Stages Of Genocide

There will be a quiz.

Mar 25, 2025

Let’s review the Ten Stages of Genocide, shall we?

(2025-03-28 I italicized the ones I see in the rear view mirror).

(2025-04-16 arson of governor’s home, deportation of citizens, #8 begins)

Classification - people are divided into “us and them”.
Symbolization - victims are forced to identify themselves.
Discrimination - victims begin to face systematic discrimination.
Dehumanization - people are equated with animals, vermin, or diseases.
Organization - government creates police/military groups to enforce policies.
Polarization - government propaganda turns populace against the victims.
Preparation - official action to remove/relocate victims begins.
Persecution - beginning of theft of property, murders, trial massacres.
Extermination - wholesale elimination, not murder, “they” aren’t human.
Denial - government denies and covers up the slaughter.

Now I want you to fire up whatever tool you picked for keeping timelines and work through the news for youself. Which stages have you observed?

Well, there it is. If you made even a cursory effort, you should have checked off through at LEAST the first half.

The person who reminded me that this list exists lost half their family in the Holocaust. My ex-wife’s father was the first born here after they fled pogroms at the turn of the last century in what is now Moldova. Her mother’s family was Polish. I met one of the few survivors at a family reunion in the 1990s. Seeing that crude numeric tattoo was … jarring. One of the subscribers to this Substack received the Order of Princess Olha for her work documenting the Holodomor.

Go through the list of people you know … can you find someone with direct personal knowledge of genocide? Time has taken all but a few of those who recall the Holocaust, but Bosnia and Rwanda were just thirty years ago. Or maybe ask one of your Palestinian friends …

I am a singular talent and I lack a functional sense of self preservation; I don’t expect any of you to do what I did for the last fifteen years …

But you’d damn well better do SOMETHING …