60 years after the UN Convention - Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation

the history of mass violence since colonial times 25
end of Atlantic slavery, so too with the end of global warming: its
ending must be according to the terms set by those who have most
benefi ted from its ravages. 17
For example, slave revolts and rebellions, whether by the slaves or
their descendants – after the abolition of slavery – have always been
crushed with the utmost violence. In the case of Haiti, the slaves spoke
out of turn, as it were, meaning that they rebelled against something
they knew and felt should not be infl icted on any human being. The
success of the slaves in Haiti, in 1804, had to be crushed for all time,
for fear that ‘letting the slaves off the hook’ might encourage others
to do the same. They did then what Nature had been telling them to
do, as is fi nally being acknowledged, grudgingly, because it is hard to
let go of the twin syndrome of discovery and abolition. One can imagine
them saying: ‘Let us [that is, the most industrialised nations, the
most powerful corporations] deal with Nature on our terms.’ Clearly
it is diffi cult to let go of the mindset that has been in place since
the days of Francis Bacon or earlier. As Bacon put it: ‘Nature being
known, it may be master’d, managed, and used in the services of human
life’(cited in McDonough and Braungart 2002: 84).
Surviving mass violence and the various
ways it has been distilled
Genocides are not just the products of deranged individuals; they occur
in a context which cannot be ignored, or bracketed as if it is not
pertinent. The rise of Hitler was not just due to how World War I
was concluded. Mass violence does not just refer to the occasion when
huge numbers of people were killed in a short time. When large
numbers of people, anywhere, not just in the latest cause for human
rights activists, are maimed, starved, killed, without other people being
able to stop the murder, then it is clear that mass violence has
reached a new stage: killing massively and massively silencing those
who should stop the killing. When large groups of people are manipulated
and persuaded into thinking like one person, the violence
which is being nurtured may not seem obvious. 18
17 How widespread these twin syndromes are, can be observed in Iraq today: the
US knew best ‘how to fi x’ Iraq; after it failed, it could not walk away and leave the
impression that it had been defeated.
18 Mahmood Mamdani’s (2007) article on Darfur in Pambazuka News shows how the
labelling of genocide no longer relies on facts, but can be manipulated by way of
media propaganda, framed by political and fi nancial power relations.