Download 8 Stages of Genocide

Genocide

United Nations definition:
 Intent to destroy in whole or in part a national,
ethnic, racial or religious group

Genocide occurs in 8 stages
 Stages can occur simultaneously
 Earlier ones must occur before later ones, but
earlier ones can continue over time
 Things can be done at each stage to combat
genocide from occurring
Eight Stages of Genocide
 1. Classification
 2. Symbolization
 3. Dehumanization
 4. Organization
 5. Polarization
 6. Preparation
 7. Extermination
 8. Denial
Classification

Societies are distinguished into “us” and
“them”
 By ethnicity, race, religion or nationality

The main way of preventing genocide at
this early stage is to develop
opportunities in a society for people to
work and live together who are from
different ethnic, social, national or
religious backgrounds
Symbolization
Give names or symbols to the classified groups
 Distinguish by name, dress (e.g. Yellow stars
during Holocaust)
 Classification and symbolization are universally
human and can be imposed on a group by
themselves

 Not always a problem to have a symbol representing
a group, only when it results in discrimination

Can combat this by legally forbidding hate
symbols and literature
 But only successful when supported by society
Dehumanization

Dehumanization is when one group treats
another group as second class citizens or
worse
 may be compared with animals, parasites,
insects or diseases
When a group of people is thought of as
“less than human” it is easier for the group
in control to murder them.
 Hate propaganda in print and on hate
radios is used to make the victims seem
like villains.

Organization
Always organized, usually by the state,
though sometimes informally or by
terrorist groups
 Special army units or militias are often
trained and armed
 Plans are made for murder

Polarization
Extremists drive the groups apart.
 Hate groups broadcast propaganda that
reinforces prejudice and hate.
 Laws may forbid intermarriage or social
interaction between the groups
 Moderates are targeted and intimidated into
silence
 Moderate leaders are those best able to
prevent genocide and they are often the first
to be assassinated.

Preparation

Victims are identified and separated
 Segregated into confined living quarters,
concentration camps or restricted to faminestruck region and starved
Death lists are drawn up.
 Members of victim groups are forced to wear
or carry identifying
 At this stage, an international Genocide Alert
must be called

Extermination

Extermination begins, and quickly becomes
the mass killing legally called "genocide.“
 Called "extermination" by the killers because
they do not believe their victims to be fully
human

Sometimes the genocide results in revenge
killings by groups against each other,
creating the downward cycle of mutual
genocide where the victims actually
organize and commit a second genocide
on the perpetrators.
Denial
Denial is among the surest indicators of further
genocidal massacres.
 The perpetrators try to cover up the evidence
and intimidate the witnesses.

 Deny that they committed any crimes, and often
blame what happened on the victims
 They block investigations of the crimes, and continue
to govern until driven from power by force, when they
flee into exile.

Leaders of the genocide continue to deny the
crime unless they are captured and a tribunal is
established to try them