Cote d’Ivoire and the linguistic roulette of mass atrocity

My use of the word genocide on Cote d’Ivoire has attracted some interest and a few hearty objections. Thankfully, I think there’s a better led and curated conversation about the country and a variety likely scenarios on other blogs (try here and here).

The responses to my post and the thinking they inspired make me wonder if there’s something useful (and pessimistic) to be said about the words “genocide prevention,” when put together, and so I’m taking the Cote d’Ivoire conversation as a jumping off point for thiking about how we think about genocide, and prevention, and genocide prevention.

First, here, in less than 300 words, is what I’ve come to understand about…

Ethnic tension in Cote d’Ivoire*: Like so many countries in Africa, Cote d’Ivoire is a colonial creation between whose invented borders many different peoples lived at the time the country was cordoned off; even more people of various backgrounds came after independence, courted by the new country’s first president, Felix Houphouet-Boigny. (I found Cutolo’s* description of how and why all this worked totally fascinating.)

Houphouet-Boigny stayed in power until his death in 1993; from what I’ve read, he’s usually credited with maintaining the delicate relations between the country’s many ethnic groups and the inclusivity of the state. The idea of national inclusivity seems to have died with him, and the battle to succeed Houphouet-Boigny became a battle over ivoirite, “Ivoire-ness.” Put another way, the battle for who could lead the state became a battle over who belonged in the state. (There were, not surprisingly, simultaneous economic stressors, which themselves fan the flames of politics of the native, as we’ve seen, repeatedly, in the US.)

That battle would be between two men: Bédié, father of ivoirite, and Ouattra, the same man who is internationally recognized as having won last month’s election. Ouattra was disqualified in the 1995 election because of allegations that he was not Ivoirian (based on the birthplace of his father, in 1888 as the story goes, before Cote d’Ivoire existed, even as a colony). Bédié, who won the 1995 election, was overthrown in a coup in 1999, and the coup leader was defeated in an “election,” widely recognized as rigged, which brought to power the other protagonist in today’s drama – Laurent Gbagbo.

So the historical arc that brings these to men together again today has at its center an idea that, in the meantime, fueled Cote d’Ivoire’s civil war: Who is an Ivoirian?

Methinks this sounds familiar? This sounds a rather like the old Rwanda, where the Hutu government for decades rejected Tutsis as equal citizens within Rwanda (and totally excluded from the definition of “Rwandan” Tutsis living outside). Another interesting parallel is the ossification into binary social identities of what had been fluid economic relationships.

Among the myths that underpinned Rwanda’s rule-by-exclusivity was the “Hamitic hypothesis,” a colonial invention which suggested that the Tutsi came from Ethiopia and which would be used to cast the Tutsi as invaders of a Hutu country. The argument simultaneously creates a division and a threat: they come from outside and they want to rule (or usually, to eliminate) us. What rings familiar cross-contextually (Rwanda, even Nazi Germany) is the twinning of ethnicity and citizenship, and the qualification (and in its extreme, outright denunciation) of the latter based on the former.

In Abidjan, the ethnic inclusivity that followed independence disintegrated. A heterogeneous country dwindled into binaries, and history and economics and politics and fear and so many other things solidified in the single the question, “Who belongs?”

On genocide

The word genocide poses some challenges here. The social group in question in Cote d’Ivoire are “Ivoirians” – a category that didn’t bear significant social weight until a political elite created it in order to entrench its own power. So is it “really” an ethnicity – and if not, can we talk about genocide?

My instinct is to avoid the normative question and ask instead, how do people understand themselves and those they think are not like themselves? In the last nearly three decades, it seems to me plausible to argue that ivoirite has become a social reality, however politically interested its origins.**

It also seems clear to me that historically, political elites in Cote d’Ivoire have manipulated social cleavages to perpetrate and to spread mass violence. And to be clear: There’s no monopoly on the violent manipulation of identities, or the manipulation of the word “genocide.” In fact, Rebecca suggests that one of the more troubling signs – the new, Ouattra-appointed UN ambassador saying homes were being marked for ethnicity – may be its own spin (suggests Rebecca because she is living in Abidjan, and she hasn’t seen these alleged markings. Hmmm….). In fact, Rebecca thinks the thing that might prompt genocidal violence is the thing anti-genocide activists usually call for: intervention (see Blattman’s quote of Rebecca’s blog post, which for some reason I’m having trouble accessing here.).

The point is, this is the kind of circumstance – the hardening of identities into something universally reactive – that you worry about if you’re someone who worries about the risk of genocide, whomever the possible perpetrators, whatever the possible “trigger.” Those “whomevers” and “whatevers” are not easy; they are the stuff of deep and necessary analysis.

One more thing about the word “genocide”: Based on what I heard here and on Twitter, there seems to be a lurking assumption that genocide is exclusively about an exclusive ethnic ideology. As I’ve said before, I think this is wrong. It’s not only perfectly plausible that genocide coexists with a given regime’s interest in wealth or maintaining power – it’s likely. I subscribe to the thesis (of Benjamin Valentino, among others) that genocide, when it occurs, is very rarely an end in itself but is instead the means to an end. Eliminating a social group is usually a regime’s path toward consolidating or maintaining wealth, power, and/or security.

So, to say, “The coming conflict will be about diamonds/land/cocoa/telling the French to get lost,” does not tell us anything about whether a genocide is likely or not. It suggests instead toward which objective(s) a genocidal (or other) policy may be implemented. To conclude whether a genocide is likely is a different analysis.

On prevention

The prevention of genocide and other mass atrocities depends upon the recognition of what many have come to call “warning signs,” signals to acute observers that mass killing may follow. Identifying those signals depends on several assumptions: 1) that behavior is comparable across contexts; 2) that genocide or mass killing is an incremental choice and not a spontaneous mass event; 3) and that elites closing in on the genocide policy option unintentionally (but necessarily) signal that choice.

I accept these assumptions. Here’s why: Prevention requires that we assume behavior is comparable across contexts; not to grant this assumption is to assume we can never understand anything until it has already happened. I reject that prima facie, although I believe that comparison risks (and, alas, often results in) overgeneralizing, a tendency against which we should guard. I subscribe to the thesis that genocide is a policy option, a means to achieving a goal and not the ultimate goal itself (see above). I also believe that genocide is not spontaneous; the systemic nature of the crime requires coordination, which implies a need for time. Genocide seems to me to require time not only to plan but to implement. Even in Rwanda, where observers frequently comment on the “rapid” nature of the crime, implementing genocide took three months.

All of that is a long way of saying: Genocidal regimes reveal themselves, if you’re paying attention, both before and while they implement their genocidal policy. So I believe that warnings of genocide – or signs of a pre-genocidal moment – are knowable. I also believe that to identify early (or mid-stage, or even late) warnings of genocide does not mean ipso facto that a genocide will occur.

But if you limit the time horizon in Cote d’Ivoire to “since the election,” you’re missing the boat. What’s been happening in Cote d’Ivoire – not in the last three weeks since the election, but in the last ten years – is the legitimation of power based on the exclusivity of the body politic. One friend who’s been a close observer of the region for years suggested to me that the “warning” phase is over. So we’re too late to prevent; now we’re reacting, or containing, or intervening – depending on who the “we” is and what that “we” chooses.

Is it possible that the object of any of those verbs is “genocide”? It could be. More on that in a second. But whatever you call it, it’s clear that once we are reacting, or containing, or intervening, something horrible is happening.

On the prevention of genocide

It’s also clear to me that the genocide prevention crew have a pretty tough task: To name the thing you hope to avoid inspires political and epistemological fights.  And that’s just about the “genocide” part of prevention.  The moral hazard of conflict prevention in general is that the folks trying to do the preventing will be written off as hysterics, extremists, or other unhelpful caricatures of Cassandra (see, among other examples, Samantha Power’s book).  This is one reason, among others, that I think the Deng-Luck joint statement was so bland.

I think one of the smartest moves made in the scholarship of mass atrocities was Benjamin Valentino’s choice to use the phrase “mass killing” instead of “genocide.” I wonder if, in conversations about conflict prevention, we’d do better to adopt his linguistic pivot.

I started my study of genocide 15 years ago. I did a deep study of the Holocaust; I once knew Raul Hilberg by the footnote and I could spin intentionalists and functionalists in circles. I moved on to Rwanda, which I’ve come to know somewhat well, and to Burundi, which I know less well. And I’ve been an avid observer of the usage problems of the word “genocide” viz. Darfur – whether it “is” a genocide; whether the appellation prompted response; whether the prescribed response was the best one, and how much the prescription had to do with what Rwanda taught us about the word “genocide.”

All of which is to put into the context of someone who sympathizes with the weight and meaning and universe of acknowledgment that the term brings what I’ll say next: Maybe it’s best to borrow Valentino’s distinction and to talk predicatively (one hopes) prevention of mass killing and to talk historically about genocide. “ ‘Is’ it a genocide?” is probably not something that can be answered adequately as the atrocity unfolds (or looms). Proving genocidal intent; understanding the scope of social categories and the way communities bound themselves; establishing a relationship violence and prejudice – all of these things take careful investigation and lots of time. And that’s probably not how you want to spend your time if you’re trying to save people.

(Intermission for those who will say that we need the word “genocide” because the Convention that defines it triggers obligated international response:  In practice, that has mattered little, if at all, and it seems to me that it hasn’t saved anyone.)

The word “genocide” torques conversation, often unproductively. So maybe we should target our preventive language actions – our intelligence and analysis; our policy preparations; our diplomacy – toward mass killing. In that case, we would consider whether ethnicity or other group membership motivates likely (or even ongoing) killings and how that may complicate our efforts to prevent (or to stop) those killings. I think avoiding “the g-word,” as the social science hipsters have it, will give us the intellectual space necessary for disinterested description and analysis.

Because increasingly, it seems to me that invoking the word “genocide” before or during a crisis produces only palpitations – or, worse, intellectual and political paralysis.

Which all means… what?

First, the two presidents – the one who says he won, and the one everyone else says won – have a long and bitter and entrenched history, one that with the contours not only of personal enmity but national civil war. That makes it seem unlikely to me that either one of them will pack up and go home. And if that doesn’t happen, we’re probably going to see violence.

Should we be worried about genocide in Cote d’Ivoire, as I suggested in the title of my last blog post? Maybe. It depends – on what happens in the coming days, who mobilizes who toward what end and why, on what response the various regional and international actors have. But it also depends on how you understand Cote d’Ivoire’s social stratifications and how you understand the word “genocide.”  So I’d probably have done better to say, “Why we should be worried about mass killings in Cote d’Ivoire.”

One final thought

… and be honest. You wouldn’t have clicked on a post with that second headline, would you?

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*I’ve been doing a lot of reading about Cote d’Ivoire in the last two weeks, and at the moment I especially recommend “Ebony and Ivoirite ” (Transition, Issue 94 (Volume 12, Number 4), 2003, pp. 30-55), a journalistic-style read that still manages to be pretty thorough, and Ruth Marshall-Fratani’s “The War of “Who Is Who”: Autochthony, Nationalism, and Citizenship in the Ivoirian Crisis (African Studies Review, Volume 49, Number 2, September 2006,pp. 9-43), an academic read for sure, but an approachable one, with some very compelling, sometimes chilling primary and secondary source quotations.