Stages Of Genocide

There will be a quiz.

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)

1. Classification - people are divided into “us and them”.

2. Symbolization - victims are forced to identify themselves.

3. Discrimination - victims begin to face systematic discrimination.

4. Dehumanization - people are equated with animals, vermin, or diseases.

5. Organization - government creates police/military groups to enforce policies.

6. Polarization - government propaganda turns populace against the victims.

7. Preparation - official action to remove/relocate victims begins.

8. Persecution - beginning of theft of property, murders, trial massacres.

9. Extermination - wholesale elimination, not murder, “they” aren’t human.

10. 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 …