Ethnocide and Ecocide
So as not to forget what is at stake in the (De-/Re-)Constructing Worlds project, this dispatch seeks to boldly articulate what it is that concerns me whenever I write any dispatch — halting the advance of ethnocidal and ecocidal power formations.
I agree with bell hooks that imperialist white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy is the ethnocidal and ecocidal power formation that rules the world of suffering that prevails over us. That being said, I imagine that another ethnocidal and ecocidal power formation might eventually take the place of imperialist white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy. As a result, I feel that it is necessary for me to define ethnocidal and ecocidal power formations in a much more general fashion so as not to miss the forest for the trees.
This dispatch should be read as a sequel to my dispatch on “entrapment”.
A photo of Herero women published by the Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung in 1904, the year the Herero launched an uprising against German colonists, leading to an "extermination" order.
Genocide is the extermination of one or more determinate ancestries effected by and through the eradication of individuals belonging to the given ancestries. The fact that genocide primarily targets individuals, depriving individuals of their liberties and their lives, makes genocide easy for the liberal minded to recognize and decry as an atrocity. What makes it difficult for the liberal minded to recognize and decry ethnocide and ecocide is the fact that the targets of ethnocide and ecocide are not individuals but pre-individual processes and supra-individual structures.
Ethnocide is the extermination of one or more determinate cultures effected by and through the inhibition of the pre-individual processes and the destruction of the supra-individual structures that together constitute the given cultures. Ethnocide and genocide do not necessarily imply one another insofar as a given ancestry can survive the extermination of its culture and a given culture can survive the extermination of some of its ancestries. This is the case because a person of a given ancestry may not be initiated into the culture of their ancestors, and because a person may be initiated into a given culture without having any ancestral ties to the culture. Regard, for instance, how the ethnocide of Indigenous American peoples occasionally involved genocide but was also effected by other many other means including displacement, re-education, and criminalization. Alternatively, regard how the enslavement of Black peoples in the Americas was ethnocidal without always being genocidal: ancestry needed to be maintained as part and parcel of being Black and being a slave, but being Black and being a slave meant being continually deprived of ties to an ancestral culture. And as final example, regard how White American and European eugenicists conducted a genocide without ethnocide when they endeavored to eradicate the “degenerate” ancestries of the mentally and physically "disabled" from White American and European cultures.
Ecocide is the extermination of one or more determinate habitats effected by the inhibition of the pre-individual processes and the destruction of the supra-individual structures that together constitute the habitats. Ecocide does not necessarily mean genocide for all ancestries with ties to threatened habitats: individuals of a given ancestry may very well survive the extermination of the habitat that nurtured their ancestors. Neither does ecocide necessarily mean ethnocide for cultures with ties to threatened habitats: a pastoral nomadic culture, for instance, may very well survive the extermination of one of the different habitats that they occasionally pass through.
Cultures threatened by ethnocide and habitats threatened by ecocide are to be found wherever and whenever you find that imperialist white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy has spread, and it has spread very far and very wide. Indeed, imperialist white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy has spread so far and wide that (i) any and every culture that does not yield to the advance of capitalist relations of production is now threatened with ethnocide, and (ii) any and every habitat on our planet that has yet to be exploited in the service of advancing capitalist relations of production is now threatened with ecocide.
The evidence of ecocide is mounting everyday. A radio news broadcast informs us, “Human activities have caused the world's wildlife populations to plummet by more than two-thirds in the last 50 years, according to a new report from the World Wildlife Fund.” And keen observers tell us the crisis is much more than an extinction crisis, “The numerical robustness, the plenitude within nature, has dwindled. Many species continue to exist but in greatly diminished numbers, which means that the species itself has a far more tenuous hold on existence. As species crash and vanish, the world loses diversity, but the loss of abundance is even more startling.” Yet when liberals in positions of power speak of promoting sustainability and conserving wildlife, I find that they are not earnestly speaking of confronting ecocide and promoting robust natural diversity. To the contrary, I find that they are speaking of adopting a more deliberate and controlled approach to ecocide, an approach that destroys even more habitats but leads to even fewer outright extinctions.
The evidence of ethnocide is also mounting everyday. A newspaper article informs us, “Of the estimated 7,000 languages spoken in the world today, linguists say, nearly half are in danger of extinction and are likely to disappear in this century. In fact, they are now falling out of use at a rate of about one every two weeks.” But when liberals in positions of power speak of promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion, I find that they are not earnestly speaking of confronting ethnocide and promoting robust cultural diversity. To the contrary, I find that they are speaking of enlisting more and more individuals of diverse ancestries as proxies in the ethnocidal and ecocidal endeavors of imperialist white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy.
Though it is taboo for those in positions of power acknowledge it explicitly, there can be little doubt that ethnocide and ecocide are the great scourges of our time. There is no need, however, for us to identify and round up all those who are, have been, or may become complicit in ethnocide and ecocide. Instead, let us work to deconstruct the statements, implements, and environments that furnish people with motives, means, and opportunities to become complicit in ethnocide and ecocide; and let us work to (re-)construct alternative statements, implements, and environments, so as to furnish persons who are vulnerable to becoming complicit in ethnocide and ecocide with motives, means, and opportunities to live otherwise than becoming complicit in these atrocities.
