and later, political group named the Young Turks sought to expunge them over the claims that
they didnt belong to the land due to disparities in culture primarily religion, language and
customs. Amidst the dying embers of the Ottoman Empire, the Turkish hyper-nationalists
viperously and adamantly insisted that the nation revive its once glorious reign through racial,
ethnic purity. Turkey was also subjugated to Germany as the nation was strategically placed
because of the commercial market it had access to.4 The empire was one with a wide array of
ethnic groups, Greeks, Jews, Kurds, Armenians, but among them the Armenians were brutally
targeted as the Armenian community prided itself to having one of the most successful merchants
and tenaciously help to their distinct religious as they were Christians in a predominantly Muslim
area.5 Moreover, the Turks saw Armenians as a possible accomplice and cooperators with the
Russians in invading and attacking the ever feeble Ottoman Empire. Armenians easily became
the scapegoat reasoning to all the political, economic instability the Turks were mired in.6
When the Spaniards arrived, the Aztecs were surprised by their behemoth creatures of
horses and the weaponry they were equipped with often caused much fear and confusion as they

3 Ibid., 88
4 Peter Balakian. Black Dog of Fate. (New York, NY: Basic Books, 1997) pg. 156.
5 Ibid., 66.
6 Ibid., 162.

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were not exposed to such technology was ever before.7 As the Spaniards went on with their
conquests, their harm and destruction was primarily one sided due to the technological
shortcomings as well as the ill-preparation and disunity of the Aztec empires. The violence that
quickly escalated was evidently demonstrated in their ruthless burning of villages, killing
indiscriminately even women and children.8 Cortes, the Spaniard leader cunningly used the
divided regions and people of rebel Indians to fight against their enemies of Tenochtitlan.
Furthermore, the violence ensued as Cortes unfairly gathered all the noblemen, rulers,
subordinate leaders, warriors, and commoners in the temple courtyard and blocked the
entrances only to terminate everyone who was there without warning.9 The remaining task was
easily massacring left and right as they were taken by surprise without their leaders.10 As many
as 90% of the 12 million inhabitants of the Aztec empire thus died either by willful killing
through attacks or through the introduction of diseases, giving them deadly measles, influenza,
typhus, pneumonia, tuberculosis and smallpox11 in which the vast majority of the native
population were not immune to. The justifications the Spaniards made in this event was that they
were waging just wars against the Indians.12 An influential Spanish figure of this era, a scholar
by the name Sepulveda promoted the thought that all Indians were inferior, describing them as
7 Kiernan, Ben. Blood and Soil: A World History of Genocide and Extermination from Sparta to Darfur.
(New Haven, NH: Yale University Press, 2007) pg. 88
8 Ibid., 89.
9 Ibid., 89
10 Ibid., 88.
11 Ibid., 100
12 Ibid., 97

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barbarous and inhuman peoples abhorring all civil life, customs and virtue.13 As he went on to
assert that they were inferior to Spaniards as children are to adults, women are to men almost
monkeys are to men,14 and thus, a great majority was mercilessly killed or left to succumb to
disease.
On the contrary, the Herero/Nama genocide, the natives were already acutely aware of
their outside world. Henrik Witbooi, the leader of Nama people was a shrewd, more than
competent authority figure who was well-educated and diligently sought out ways to ensure the
safety of his people as he was sure to daily read the newspapers.15 Not only did they know their
surroundings, they were also well equipped in horses, artillery and weaponry as they were
remarkable warriors, trained from birth. Not only were these ethnic groups exposed to western
influences already, they were also prepared to fight back which later the Germans realized that
they were hard to beat. Also unlike how the Spaniards later created the encomiendas to use the
remaining population for means of furthering business, the Germans didnt have much
consideration for sparing these ethnic groups to turn them into slaves. In fact, in some cases
when the distraught defenseless women pleaded with the Germans to take them as slaves as long
as they are allowed to live, they were still murdered without a second thought. Much alike the
unfair, unexpected ambush of the select leaders of the Aztecs, similarly the Germans attacked the
Nama at night while the inhabitant were asleep and most vulnerable. The same uncivilized
method of attack was employed to the Herero at the city of Waterberg with an escapeless-

13 Ibid., 96.
14 Ibid., 98
15 Olusoga et. al., 48.

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surprise attack which put the Herero at an extreme disadvantage.16 In the end, as the helpless
Nama ran away into the menacing desert and also pushed the Herero to desperation in a longwinded war. Despite the Nama and Herero, especially the Nama valiantly fighting back with
just warfare, their chance at success in defeating the Germans were clipped short as unity
between the two tribes never came to fruition.
But in both genocides of the Aztecs and Herero/Nama, the natives only wanted to keep
peace in their land the Tlaxcalans naturally sued for peace.17 The Namas leader Witbooi
defiance in stating the territory belongs to him and his people and answers to God alone.18 The
motivation behind Germanys Kaiser conquest of Herero/Nama was as aforementioned, mainly
to find more space for the overpopulated country as well as join in on the enticing advantage of
having their own colony. The Germans justified their acts of violence towards the natives with
the widespread thought that they were superior to the African race, taking further measures to
prove this barbarism of the African natives with Berlin exhibitions of the natives (albeit it was
quite the contrary to what they were trying to prove) and pseudoscience such as phrenology and
Eugene Fischers research of eugenics and racial sciences.19 Moreover, the surge of interest in
pseudoscience equating traits of criminal race to skull sizes are evident manifestation of how
racially biased and prejudiced the Germans were to the African Americans. Thus, the
Herero/Nama were considered with disdain and looked down upon as mere lesser beings in the
16 Ibid., 137.
17 Kiernan., 89.
18 Olusoga., 50.
19 Ibid., 304.

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eyes of Germans; the Germans racist ideology was crucial in motivating the treatment of the
Herero/Nama. Another reason why this could be driven by ideologies of racism alone is because
of how irrational, logistically impossible and economically disadvantageous genocide of the
Nama/Herero was a thought that sadly, only one German had, the short-lived colonial master
Theodore Leutwein.20
With the Armenian genocide, the events first played out subtly as the last ruling sultan
of Turkey, Abdul Hamid II went about to oppress the Armenians. Consequently, the Armenians
sought cultural freedom; equality before the law; freedom of speech, press, and assembly;
freedom from the unjust tax systems imposed on Christians; and the right to bear arms.21 The
Armenian protests were bloodless and without property damage, however enraged Abdul Hamid
had started hastening the killing of Armenians with secret forces.22 Much like how the Spaniards
and the Germans attacked their respective subordinates, the Turks too utilized a similar fashion
of unjust and unexpected massacring of populations of Armenians by deceptively killing core
Armenian intellectuals and leaders then common 2,500 Armenian male soldiers slaughtered
without reason as they were recruits for the Ottoman army.23 Then many of the widowed wives
and children were deceived to leave their homes to meet their husband tricking them with lies
that they were alive and killing, attacking, kidnapping, raping these unprotected women, elderly

20 Olusoga., 88.
21 Balakian., 156
22 Ibid., 157.
23 Ibid., 164.

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and children without giving them anything as a chance for negotiations.24 Genocide was
irrational, illogical in terms of the economy of the nation to kill the Armenians who were large
tax payers.25 But when asked about the consequences of commercial loss (let alone ethics
behind such atrocities) Pasha Talaat, a core leader of the Young Turks, nonchalantly replied that
the Turks care nothing about the commercial loss, adding a silly addendum that of the loss not
exceed[ing] five million pounds.26 Therefore, the only reasoning behind the genocide can be
that of ideology. The Turk nationalists were also driven by vitriolic beliefs based on racial purity,
Turkey for the Turks. Authored by Turkish propagandist, Zia Gokalp, Pan-Turkism advocated
for revival of pre-Ottoman ideology of glory, when Turkic warriors like Genghis Khan
pillaged and conquered creat[ing] a Turkic empire that spanned from Anatolia into
Transcaucasia and on into central Asia.27 As Turks sought to realize this goal, they also took
measures to achieve this racial purity which meant obliterating the Christian Armenians. In an
empire with diverse ethnic groups Armenians, Greeks, Jews the formal political accusation
was that Armenians were a national threat.28
The thought of racist superiority united with the agenda of achieving something for ones
national need is indeed a dangerous one. As evidence proves again and again, genocide is
actually psychologically damaging for all involved, economically hurtful and logistically
24 Ibid., 230.
25 Ibid., 176
26 Ibid, 176.
27 Ibid., 163.
28 Ibid., 164.

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arduous. Yet still, some dominant power groups still strive towards their criminal agenda. The
only reasoning and motivator that drives them is their contagious, invasive and deadly ideology
that their ethnicity, religion, race, whatever category it may be, is superior and that the other is
then subsequently acknowledged with extreme hatred, leading them to the reasoning for
annihilation.

Citations

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David Olusoga, Casper W. Erichsen. Kaisers Holocaust. London, UK: Faber and Faber
Ltd, 2011.
Kiernan, Ben. Blood and Soil: A World History of Genocide and Extermination from
Sparta to Darfur. New Haven, NH: Yale University Press, 2007.
Peter Balakian. Black Dog of Fate. (New York, NY: Basic Books, 1997.