Introduction
One of the most curious aspects of modern genocide is the difficulty of assigning guilt. As events that we know mean genocide come to light, we learn that millions have been tortured and killed. We also learn that many thousands have carried out the killing, that a smaller proportion of people have organised it, and that individuals in high office have ordered it - or sometimes that one person only has ordered it.
'One of the most curious aspects of modern genocide is the difficulty of assigning guilt'
Eventually, we also learn that endless multitudes of people were bystanders during that genocide. We discover that these people saw, heard, or knew about the mass killing being carried out 'in their name', but that they largely went about their own business. We find that a small minority perhaps tried to help or rescue the victims, but that the vast majority exercised what has come to be known as 'passivity' or 'indifference', but which is in fact an active choice to do nothing.
The situations described above apply in many cases of modern genocide, and the difficulty of assigning guilt in these cases can be gleaned from the tortuous process under way in the UN international criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague and its equivalent for Rwanda, situated in Arusha.
However, the vast, bureaucratically organised and logistically complex genocide of the Jews - along with the murder of other alleged enemies of the Nazi regime that came to power in Germany in 1933 - remains a singular example of a modern genocide in which millions were killed yet very few could be charged with direct responsibility.
Published: 2004-12-15
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