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UNDERSTANDING VIOLENCE

HOW PEOPLE WHO COMMIT GENOCIDE


THINK
Philippe COTTER PhD
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Genocide
A Pathology of the Modern World
Collective acts of extreme violence, like genocide, cannot be
implemented exclusively by ultra-violent individuals. For one
thing, such individuals are rare and secondly they would have
to gain control of complex social organisations, which is
something they simply cannot achieve on their own.
In the case of genocide - the attempted elimination of a whole
group - the operation is so complex that it cannot take place
without the support of consenting masses and efficient
institutions, manipulated by a few extremists. This explains why
genocide is a modern affliction: it could not have existed before

the appearance of the modern state at the beginning of the


20th century.

Towards Genocide
What marks the progression towards genocide? It is a process
which takes place over a long period of time and consists in a
series of incontrovertible stages, as detailed below.
1. Social brutalisation. At this stage a crisis-ridden society is
confronted with a multitude of economic, political and
ideological difficulties which create extreme social tensions,
making individuals more tolerant of acts of brutality.
2. Dictatorship. Social brutalisation leads to an
between extremists, whose violence is presented as a
to problems, and the masses who accept them in the
restoring cohesion. Once in power, the extremists
dictatorship.

alliance
solution
hope of
impose

3. Trigger event. Last stage in the process culminating in


genocide, a trigger event occurs (as is the case with serial
killers) that precipitate systematic murder. This usually takes
the form of military defeat: in Nazi Germany, genocide came in
the wake of the first military setbacks of the Russian campaign.
The tipping point happened in the summer of 1941, when the
Nazi leaders became aware that they no longer had the upper
hand and that their despotic authority was weakening.
Genocide was a means of reasserting their power by targeting a
defenceless group whom they blamed for all their difficulties.
Other 20th century genocides had similar trigger events. In
Cambodia, genocide began when the Khmer Rouge suffered
several military defeats against Vietnam. The Armenian
genocide got underway when the Ottoman Empire was
humiliated by Russia during the First World War. The trigger
event in the genocide of the Rwandan Tutsis was rather

paradoxically the 1993 Arusha (Tanzania) peace talks, when the


extremists in power realised that the agreements would force
them to make major concessions. They began planning
genocide as a means of reasserting their absolutism by
attacking defenceless victims.

Social Disintegration
Once genocide is underway, the self-destructive nature of
extreme violence comes into play. The opportunistic alliance
between extremists and ordinary people rapidly falls apart once
the masses realise that violence is being used by the fanatics in
power to divert attention from the problems they face. The
social dynamics peters out, taking with it the whole structure of
society, because by then the rules of group living have been
fundamentally perverted, as could be observed in Germany at
the end of the Second World War.

1994, Genocide in Rwanda


Paranoia and Megalomania
The dynamics that lead to extreme violence develop over a long
period of time, which can be broken down in stages. Thus, the
Rwandan tragedy of the mid-1990s was the result of a slow
process of political radicalisation, similar to that observed in
other genocides.
The ideological framework of the Rwandan genocide
perpetrators was twofold: on the one had, they wanted to
eliminate a group perceived as dangerous; on the other hand,
they sought to strengthen the regime by making the population
an accomplice to murder. This dual framework - both paranoid
and megalomaniac (even messianic) is similar to that which we
have already outlined in the serial killer before he commits
murder for the first time.
In Rwanda, the proponents of genocide were able to formulate
their creed of extreme violence thanks to support from a
section of the local population, who was looking to benefit from
a situation of chaos, even if they did not subscribe to the
extremism of their leaders. This type of perverse alliance we
call fascist consensus and is to be found in all instances of
collective violence.
Only external intervention by a group of armed expatriates, the
Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) finally put paid to the genocide
when it seized Kigali on 4th of July 1994.

A Long Process
Having analysed the dual aspects - paranoid and megalomaniac
of the Rwandan genocide, we also examined its hierarchy:
extremists in positions of power vindicated the use of genocidal

violence and then acted with the support of local accomplices.


Genocide did not occur by chance in Rwanda: it was the result
of a long process which can be split into three stages detailed
below. As we shall see, the same model is applicable to the
other genocides of the 20th century.

Social Brutalisation
The end of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th
century witnessed the disintegration of Rwanda's multi-layered
social organisation, caused by the political manipulations of
colonisers eager to increase their hold on power. The first signs
of collusion between extremists and local population appeared
at the end of the 1950s when collective violence killed 300
people in 1959. Against this background of social brutalisation,
an aggressive dictatorship replaced the colonial administration
after Rwanda's independence, gained in 1962.

Dictatorship
Once in power, the extremists used their dominant position to
oust their ideological victims from important jobs. Under a
totalitarian system, tension was running high and outbreaks of
violence were frequent, in spite of the authorities' efforts to
gain respectability through the support of many international
donors.

Trigger Event
The dictatorship, which was established after Rwanda's
independence, collapsed at the end of the 1980's as a result of
an unprecedented crisis: the price of coffee plummeted (all
sales profits went to the elites); donor states were calling for
greater political openness following the fall of the Berlin Wall;
and the Rwandan RPF group staged a military attack from its

base in Uganda. This crisis threatened the privileges of the


ruling classes.
Against such a stormy background, President-dictator
Habyarimana, facing strong international pressure, accepted to
relax the regime at the Arusha peace talks in Tanzania (July
1992-August 1993). This, however, was the trigger event which
unleashed extreme violence. It was the point of no return
where the genocide perpetrators-in-waiting were convinced
that their best bet of staying in power was to prepare for
collective murder in a bid to rally the regime's supporters. As
President Habyarimana was getting ready to implement the
peace agreements of Arusha, he was assassinated on 6 April
1994 and this was the pretext to start genocide.
More than half a million persons were killed in a hundred days,
a loss that represented about three quarters of the Tutsi
population of Rwanda.

The Trigger for Genocide in


Nazi Germany
The End of Weimar
The same chronology of violence that we have analysed in
Rwanda can be observed in Nazi Germany before the Holocaust
(Shoah) namely: a brutalisation phase, followed by a
dictatorship, then a trigger event.
The first signs of collective brutalisation of society appeared in
Germany during the First World War. Social dysfunction as a
result of immense suffering, the dehumanisation of the enemy
on the battlefield, the humiliation of impending defeat all
contributed to the growth of extremism. The scene was set for
a rapprochement between those elements of the population
who had been radicalised during the war and authoritarian
ideologists who were becoming more daring. Weakened by this
perverse alliance the Democratic Republic of Weimar (19181933) collapsed in the early 1930s, unable to counter the
mystical and racist nationalism of the Nazi opposition.

Trigger Event
Following the short-lived early military successes in the Second
World War, the dictatorship established by Hitler and his
cronies was open to all kinds of excesses, culminating in
genocidal violence. The trigger event was the first military
setbacks during the Russian campaign in the summer of 1941
a decisive moment when Nazi extremists felt their power
threatened and tried to revive the regime by using extreme
violence.

The MacBeth Effect


The Macbeth effect which we have analysed in serial killers can
also be used to explain Hitler's behaviour and that of other Nazi
leaders. The necessity of having to justify their first group
murder that of the Soviet Jews, who were considered
particularly dangerous because of their links with Bolshevism
unleashed the urge to commit more extensive, "serial" murders
against other Jewish communities (and Gypsies), starting in
the Reich-Protectorate (Germany, Austria, Western Czechoslovakia) and, at a later stage, throughout occupied Europe.
Two thirds of European Jews died in the Holocaust before it
ended with the defeat of Nazi Germany.

Genocide in Cambodia
During the 20th century, Cambodia followed a path similar to
Nazi Germany and Rwanda towards genocide. The Khmer
Rouge, a group of extremist ideologists, came to power in 1975
in the wake of brutalisation caused by French colonisation
(1864-1953) and by Cold War conflicts (Cambodia, which
shares a border with Vietnam, was heavily bombed by the
Americans between 1969 and 1973). These events were
combined with two postcolonial dictatorships, first under Prince
Sianouk (1953-1970), then under Lon Nol (1970-1975).
Once in control of the country, the Khmer Rouge and their
leader Pol Pot, with the support of the Cambodian population,
orchestrated acts of violence that turned to genocide in 1978
when the more extremist elements, undermined by internal
dissent and weakened by severe military setbacks in the war
against Vietnam, realised they were losing their grip on power.
The Khmer Rouge's genocidal, collectivist and racist utopia was
directed against class enemies as well as against traitors
with a Vietnamese mind inside a Khmer body (that is to say,
anyone connected in any way with Vietnam); it became their
ultimate weapon in attempting to re-energise a faltering
regime. The genocide ended in early 1979 with the Khmer's
defeat at the hands of Vietnamese troops.
Not before 20 percent of the national population had been
murdered.

Genocide in the Ottoman Empire


During the First World War, the Ottoman Empire also witnessed
the devastating effects of genocidal violence; this time, the
local Armenian community was the victim. The path leading to
extreme violence is a familiar one.
After a brutalisation phase caused by the disintegration of the
Empire, there followed two dictatorships, first under Abdul
Hamit (1876-1908), then under the Young Turks (1908-1918).
When the latter felt threatened by the rapid advance of Russian
troops in early 1915, they acted and committed mass murder
with the collaboration of the local population.
Two thirds of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire perished
between 1915 and 1916. Social brutalisation, dictatorship and
trigger event are the hallmarks of genocidal violence.

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The Ugly Side of Revolution


In order to refine the analysis of genocide developed earlier, we
need to look at how the most effective form of social
organisation, the political community, adapts to its
environment.

Stalinism
The political community sets up structures that need to be
permanently updated to ensure they function well enough
and maintain social stability. If the process fails, the
enlightened members of society will revolt. Once the crisis is
over and the changes integrated in the political institutions
(radically modified by revolutions), rebellion ceases, only to
resume when social progress demands it.
At this juncture, we can identify two forms of political violence
supporting the dynamics of genocide: fascist nationalism and
revolutionary despotism. Fascist nationalism infiltrates political
communities and uses the existing structures to broaden its
social base. Conservative by nature, it does not threaten the
foundations of th society it is taking over. In contrast,
revolutionary despotism seeks to destroy the political
communities it infiltrates, claiming that nothing must stand in
the way of social progress. Stalin's daughter, Svetlana
Alliluyeva, wrote of her father:
He chose the way of a revolutionary because in him burned

the flame of protest against a society in which he was at the


bottom of the ladder. He wanted infinitely more, and there was
no other road open to him but that of revolution.
The permanent competition between violence-seeking
ideologists and radicalised masses, desperate for change,
explains the recurring convulsions of the Soviet regime during

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the 1930's. Stalin cleverly used these conflicts to impose himself


as the incontrovertible arbiter between the two opposing
forces. This enabled him to set up an autocratic dictatorship,
subsequently legitimised by its victory against Hitler's Germany.
In spite of its collectivist ethos, revolutionary despotism, like
fascist nationalism, cannot function without an iconic, radical
leader.
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The Khmer Rouge


Revolutionary despotism is a form of collective authoritarianism
and, as with fascist nationalism, results from an opportunistic
alliance between the masses and a few extremists. However,
both the revolutionary and the fascist social consensus remain
fragile, and collapse in the same manner: there comes a critical
point when the regime's popular support realises the new forms
of violence are unsustainable and they begin to drop their
allegiance.
It is at this time, when they sense impending loss of popular
support, that extremists become dangerous. They will accuse
certain groups of undermining the political community (fascist
nationalism) or of hindering social progress (revolutionary
despotism) - the most radical elements seeing genocide as a
legitimate way of re-energising the faltering dynamics. In
reality, the attempt to jump-start the regime through extreme
measures is but a sign of desperation and has the opposite
effects; it speeds up the dictatorship's decline and ultimate
collapse.
The Cambodian genocide is notable for its explosive
combination of fascist nationalism and revolutionary despotism,
as historian Ben Kiernan explains:
From September 1975, Democratic Kampuchea refused

public recognition of Cambodia's specific minorities and

asserted that they totalled a nominal 1 percent of the


population rather than their actual 15-20 percent. The Khmer
Rouge similarly dismissed material facts of history in their
economic program, setting production targets without data on
existing production. Thus, racialist and ideological strands
intertwined in a tapestry of tragedy.
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Hitlers Inner World


I will look now at the role of the central cohesive element
linking the individual and the group in instances of political
violence and genocide the authoritarian leader.

Submission
The authoritarian leader suffers from relatively minor
psychological disturbances (contrary to what has often been
claimed). This explains why he is capable of structuring his
symptoms into a coherent view of the world, unlike the contact
criminal (e.g. the serial killer) hampered by severe
psychological disorders.
Once his ideological framework is in place, the authoritarian
leader conveys it to a small circle of followers who associate
with him to gain collective benefits: thanks to the extremist
world view that brings them together, individuals who used to
be isolated, become part of a closely bonded group with clearly
set out theoretical foundations.
The bond established by the authoritarian leader with his
followers explains the strength of their relationship, sustained
by a rigid hierarchy. The dependency of the lower ranks is
total: each individual member knows that without guide the
group would fall apart, signifying for him a return to social
isolation. The extremists' servile submission to their leader
stands in stark contrast to the cruelty they are capable of in
dealing with their victims.

Hitlers God
At this stage one question arises: if the authoritarian leader's
followers accept total submission to him, what authority does
the leader himself refer to in his quest for allegiance? He

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renounces his free will in favour of abstract symbols of power,


such as God, History, Nature, Fate, derived from his own
ideology. In other words, in an ultra-narcisstic move, the
authoritarian leader submits in reality to no other but himself,
and this subsequently entitles him to demand the same degree
of deference from his followers. Hitler's god is Hitler
himself, said Hermann Rauschning, Nazi follower turned
opponent.
The allegiance mechanisms described here are relevant to the
hard core supporters of authoritarianism and their leader. We
shall see that the latter has efficient means of attracting into his
orbit individuals who do not share the violence of the most
fanatical members. Built from a small number of extremists, the
original nucleus then expands into a full-blown social movement

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Nazi Germany
The Fascist Consensus
Next, I am going to analyse the social hierarchy of fascism. This
will help us understand the process that leads a significant
proportion of a political community to succumb to the advances
of an authoritarian leader, even though they themselves do not
subscribe to his extremist ideology.

The Fear of Freedom


To gain control of the political community, the authoritarian
leader must obtain the support of a substantial part of the
group. The grey zone, i.e. all citizens not associating with either
the regime's opponents or its most fanatical followers, is the
favourite target of his propaganda. Lacking any strong
ideological beliefs and more volatile in times of crisis, these
heterogeneous masses become even more unstable when there
is a strong feeling of resentment in their midst, combined with
a desire to throw responsibility for their problems onto
scapegoats. This effectively plays into the authoritarian leader's
hands - all he needs to do is dangle before the masses the
promise of rapid regeneration of the political community by
pledging allegiance to him and by fighting common enemies.
Authoritarianism's true nature is thus revealed: it is merely
looking for expedients. Incapable of regaining control in a
situation that threatens its unity, the political community shows
weakness of character, shunning its responsibilities, running
away from freedom as Erich Fromm wrote in 1941, referring to
Nazi Germany:
We have been compelled to recognise that millions in Germany

were as eager to surrender their freedom as their fathers to

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fight for it; that instead of wanting freedom, they sought for
ways of escape from it.
The authoritarian leader becomes, in this process, the keystone
of a social movement, sole guarantor of the cohesion of a
group in crisis that hopes to suppress its anxieties once and for
all by renouncing its freedom.
However, the fascist consensus between the authoritarian
leader, using clever tactics to broaden his support base, and
the people is not destined to last.

Totalitarianism, Fascisms Utopia


When the authoritarian leader seizes power, his aim is to get
the whole political community to join ranks in a perfect
totalitarian regime, which represents his ideal of power, as
formulated by Hannah Arendt.
In reality, in spite of his declared ambitions, the authoritarian
leader's political fortunes follow a course far removed from his
expectations. From the moment the negative consequences of
his extremist ideas become apparent (e.g. international
isolation) the grey zone loses faith and questions its allegiance,
realising that the regime is putting its own interests before
those of the political community, contrary to what it claimed in
its crowd-pulling propaganda.
Although autocratic power was at first welcomed with great
enthusiasm, the regime is soon obliged to use the same means
of repression against the fascist grey zone that it uses against
its opponents. As the process follows its course, support for the
regime shrinks ever faster, leaving in the end only the fanatical
extremists.

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The End of the Fascist Propaganda


Machine
Historian David Bankier gave a detailed description of the
psychological detachment of the grey zone in Nazi Germany
(also observed by Renzo de Felice in Fascist Italy). The fascist
German grey zone, after initial enthusiastic support for Hitler's
regime, turned away when it realised, during the Second World
War, that Hitler's extremist policies would have catastrophic
long-term consequences.
This reversal of opinion, however, stemmed from a changing
awareness amongst ordinary Nazi supporters of their own
interests, not from a re-assessment of their political
opportunism. Trapped in the arguments of fascist compromise
and sometimes directly involved in the regime's crimes, the
German masses never managed to rebel or even organise any
opposition to Hitler. For this to have occurred, some degree of
self-criticism was necessary, but it remained notably absent
even after the war had ended and prosperity had returned.
Only younger generations, who were not implicated in the
fascist consensus, were able to reappraise the overwhelming
support given by the masses to the Nazi regime at the height of
its fascist, quasi-totalitarian power.

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The Evil Side of Fascism


Fanatics and extremists organising political violence in a fascist
consensus direct their hostility towards carefully defined
targets. Thus, they avoid being caught up in their own
destructiveness.

A Flood of Emotionalism
Eugen Kogon, who spent several years in detention in Nazi
camps, made the following distinction:
The men who volunteered for Hitler's elite guards were of a

type in whom a primitive psychological mechanism was at work.


Their minds were enclosed by a hard shell consisting of a few
sharply fixed, dogmatic, simplified concepts underneath which
lurked a flood of emotionalism. The only form of soul-searching
to which they submitted amounted to a check up as to whether
the direction of their emotions actually corresponded to the
prescribed SS goals.
This excerpt shows with clarity the crux, and maybe even the
secret, of extreme violence: selectivity, which shapes the link
between an aggressor's psychological disturbances and his
authoritarian symptoms. The perpetrator of extreme violence,
using his capacity to think about his thinking, as psychologist
Albert Ellis put it, structures his mind in such a way that his
flood of emotionalism is released in violent outbursts,
following pre-determined directions. Because the violence is
carefully targeted at selected victims, the aggressor maintains a
stable, empathic relationship with the part of reality which is
preserved from his attacks. He becomes a functional
paranoiac (FBI agent John Douglas).

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Evil is always Selective


A female friend of Rheinhard Heydrich's, head of the Nazi
Security Police, said of him:
He was sweet, elegant and chivalrous. He made a good

impression on me. He was a cheerful, amusing person - always


ready to join in.
The stabiling function of selectivity can be observed not only in
political criminals, but also in concact criminals. Expert William
Marshall remarked that the sexual offender, contrary to what
one may think, is capable of empathy, but on a selective basis.
He wrote:
Sexual offenders do not have a general deficit in empathy, but

rather are specifically deficient in empathy toward their own


victim. They distort their perception of the harm they have
done and as a consequence do not feel any empathy toward
their victim. This means that measures of victim harm, rather
than measures of empathic responding, are critical to the
evaluation of sexual offenders.
William Marshall's statement is unequivocal: a sexual offender's
empathy is not destroyed but functions selectively through the
distorting prism of his egocentric world view. This protective
dichotomy lets him torture his victims without jeopardising his
own psychological universe.
For political ad contact criminals alike, assessment of the risk of
re-offending should therefore be based, as William Marshall
explains, on the intensity and frequency of violent behaviour
rather than the capacity for empathy, which remains partially
intact, even in the presence of extreme thought patterns.
Evil, even at its worst, is selective - never absolute.

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How people who commit genocide


think
The anti-Semite is a man who is afraid. Not of the Jews, to be
sure, but of himself, said French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre.
To fully understand the meaning of his words, it is necessary to
delve into the recesses of the mind, and see how the antiSemite (like all other extremists) organises his distorted
representation of reality.

Justification
The anti-Semite uses justification, the first authoritarian denial
mechanism, to proclaim the benefits of his violence.
Justification inhibits any feelings of remorse. This first level of
distortion is also particularly apparent in sexual aggressors, who
justify their acts despite the obvious flaws in their ultra-sexist
reasoning.

Victim Blame and Role Reversal


If justification is the first line of defence of the anti-Semite, it is
not, however, the end of the process. He resorts to a second
cognitive distortion: victim blame, whereby his victims are
blamed for bringing upon themselves the violence they suffer.
This mechanism is balanced by role reversal: the anti-Semite
poses as the victim of those he is attacking.
Victim blame and role reversal are clever strategies as they shift
the burden of responsibility onto the victims of violence;
continuing in this line of reasoning, the victims' own behaviour
is the cause of their suffering.
Historian Omer Bartov underlined the crucial part played by
victim blame and role reversal during the massacres conducted

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by German soldiers in the Soviet Union during the Second


World War. The Jew is not the victim, he is the aggressor,
wrote Hitler in Mein Kampf, almost twenty years before the
Holocaust. In a striking parallel, psychologist Howard Barbaree
highlighted the importance of victim blame and role reversal in
the most serious sexual crime.
The identical thought patterns found in all types of extreme
violence - be it contact or political - led criminologist Stanton
Samenow to conclude:
Despite a multitude of differences in their backgrounds and

crime patterns, criminals are alike in one way: how they think.

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