• 8. Against genocidal politics

Opposing the Genocidal Politics of Capitalist Modernity

Looking at this big picture, we see genocide against societies in its various forms as a constant of the system. We are obviously in a deadly phase of the structural crisis of global capitalism.

All kinds of genocide - physical, social, cultural, linguistic - have become a political instrument of capitalist modernity against societies and resistant popular movements worldwide. The last century just started with the genocide of the Herero and Nama by German colonialists from 1904 to 1908 in what is today Namibia. This was followed by the Ottoman genocide of Armenians and Syriac Christians in 1915 and 1916, the Holocaust of 1939-1945, and the Rwandan genocide of 1994. For two years from 2020, war raged in Tigray in northern Ethiopia. Over 500,000 people were massacred. International politicians are still debating whether it was a genocide or a “simple civil war”. This “sovereignty” of international politics is in the service of capitalist modernity, fuelling conflicts and then taking the right to decide whether it was genocide or war, a second assault on the dignity of the victims. In Kurdistan, Kurdish society has been confronted with a regime of (cultural) genocide for more than 100 years. In Tamil Eelam, the struggle of the Tamil people and their liberation movement for freedom was answered with an internationally covered genocide. It is therefore no coincidence that Turkish state representatives refer to their war policy as the “Tamil solution”. On all continents, from Latin America to Africa, we see similar practices of nation-state systems based on assimilation, annihilation and homogenisation.

It seems to be a consequence of the existence of the capitalist world system - which is organised around (nation) states - to permanently produce genocides. This is not just limited to the immediate destruction of a nation, but means the destruction of essential livelihoods of groups. To limit our understanding of genocides to their most explicit phase, namely mass murder and physical extermination, would be incomplete and would prevent us from understanding and resisting against the process, construction and implementation of these policies. Because areas such as law, media, economy, science and the intellectual sector are also important areas of this policy. Today, genocides are not only directed against societies, but also against nature in the form of ecocide, against women in the form of femicides and against social knowledge structures in the form of epistemicides.

Even if there is a strong awareness of international solidarity in the democratic forces and militants of progressive, revolutionary and system-critical movements in Europe, this force is not enough to effectively stop genocides or effectively support resistance against the mechanisms through which states of the capitalist world system (many of which also come from Europe) organise their profit through arms supplies and political calculations.

Against this background we will discuss these points in the working group:

• How do we have to understand the relationship between genocidal politics and the crisis of global capitalism?
• How are genocidal politics conducted on European soil? What are their consequences in Europe?
• What are similarities and differences between the different genocidal policies and mechanisms in different parts?
• How can we effectively oppose, resist and organise against genocidal politics and support peoples’ struggles worldwide?
• How can we stop the support and economic-political calculations of European countries in this genocidal policy that is taking place outside European borders in numerous conflicts? How can we stop European governments’ and states’ policies and oppose their dirty practices?
• What are problematic approaches of the democratic forces in Europe in their understanding of solidarity?
• Is a global network beyond states possible, organising an outcry against genocides and wars, or do we continue to leave the states in charge of the defence of their murderous practices?

Join the group to strengthen the resistance against genocides and to build an internationalist struggle!