Mereja.Forum

sarcasm wrote: ↑

16 Apr 2021, 07:35

Genocide starts with language. A campaign of genocide is always preceded by cultural and socio-political preconditioning shaped by a discourse that dehumanizes and ‘others’ a certain group of people. Such preconditioning primes a society to accept that the removal or extermination of those dehumanized people – generally a minority – is necessary for the well-being of the majority. Dehumanizing rhetoric makes it possible for a society to accept violence carried out in its name. It renders people as less than human removing the moral dilemma of evil acts and justifying violence and collective punishment against them. In the past, the Jews were called rats, the Tutsis were referred to as cockroaches; what followed such dehumanization is a matter of historical record.

“Genocides do not begin with mass murder. That’s where they end up. Genocides and other mass atrocity crimes begin with words – specifically, with powerful people dehumanizing a powerless minority. Once they are seen as less than human, anything is possible, even mass murder.”
Andrew Stroehlein

Dehumanizing language has become part and parcel of the political and cultural discourse in Ethiopia. One only needs to pay attention to the frequency of using animals or sicknesses (chameleon, scorpion, spider, snake, pig, donkey, hyena, termite, hippo, cancer, malaria, dung) in day-to-day conversations to describe individuals and groups. The impact of dehumanization is not limited to those who are dehumanized, but a society that accepts dehumanization as normal loses its capacity for empathy and solidarity. This is reflected in the society’s response to the suffering of dehumanized groups; once the dehumanizing process is complete, no amount of suffering gets the humane response it demands but is rather belittled and trivialized, adding insult to the victims of genocide. In the face of growing evidence of atrocities, the suffering of victims and their cries become suppressed by the chorus of voices who deny, distort, deflect, or outrightly blame victims for their misery.

In the Ethiopian context, this problem has been gravely exacerbated because a sitting PM, in charge of state media that is part of the propaganda machine, publicly uses a language to reduce human beings into “animals, a sickness, aliens or non-human entities”, it has set a dangerous trend for a number of reasons.

In the last three years, the significant socio-political changes happening in Ethiopia have been characterized by a constant undercurrent of the othering of Tigrayans as the enemy of the nation. One can trace this development to the constant anti-Tigrayan sentiment that underlies political discourse in the history of the country and that occasionally bursts into full-blown genocidal war policy towards Tigray and Tigrayans. This development has been gaining traction in the last few decades.

In April 2018, Abiy Ahmed Ali Continue reading

I am not a politician but as a tplf cadre you are right abut the genocide but remember clearly all of your (tplf) long standing insults, bad mouthing, dehumanizing vulgar languages, direct and indirect violent threats and attacks against the current peaceful popular Prime Minster and his government, tplf's systematic assassinations of the members of the provisional Administration of the Tigryan regional Government, the unprovoked barbaric attacks and cold blooded slaughtering of the Ethiopian Defense Forces stationed in Tigray region to protect the Tigryan people, the Maikadra massacres, endless attacks on Amharas and Eritreans using both missile power and other military hardware and software, etc.

Add to these tplf cadres' rolling all over the western public streets and loudly declaring the disintegration and destruction of Ethiopia out of existence, "down... down.. down...Ethiopia; down.. down...down Ethiopia" tplf chanted. All of these and lots of other unacceptable anti Ethiopian barbaric behaviors united the Ethiopian people from corner to corner to come out and support the government's policy of resistance to the tplf's instructive terrorist behavior. After all we have only ONE COUNTRY TOGETHER! It is in fact the tplf itself who clearly demonstrated that it is anti Ethiopian group who is/have been bent on destroying Ethiopia from the face of the earth.

There is no genocidal war policy in Ethiopia but there is law and order disciplinary actions to force outlaws and killer law breakers to stop their criminal activities and become law abiding peaceful citizens. In other countries such dangerous armed killer outlaws are dealt with mercilessly at anyplace at any time no question asked. Just look at yourself in the mirror this time when the good government unilaterally declared cease fire for humanitarian, social, moral reasons for Tigryans to have peace and self reflection time while the tplf angrily denounced the unilateral cease fire declaration and intensified its usual violent killings and land grabbing instead of taking the ceasefire as an opportunity and help the Tigryan people to recover from the stressful situation. Tplf is being clearly genocidal even in this particular case because it went on a killing spree and violent land grabbing adventure. BINGO!

You are only sorry for yourself because the people of Ethiopia and the government of Ethiopia stood up in unity and said "NO" to the tplf's genocidal behavior. Now that the tplf can not have its way, you have to come here and try to scare others who are defending their country and their government as if they are behaving genocidal and obstructing your proven genocidal activities.

So, all what you are talking about genocide in connection with others is just that you are talking about yourself and the tplf. Making demons out of innocent others and making angels out of your own demonic behaviors has always been part of tplf's established propaganda culture because you like to under estimate other's intelligence in vain.