This week we’ve been talking about
political violence, more specifically how we categorize different types of
political violence. While we do have nice seemly clear definitions of civil
wars, revolutions, interstate wars, terrorism and genocide, some of these
definitions spill into each other. Another problem is that there are some types
of political violence that don’t seem to fit into any of these categories very
well. One example of this is the Chinese Tiananmen Square Massacre.
The Tiananmen Square Massacre
happened in Beijing China in June 1989. College students had been protesting
lack of jobs and demanding more democracy since April of that same year. In the
first week of June, mostly on the fourth, the Chinese government decided to end
the protests by sending in the army. They ended up beating and killing the peaceful
student protesters. The high estimate for those killed is about 4,000, around
10,000 more were arrested. These numbers includes soldiers, protesters and
civilians some of which were simply trying to help the wounded.
This leads us to defining this act
of political violence. The definition for political violence is the “use of
force by states or non-state actors to achieve political goals.” (Samuels, 258)
I think this incident certainly fits into this description. The Chinese state
used violence to annihilate a political protest. But how is this act further
defined?
Our book identifies five general
acts of political violence, interstate war, civil war, revolution, terrorism,
and genocide. This is obviously not an interstate war because there was only
one state involved, China. According to our book’s definition this wouldn't be
a civil war because it wasn't an armed conflict; only one side had weapons. It
also wasn't a revolution partly for the same reason that it wasn't a civil war,
there was no armed conflict. Terrorism is enacted by non-state actors according
to the book and this act of political violence was instigated by the state so
it wasn't terrorism. The last category is genocide. Genocide is, “a coordinated
plan to seeking to eliminate all members of particular ethnic, religious, or
national groups, through mass murder.” (Samuels, 279) I guess the national
group part of the last definition makes it the best one we have for the Tiananmen
Square Massacre but it obviously doesn't work very well. I mean yes, it was a
coordinated plan seeking to eliminate all member of a particular protest group
but does that really constitute genocide?
I think there does need to be a
better definition for a state killing its own people. Perhaps massacre could
use a separate category in political violence. I feel that genocide should not
be used outside of its appropriate context because it should never be taken
lightly. If we start using the term genocide for any government massacre, it wouldn't have the weight and importance it needs to really accuse a government
that is practicing horrific acts of genocide. I don’t mean to say that
government massacres should be taken lightly, they are very serious and an
important thing to discuss and try to avoid, but to put them on the same level
as genocide, deemphasizes the heinous crime of genocide.
Good point. There definitely needs to be a distinction between the two. The book points out how the UN uses the term genocide very carefully because of the connotation--I agree with your statement about creating a category (massacre).
ReplyDeleteYou go through clearly each definition and rule it out according to the definitions given. It was a very clear distinction leaving us with no classification for this type of political violence. So, I liked how you expounded upon that and suggested we add an additional category such as "massacre". Genocide seems to have deeply rooted feelings of animosity and bitterness toward a particular group that motivates such mass murder. This instance, however, was more like a government unnecessarily exercising its authority to maintain order and control.
ReplyDeleteI really do like how you narrowed the definition of genocide from the textbook into "massacre." I do feel, however, that calling the Tienanmen Square Massacre a genocide doesn't actually detract from the weight and importance from the word.
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