[lbo-talk] The End of Genocide (was Re: What is genocide?)

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

On 5/7/06, Jim Farmelant <farmelantj at juno.com> wrote:
> On Sun, 7 May 2006 11:17:19 -0400 "Yoshie Furuhashi"
> <critical.montages at gmail.com> writes:
> > On 5/5/06, Chuck Grimes <cgrimes at rawbw.com> wrote:
> > > But there is also a problem with the term
> > > geneocide that needs to be firmed up.
> >
> > The term "genocide" is not like the term "H2O," so it's not possible
> > to firm it up.  It's one of those essentially contested terms -- like
> > racism -- whose varied usage necessarily reflects contradictory class
> > and other social interests.
>
> I am inclined to think that the term is one of those abused
> terms like "terrorism" that have been reduced to near
> meaninglessness through overuse. While in the case
> of  "terrorism," the term was always from the beginning,
> suspect, in the case of the term "genocide," the term
> has been rendered meaningless by its use or rather
> abuse by what Yoshie describes as "contradictory class
> and other social interests."

I asked Michael Steinberg to write a piece on this (as he commented on
my first Darfur piece), and he came up with exactly what I had in
mind.
"The End of Genocide":
<http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/steinberg080506.html>.
You'll like this.

--
Yoshie
<http://montages.blogspot.com/>
<http://mrzine.org>
<http://monthlyreview.org/>