Thaler, Mathias

English

Mathias Thaler

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Contemporary Political Theory

Political imagination and the crime of crimes: Coming to terms with ‘genocide’ and ‘genocide blindness’

This article deals critically with the process of coming to terms with ‘genocide’. It starts from the observation that conventional philosophical and legal approaches to capturing the essence of ‘genocide’ through an improved definition necessarily fail to adapt to the ever-changing nature of political violence. Faced with this challenge, the article suggests that the contemporary debate on genocide (and its denial) should be complemented with a focus on transforming the perceptive and interpretive frameworks through which acts of violence are discussed in the public sphere. The main purpose of this article is to contribute, from the vantage point of political theory, to this debate by offering a novel normative perspective on negative reactions to genocide. Hence I argue that it is productive to speak of ‘genocide blindness’ in cases when the members of the public sphere are simply incapable of seeing an instance of violence as genocidal. To establish this claim, the article introduces Ludwig Wittgenstein’s reflections on ‘aspect-seeing’ so as to underline the importance of changing the way that political violence is perceived and interpreted. In a second step, the article turns to María Pía Lara’s theory of storytelling as a concrete mechanism for triggering and instituting this kind of change

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10 On the relation between individual and collective dimensions of storytelling see: Appiah,

11 Some scholars prefer to use the Hebrew word ‘Shoah’ instead of ‘Holocaust’. For a comprehensive account of both terms see: Petrie,

12 For a recent contribution to the Holocaust debate that triggered a semantic shock, consider for example Timothy Snyder’s concept of ‘bloodlands’.

15 On the futility of (some types of) ethical theory for moral reasoning see: Williams,

29) ‘Remember Srebrenica? The West’s Intervention in Libya Is a NoBrainer’ [online], The Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/may/29/srebrenica-libyaintervention-no-brainer 34 Rangelov,

29) ‘Road to Libya Runs Through Srebrenica’ [online], The Independent. Retrieved from http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/brendan-simms-road-to-libyaruns-through-srebrenica-2290326.html Snyder,

29) Syria, Sarajevo and Srebrenica: When Outrage Isn’t Enough [online]. CNN. Available from: http://articles.cnn.com/2012-05-29/middleeast/world_meast_syria-sarajevo-and-srebrenica_1_srebrenica-bosnianserb-forces-sarajevo?_s=PM:MIDDLEEAST [Accessed19

36; 2007, 282–283) For a very interesting use of ‘aspect-seeing’ in the analysis of ‘liberty’ see: Havercroft,

5 For a very strong (and disputed) equation of ‘holocaust denial’ and ‘climate change denial’ see: Tomkiewicz,

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Following in the footsteps of Hanna Pitkin, several authors have attempted to recover Wittgenstein’s potential for exploring diverse political phenomena. See: Holt,

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What Should the “Political” in Political Theory Explore?’,

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When Neutrality is a Sin: The Darfur Crisis and the Crisis of Humanitarian Intervention in Sudan’, Human Rights Quarterly,

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Political Imagination and the Crime of Crimes: Coming to Terms with "Genocide" and "Genocide Blindness"

Political Imagination and the Crime of Crimes: Coming to Terms with "Genocide" and "Genocide Blindness"

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