Ward Churchill, former Professor of Ethnic Studies and Coordinator of American Indian Studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder, co-director of the Colorado chapter of the American Indian Movement (AIM), and vice chair of the American Indian Anti-Defamation Council, spoke at the University of Guelph on Thursday, October 18th. His talk was on "Denial of Genocide as Academic Orthodoxy." Though not directly related to the focus of this site, I hope it will become clear that it is extremely relevant not only to the integrity of academic discourse and intellectual freedom, but also to critical thinking, a cornerstone of literary criticism and analysis.
I found out about the talk through my partner only two days before the event. We both thought it sounded interesting, having both taken courses during our university days touching, directly or indirectly, on the topic of genocide. So we decided to attend. We are also well aware, despite common perceptions to the contrary (among the general public, the media, even academia), that we--Canadians and Americans--are not post-colonial, post-imperial, or beyond genocide, never mind sexism, homophobia and racism.
We had some basic background knowledge and awareness, but speaking for myself here, I was not prepared for the scope and depth of material he was to cover. I had wanted to take notes in case I decided later to write about it, but ended up forgetting to bring my notebook and pen. Fortunately the organizers there had some little notepads and pens of which I took advantage. I wish I had brought a recorder though. I could not scribble fast enough on my little tear-away pad to capture more than the gist of his talk. But I did get some notes.
Ward Churchill's talk was about both academic orthodoxy and about genocide. His approach to the discussion of the historic, and ongoing, genocide against indigenous peoples in various parts of the world, various settler states including Canada and the United States, was very effective. What made it so effective, in my opinion, was that he did not confine his discussion to Native issues alone. Equally effective was his argument, the thesis, so to speak, of the speech, that genocide denial is academic orthodoxy. To fit into academic orthodoxy, one must deny the genocide against indigenous peoples, or at least not bring it up, discuss it, write about it, or teach it.
Churchill spoke about the difference between the claims to land made by settler states, versus the rights to land of indigenous peoples. He spoke about the hegemonic discourse imposed by institutions--educational, government, cinema, the media--on the populace. Most people, Churchill states, are not even aware of the their cognitive dissonance. And it is in our best interests to play along. That includes academics and educational institutions.
He tells the story of Lynne Cheney's Request for Proposals (RFP) while Chairwoman of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), and how it was discovered that there was an unofficial rule to filter and throw out all proposals containing the word genocide. This rule, obviously designed to keep out papers referencing America's role in genocide(s), Churchill remarks, also resulted, ironically, in a number of papers being thrown out which argued that no genocide had ever occurred in America, or by Americans. While Churchill did not provide proof of this (perhaps he has elsewhere in his writings), there has been considerable controversy surrounding Cheney's role with the NEH. A 2000 New York Times article mentions that she "used her position as head of the national endowment to assert an increasingly conservative ideology," and "was accused by many scholars of politicizing the endowment's grant-making by favoring traditional over multicultural projects and loading the endowment's peer review committees with conservatives." And the National Coordinating Committee for the Promotion of History writes, again in 2000, that "[d]uring her controversial tenure, she imposed new rules on the scrutiny of some grants at the NEH, and thereby (according to a report in a recent Washington Post article) "imposed her political views on the agency."
Churchill also spoke about the Japanese experience in concentration camps during WWII, and the fact that most scholars of genocide refuse to acknowledge that the Japanese experience in North American concentration camps was genocidal, or that indeed genocide has happened to anyone other than the Jews in Nazi Germany. He gives as an example Deborah Lipstadt's book, Denying the Holocaust. This book, he explains, is very important, and he highly recommends reading it. He really sees the book as both affirming his position and dis-affirming it in the first and second halves, respectively. She dismantles all the arguments used by deniers of the Holocaust in the first half, showing the various ways in which people approach denial, but in the second half goes to great lengths to claim that the Holocaust was unique, that it cannot be compared to anything else in human history. According to Churchill, as important as her work is, as correct as she is in the first half in talking about denial of the genocide against the Jews in Europe, in the second half she herself is guilty of what she calls 'soft-core denial.'
Churchill then went on, providing a point-by-point definition of genocide as first coined by Raphael Lemkin in his 1944 book, Axis Rule In Occupied Europe: Laws Of Occupation, Analysis Of Government, Proposals For Redress. This book, by the way, for all its importance, is apparently very difficult to get. Churchill, while speaking in Toronto, had been told that the Toronto Public Library did not carry it. And on Amazon.com, copies of it sell for $125.00 to $200.00. I will quote the original text here (read it at preventgenocide.org):
By "genocide" we mean the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group. This new word, coined by the author to denote an old practice in its modern development, is made from the ancient Greek word genos (race, tribe) and the Latin cide (killing), thus corresponding in its formation to such words as tyrannicide, homocide, infanticide, etc.(1) Generally speaking, genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by mass killings of all members of a nation. It is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves. The objectives of such a plan would be disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of the personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and even the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups. Genocide is directed against the national group as an entity, and the actions involved are directed against individuals, not in their individual capacity, but as members of the national group.
Genocide has two phases: one, destruction of the national pattern of the oppressed group; the other, the imposition of the national pattern of the oppressor. This imposition, in turn, may be made upon the oppressed population which is allowed to remain or upon the territory alone, after removal of the population and the colonization by the oppressor's own nationals.
Ethnocide, Churchill said, is often used in academic circles these days with a different meaning. Whereas genocide is taken to mean, essentially, mass killing of a people, ethnocide is taken to mean the eradication of their culture. He points out that Lemkin coined both words at the same time, explaining in a footnote that it could be used as a synonym--"Another term could be used for the same idea, namely, ethnocide, consisting of the Greek word "ethnos" -nation- and the Latin word "cide."
After citing the original definition of genocide, Churchill proceeded to explain how the experience of indigenous peoples across the Americas fits exactly the definition of genocide. Just about everything in the definition of genocide above corresponds. Churchill states that killing as a method of genocide is anomalous, in a wide view of history, and that the most common methods are absorption and denationalization, both of which were widely and concertedly practiced in both the United States and Canada with respect to their indigenous peoples, or nations.
Lemkin was, as Churchill puts it, drafted to draft the United Nations General Assembly version of the Genocide Convention. It took the United States until 1986 to ratify it, 40 years after its drafting, and it finally became law in 1988. Canada ratified the Genocide Convention in 1951, but, according to Churchill (I've spent hours trying to find the original version as ratified by Canada, without success), it was implemented so that two out of the five sections were excluded, namely the two the government was guilty of with respect to indigenous peoples, sterilization and the forcible removal of children from their homes, i.e. the residential school system. One out of two children, for five generations, were forcibly removed from their homes and put in residential schools. They were put to work. Many were repeatedly sexually abused. About one in two kids in the system died. This percentage, Churchill pointed out, is higher than the percentage of people killed in most Nazi concentration camps.
The upshot of Churchill's speech was this: 1) genocide of indigenous peoples in the Americas, including, of course, the United States and Canada, did and continues to happen, and 2) academics who speak out about this tend to be silenced or dismissed. He was dismissed. He says there is "thundering silence as orthodoxy on this." What are we to make of academic freedom in a democratic country where this is the case? Genocide denial is, he says, academic orthodoxy. And orthodoxy is rewarded.
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Further reading:
- The Ward Churchill Solidarity Network
- the American Indian Movement of Colorado
- His books
- The book in which the term genocide was first coined--Axis Rule In Occupied Europe: Laws Of Occupation, Analysis Of Government, Proposals For Redress
- Prevent Genocide International
- Deborah Lipstadt's Blog, author of Denying the Holocaust
- the United Nations site, Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
- the Center for World Indigenous Studies
- Fourth World Eye
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