The Rwandan genocide of 1994 is recognised by all who have studied it seriously as one of the largest-scale, most concentrated episodes of mass murder in the last century. About 800,000 people, mostly Tutsis but also Hutus who opposed the Hutu Power regime, were killed in a matter of weeks. Frequently compared to the Armenian… Continue reading BBC: You can’t indict Rwanda’s government by denying the 1994 genocide
Category: Africa
Once more on ‘left-wing’ genocide denial
The Guardian journalist George Monbiot has written a further article, 'See No Evil', on the denial by Edward Herman and David Peterson of the Rwandan genocide of 1994 and the genocidal massacre at Srebrenica, Bosnia, in 1995, in their book The Politics of Genocide which includes a supportive Preface by Noam Chomsky. Monbiot is responding… Continue reading Once more on ‘left-wing’ genocide denial
‘Left-wing’ genocide denial
George Monbiot has written an interesting take in The Guardian on 'left-wing' denial of the Srebrenica genocidal massacre and the Rwandan genocide, Left and libertarian right cohabit in the weird world of the genocide belittlers. Monbiot refers to the recent book by Edward Herman (Noam Chomsky's collaborator of four decades) and David Peterson, with a… Continue reading ‘Left-wing’ genocide denial
Darfur: counter-insurgency, forced displacement and genocide
New article published in the British Journal of Sociology, 62, 1, 2011. Click here to view a draft version.
The politics of genocide: Rwanda and the Congo
A new Open Democracy piece on the leaked UN report and the latest in Chomskyan genocide denial. Translations by Tlaxcala: La politique du génocide : Rwanda et République Démocratique du Congo La política del genocidio: Ruanda y la RD del Congo Die politische Dimension von Völkermorden: Ruanda & DR Kongo
Zimbabwe and the new divide in world politics, May 2000
from http://www.martinshaw.org/politics/0005zimbabwe.htm The threatening situation in Zimbabwe puts in sharp relief the new lines of division in the global era, which are replacing the old divides of twentieth-century world politics. The lesson is all the more striking since Zimbabwe has marked, in the last month, only the 20th anniversary of its independence - the conclusion… Continue reading Zimbabwe and the new divide in world politics, May 2000
Richard Gott on Zimbabwe, letter to New Statesman, 15 May 2000
from http://www.newstatesman.com/200005150035 So Richard Gott, with his unerring progressive instincts, chooses the moment when Robert Mugabe's thugs are killing white farmers (and oppositionists generally) to tell us that, because of the crimes of their forefathers, these people should have got out of Zimbabwe. Since the Nazi Reich forms such a seminal part of his historical… Continue reading Richard Gott on Zimbabwe, letter to New Statesman, 15 May 2000
DR Congo: arc of war, map of responsibility, Open Democracy, 14 October 2009
The political dynamics of conflict in Africa’s most complex region must be understood if enduring solutions are to be found. Martin Shaw reads fellow openDemocracy contributor Gerard Prunier’s book “From Genocide to Continental War”. The reports of an upsurge of violence in parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) may at a glance appear… Continue reading DR Congo: arc of war, map of responsibility, Open Democracy, 14 October 2009
Uses of genocide: Kenya, Georgia, Israel, Sri Lanka, 9 February 2009
The concept of genocide has become a weapon of political polemic. But the violence inflicted on civilians in four conflicts shows how it is also rooted in the logic of modern wars, says Martin Shaw. Go to Open Democracy for the full text.
Review of Straus, The Order of Genocide, in World Politics, 2007
The Order of Genocide. By Scott Straus. Cornell University Press, 2006. 273p. $27.95 cloth. Studies of the 1994 Rwandan genocide have moved, Scott Straus argues, beyond simplistic interpretations in terms of ‘tribal’ or ‘ancient’ hatreds (interpretations that were, in truth, more those of the media and politicians than of the early academic literature) towards a… Continue reading Review of Straus, The Order of Genocide, in World Politics, 2007
Martin Shaw 