The Line Dividing Good and Evil

THE UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY

Tiffany Wiebe

A THESIS

SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF COMMUNICATION AND CULTURE

IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE

DEGREE OF BACHELORS OF ARTS IN COMMUNICATIONS STUDIES

(HONOURS)

CALGARY, ALBERTA

JUNE, 2008

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Grateful thanks to Dr. Christine Sutherland and Dr. David Bergen for their time and feedback. I would

especially like to thank Dr. Margo Husby-Scheelar for supervising and giving me countless hours of

her time and understanding as I struggled to articulate my ideas.

Preface

This thesis deals with interrelated concepts and highly charged terms. The boundaries between concepts

are not always definable. I am examining the rhetoric involved in the ideology of genocide. Contributing to

the rhetoric of genocide is the privileging of an ethic of expediency in decision making and the creation of

an ideology of the "enemy." Contributing to the ideology of the enemy is the ideology of the "non-

Christian" in Christianity. Linked to the ideology of the non-Christian, as well as the ideology of genocide

in Germany, is the role of anti-Semitism in Christianity.

When an ethic of expediency is given primacy in combination with the ideology of the enemy being taken

to extremes, the enemy is treated as a complete abstraction. When this is achieved, society moves from

into totalitarianism, where hate is no longer necessary to kill.

The ethic of expediency and the ideological creation of an enemy both contribute to genocidal rhetoric.

When these two concepts are taken to extremes they both contribute to the level of abstraction necessary

for totalitarianism.

There are two areas in life which are expected to limit or determine the immorality of genocide. These are

reason and religion, those systems we use to define what is "right" and "true." Both reason, as

represented by the ethic of expediency, and religion, as represented by the dominant religion of

Christianity in the countries concerned, can fail to rule out genocide as a valid course of action against an

enemy.

iii

We suspect (even if we refuse to admit it) that the Holocaust could have merely uncovered another face

of the same modern society whose other, more familiar, face we so admire. And that the two faces are

perfectly comfortably attached to the same body. What we perhaps fear most, is that the two faces can

exist without each other no more than two sides of the coin.

~ Zygmunt Bauman (1988)

But the line dividing good and evil cuts right through the heart of every human being. And who is willing

to destroy a piece of his own heart?

~ Alexandr Solzhenitsyn (1973)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1 INTRODUCTION...................................................................................................................1

2 CHALLENGES.....................................................................................................................9

3 DEFINITIONS....................................................................................................................11

3.1 GENOCIDE.................................................................................................................................11

3.2 IDEOLOGY.................................................................................................................................13

3.3 RHETORIC..................................................................................................................................15

3.4 CHRISTIANITY............................................................................................................................16

3.5 TOTALITARIANISM......................................................................................................................17

4 LITERATURE REVIEW..........................................................................................................20

5 IDEOLOGY OF GENOCIDE....................................................................................................24

5.1 BACKGROUND - GERMANY............................................................................................................25

5.2 BACKGROUND - RWANDA.............................................................................................................26

5.2.1 COLONIALISM.....................................................................................................................27

5.2.2 HUTU AND TUTSI RELATIONS................................................................................................28

5.2.3 ARUSHA ACCORDS...............................................................................................................30

5.2.4 GENOCIDE.........................................................................................................................30

6 RHETORICAL BACKGROUND - KATZ AND EXPEDIENCY............................................................33

6.1 DELIBERATIVE RHETORIC/ARISTOTLE............................................................................................33

6.2 EFFICIENCY/EXPEDIENCY.............................................................................................................34

7 RHETORICAL ANALYSIS - EXPEDIENCY IN GERMANY AND RWANDA.........................................36

8 RHETORICAL ANALYSIS - IDEOLOGY OF "THE ENEMY" IN GENOCIDE.......................................39

8.1 THE ENEMY AS ALIEN OR OTHER...................................................................................................40

8.2 THE ENEMY AS THREAT................................................................................................................41

8.3 THE ENEMY AS SEDUCTRESS.........................................................................................................42

8.4 THE ENEMY AS INHUMAN..............................................................................................................44

8.5 THE ENEMY AS ABSTRACTION.......................................................................................................46

9 ANTI-SEMITISM AND CHRISTIANITY.....................................................................................49

10 RHETORICAL ANALYSIS - IDEOLOGY OF THE "NON-CHRISTIAN" IN CHRISTIANITY..................52

10.1 THE NON-CHRISTIAN AS ALIEN OR OTHER....................................................................................52

10.2 THE NON-CHRISTIAN AS THREAT.................................................................................................54

10.3 THE NON-CHRISTIAN AS SEDUCTRESS.........................................................................................55

10.4 THE NON-CHRISTIAN AS INHUMAN..............................................................................................57

10.5 THE NON-CHRISTIAN AS ABSTRACTION........................................................................................57

11 GENOCIDE AND CHRISTIANITY..........................................................................................61

11.1 GERMANY.................................................................................................................................61

11.2 RWANDA..................................................................................................................................64

12 TECHNOLOGICAL SOCIETY AND BUREAUCRACY...................................................................67

13 COMMON MARKERS IN GENOCIDAL RHETORIC....................................................................69

14 SO WHAT?.......................................................................................................................72

15 LIMITATIONS OF RESEARCH..............................................................................................74

16 CONCLUSION...................................................................................................................76

17 AFTERWARD....................................................................................................................77

APPENDICES INDEX

APPENDIX 1 - GERMANY TIMELINE...........................................................................................78

APPENDIX 2 - RWANDA TIMELINE............................................................................................81

APPENDIX 3 - REICH MEMO.....................................................................................................83

APPENDIX 4 - THE TEN COMMANDMENTS OF THE HUTU..............................................................84

APPENDIX 5 - THE NUREMBERG LAWS......................................................................................85

1 INTRODUCTION

When I began considering topics for this thesis I had one thing in mind: to pick

something meaningful since I was devoting a year of my life to it. As I thought about it I kept

returning to the topic of genocide and the presentation I gave for a class on Hannah Arendt's

Eichmann in Jerusalem. Her book changed how I see the world in many ways, not the least of

which was making me aware of how normal and rational those who commit genocide are. When

designing that presentation I became aware of how many commonalities exist between instances

of genocide. Photographs of genocide are so eerily similar as to be interchangeable, whether

black and white from the 1940s or colour from the twenty-first century. Nothing is quite as

unnerving as realizing that the only difference between photographs from concentration camps in

Germany and Bosnia is that the ones from Bosnia are in colour.

Political similarities appear in countries where genocide has occurred, as many were on

the brink of transformation to democracy. In Turkey, "[t]he genocide of the Armenians took place

between empire and nation-state, before the idea of an Anatolian nation-state for the Turks had

developed, in the context of a last desperate attempt to save the empire in the age of nationalism"

(Suny 56). Much the same can be said of Germany in the twentieth century and Rwanda in the

1980s and 1990s. In Origins of Rwandan Genocide Joseph Semujanga wrote, "Before the

genocide, many observers thought of Rwanda as the best bet for democratic development among

countries south of the Sahara" (12). Rhetorical similarities are shocking, whether the target of

genocide is Jews in Germany, Tutsis in Rwanda or Muslims in Srebrenica the victims are always

characterized and dehumanized the same way. Jews are "rats," and Tutsis are "cockroaches." The

Nazis "resettled," "removed," and "exterminated." The Khmer Rouge "swept" and "discarded."

Bosnian Serbs "distributed" (killed) "parcels."

The contrast between Arendt's assessment that genocidaires are logical and the horror of

identical photos of different genocides led me to question how a rational society could be

convinced to take part in such depravity. I then took a step further: what would convince me to

commit genocide? This question drew me into examination of ideologies of genocide, the history

of Christianity, totalitarianism and my own background and beliefs. I came to the conclusion that

the rhetoric involved in ideologies of genocide would be what could convince me to take part. I

think genocide and murder are wrong because I believe human beings are inherently valuable.

However, if, through genocidal rhetoric, I was convinced that the targets of a genocide were

inhuman and distanced from me so that obvious human qualities were unaccounted for, my belief

would no longer apply.

The reasoning and logic of genocidal rhetoric is structured by ideologies arguing for and

justifying its perpetration. They are perfectly coherent and logical systems. Such ideologies

become possible with the dehumanization and distancing of the target group from another group

that believes itself to be superior. Dehumanization and distance are both created, at least in part,

rhetorically. Distance is achieved through valuing utility and expediency above other

considerations in decision making. Dehumanization is achieved through the construction of an

"enemy." The high level of dehumanization required is possible only through refusing to take

into account any lived experiences that contradict the major ideology, and attempting to make the

world agree with and resemble said ideology. Distance from intended victims helps to reinforce

the ideology of the enemy as dehumanized, while the ideology of the enemy increases the sense

of distance.

In this thesis I look at instances of genocide in Germany during the 1930s and 1940s and

Rwanda during 1994. On the surface, these two genocides appear dissimilar, occurring fifty

years apart and in two separate areas of the globe with different cultures and people-groups

involved. The constructed ideologies of genocide however are remarkably similar in significant

ways. Both give primacy to an ethic of expediency, and both create "enemy." The ideology of the

"non-Christian" in both countries impacted the creation of the enemy, which were predominantly

Protestant and Catholic at the time of the genocide. By examining the genocidal rhetoric

involved in the ideologies of genocide in each country I identify common rhetorical precursors to

the actual killing.

This thesis deals with very specific situations and potentialities. When I began my

research, I thought that by focusing on the genocide in Germany and Rwanda, the cultural

differences between the two countries would help eliminate rhetorical similarities. Part way into

my research I was surprised to realize how similar the backgrounds of Germany and Rwanda are

on many levels, as well as how great an influence Christianity had in both countries. Rwanda

was a German, and then a Belgian colony. Many of the Rwandan elite were educated in Quebec,

and the official language (until recently) was French. While I am focusing on how they are alike,

these two countries are not identical, and differ in numerous ways. For example, the Jews were

not involved in any kind of armed conflict prior to the Holocaust. They had no rebel group

fighting for them from outside of Germany, while the genocide in Rwanda was ended by a rebel

group. I am not trying to say that these two genocides were identical, for they were clearly not,

neither in time, location, people-groups, or scale. I am simply trying to identify possibly

predictive traits. In the words of historian Edmund P. Russell III, "Noting similarities does not

mean equating" (Russell 1510).

As I examine the rhetoric of events as sensitive, horrifying and tragic as genocides, and

the Holocaust in particular, I would like to draw attention to several arguments that I implicitly

make or rely on throughout this thesis. The Holocaust is not an exception to all rules.1 I agree

with the statement of Auschwitz survivor Primo Levi: "It happened. It can happen again."2 I

believe that the recurrence of genocide since the Holocaust proves otherwise. The term

Holocaust is capitalized throughout, because while I do not think it can be treated as a singular

exception, I wish to acknowledge that it stands alone as a defining moment of destruction for the

Jewish people.3 Attention needs to be drawn to this, as allowing it to become familiar risks

viewing it as commonplace, which it is not, and lends itself to the view that it was inevitable.

Genocide is a result of many circumstances and choices made by leaders and individuals.

As such, I contend dismissing genocide as the work of sadists and madmen with incredible

control over their subjects is irresponsible. Such dismissal distances us from those who commit

genocide, and convinces us that it could never happen here. Genocide is one potential outcome

of our society, and its recurrence, and our surprise at that recurrence, combined with our

unwillingness to do something to stop it suggest that its potential has not yet been acknowledged.

Arendt's book, Eichmann in Jerusalem, illustrates the dangers of dismissing genocidaires

as maniacal. Arendt concluded that an effort was made by the Nazis to weed out sadists and the

like (105), and that:

[e]vil in the Third Reich had lost the quality by which most people recognize it -

the quality of temptation. Many Germans and many Nazis, probably an

overwhelming majority of them, must have been tempted not to murder, not to

rob, not to let their neighbors go off to their doom (for that the Jews were

transported to their doom they knew, of course, even though many of them may

not have known the gruesome details), and not to become accomplices in all these

1 See for example Zygmunt Bauman's article "Sociology After the Holocaust" (1988).

2 Levi's quote appears on a banner at the Houston Holocaust Museum, Houston TX.

3 I chose to use the term Holocaust and not the term Shoah, despite the connotations of the term (see Calimani), as

it appears to be the most commonly accepted in academic literature.

crimes by benefiting from them. But, God knows, they had learned how to resist

temptation. (Arendt, Eichmann 150)

Referring to Adolf Eichmann, who was put on trial in Israel in 1961 for Holocaust related crimes

against humanity, Arendt writes:

Half a dozen psychiatrists had certified him as 'normal' - 'More normal, at any

rate, than I am after having examined him,' one of them was said to have

exclaimed, while another had found that his whole psychological outlook, his

attitude toward his wife and children, mother and father, brothers, sisters, and

friends, was 'not only normal but most desirable'... (26)

The line dividing us from them, good from evil, does in fact, run right through the heart of every

human being. One of the most unnerving facts during Nazi rule was that "[t]here was not a single

party in Europe that did not produce collaborators" (Arendt, Origins 263). More often than not,

when time is taken to examine them closely, genocidaires are found to be "normally" functioning

in a society where right and wrong has been redefined and justified by an ideology of genocide.

The concepts of right and wrong were warped in German society over time, just as the

definitions of right and wrong were in Rwanda. Joseph Semujanga wrote over forty years after

Arendt:

The very normalization of what used to be considered abnormal has contributed to

rendering the exceptional and unacceptable ordinary and acceptable, no longer

something that should never happen but rather something which has begun to

happen so often that it has become routine, even simply boring. (9)

This normalization is enacted with the use of genocidal rhetoric. What does it take for ordinary

human beings - for it must be remembered that the majority of Germans and the majority of

Rwandans were ordinary - to normalize murder? How does genocidal rhetoric become so

persuasive, so pervasive, that something as horrific as genocide can happen not once or twice but

over and over again in our supposedly enlightened and civilized world? Zygmunt Bauman, in his

1988 groundbreaking article on sociology after the Holocaust observed, "...anxiety can hardly

abate in view of the fact that none of the societal conditions which made Auschwitz possible has

truly disappeared..." (Bauman 479).

I am aware in trying to comprehend the motivations, justifications, and logic of people

who perpetrated crimes against humanity, I am disregarding the victims. I am also attempting to

comprehend that which many argue is incomprehensible. Because none of the conditions which

made Auschwitz possible are gone, I believe that an attempt should be made to comprehend how

genocide occurs. Arendt wrote:

Comprehension...does not mean denying the outrageous, deducing the

unprecedented from precedents, or explaining phenomena by such analogies and

generalities that the impact of reality and the shock of experience are no longer

felt. It means, rather, examining and bearing consciously the burden that events

have placed upon us - neither denying their existence nor submitting meekly to

their weight as though everything that in fact happened could not have happened

otherwise. Comprehension, in short, means the unpremeditated, attentive facing

up to, and resisting of, reality - whatever it may be or might have been. (Origins

xiv)

In acknowledging the terror of genocide, and the incredible bravery of some who faced it, as well

as our failure to encompass and acknowledge it, I include the following account and telegram,

which helped me start to "face up to" and "resist reality."

Jan Karski was a twenty-eight year old Roman Catholic Polish diplomat who disguised

himself as Jew, smuggled himself into the Warsaw ghetto, and posed as a Ukrainian militiaman

to infiltrate Belzec (Power 32). He escaped in late 1942 carrying hundreds of documents on

microfilm in the shaft of a key (Power 32). Karski met with politician Ignacy Schwarzbart, who

cabled the World Jewish Congress in New York with the following:

JEWS IN POLAND ALMOST COMPLETELY ANNIHILATED STOP READ

REPORTS DEPORATATION TEN THOUSAND JEWS FOR DEATH STOP IN

BELZEC FORCED TO DIG THEIR OWN GRAVE MASS SUICIDE

HUNDREDS CHILDREN THROWN ALIVE INTO GUTTERS DEATH

CAMPS IN BELZEC TREBLINKA DISTRICT MALKINIA THOUSANDS

DEAD NOT BURIED IN SOBIBOR DISTRICT WLODAWSKI MASS

GRAVES MURDER PREGNANT WOMEN STOP JEWS NAKED DRAGGED

INTO DEATH CHAMBERS GESTAPO MEN ASKED PAYMENT FOR

QUICKER KILLING HUNTING FUGITIVES STOP THOUSANDS DAILY

VICTIMS THROUGHOUT POLAND STOP BELIEVE THE UNBELIEVABLE

STOP (qtd in Power 32-33)

Karski would later be told by a U.S. Supreme Court Justice, "I do not mean that you are lying I

simply said I cannot believe you" (qtd in Power 121). As David Rousset said, "Normal men do

not know that everything is possible" (qtd in Arendt, Origins 303).4 We have not yet learned to

believe the unbelievable.

Omer Bartov wrote, "...precisely because the Holocaust poses the most profound

existential questions to Jewish life since the Exile, any interpretation of it cannot be isolated from

its implications for the present" (799-800). I argue that genocide poses the most profound

questions to all of humanity, and therefore cannot be isolated from implications for the present.

Semujanga commented, "If we survey twentieth-century genocides, many of them appear, in

spite of the different modes of organization related to their particular historical contexts, both as

collective murder perpetrated by the state and as a discourse on this murder" (38). I am interested

in the discourse of murder in ideologies of genocide. While the work of one undergraduate will

4 Rousset, David. The Other Kingdom. 1947.

not stop genocide, the process of examining arguments that would convince me has transformed

the way that I see the world. Before pursuing this further, it is necessary to outline some of the

complexities and challenges of this topic, and review some definitions.

2 CHALLENGES

One of the biggest challenges in writing this thesis is resisting the urge to distance myself

from the people I am reading about, both victims and perpetrators. Neither were nicely black and

white, or easily separable into good and evil. Dismissing the Nazis as insane is far easier than

evaluating the arguments that convinced reasoning human beings that murder was a duty.

Believing that Christians who were complicit in genocide, or even actively took part, were

following a warped and damaged faith is far easier to believe than to accept that they believed

that they were right in their faith, just as I believe I am right in mine. Some of my thoughts and

struggles with these issues appear italicized throughout. Human beings naturally dislike

examining too closely that which makes them uncomfortable. Close examination of the

perpetrators requires acknowledging the unnerving symmetry between their abhorrent actions

and my daily choices. It is far more comfortable to pretend no such parallels exist.

Working with genocidal rhetoric, the language itself is a challenge because its purpose

was to place distance between the reader and victims. It is easy to distance myself and accept

their premises - and in a sense treat the victims exactly as their killers did. At the same time,

some distance is necessary to evaluate the perpetrators.

Another challenge, partly balanced by the fact that I studied not only Nazi Germany but

also Hutu Rwanda, is to see the attempted elimination of the Jews as inevitable, the result of one

long historical tradition of anti-Semitism throughout history. I agree with Arendt, when she said:

Had the court in Jerusalem [at Eichmann's trial] understood that there were

distinctions between discrimination, expulsion, and genocide, it would

immediately have become clear that the supreme crime it was confronted with,

the physical extermination of the Jewish people, was a crime against humanity,

perpetrated upon the body of the Jewish people, and that only the choice of

victims [emphasis mine], not the nature of the crime, could be derived from the

long history of Jew-hatred and anti-Semitism. (Arendt, Eichmann 269)

Similarly, it is easy to see genocide as an inevitable result of circumstances coming together, and

individuals as a faceless mass under the power of dictators, which it is not. From the large scale

of resistance in Denmark during WWII5 to individual acts of defiance (secret or otherwise), one

thing is clear: rhetoric, even at its most persuasive does not remove from us the choices we have

regarding right and wrong, it just makes them harder to identify. Keeping in mind that genocide

does not just inevitably happen in far away places, committed by already terrible people, I now

turn to defining key terms, genocide among them.

5 During WWII Nazi officials in Denmark became "unreliable" refusing to help detain Jews, and Jewish leaders

were notified of a major upcoming raid on Jewish homes, allowing them to issue warnings in synagogues

beforehand (Arendt, Eichmann 170-75).

3 DEFINITIONS

In what follows I define genocide, ideology, rhetoric, Christianity and totalitarianism. The

relationship between these terms is not always clear. Genocide involves an ideology of genocide

which is used to justify actions, and is constructed in part with rhetoric. Christianity has been

used to help shape the ideology of the enemy, which in turn is part of genocidal rhetoric.

Totalitarianism emerges when genocidal rhetoric is taken to new extremes, and people become

almost completely abstract. Each of these factors influence the creation of ideologies of

genocide.

3.1 GENOCIDE

According to the U.N., genocide involves the intent to destroy a national, ethnical, racial

or religious group by killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, preventing births, forcibly

transferring children of the group to another, or inflicting "conditions of life calculated to bring

about its physical destruction in whole or in part" (Convention). A more concrete definition

describes genocide as mass murder by a state, involving an ideology of exclusion, organized by

the state apparatus, the aim being the death, in total or in part, of a specifically targeted group of

humans (Semujanga 49). Genocide is more than just organized murder on a large scale. It

involves the cultivation of an "enemy" which must be destroyed utterly. Semujanga's definition

includes the stipulation that genocide is perpetrated by a state, and he further argues that "[t]he

genocide of one group is in fact possible only where modern state structures exist, because only

these give to political power an efficient control of the population....Beyond this organizational

aspect, genocide generally originates from a social majority group sharing a common hatred for a

minority group. This common belief in the noxiousness of the other causes exclusion and,

eventually, extermination" (emphasis Semujanga 39). Ideologies of genocide involve ideologies

of the enemy that structure the hatred that leads to extermination, defining those targeted for

exclusion in abstract terms (see section 3.2 below).

At its most basic level, genocide involves killing an abstraction. The idea that has been

created about another group of people is what is killed, without accounting for the actualities or

particularities of that group. This abstraction is an extreme expression of processes that are used

in everyday life. On a daily basis, categorization is used to quickly evaluate situations and people

without taking the time to gather extensive information. This kind of categorization simplifies

dealing with the world, dividing into likes and dislikes, friends versus casual acquaintances, so

that time and energy can be allotted accordingly. Here we see a very simple level of abstraction.

The next level of abstraction is stereotyping, which helps to make quick surface judgments. This

involves categorizing, usually on the basis of appearance or obvious traits, into groups like

"jock" or "party girl." Stereotypes about specific individuals tend to be flexible, subject to

revision with more information garnered from interactions, or new lived experiences.

Unwillingness to change when confronted with antithetical information demonstrates

prejudice: those stereotypes we cling to even when we encounter contradictory evidence. Racism

is less flexible than simple stereotyping and focuses on ethnic background as a basis for

determining which stereotypes to apply. War propaganda takes stereotypes and prejudices to a

new level, genocidal propaganda even further. Finally, we come to totalitarianism which, in its

latter stages, involves the complete abstraction of people, so much so that people not only see

themselves as abstractions but willingly accept the killing of other abstractions (see section 3.5).

These abstractions generally bear little resemblance to lived experiences of the groups in

question.

The relationship between these concepts is not necessarily linear, and individuals can

certainly be prejudiced in one area and simply categorize in another. I am interested in the

transition from war propaganda to the rhetoric of genocide. Progress from one category to

another increases the importance of the ideological framework and the individuals using it

become more and more unwilling to let lived experiences change their viewpoint. The closer to

totalitarianism society becomes, the more isolated people are from their fellow human beings,

and the more abstract the ideology (see section 3.5 below). This results in an increasing

dependence on the logic of the ideology, in this case the ideology of genocide, because it is

external to the self and seems to be more reliable. Increasing dependence reinforces the ideology

of the enemy and distance from said enemy.

3.2 IDEOLOGY

An ideology most simply is the logic of an idea (Arendt, Origins 469). The concept of an

ideology is a fairly recent phenomenon, the word itself first appearing in French as idéologie,

during the French Revolution, coined by Destutt de Tracy as a short name for his "science of

ideas" ("Ideology"). Tracy would frame this science as saving men "by ridding their minds of

prejudice and preparing them for the sovereignty of reason" ("Ideology"). Predating de Tracy,

Machiavelli was one of the first to link ideology with terror, and it tends to be linked with martial

expressions ("Ideology"). Terror tied to ideology plays a key role in genocide. Ideologies are

generally "-isms" which are used to "explain everything and every occurrence by deducing it

from a single premise" (Arendt, Origins 468). Arendt noted that:

The only capacity of the human mind which needs neither the self nor the other

nor the world in order to function safely and which is as independent of

experience as it is of thinking is the ability of logical reasoning whose premise is

the self-evident. The elementary rules of cogent evidence, the truism that two and

two equals four cannot be perverted even under the conditions of absolute

loneliness. (Origins 477)

When an ideology is taken to the extreme, any experiences that do not correlate with the original

premise are either twisted to fit or disregarded altogether. This process can begin to be seen in

ideologies of genocide.

Arendt has suggested that "[i]deological thinking orders facts into an absolutely logical

procedure which starts from an axiomatically accepted premise, deducing everything from it;

that is, it proceeds with a consistency that exists nowhere in the realm of reality" (471). A

perfectly coherent system of thinking has power precisely because people look for a level of

consistency that does not exist in life. Much as Jonathan Swift demonstrated in his pamphlet "A

Modest Proposal,"6 a perfectly coherent, rational, and above all logical system or ideology can

endorse actions which otherwise would be found morally abhorrent. Steven Katz has gone so far

as to link directly the ethic of expediency, or privileging of efficiency, found within Aristotle's

deliberative rhetoric with the Holocaust. He cites the rhetoric of Nicomachean Ethics, which was

embraced by the Nazis and combined with science and technology to form the "moral basis" of

the Holocaust (258). While Aristotle's rhetoric of logic also involves ethics, which may seem to

rule out its use in genocide, he does give utility precedence, and that became what the Nazis

focused on (260). Katz argues that the ethic of expediency became the driving principle, or

ideology for the Nazi regime. The ethic of expediency contributed to the ideology of the enemy,

and both played a role in the genocidal rhetoric of the predominant ideology of genocide.

6 In "A Modest Proposal," Swift logically and rationally argued that eating children would solve both the problem

posed by famine in 18th century Ireland as well as poverty, since parents would be paid for the eating of their

children.

3.3 RHETORIC

The word rhetoric in everyday usage tends to be defined as arguments completely

divorced from action. Kenneth Burke argued that the function of rhetoric is "to induce

cooperation and to transcend hierarchy and estrangement" ("Grammar" 75). At its most basic (or

perhaps most complex), Burke defined rhetoric as the art of persuasion, "or a study of the means

of persuasion available for any given situation" (94). For the purposes of this thesis, my

definition of rhetoric falls along the lines of Burke's. I will specifically be looking at the rhetoric,

or persuasive language, which is used to make arguments for genocide. In genocide rhetoric is

backed by violent action, and the aim to persuade is taken to such lengths that it becomes

propaganda. Genocidal rhetoric aims to distance and dehumanize. The rhetoric of genocide is

important, because a certain amount of reification happens in genocide, where the abstractions

that are used to define the enemy are treated as if they have a concrete and material existence in

the real world.

***

What shocked and saddened me was the recognition that both Germany and Rwanda

were strongly Christian at the time of their respective genocides, with Germany almost entirely

Protestant and Catholic, and Rwanda 70% Roman Catholic and 20% Protestant (Semujanga

12). The dehumanizing ideology of the enemy is paralleled by the ideology of the non-Christian

in Christianity.7

7 For a discussion of these parallels see Chapter 10.

3.4 CHRISTIANITY

Christianity in a general sense can be defined as a monotheistic religion, which

recognizes only the Christian Trinity, excluding the claims of all other religions (Trombley).

Individuals are initiated into Christianity through baptism, being sprinkled with or submersed in

water (Trombley). Christians follow Jesus, whose death by crucifixion they interpret as canceling

their sins and who they believe will play a role in final judgment of all human beings

(Feldtkeller). Protestantism can be defined as entailing a rejection of the Catholic conception of

repentance and the "juridicial understanding of the faith of the papal Roman Church" (Senkel).

The Bible is held as the ultimate authority, while individuals are seen as able to interpret it for

themselves. Catholicism stresses tradition and the role of the clergy as "administrators and

allocators of the goods of salvation" (Blaschke). Catholicism holds different views on

justification and grace, as well as the understanding of the Sacraments (Blaschke).

While I will be using the term Christianity throughout, it cannot be encompassed by

simple definitions. There are literally thousands of variations of Christianity, each emphasizing

specific beliefs. In this thesis, when the term is used, I am referring to the major Catholic and

Protestant denominations within Christianity, as those are the relevant aspects for Germany and

Rwanda, despite the inter-denominational and intra-denominational variations. My purpose is not

to examine the specifics of either, but to look at the impact of their major teachings and their

shaping of rhetoric.

While religion can contribute to ideologies, there is a difference between the two.

Religious theory structures reality in terms of divine order, and very rarely centers only on this

world, while an ideology tends to do just that ("Ideology"). Religion also involves revelation,

while ideologies are usually used to emphasize belief in living by reason alone ("Ideology").

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn pointed out that faiths tend to include suffering in their paradigms, while

ideologies do not. Religion can be used as part of an ideology, or be subsumed by it. The sad fact

is that Christians have used Christian ideologies to construct ideologies of genocide, by laying

the groundwork for the devaluation of people who do not ascribe to the same viewpoint, even

when it does not involve Christians directly committing, inciting, or in some other way abetting

the commission of genocide.

3.5 TOTALITARIANISM

Totalitarianism is significant in the discussion of genocidal ideologies because a

totalitarian society is generally governed by a highly consistent ideology which is disconnected

from lived experience and has already moved from genocidal stages to elimination based on

complete abstraction. Once an ideology's claim to validity is taken literally, everything follows

from the first premise and this means that in "[t]he curious logicality of all isms, their simpleminded

trust in the salvation value of stubborn devotion without regard for specific, varying

factors, already harbors the first germs of totalitarian contempt for reality and factuality"

(Arendt, Origins 457-58). The totalitarian leader takes a genocidal ideology to another level and

attempts to make this abstraction a reality. The ideology is used to compete against a world

which is by nature not logical and consistent (362).

As the name suggests, totalitarianism aims at total control. Totalitarianism differs from

other forms of authoritarian rule because under a totalitarian system the behavior of individuals

becomes irrelevant (Arendt, Origins 296). Opposition to the regime will result in punishment or

death, but so can doing nothing. People who are considered threats are simply eliminated,

whether they actually pose a threat or not. The total domination of a totalitarian system reduces

human beings to reactions, which can be exchanged at random for any other (438). When one's

choices result in a punishment that everyone else may be subject to anyways, freedom has lost its

distinctive mark, because the consequences of opposition are shared with the innocent (433).

Effort is constantly made to turn ideological fiction into reality, and that requires total control.

When such a system defines itself by making it a law of nature to constantly eliminate

what is unfit to live, "it would mean the end of nature itself if new categories of the harmful and

unfit-to-live could not be found..." (Arendt, Origins 464). One aspect of the enforcement of such

an ideology is "[t]hrough the creation of conditions under which conscience ceases to be

adequate and to do good become utterly impossible, the consciously organized complicity of all

men in the crimes of totalitarian regimes is extended to the victims and thus made really total"

(452). This condition serves to fit people for either the role of executioner or victim, depending

on their circumstances. Everyone appears already complicit in the actions of the regime. Since

they appear to be supporting the regime, to speak out would appear inconsistent with previous

behavior, and even the victims find themselves facing choices between murder and murder. The

resulting need to cling to the logical process of the prevalent ideology grows out of fear of

contradicting oneself, as the ideology appears to be the only reliable process left in a world in

which individuals are increasingly isolated from one another. The sense of isolation grows out of

a society structured to erode freedom and responsibility, where anyone could turn on anyone

else.

The selection of victims in the later stages of totalitarian regimes becomes truly random

and abstract. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn observed, "Confronted by the pit into which we are about

to toss those who have done us harm, we halt, stricken dumb: it is after all only because of the

way things worked out that they were the executioners and we were not" (98). In the last stages

of a totalitarian system, individuals become complete abstractions, and a justifying ideology is

no longer needed. It becomes enough that a new category of people are unfit to live. In

totalitarian systems attempts are made to eliminate freedom completely.

4 LITERATURE REVIEW

This was an incredibly challenging subject to research, mostly because there is a shortage

of literature specifically on the rhetoric of genocide. Far more research can be found on the uses

of rhetoric as it relates to war propaganda. Therefore, I had to branch out into the much wider

field of research on genocide and its causes in general, and search for relevant information within

works not focused on rhetoric. I found this surprising given the importance of rhetoric, especially

during WWII in Germany, but also in Rwanda where radio and newspapers were used not only to

convince the population of the necessity of murder, but also to distribute death lists (Power 343).

Due to the need to search such a large field of research, I had to limit the results that I

examined. I focused specifically on research relating to genocide only in Rwanda and Germany,

ignoring possibly relevant data on genocidal rhetoric regarding other geographical areas. As

such, I worked with the assumption that findings about Rwanda and Germany are similar to

genocides that have occurred at other times and in other places. In what I have read on genocide

elsewhere, I have found nothing that contradicts the main premise of similarity in rhetoric

between genocides (ex: Bartov and Mack 2001; Power 2002; Sells 2003).8 It was also more

challenging to find books dealing with rhetoric than it was to find articles. Books that deal with

the subject tend not to be categorized under rhetoric, only genocide, therefore much of my

research focused on articles.

The article out of which my thesis developed was Kenneth Burke's "The Rhetoric of

Hitler's Battle" (1983). Another of the foundational articles was "The Ethic of Expediency:

Classical Rhetoric, Technology, and the Holocaust" (Katz 1992). Steven Katz links Hitler's

rhetoric with the classical rhetoric of Aristotle, and points out Aristotle's privileging of

8 Another significant genocide which I was forced to disregard was the treatment of North American indigenous

groups and African Americans. (Kades 2000; Svaldi 1989).

expediency above other considerations when writing deliberatively. One of the most relevant

books dealing with Rwanda was Origins of Rwandan Genocide by Josias Semujanga (2003),

which looks not only at rhetoric but also at the role that Christian colonialists played in shaping

it. From the field of psychology, Faces of the Enemy: Reflections of the Hostile Imagination by

Sam Keen (1986) was invaluable in providing structural categories for types of propaganda, as

well as highlighting the challenge of determining the difference between war propaganda and

genocide.

Hannah Arendt, a prominent political theorist who fled Germany and then France as the

Nazis came to power in the 1940s, was another major source. She wrote two important and

controversial books regarding the Holocaust. The first, Origins of Totalitarianism, was published

in 1951 and remains one of the definitive accounts on the subject. The second was Eichmann in
Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, written about the trial of Eichmann (1963).

Eichmann in Jerusalem was especially controversial, given Arendt's assertion that Eichmann was

not insane, as well as her argument that the Jews were complicit in the Holocaust. These two

texts contain arguments which most scholars reference when dealing with the Holocaust. While

some scholars have challenged certain aspects of her arguments (ex: Barnouw 1983; Felman

2001), they remain foundational.

Omer Bartov is an historian who has written extensively on the Holocaust, and I have

used several of his works. One important article is "Defining Enemies, Making Victims:

Germans, Jews and the Holocaust" (1998). It should be noted that Bartov references Arendt,

arguing that her assertion of Jewish complicity necessitated a re-analysis of the subtleties of

victimhood (803). He also points out how her downplaying of anti-Semitism served to highlight

the genocidal potential of the modern state (804). Another notable scholar in the field of

genocide is Raul Hilberg, who wrote a seminal study The Destruction of the European Jews

(1961). This work has strongly influenced subsequent studies, including those of Hannah Arendt;

however he believed that the Holocaust could be explained in isolation, outside of other

totalitarian and genocidal frameworks (Bartov 804). Since I take the opposing view, much as

Hannah Arendt does, and because his main points are touched on by many scholars I cite, I do

not directly reference him.

Sociologist Zygmunt Bauman wrote a pivotal article in which he questioned the existence

of sociology itself in the wake of the Holocaust and humanity's apparent failure ("Sociology

After the Holocaust" 1988). He argued that there are two ways to shrug off the significance of

the Holocaust: by presenting it as something that happened only to the Jews, making it

sociologically inconsequential (469), or by presenting it as an extreme case in familiar categories

of social phenomenon like mass murder, whereby it becomes a natural predisposition (470). In

either case the Holocaust becomes familiar (470). Bauman argued instead that the Holocaust

should be a test of the "hidden possibilities of modern society" (479). Most sociologists use

Bauman as a starting point when discussing the Holocaust.

A few of the other sources which directly addressed the issue at hand were The Media
and the Rwandan Genocide, edited by Allan Thompson (2007), and "The Argument for

Genocide in Nazi Propaganda," by Randall L. Bytwerk (2005). Another useful article was

"Poisoning Young Minds in Nazi Germany: Children and Propaganda in the Third Reich," by

Marie Corelli, which appeared in Social Education (2002). It focused on the Nazi regime's

propaganda storybooks.

Finding information examining the rhetoric of Christianity and its role in genocide

proved somewhat more challenging. Even academically there seems to be a reluctance to

examine links between religion and genocide, not only from within religious institutions

themselves but also in secular academic circles. One of the few to do so was the article "Crosses

of Blood: Sacred Space, Religion, and Violence in Bosnia-Hercegovina" (Sells, 2003). Although

Sells' work focuses on Bosnia, his connections between religion, genocide and ideology are

useful for my analysis. A compilation which more directly addressed the issues of religion,

rhetoric and genocide was In God's Name: Genocide and Religion in the Twentieth Century,

edited by Omer Bartov and Phyllis Mack (2001). While this collection discusses genocide all

over the world, there were articles dealing with Rwanda and Germany (Bartov and Mack,

Eriksen, Heschel).

The interdisciplinary nature of my topic revealed itself in the research, with resources

found in political science, economics, psychology, history and religious studies. The majority of

the resources used were drawn from the fields of sociology and anthropology. Surprisingly few

came from within the communications field, perhaps explaining the lack of study in rhetoric

specifically. Part of this could be due to the tendency to view genocide as an exception, and

therefore not something which needs to be studied in relation to normal parameters within

society.

The topic of the relationship between rhetoric, genocide and the rhetoric of Christianity

touched on the concepts of ideology, stereotype, prejudice, racism and totalitarianism. For the

purpose of this thesis, these concepts were not dealt with independently of their involvement

with genocide, except to provide working definitions. The complexity of this topic requires that

it be situated within the larger context of ideologies of genocide. Now that the definitions are

clear and the thesis is positioned in relation to the literature, we move to some basic background

information regarding such ideologies in Germany and Rwanda.

5 IDEOLOGY OF GENOCIDE

Ideologies of genocide are constructed and enacted by people in order to establish

congruence between the world that they live in and the stereotypes and constructions of the

enemy that they believe to be real:

The stereotype and ideology that supports it are tools that allow us to give

meaning to social contradictions and, therefore, to act on them. For one can have

an action upon a society only when it has been made intelligible by the

construction of a coherent explanatory and logical structure. From such a

fundamental double requirement of logical coherence and of adaptation to reality,

the evolution of ideologies and their transformation arises. (Semujanga 66)

In the perpetration of genocide, the roles of criminal and victim appear to the outside world to

have been reversed. The victims are seen as guilty (of uprising against the majority group, of

traitorous acts, or even metaphysically from an outsiders' point of view as having committed

some horrible crime deserving of punishment), and must justify themselves before the criminal

(who is their judge and executioner) and before the world outside (which generally finds their

claims unbelievable) (52). Additionally, the manipulation of members of the victim group into

positions of abetting the genocide makes it even harder to distinguish between the murder and

the victim. In Germany, the capos9 were more hated that the S.S. (Arendt, Origins 452).

The need to create an enemy entails the need to see oneself as a victim. Bartov argues that

one of the most important discourses of the last century was about creating enemies and victims.

Additionally, "the aftermath of disaster may have fewer devastating psychological and physical

consequences for survivors if they can, in turn, victimize their real or imaginary enemies" (776).

Bartov points out that Germans experienced the last phases of WWII as mass victimization, and

9 Capos were concentration camp prisoners who were given administrative positions over others.

Nazi criminality itself was seen to be suffering inflicted on the Germans by their leaders after the

war (788). "The Nazi" was presented as a paradigmatic other by Germans and the Allies to

Germans, just as the Jew had been during the war (791). Bartov argued for more complex

definitions of victims and enemies. He said:

The victim trope is a central feature of our time. In a century that produced more

victims of war, genocide, and massacre than all of previous recorded history put

together, it is both a trope and a reflection of reality. Yet, at the same time it is a

dangerous prism through which to view the world, for victims are produced by

enemies, and enemies eventually make for more victims. (811)

Arendt highlighted the same issue of rhetorical victim creation at Eichmann's trial, where the

defense argued that Hitler was innocent of the killing of the Jews, because he was a victim of the

Zionists, who supposedly compelled him to commit criminal acts against them which would

enable the creation of the state of Israel (Eichmann 20). This complexity of victimization can be

seen in the history of Germany and Rwanda.

5.1 BACKGROUND - GERMANY

The ideology of genocide in Germany emerged over a period of years (see Appendix 1).

It was centered around the myth of the ever-elusive Jewish enemy. The construction of the

Jewish enemy involved characteristics of physical appearance, character traits and attributions of

omnipotence and world plots, all of which bore very little relation to actual common physical

appearances, character traits or actions. Hitler provided a worldview which was coherent when

the democratic system was full of contradictions (Burke, "Battle" 340). The logic went

something like the following:

[A]s Darwin had argued in Descent of Man, morality conferred a selective

advantage... since Europeans were morally superior to other peoples, the

extermination of other races would rid the world of immorality. (Weikart 274)

Such radicalization of Nazi policy can be found in the earliest eugenic propaganda during

1933-34. It targeted not only Jews but also gypsies and those of Afro-German descent. In what

some have referred to as the "Darwinist trap," the value of people was measured by their

technological and cultural accomplishments, allowing technology and pseudo-scientific racism

"to come together as a world view" (Japtok 403). The result was eugenics, which the Nazis

enacted. Eugenics came out of the idea of biological inequality (Weikart 279). Months after

coming to power Hitler enacted his ideology of genocide by expelling Jews from the civil service

(including school teachers), and by limiting the number of Jewish students at any school to 1.5

percent (Corelli).

As a Canadian, I was stunned to learn that German citizenship law, first enacted in 1913

and still in effect today, determines national membership based on descent (Linke 561).

Nationality based on bloodline was embedded in imperial history, while inheritance and voting

rights were denied to colonial subjects (Linke 561). This is something that has echoes today10, as

countries try to control immigration and citizenship along bloodlines, because newcomers most

likely do not share the same established ideology as the country they have emigrated to.

5.2 BACKGROUND - RWANDA

The enactment of genocidal ideology in Rwanda followed a congruent path to that of

Germany (see Appendix 2), complete with characterizations of appearance and traits that were

accepted regardless of differing personal experiences. There was in fact, so little difference in

10 For example, the recent controversy in the U.S. over Mexican immigration.

physical appearance between Hutu and Tutsi that, from the colonial era until July 1994,

identification cards were required for everyone aged sixteen and older to avoid confusion, much

like yellow badges were instituted in Germany. A more detailed look will be taken at Rwanda,

given that the details are less widely known.

5.2.1 COLONIALISM

Originally three people groups lived in Rwanda, the Hutu, Tutsi, and Twa, all living

together by around 1000 CE. All three shared a language (Kinyarwanda), religion (Imana), and

were under the authority of a king (umwami), who was considered divine. The inhabitants of

Rwanda believed they had a common ancestor, Kinyarwanda or Gihanga, who founded the

monarchy and had three sons. These sons, Gahutu, Gatutsi, and Gatwa, were the sources of the

three groups, Hutu, Tutsi and Twa, respectively. By 1890 Rwanda was a powerful country, with

some Tutsi holding special privileges, and the rest considered on the same level as the Hutu.

Governance was based on a system of three political chiefs, chosen from the Hutu and Tutsis.

With colonization the triple chieftancy was suppressed, and the subchieftancies governed by

Hutu were eliminated to benefit the Tutsis, whom the colonists believed were born leaders,

mostly because of subtle (and not very consistent) differences in physical appearance. In Rwanda

the differences between people groups was more economic than biological, and divisions did not

meet the definition of a caste system, as contact between different groups was not defined as

wrong, and intermarriage was commonplace.

In 1957 the Hutu called for a change in power structure, angry that the Tutsi had been

privileged when they only made up roughly fifteen percent of the population (Power 336). The

"Manifeste des Bahutu," published in 1957 with the support of the Roman Catholic Church,

painted the Tutsi as a colonist and foreigner (instead of the Belgians), as well as feudalist and

communist. In the ensuing revolution, the Hutu overthrew the Tutsi chiefs, mainly because

sentiment had shifted and the Belgian colonial government now supported the Hutu. The

Belgians were under pressure from the UN to make Rwanda independent. In the violence that

followed, 100,000 Tutsis were killed, and 100,000 others fled. Colonial authorities did nothing to

stop the killing. Belgium finally granted independence to Rwanda on July 1, 1962. Thousands of

Tutsi were forced into exile or greatly reduced positions. From the 1959 revolution until 1994,

successive regimes based their legitimacy on the war of independence "against the Tutsi," not

against the Belgian colonists (Semujanga 164).

5.2.2 HUTU AND TUTSI RELATIONS

During three decades of Hutu rule the Tutsi were systematically discriminated against and

subject to waves of killing and ethnic cleansing (Power 336). In September of 1963 the

Kayibanda government had a plan to get rid of all opposition leaders, and "liquidate" the Tutsi

(Semujanga 185). Parmehutu propagandists spread rumors of plots by Tutsi against Hutu, and

many Tutsi were arrested, tortured or killed. Rwandan radio urged the Hutu to get rid of "Tutsi

terrorists" (185). Many Tutsis fled to Uganda, Burundi, or Congo, with some to Europe, Africa,

and North America. Tutsi were labeled as inyenzi; "cockroaches" (185). Groups of Hutu were

organized and escorted by propagandists in expeditions to regions relatively remote from their

homes to kill Tutsis with anonymity. The Hutu killed an estimated 10,000 - 20,000 Tutsis during

the 1963 purges. The massacres were mainly aimed at intellectuals who were accused of having

too much political power and wealth. A commission ordered by the Belgian government to

investigate the massacres cleared the colonial administration and the Catholic clergy, but

emphasized the role of the Belgian administration and European Catholic clergy in a "policy of

disintegration" and provocation of outbursts of violence as early as 1956-57 (180).

Major General Juvénal Habyarimana, the Hutu national army commander, was installed

as leader following a military coup in July 1973 against Kayibanda, the first president.

Habyarimana discriminated against Tutsi and those Hutu who were not, like the President, from

the North. In 1973, no Tutsi pupils were accepted to schools and no Tutsi student was

matriculated from the National University of Rwanda. Like Germany before, lists of Tutsi

students and teachers were posted in student common areas and those on the lists were expelled

from all public and private institutions.

Habyarimana's government maintained power by any means, including extermination of

all political opponents. From 1973-76, over seven hundred people, all Hutu, were killed in state

terrorism, not ethnic conflict. Once Habyarimana had established his power he turned against the

Tutsi, "because of what he described as their control over the country's economy" (Semujanga

156). In a move that mirrors an old Christian doctrine that the Jews should survive but not thrive

(see Chapter 9), Habyarimana attempted to chase the Tutsi away from urban areas after a 1980

coup attempt because "the enrichment of the Tutsi in itself constituted a crime" (156).

Habyarimana's government did not want Tutsi refugees from previous purges returning,

and by 1987 the Tutsi refugees had formed the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). The RPF

attacked Rwanda on October 1, 1990, angry over the failure of negotiations for the right to return

to their country. The official discourse, even ten years after the Hutu Revolution was that Tutsi

dominated socioeconomic life. Hutu extremism was radicalized after the 1990 attack by the RPF.

Habyarimana accused the Tutsi and moderate Hutu of plotting against the nation and imprisoned

and/or executed them indiscriminately. Ferdinand Nahimana, a member of the National

Revolutionary Movement for Development (MRND), was the "mastermind" behind the second

version of Hutu extremism: violence and state terrorism with the goal of eradicating the Tutsi

from Rwanda forever (Semujanga 157).

5.2.3 ARUSHA ACCORDS

The Arusha Accords were an attempt at peace between the RPF and government forces

signed in 1993. They were controversial because they did not grant past killers amnesty. Those

Hutu leaders who had killed Tutsi were concerned that integrating Tutsi political and military

officials (part of the Arusha deal) would cost them their freedom or lives. Additionally, "The

Hutu memories of preindependence Rwanda had been passed down through the generations, and

Hutu children could recite at length the sins the Tutsi had committed against their forefathers"

(Power 337). General Romeo Dallaire was sent in to help implement and monitor the Arusha

Accords with his U.N. peacekeeping force. Instead he watched as the situation devolved into

genocide.

5.2.4 GENOCIDE

Hutu extremists were naturally opposed to Arusha and wanted to terrorize the Tutsi and

moderate Hutu. By 1992, Hutu militia had purchased and began distributing an estimated 85 tons

munitions, and 581,000 machetes: one for every third adult Hutu male (Power 337). An Africa

Watch report concluded in March 1993 that more than 10,000 Tutsi had been detained, and 2,000

murdered since the RPF's 1990 invasion (338). The genocide itself began April 6, 1994, after a

plane crash and subsequent death of President Habyarimana. Extremists immediately declared

that Habyarimana had been murdered by Tutsis, and radio urged the Hutu to take revenge against

their neighbours. Since Hutu and Tutsi were intermingled and intermarried, the killing forced

Hutu and Tutsi friends and relatives to decide whether to abandon loved ones to save their own

lives (334). There were many precursors to the genocide: "Death lists had become so widely

known that individuals had begun paying local militias to have their names removed. In addition

to broadcasting incitements against Tutsi, Radio Mille Collines had begun denouncing UN

peacekeepers as Tutsi accomplices" (343).

The ideology of hatred was spread by two parties, the MRND, and Coalition for the

Defense of the Republic (CDR). The Interahamwe ("Those-who-aim-at-the-same-target"),

militiamen, were controlled by MRND and CDR. Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines

(RTLM) was financed by MRND. Kangura, a national newspaper, published anti-Tutsi

commandments for "good Hutu" (see Chapter 8 and Appendix 4) (Semujanga 32). From 1992

onward, the Rwandan Armed Forces (RAF) headquarters had propagated a document outlining

the "enemy sphere": Tutsis from within and outside of Rwanda, their relatives and Hutu

opposition (32). Two years before the genocide, the extermination was conceived and planned

(32). Local administrators were appointed to help implement the plan, and used communal

census registers to do so. The Hutu extremists believed only the slaughter of the Tutsis would

provide a solution to ethnic problems in Rwanda. The extremists wanted all Hutu to participate,

so that everyone would be equally guilty.

During the genocide, the Tutsi could not flee - they were stopped by roadblocks, and all

access points to the country were closed by the military and militia. The genocide only ended

when Tutsi RPF rebels under Paul Kagame took power, sending Hutu perpetrators, along with

1.7 million Hutu refugees into Zaire and Tanzania (380). Cultural hatred had been established in

the 1960s by the spread of anti-Tutsi ideology; the RPF had been demonized since the October

War of 1990, and the Tutsi had been painted as an external enemy, ready for revenge and never

accepting the 1959 social revolution. These factors played a role in shaping the ideology of

genocide. Rhetoric played a role in shaping the image of the enemy.

6 RHETORICAL BACKGROUND - KATZ AND EXPEDIENCY

The privileging of an ethic of expediency in decision making helps to distance

perpetrators from intended victims, which, when combined with the ideology of the enemy (see

Chapter 8), forms the rhetorical justification in ideologies of genocide. Steven Katz argues in his

article "The Ethic of Expediency: Classical Rhetoric, Technology, and the Holocaust," that the

privileging of expediency or efficiency is inherent in Aristotle's deliberative rhetoric. When taken

to extremes as it was in Nazi Germany, this privileging can form the moral basis for genocide

(258). The document which he uses for his departure point is a Secret Reich Business memo (see

Appendix 3), dated June 5, 1942, which discusses the gassing of human beings in vans, without

ever actually naming them as people. They remain a "shifting load,"instead of people attempting

to escape their deaths. Katz argues that the memo, "By any formal criteria in technical

communication, it is an almost perfect document" (256). He adds that, "most importantly from

the standpoint of technical writing, this recommendation for modifying the vehicle is technically

accurate and logically argued" (257). I find Katz's argument convincing on many levels, and as

such will briefly outline his major points in what follows before taking a closer look at its

application in the Rwandan and German cases.

6.1 DELIBERATIVE RHETORIC/ARISTOTLE

Katz argues that the ethical problem found in the rhetoric of the Holocaust is not an

anomaly, and not just an issue in technical writing, but in deliberative rhetoric as defined by

Aristotle when dealing with deliberating future courses of action (258). Aristotle defined

deliberative rhetoric as dealing with the possible and the future (Aristotle, Book 2

1391b23-1392a7 p. 2217). Katz argues that the Holocaust reveals the relationship between

rhetoric and ethics, since Aristotle's configuration gives utility precedence over ethics (259, 260).

The aim of the deliberative orator was to establish the expediency or harmfulness of a course of

action (Aristotle, Book 1 1358b21-1358b28 p. 2160).

The Secret Reich Business memo demonstrates no concern for the extermination of

people, and Katz comments: "[H]ere, as in most technical writing and, I will argue, in most

deliberative rhetoric, the focus is on expediency, on technical criteria as a means to an end"

(257). In Aristotle's treatment of deliberative rhetoric, expediency seems to become an ethical

end in itself (261). With the shift to individual moral authority and utilitarianism, it appears that

Aristotle's concept of ethics and virtue itself deteriorates into utility (262).

6.2 EFFICIENCY/EXPEDIENCY

The style of deliberative rhetoric seen in the memo shifts responsibility from the writer

and reader to the organization represented, adopting the organization's ethos of expediency (Katz

258). This ethic of expediency enables deliberative rhetoric, and it should be noted, gives rise to

most actions in technological capitalism (258). Most technical communication is deliberative,

and based mostly on arguments of expediency rather than goodness or worth (261). Katz uses the

example of appeals to the public to donate to charity because they receive a tax break for doing

so, as demonstrating how an argument of expediency is chosen over one of worth (261).

Hitler, like Aristotle, made no distinction between 'practical wisdom' and 'moral virtue', or

expediency and the good, as long as rhetoric served its end, which was the State (Katz 263). In

the memo, technological expediency subsumes the political and becomes end in itself (265).

Katz argues: "To understand the holocaust from a rhetorical point of view is to understand the

extreme limits and inherent dangers of the prevailing ethic of expediency as ideology in a highly

scientific and technological society, and how deliberative rhetoric can be subverted and made to

serve it" (emphasis Katz 269). He adds that rhetoric taken to the extreme becomes propaganda, a

technology in its own right. Propaganda replaced deliberative discourse when talking to the

masses: rhetoric became pure technique to indoctrinate (267). Technology and politics can be the

basis of ethics (265). The result is the means become the ends.

Katz argues that the ethic of expediency can be seen in the euphemisms and metaphors

used: "observations," "load," "pieces," "operating time," "merchandise," and "fluid liquid"

(257). This style also shifts responsibility from the writer and reader to organization they

represent, whose ethos they have adopted (258). This creates a situation in which if the writer's

action is technically justified and correct, then it is also morally right (265). The ethic of

technology is also expediency and rhetoric itself becomes a kind of technology that can replace

deliberative discourse, as propaganda does (266-68). In the ethical system that Hitler created,

sound sense is reduced to expediency, high moral character is reduced to courage to use brutal

force, and good will is reduced to "benevolent violence" against the inferior (268-69).

***

The first time I read the Reich memo (without knowing what it was), I was left with a

sense of unease as I could not tell whether it was referring to a load of animals or people. When

the professor who had used it explained that it was people, I was amazed at how much distance

language could put between the reader and the subject. I would like to think that I could never so

blithely disregard the human subject matter, but there are many places in my life where I make

decisions based on whether or not it is "worth it" to do something, and that worth is generally

determined by monetary cost. I fear it would be far too easy to neglect adding human life into my

considerations.

7 RHETORICAL ANALYSIS - EXPEDIENCY IN GERMANY AND RWANDA

The primacy of expediency as an ethos in Germany and Rwanda can clearly be seen in

two different areas. First, as Katz pointed out, expediency is evident in the use of euphemisms

and metaphors. Second, it can be seen in the way that those who perpetrate genocide shift

responsibility away from themselves as they adopt the ethos of the organization they are serving.

This occurs with the various distancing forms of language used, but can also be evidenced in the

way that the genocidaires felt that they were not responsible for their actions.

In Nazi Germany there was a strict system of "language rules" used in official

correspondence. Killing became "final solution," "evacuation," or "special treatment."

Deportation became "resettlement," or "labor in the East" (Arendt, Eichmann 85). Arendt argued

that "[t]he net effect of this language system was not to keep these people ignorant of what they

were doing, but to prevent them from equating it with their old, 'normal' knowledge of murder

and lies" (86). Individuals adopted the ethos of the organization, in which they were distanced

from murder, even as murder was redefined as the more palatable "final solution." The term

"final solution" implies not only the existence of a problem but the necessity for a permanent

solution. Other common words used were destroy, wipe out, exterminate, and extirpate, which

appeared in speeches by Hitler and Goebbels, as well as Nazi books, periodicals, speeches and

conversations of Nazi propagandists (Bytwerk 39).

Similarly in Rwanda, the Hutu were attempting to "sanitize" their country of Tutsis

(Power 334). The Tutsi were to be "wiped out" and "thrown into the Nyabarongo River" (340).

DDT was to be a "medicine for the inyenzi" (Dallaire 186). The use of the word "medicine"

implies that a positive solution is being enacted, mainly that someone who is sick is being made

well. It helps to reframe an act (murder) that would be considered morally questionable into one

that is generally regarded as morally required.

That such language served to distance and place responsibility on leaders becomes

especially clear at trials for crimes against humanity. The usual defensive argument is that the

perpetrator had no choice and was only following orders. As Arendt observed, "So that instead of

saying: What horrible things I did to people!, the murderers would be able to say: What horrible

things I had to watch in the pursuance of my duties, how heavily the task weighed upon my

shoulders!" (Eichmann 106). In such societies, when expediency also becomes moral

justification, and language rules twist right and wrong, "...the unforgivable sin was not to kill

people but to cause unnecessary pain" (109). Expediency employed in Germany and Rwanda

provided not only justification but distance between victims and perpetrators. Combined with the

ideology of the enemy, which increased distance between the parties involved, human beings

were completely dehumanized (see section 8.4).

***

It is incredibly challenging for me to recognize the premise of arguments being made in

favour of an action. I am often unaware of how certain terminology positions a debate. Since

self-defense is already considered a mitigating factor in society regarding violent acts, as soon

as such an act can be placed within a self-defense context I withhold moral judgments. While I

find the arguments above flawed, I must remember that these were persuasive arguments within

the contexts of their respective societies and that they emerged slowly, over time. They did not

just appear one day, fully formed, but were structured by ideologies of hate intentionally fostered

by individuals. Above all, they were allowed because of fear of other groups of people, fear for

safety, and fear for personal well-being. I tend to be willing to make many concessions I

otherwise would not in order to feel safe. Part of how I make myself feel safe is to define clearly

who the enemy is, so that they are readily recognizable. In the rhetoric of genocide, this is

expressed through the creation of the ideology of the enemy.

8 RHETORICAL ANALYSIS - IDEOLOGY OF "THE ENEMY" IN GENOCIDE

The ideology of the enemy is significant in supporting an ideology of genocide, as it is

the main way of dehumanizing intended targets. In Faces of the Enemy, Sam Keen examines the

way in which people construct enemies, arguing that propaganda is used to "apply eternal

archetypes to changing events" (13). He goes on to say that the "major responsibility for war lies

not with villains and evil men but with reasonably good citizens" who accept these archetypes

(91). The enemy becomes a mirror, on which to put all those qualities least liked about ourselves,

while propaganda becomes the tool used for "false naming" (94, 97). There are various ways to

construct and dehumanize the enemy, from characterizing them as greedy or criminal, to more

abstract notions. The ultimate dehumanization is the statistical human - where individuals only

matter as far as they can be categorized and numbered (139). Totalitarianism is enacted when it is

no longer necessary to hate the enemy to eliminate them. The other is abstract. Thus, the

ideology of the enemy can contribute to genocide and totalitarianism.

In what follows, I have broken down into categories the various ways that the enemy is

constructed in propaganda which culminates in genocide. I have incorporated Keen's archetypes

of the enemy throughout, despite the fact that he was dealing with war propaganda more

generally, since it corresponds closely to genocide propaganda, being another strategy of

dehumanization. The only archetype that appears in war but not genocide is the archetype of the

enemy as a worthy opponent, and heroic warfare (Keen 66). When combat is viewed as a method

of evolving a higher form of life, or when "war is viewed as a game, divine or secular, a good

enemy is as necessary as a friend" (66, 67). Heroic warfare humanizes instead of dehumanizing

the enemy (69). A version of this concept appears in genocide in truly totalitarian societies where

a new enemy must always be found because continuing progress is linked to the elimination of

such an enemy. The major categories that genocide propaganda can be divided into are: the

enemy as alien, as threat, as seductress, as inhuman, and as abstraction.

8.1 THE ENEMY AS ALIEN OR OTHER

Defining the enemy as alien or "other," is generally one of the first steps towards

dehumanization. This involves dividing the world into an us-versus-them dichotomy: insiders

versus outsiders, tribe versus enemy (Keen 17). The enemy is defined as a stranger (16) and

sometimes as an immigrant and therefore alien. This mindset is dualistic, where everything is

split into polar opposites: good versus evil, sacred versus profane; the strange and unknown is

defined as dangerous, intending evil (18). The structuring myth sanctions killing strangers who

are considered less or non-human, and profane (18-19). According to Keen, the enemy is

characterized as barbarian (43), who is a threat to civilization and culture, greedy (48), criminal

(50), a terrorist (51) or a torturer (54). Violence is justified, but the enemy is condemned as

criminal (51).

Generally, the enemy is defined as an immoral and inferior human being. This can be

seen for example, in picture books during the Nazi era, which caricaturizes Jews as as subhuman,

unnatural, and immoral (Corelli). Hitler always maintained that Jews had to be annihilated to

"preserve Germany from degeneration and decline" (Bartov 782). Soldiers generally ascribed

massacres they committed to Jewish criminality (784). Math questions in textbooks talked about

Jews as "aliens in Germany" (Corelli). Jews were evil capitalists, advocated murderous

communism, controlled the professions, economy and government, but were also seen as so

ignorant they lowered the standards of the German nation (Corelli). In Rwanda, the Tutsi were

stereotyped as the "other" (Semujanga 35). It was argued that there never was a Tutsi people and

they were immigrants from Ethiopia (Power 486). They were seen as greedy (486), and wealthy

(Semujanga 163). The characteristic enemy is immoral, and therefore worth less than others.

8.2 THE ENEMY AS THREAT

Genocide propaganda frequently argues that the enemy will annihilate the majority group

if they are not eliminated first. The "other" will destroy us, is a common sentiment. Here the

enemy is seen as the aggressor and killing or dying to defend against the enemy becomes a

sacred service to an immortal idea (Keen 19). Only the negative aspects of the enemy that

support the created stereotype are seen, and the enemy is always attributed with near-omnipotent

power (19, 22). Here the enemy also becomes the enemy of God, even in secular societies: "That

God has supposedly died has not prevented his use as a political sanction for warfare" (27, 29).

The enemy also is seen as embodying death, the ultimate threat (64). War becomes a cosmic

drama of life and death, light and dark, creating the illusion that if one can kill the momentary

enemy, one can magically destroy death (64, 66).

The characterization of the enemy as threat is visible in Germany through the way Jews

were depicted as the devil in human form, and as gangsters (Corelli). They were "expelled" from

Germany, so the argument goes, before they could destroy good Germans, and before they could

enslave them (Corelli). There were hidden Jewish conspiracies for world domination (Bartov

784). The Nazis used the same words to describe their intentions for the Jews as they attributed

to the Jew's intentions for Germany (Bytwerk 48). Bartov argues that "many of the perpetrators

perceived themselves as acting in their own defense against their past and potential victimizers"

(Bartov 784). The war was not seen as a war, it was instead started by destiny, not Germany, and

a matter of life and death: a fight for survival (Arendt, Eichmann 52). They were defending

themselves against Jewish plans to destroy Germany, therefore genocide was a necessary defense

(Bytwerk 37, 55).

In Rwanda the same line of argument can be seen. In 1992, a senior member of a major

Hutu political party, the MRND, said "The fatal mistake we made in 1959 was to let [the Tutsi]

get out...They belong in Ethiopia and we are going to find them a shortcut to get there by

throwing them into the Nyabarongo River. I must insist on this point. We have to act. Wipe them

all out!" (qtd in Power 339). When the Tutsi Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) invaded Rwanda in

February 1993, prior to the signing of the Arusha Accords, the Hutu extremist media painted

them as devils and "Black Khmer" (339-40). They claimed that the Tutsi were going to

exterminate the Hutu, and appealed for a preemptive strike against all Tutsi justified as "selfdefense"

(339-40). A strong stereotype in Rwanda, engendered by the colonizers, was that the

Tutsi were "born to dominate" (Semujanga 36). Tutsi were a threat, and the "necessity of war"

(157). Positioning the enemy as a serious threat to the survival of another group allows for

discourses to be structured in terms of self-defense, permitting justification of a first strike.

8.3 THE ENEMY AS SEDUCTRESS

Another common theme throughout genocide propaganda is the presentation of enemy

women as seductresses, ready to destroy morality and virtue. They become the traitor and

betrayer. Themes of the enemy as rapist, with women as bait and trophy are common in war

propaganda (Keen 58). The enemy is seen as the destroyer of motherhood (58). As Keen notes,

"my" women are good and protected, and "your" women are bad and deserve to be raped (58). In

genocidal rhetoric this is taken a step further, and the enemy women are seen as lying in wait to

seduce men. With this characterization of women, the link between the concept of enemy and

blood or race begins to emerge. Warriors are seen as sex objects (60), while the other is often

defined in feminine terms (Linke 562). Femininity is seen as bad unless expressed in the role of

mother.

The German discourse surrounding liquidation was integrated into the pattern

transforming the enemy other into a woman (Linke 561). Miscegenation with "non-European"

races (Jews, or blacks, which was deemed pathological and deviant sexuality) was seen as a key

source of physical degeneration of the "European" (Szobar 131). During the 1920s adherents of

the then new theories of eugenics held similar notions, and argued that miscegenation led to

"species alienation," causing individuals and nations to lose "life force" and biological fertility

(131).

The Nuremberg Laws in Germany (see Appendix 4) were closely mirrored in Rwanda by

the "Ten Commandments of the Hutu" (see Appendix 5). The Nuremberg laws outlawed

marriage and sexual relations between Germans (or "related blood") and Jews, under threat of

penal servitude. The Ten Commandments on the other hand, were not laws. They argued that

Tutsi women work for the "interests of her Tutsi ethnic group," and stated that Hutu would be

considered traitors if they married, befriended or employed a Tutsi woman. During the genocide,

those who were considered "Hutu traitors" were specifically targeted in the first waves of killing.

Additionally, the Ten Commandments specifically stated that Hutu daughters "are more suitable

and conscientious in their role as woman, wife, and mother." Hutu women were told to "be

vigilant" and try to "bring your husbands, brothers and sons back to reason."

The Hutu representation of the Tutsi woman became an essential issue in the elaboration

of Hutu extremism (Semujanga 38). She became representative of a traitor, spy, and femme
fatale (38). Semujanga argued that "The semantic configuration of betrayal is developed from

the theme of the Tutsi woman" (197). The Hutu, like Germans regarding Jews before, were to

have no sexual relations with the Tutsi as they were the enemy of the lineage (199, 203). As we

see in Chapter 10, the positioning of women as traitorous and representative of the enemy is

remarkably similar to the way Christians present non-Christians.

8.4 THE ENEMY AS INHUMAN

The idea that enemy women can pollute the morals of the perpetrators is taken a step

further when the enemy is then labeled as inhuman. In such a case pollution becomes literal,

through the imagery of weakening human blood with that of insects. The enemy as inhuman is a

recurring theme throughout both in war propaganda and genocide propaganda. The enemy is

characterized as a beast, reptile, or insect, at the most extreme end, they become a germ (Keen

60, 63). This provides sanctions for extermination (60). Categorizations move people from being

subhuman or barbarian, as when they are first characterized as "other," to being nonhuman, thus

allowing soldiers or civilians engaging in genocide to kill without guilt, becoming exterminators,

with little sense of cosmic drama (60, 61).

Edmund P. Russell III pointed out that efforts to control human and natural enemies did

not proceed independently (1508). He argued that the science and technology of pest control

sometimes became the science and technology of war, and vice versa (1508). Describing war as

pest control allowed war to be transformed from a moral problem to a moral virtue; if war is

defined as an exercise in controlling nature, it becomes a moral necessity (1509, 1512). The idea

was that "By dehumanizing enemies, animal metaphors reduced the sense of guilt about killing

human beings in battle. The 'lower' the phylum, the lower the sense of guilt, and few phyla

ranked lower than insects" (1512). Thus the chemical industry could help the military with the

invention of things like mustard gas, and pest control was elevated with the use of war terms.

Russell argued that "[m]etaphor and 'reality' blurred in Nazi rhetoric: Jews were to be

exterminated as deliberately, and literally, as insects" (1520).

The Jews were described as rats, poisonous mushrooms (hard to tell from edible ones), or

attributed with other despicable animal traits and described as a plague (Corelli). Some can be

seen in the following:

Like the cuckoo, Jews were shown as stealing other people's homes. As hyenas

strike disabled animals, Jews preyed upon the disadvantaged. Jews were said to be

like the chameleon (the great deceiver), the locust (the scourge of God), the

bedbug (the blood sucker), the sparrow (good-for-nothing), the poisonous snake

(the viper of humanity), the tapeworm (the parasite of humanity). The Jew was the

poodle-pug-dachshund-pinscher, an inferior race created by cross-breeding, in

contrast to the racially pure Aryan. Finally, Jews were compared to deadly

bacteria that threatened the very existence of the human race and must be

eliminated. (Corelli)

Similarly, in Rwanda Tutsis were referred to as inyenzi, or cockroaches who were terrorists

(Semujanga 157, 185). Occasionally they were referred to as snakes (Dallaire 261). They were an

"eternal enemy" that must be eliminated (Semujanga 184).

8.5 THE ENEMY AS ABSTRACTION

Characterizing the enemy as inhuman allows for any lingering questions of morality to be

eliminated. If they are not human they belong to a category of lifeforms that we already justify

killing. Defining the enemy as a complete, faceless, abstraction (Keen 24), leads to fear of the

enemy within. Those qualities that characterize the enemy can appear in anyone, not just those

with the wrong blood. Anyone could express them, therefore all must fight against the internal

hidden enemy. This tends to be expressed most clearly in totalitarian societies. At the extreme,

people no longer think clearly about the enemy (24). The purpose of the propaganda is to

paralyze thought, prevent discrimination, and condition individuals to act as a mass, for "it is not

a person we kill, but an idea" (25). The enemy becomes a complete abstraction (72) and hating

the enemy is no longer necessary.

Abstraction is facilitated by technology, as with modern technological warfare, the long

reach of weapons render unnecessary respect or hate for those we intend to kill (Keen 72). At

such a heightened level of abstraction, "elimination will be the result of a computer-assisted

decision, the logical conclusion of a rational policy made with due consideration of alternative

scenarios" (140). Death is reduced to statistics (84):

The ancient warrior needed massive physical strength and agility, a passionate

hatred, and an ability to relish killing...The modern warrior, by contrast, must be a

specialist, coolheaded and emotionally detached. He prevails only if his

calculations are accurate and his mind uncluttered by any passion save the love of

efficiency. (72)

The end result of abstraction of the enemy is that the means subsume the ends. As Keen noted:

The numbered mass - 100,000,000 or 200,000,000, give or take a few million -

that might be eliminated in an initial nuclear exchange, is a symbol that we have

become captured by a demonic quantification to the exclusion of quality. 'How

many?' 'How much?' 'How often?' - have become more important than 'Why?' The

means have triumphed over the ends. (139)

This ties in with Katz's ethic of expediency, where expediency and technology become both the

justification and ends. This is a feature of modern society, as "Of necessity, a mass-producing

society reduces the majority of workers to functionaries who must be interchangeable with other

functionaries. Worth is measured by output. Everything conspires to standardize consumer goods

as well as consumer tastes" (Keen 140).

When an elusive enemy is created, the result is that they could be everywhere, and

therefore a constant threat to purity (Bartov 779). Anti-Semitism in Germany included the fear of

the "Jew within," as Bartov observed, "[t]he most nightmarish vision of the elusive enemy was,

that is, to discover that he was none other than oneself" (780). Bartov went a step further and

said:

It could be argued that the very notion of elusive enemies - who especially in the

German case were invariably the Jews - is a crucial precondition for atrocity and

genocide, since it postulates that the people one kills are never those one actually

sees but merely what they represent, that is, what is hidden under their mask of

innocence and normality...Central to the 'world view' and functioning of the Third

Reich was the assertion that its elusive enemies were at once ubiquitous,

indestructible, and protean. That is why Nazism was not only committed to killing

all the Jews but was predicated on the assumption that there would always be

more 'Jews' to kill. (785-86)

If there is always the possibility of a "Jew within," then the need to cleanse society of

abnormality is a "promise of perpetual destruction" (Bartov 786). Everyone is potentially tainted.

In Rwanda, the ubiquitous enemy was clearly defined; not only were the Tutsi the enemy, but

also the moderate "traitor" Hutu (Semujanga 31). Any Hutu who was married to a Tutsi (and

there were many), any who befriended, employed, went into business with, lent to or borrowed

money from a Tutsi were considered traitors who must be eliminated. After it has been

recognized that the enemy could be anyone, the concept of the enemy becomes completely

abstract. It is enough that there are more enemies to kill, regardless of what they look or act like.

Hating them is unnecessary and they become a numbered threat to be eliminated.

***

The argument I rely on as to why people should not be killed is that they are human

beings, and as such have inherent value. This is a Christian perspective that I have grown up

with, that is also used more generally in "Western" society. The problem with this line of

reasoning is that if I can be convinced that the enemy is no longer human, my argument falls

apart. Recognizing dehumanizing rhetoric in its early stages is difficult because it seems like it is

just words that mean little in the larger scheme of things. It is far too easy to draw parallels

between a group of people and insects and never see the moral distance that places between

myself and others. Assuming that I manage to recognize that there is a problem with that kind of

labeling in the first place. Many times it begins very subtly, as with the way anti-Semitism is

latently presented in Christianity.

9 ANTI-SEMITISM AND CHRISTIANITY

Christians have exhibited strong tendencies towards anti-Semitism and this anti-Semitism

has contributed to the ideology of the non-Christian. From the beginning Christianity has set

itself up against the Jewish "other" (Carroll 233) while blaming Jews for Jesus' death (191).

Christians have dealt poorly with the continued existence of the Jews. In 388 CE a Christian

mob, led by a bishop in the city of Callinicus burned a synagogue and the chapel of a Gnostic

sect, despite its recent agreement to accept Nicene Christianity (Carroll 207). Permission for

Jewish survival was tied to the role of Jews as "other" (233): Augustine wrote that the Jews

existed as witnesses, to survive but not thrive because they had not recognized Christ, so that

more people would turn to Christianity (219). Jews were forbidden to own land, frequently

expelled, marginalized, and as a result tended to be more mobile than other sectors of the

population, which made them a ready source for currency exchange (243). The implications of

the toleration of Jews became clear clear at many different points throughout history.

During the First Crusade, in 1096 CE, Jews were killed at Trier and throughout the

Rhineland (Carroll 247). Individual salvation during the Crusades was made dependent on the

killing of others. The idea of the "witness" that Jews were supposed to play was tied to the

concept of Diaspora - if they were scattered around the world they would make better witnesses,

therefore it would be better if they never returned to Jeru

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