60 years after the UN Convention - Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation

82 development dialogue december 2008 – revisiting the heart of darkness
Although the above-mentioned forms of mass violence result in mass
death and the elimination of ethnic and religious groups, they are not
comprised in the UN genocide defi nition because the European colonisers’
explicit intention was not really exterminationist, albeit that
the disappearance of the indigenous societies was countenanced and
even approved of.
This defi ciency of the UN defi nition made historians of colonialism
think about alternative terms and concepts. The expression ‘colonial
genocide’ can often be found in the respective literature. However,
this alternative is not really convincing since its use is hardly deliberate.
Concrete defi nitions are usually missing and it is thus not clear
whether the term refers solely to genocidal massacres like the murder of
the Herero or to the situation coloniale as such, which includes land seizure,
forced labour and the destruction of indigenous cultures. There
is another problem inherent in the category ‘colonial genocide’: Jürgen
Zimmerer (2004: 123) notes that the distinction between ‘colonial’ and
‘modern’ genocides strengthens the assumption that genocides committed
in the various ‘New Worlds’ and intra-European genocides such
as the Holocaust were conceptually completely diff erent from each other.
The use of the term ‘colonial genocide’ thus means robbing Peter
to pay Paul because it contributes to a hierarchisation of mass violence,
which is unethical and not very helpful after all.
A more valuable solution to the problem has recently been brought
forward by the Australian historian Raymond Evans. He suggests a
new reference frame: Indigenocide. Evans defi nes his concept thus:
First Indigenocide usually occurs when an invading group intentionally
invades and colonizes another group or groups who are the ‘fi rst
peoples’ of that region, or who have proof of such origins. Secondly,
the invaders must conquer the Indigenes and maintain their advantages
over them as long as is necessary or possible. Thirdly, as conquerors,
the invaders must kill suffi cient numbers of Indigenes, or
render their ways of sustaining meaningful life so diffi cult that they
come close to extinction and may disappear altogether. Fourthly, and
this reinforces the actively genocidal aspects, the invaders must classify
the Indigenes as ‘the lowest form of humanity’…who deserves to be
exterminated. Fifthly, Indigenocide notably with Native Americans
and Aboriginal Australians involves destroying, or attempting to destroy,
Indigenous religious systems and imposing binaries between
the material and spiritual realms. Above all, Indigenocide implies in
theory and practice that Indigenous people are less valued than the
land they inhabit and which the invaders desire (Evans 2008: 141).