Modern Madness

     The attacking and expelling of minority groups in 20^th Century Europe follow a pattern of violence, war, and other atrocities usually involving armed perpetrators against unarmed citizens.  Soldiers or paramilitary groups carry out the atrocities that are ordered by the leadership of the state. Reasons for this can be geopolitical or strategic during time of war or after wars.  People are forcibly moved from one location to another, their property confiscated, they suffer from disease, hunger, lack of sanitation, water, and many die of exposure during these transitions.  The author defines these events in terms of wild phase and orderly phase.  The first usually involves random killing and periodic massacres, where the orderly phase includes long marches, internment camps, and food deprivation.  War can serve as a cover for the ruling elites to order the abuses, killings, and media censorship to conceal the extent of their actions. 

     The goal of these “high modernism” states is to remove every member of the targeted nation or community.  The ideology of these nation-states is based on nationalism, military, and technological power with little need for minority rights, language differences, equal development, or primitive agriculture.  Their goal is to remove and destroy the remnants of entire cultures. If the minority cultures are allowed to remain, according to the state, they become a threat to state power and control.

    Prior to reading this book, “Fires of Hatred”, I had heard or read news accounts of countless abuses towards women during these forced expelling of citizens.  From my point of view, raping women just seemed to be one of the random acts of aggression or power that soldiers inflict upon victims.  I had not thought of it as part of the ethnic cleansing strategy, or “ideology of integral nationalism” that is “inherently misogynistic”, as the author asserts.  I am assuming that in most societies that have undergone ethnic cleansing, that these cultures entrust women with raising, nurturing, and passing on their cultural values to the children. If this is true in these societies, and in our own, the significance of the role played by women in all societies must surely be recognized, even though their role is not always viewed with deserved esteem.

http://balkansnet.org/ethnicl.html

http://articles.latimes.com/2013/apr/18/world/la-fg-guatemala-trial-20130419