Genocide and its Discontents

In 1994, the renowned Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawn conceptualized the Twentieth Century as the Age of Extremes. Hobsbawn's concern was the ideological conflicts between, capitalism, communism, fascism, and nationalism. However, a more accurate conceptualization of the Twentieth Century should focus on the pervasive mass death and genocide. For example, a conservative estimate of the number of people killed by wars, massacres and other atrocities in the Twentieth Century is two hundred and sixty two million (See R.J. Rummel's website Freedom, democracy, Peace; Power, Democide and War http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/). The omnipresent devastation leads us to the uncomfortable conclusion that we live in an age of mass death and genocide. My paper proposes to examine some of the controversy that scholars have confronted in trying to make sense of mass death. Specifically, I will focus on the issues surrounding the definition of genocide by analyzing the differences between scholars that tend to argue for a relationship between colonialism and genocide, and those who tend to argue that genocide is more aptly framed as a 20th Century phenomenon. The paper will conclude with a reflection on the strengths and weaknesses of the United Nation's definition of genocide and whether or not it should be revised