4/16 - Genocide Denialism

Guiding Questions

What motives to deny genocide?Avoiding accountability for the past

• counter-terrorism

• to keep the status quo

  • bad PR fr

  • challenges national belief about oneself

    • America is about freedom and democracy, meanwhile what they did to indigenous tribes and Mexico going against that

• individualization/nationalism

  • I didn’t do it, they did

  • guilt

What strategies were used to deny?

• writing off firsthand testimonies if they don’t match up completely with written documents

• suppression of information

  • destroy evidence

  • targeted if you speak out

    • treasonous to speak out

    • threats and intimidation

    • violence

• pushback from criticism

  • criticizing Israel being equated to antisemitism

international movements of denialism and their interactions

• online discourse

  • …Reddit and 4-Chan

Holocaust Denialism

Hardcore Denialism - the Holocaust did not happen

Softcore Denialism - acknowledges it took place, but questions everything in order to downplay it

• where there really gas chambers and shooting squads?

• were there really 6 million people killed?

Goals:

• continuation of violence

• combat claims for financial reparations, legal protections, land, etc

  • what are the material stakes/incentives?

Denial Strategies

• redefining the killings

  • self-defense

    • what about us???

• arguing about numbers

• victim blaming

  • should not have fought back

  • asked for it

• denying ongoing killing

• blocking human rights investigations

• destroying evidence

  • cherry picking sources to talk about

Combating Denialism

• critical analysis of primary sources

• fact-checking

• education