by Shawn Kew

Created on: March 12, 2009

Denial can come in many forms, and for many reasons. The most common form of denial is out of ignorance, that is you deny something because you do not have the information required to believe it. There is also the denial of convenience, if a piece of knowledge proves inconvenient to hold, it will often be denied its truth value. The most sinister though least common is of course the conspirators denial.

Often times we deny the existence of a genocide out of ignorance. The truth is that the world at large is tremendously ill informed about the genocides that have occurred, let alone those that are occurring right now. A great deal of people are unaware of the cultural genocide which the country of Canada committed against its native peoples in the form of residential schools, which ended in1971 and was only recently acknowledged by the government of Canada on June 11, 2008.(1) Outside of Canada this is almost certainly the result of ignorance, the main stream media has always tended to portray Canada as country full of kind people who likely would not be suspected of even killing a fly. It is easy to deny anything when there is no information to support it, and often it is the prudent course to at least suspend judgment before the facts.

At other times it has simply been convenient to deny a genocide was occurring. The Kurdish genocide by Saddam Hussein, throughout the 80s is denied because it would force difficult questions to be answered by people in high places. In fact this kind of denial is what continues to hamstring the United Nations, for if they cannot come to a consensus that a genocide, or some other crime against humanity, is occurring they cannot and will not intervene. It is made even more problematic when a member of the security council, each of which has the ability to veto any proposal, is in anyway, however minute, an accomplice to the crime. The genocide denial of convenience is simply a refusal to act in the interest of the denier rather than the interest of the victims.

However the most sinister is the conspirator's denial. This denial takes the general form of claiming that the story of a genocide was fabricated as a pretext to take something from one group unjustly and give it to another. This type of denial simply ignites more hatred amongst the two groups and increases the likelihood of a repeat performance of the genocide it claims has been fabricated. If it takes the form of denying an ongoing genocide, then it prevents the world at large from actively seeking a resolution.

There are of course those who will argue that the participants should be the ones to resolve the ongoing genocide, this argument looks at face value flimsy at best. It would not be a genocide if the two sides were able to resolve their differences either through diplomatic or military means. If the two sides could resolve it diplomatically it would never have escalated to the point where one group was systematically killing the other. If on the other hand both sides were capable of resolving it at least militarily, that is to say both sides could at least defend themselves, it would be a war instead of a genocide taking place. The only reason one can have for refusing to intervene on behalf of the victims of genocide is of a self serving nature.

Citations
(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Residential_schools

Learn more about this author, Shawn Kew.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.