Introduction

Genocide is many things, but perhaps above all else, it is elusive. It is foul and evil, but beyond that, we are largely at a loss. Genocide scholars have tried to provide rationales, insights and mechanisms for prevention, but even we cannot agree on how to define genocide, on how to identify it when — or before, or even after — it occurs. What we can agree on is that we are not finished with genocide; like war, left alone it will keep occurring. Our best efforts are an attempt to stem the tide of death based on a constructed idea of ethnicity and superiority in miasmas of fear and political gain at all cost. Equally, we agree that genocide can change; genocide has worn many hats historically and, as we move into a new era, we can expect certain elements of genocide to evolve to keep up, as it were. The role of ideology in certain 20th century genocides was key to their success; in others, ideology played a lesser role. Many scholars (Zimmerer, Moses and Bloxham, just to name a few) have argued strongly that genocide is not ideological, that genocide studies has erred deeply in focusing on ideology as a rationale for genocide’s repeated and ghastly occurrence. Indeed, ideology has, in many ways, become the hanged man of genocide studies; it has been tried, sentenced, strung up and left to dangle from the gallows. However, if we are to understand where genocide can go from here and how to do our utmost to identify it before it occurs, we should revisit ideology.