Denial: The Final Stage of Genocide Conference 2018

Denial: The Final Stage of Genocide - First International Conference of the Center for Holocaust, Genocide & Human Rights Studies

Monday, June 11, 2018

Center for Holocaust, Genocide; Human Rights, UNC-Charlotte

Denial: The Final Stage of Genocide

First International Conference of the Center for Holocaust, Genocide & Human Rights Studies, University of North Carolina Charlotte, April 13-14, 2019

Call for Papers

Deadline for Abstract Submission: November 1, 2018

Location: Charlotte, North Carolina, United States

Subject Fields: Holocaust, Genocide Studies, Memory Studies, Human Rights, History, Colonial and Post-Colonial Studies, Law and Legal History, Feminist Studies, Gender Studies, Transitional Justice, Reconciliation, Peace & Conflict Studies, Indigenous Studies, Religious Studies, Memoirs

Conference themes and topics

Denial is often the “final stage of genocide,” Gregory H. Stanton asserted twenty years ago. The perpetrators “deny that they committed any crimes, and often blame what happened on the victims…. The black hole of forgetting is the negative force that results in future genocides.” (Stanton, 1996, 1998) The “assassins of memory,” in Pierre Vidal-Naquet’s memorable turn of phrase, seek to bury their crimes or, more often, legitimize or prettify governments or political movements with which they sympathize.

The ways in which portrayals of genocide are constructed can create “zones of denial” (Shavit 2005) that allow space for minimizing the harsh realities of genocide in our collective understanding. For victims and their descendants, denial brings additional injustice and trauma.

Holocaust denial gained notoriety in the United States and Europe by the 1980s and has spread to other parts of the world, while Turkey’s denial of the Armenian Genocide has brought further scholarly and public attention to the problem of genocide denial. Yet genocide denial extends far beyond these two well-known cases. Crimes that can be classified as “genocide” – and others that may not fit standard genocide definitions but that represent ghastly crimes against humanity – have routinely been followed by attempts at subterfuge or outright denial. Given the contemporary rhetoric of “fake news” and the increasing avenues for almost anyone to share or promote stories without factual underpinning, the need to confront genocide denial is more urgent than ever.

This conference will examine multiple cases of denial and place them in comparative context. We seek to explore strategies of denial and to confront denial and its effects on survivors and upon collective memory. The conference organizers prefer the more inclusive, less legalistic definitions of “genocide” that have been advanced in recent years by Martin Shaw, Barbara Harff, Adam Jones, and many others. Logic and compassion dictate that the conference should include crimes against humanity that fall short of common definitions of genocide but share many of its features.

We welcome proposals on, but not limited to, these topics/themes:

· Uses of denial by contemporary political movements

· Effects of denial upon survivor groups and/or upon perpetrator societies

· Reconciliation and transitional justice in post-genocidal societies in relation to education and denial

· Feminist perspectives and gendered analyses in relation to denial

· Denial or other forms of falsification in relation to indigenous peoples’ experiences

· Confronting and resisting denial in effective ways

· Post-colonial theories and practices in relation to issues of denial or confronting denial

· Minimization or erasure of racist and colonial histories in Europe, the United States, or elsewhere

· Appropriation and/or exploitation of the Holocaust and or other genocides

· Art, literature, and film confronting (or promoting) denial

· Pedagogical issues and approaches to addressing denial in educational settings

· How the era of “fake news” erodes genocide education or promotes denial

“Denial: The Final Stage of Genocide” welcomes proposals from undergraduate & graduate students, university professors and lecturers of all ranks, and independent scholars, as well as others who are involved in research or activism around these issues. We plan to include at least one panel of undergraduate students and to publish selected papers in an edited collection of essays.  

The conference’s keynote speaker will be Lerna  Ekmekçioğlu, hIstorian of the Modern Middle East at MIT and author of Recovering Armenia: The Limits of Belonging in Post-Genocide Turkey (Stanford University Press, 2016). 

Abstracts for papers should be a maximum of 500 words and abstracts for panels (up to four participants) should be a maximum of 1500 words. Additionally, please include a short biographical statement (max 150 words) or your CV with your submission.

Submit abstracts by November 1, 2018 to hghr.uncc@gmail.com.  Please include your last name in the subject line.

Notifications will be sent by January 15, 2019.

Contact Email: hghr.uncc@gmail.com

URL: https://globalstudies.uncc.edu/center-holocaust-genocide-human-rights-studies/2019-conference-genocide-denial

Google: GHOST WRITER, INC. for your Ghost Writing, Ghostwriting or Editing book, screenplay, music, freelance and contracted copy writing, and all of your writing related needs. Ghost Writer, Inc. also has top level marketers, promoters, and publishing or optioning assistance services. Visit www.rainbowriting.com (only one "w") as soon as you're done with this blog, if you are serious about your worthwhile project. We will consider doing work for non-profit organizations, if we can get a grant for ghostwriting or editing a book project, or something along those lines. Thank you for your valuable time.

Chemical Attacks in Syria 2018

Burning Eyes, Foaming Mouths: Years of Suspected Chemical Attacks in Syria

THE NEW YORK TIMES

By YONETTE JOSEPH and CHRISTINA CARON

April 8, 2018

Nearly five years after the government of President Bashar al-Assad agreed to purge Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile, the chemical warfare shows no sign of ending as Syria’s bloody civil war stretches into its seventh year.

The suspected chemical attack on a Syrian rebel stronghold near Damascus on Saturday was the latest in a string of similar deadly assaults, including one in 2013 that killed more than 1,400 and shocked the world’s conscience.

John Kerry, then secretary of state, called it a “moral obscenity.”

Analysts have said that the use of poison gas, a war crime under international law, is integral to Mr. Assad’s scorched-earth drive to regain control of the rebel-held areas near Damascus.

Sign Up For the Morning Briefing Newsletter

Here is a look at some of the major episodes of suspected chemical attacks.

August 2013: Sarin

The attacks in Syria began with blasts in the night. Some residents who heard the explosions and lived to tell about them described the sound like “a water tank bursting.”

“Then came the smell, which burned eyes and throats, like onions or chlorine,” The New York Times wrote at the time.

Opposition groups said rockets carrying chemical weapons hit the towns of Ain Tarma, Zamalka, Jobar and Muadamiya. Videos and photos posted online showed hundreds of bodies without visible wounds. Many victims exhibited symptoms like vomiting, intense salivating, suffocation and tremors. The chemicals were believed to be a “cocktail” of the toxic nerve agent sarin and other components.

Opposition activists also posted photos of rockets they said were used in the attack. The deadliest toll fell on the heart of Eastern Ghouta.

When the enormity of the attacks became clearer to the administration of President Barack Obama, Mr. Kerry accused the Syrian government of the “indiscriminate slaughter of civilians” and of cynical efforts to cover up its responsibility for a “cowardly crime.”

The attack spurred Mr. Obama to ask Congress for permission to launch a military counterattack. It also emerged as a test of Mr. Obama’s willingness to hold to his stance that a chemical attack would cross a “red line.”

In 2012, he stated at an impromptu news conference at the White House:

“We cannot have a situation where chemical or biological weapons are falling into the hands of the wrong people. We have been very clear to the Assad regime but also to other players on the ground that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of weapons moving around or being utilized.”

But in 2013, as he drew criticism for not taking more decisive action on Syria after the suspected chemical attacks, Mr. Obama said while on a trip to Stockholm: “I didn’t set a red line. The world set a red line.”

In September, the United States and Russia reached an agreement that called for Syria’s arsenal of chemical weapons to be removed or destroyed by the middle of 2014.

April 2014: Poison Gas

An attack in the village of Kfar Zeita sent streams of choking patients to hospital, and Syrian state television and antigovernment activists said that poison gas had been used in the rebel-held village in the central province of Hama.

According to opposition activists, government helicopters dropped improvised bombs on the village, covering it with a thick smoke that smelled of chlorine. Syrian state television blamed the Nusra Front, Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria, for the attack.

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, said in a statement in September 2014 that it had collected evidence that chlorine had been used as a weapon, “systematically and repeatedly,” in three villages in northern Syria in April. A United Nations report also said chlorine attacks had taken place in April and May.

May 2015: Chlorine

In spring of 2015, two years after Mr. Assad agreed to dismantle Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile, the smell of bleach hit the Syrian town of Sarmeen, making it difficult for residents to breathe.

That May, rescue workers began raising the alarm: There was growing evidence that the government was flouting international law to drop jerry-built chlorine bombs on insurgent-held areas.

The chemical is typically dropped in barrel bombs that explode on impact, distributing clouds of gas. The gas injures the respiratory tract, and, in some cases, can cause victims to choke to death as the lungs fill with fluid.

Hatem Abu Marwan, then 29, a rescue worker with the White Helmets civil defense organization, told The Times in 2015: “We know the sound of a helicopter that goes to a low height and drops a barrel. Nobody has aircraft except the regime.”

The United Nations Security Councildiscussed a draft resolution that would create a panel, reporting to the secretary general, to determine which of the warring parties was responsible for using chlorine as a weapon. But Syrian state media dismissed it all as propaganda.

August 2015: Mustard Gas

Later that year, in August, the Syrian American Medical Society, a humanitarian group, said it had received more than 50 patients, 23 of whom showed symptoms of chemical exposure.

Some had blisters associated with mustard gas after an attack in the city of Marea. A United Nations report blamed the Islamic State.

September 2016: Chlorine

Another attack in 2016 killed at least two people when barrels containing chlorine gas were dropped over a rebel-held section of Aleppo.

Using chlorine as a weapon is forbidden, but it was not included in the eradication of Syria’s chemical weapons because it also has many civilian uses.

April 2017: Sarin

Almost exactly one year ago, dozens of people, including children, died on April 4, 2017, in Khan Sheikhoun, in northern Syria, and hundreds more were injured in what was described as the worst chemical attack in years.

This time, the doctors and rescue workers suspected something beyond chlorine gas. Soon after, the Turkish health minister confirmed a preliminary report that the nerve agent sarin had been found in the blood and urine of victims who were evacuated to Turkey.

In response, President Trump ordered a military strike that fired 59 Tomahawk missiles at the Al Shayrat airfield, where the chemical weapons attack had originated.

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia expressed doubt that the attack had happened and said it wasn’t the Syrian government that possessed the chemical weapons — it was the insurgents fighting Mr. Assad’s forces. The White House accused Russia of engaging in a cover-up.

April 2018: ‘Chemical Agent’

In the latest episode of violence, dozens of Syrians were killed in a suspected chemical attack in the rebel-held suburb of Douma, aid groups said on Sunday.

The Syrian Civil Defense and the Syrian American Medical Society said in a joint report that more than 500 people had gone to medical centers after the assault “with symptoms indicative of exposure to a chemical agent.” Symptoms included including trouble breathing, foaming at the mouth, burning eyes and the “emission of a chlorine-like odor.”

The attack could not be independently verified, but rescue workers reported that at least 49 people had died. Video footage circulated by anti-government activists showed the bodies of men, women and children sprawled on floors.