Free Life, the Journal of the Libertarian Alliance

This book, by a social psychologist on the faculty of William Paterson College of New Jersey, is a comprehensive and meticulously detailed study of what the author calls "mass hatred," including genocide and terrorism, that unfortunately fails to live up to its promise in the end of providing "specific recommendations on how to stem this bloody tide..." As such, it's a worthy but inconclusive follow-up to R.J. Rummel's pathbreaking Death by Government.

The author's greatest strength lies in criticising conventional explanations for such events as the recent "ethnic cleansing" in Bosnia, the mass slaughter of Tutsis by Hutus in Rwanda, the motivations of the perpetrators of the Holocaust, various social psychology studies that have been done testing people's "obedience to authority," and the preventative prescriptions that have been based on them.

For instance, Dr Kressel comments on the "ancient animosities" explanation for the Bosnian "ethnic cleansing" as follows:

But such explanations tell little about how distant historical events become psychologically relevant and meaningful for the individual. William Pfaff, an expert on nationalism, calls the approach "mystification by history" and notes that those who wish to rationalize inaction refer to it frequently. After all, the further back the roots of the conflict, the less amenable the conflict seems to outside intervention.

Historians have attempted to trace the roots of the Balkan crisis to virtually every era, pointing to its sources in Turkish and Austrian overlordship, in the breakup of these empires, in the First World War, in the Versailles settlement, in interwar Yugoslavian politics, in the Second World War, in the postwar adjustments, and in the Tito period. Still, as late as the 1980s, few experts foresaw an interethnic bloodbath. History tells part of the story, but its limitations are clear. (pp. 21-22)

The second viewpoint assigns primary responsibility for the conflict to the United States and other Western countries either for (1) failing to broker a peaceful dismemberment of Yugoslavia; (2) prematurely recognizing the independence of Croatia, Slovenia, and, then, Bosnia; or (3) failing to intervene militarily on behalf of the Bosnian government. These contentions may contain some truth, but they are similar to claiming that an incompetent doctor is the source of a patient's illness. (p. 23)

Similarly, he disposes of the theory that Serbia was at war with Islamic Fundamentalism by pointing out that Serbia was also at war with Catholic Croatia, and that the Bosnian Moslems were among the most secular in the world when the war began. The theory that the Balkan War pitted the evil dictatorship of Serbia against the fledgling democracy of Bosnia fails to explain why Serbia went to war against its fellow dictatorship of Croatia; and Bosnia's democratic credentials were questionable:

When Bosnian Serbs held a November 1991 referendum on the question of independence from Yugoslavia, 98 percent voted to remain a part of the country. Several months later, the Bosnian government sponsored its own plebiscite; not surprisingly, Serbs boycotted this poll and 99 percent of those who did vote, mostly Muslims and Croats, said "leave Yugoslavia, and become an independent nation." It is far from clear how democracy could have produced a desirable outcome under such conditions. Members of hostile ethnic groups cast their votes solely on the basis of ethnic identification. They supported elections only as tactical ploys to advance their own group interests, and boycotted them when they anticipated unfavourable results. (pp. 24-25)

I would question whether democracy ever means anything more than this, but at least Dr Kressel's no blind partisan of the democratic process as a magic cure-all for every political illness.

Dr Kressel also brings these somewhat abstract theories to life like some sort of Frankenstein's monster by telling the story of the horrors that particular individuals were forced to undergo:

For [Jadranka] Cigelj, the rapes began about four days after her arrest. First, a local reserve officer dragged her into a bathroom, hit her over the head with the handle of a revolver, cut her, beat her, and proceeded with the rape. Then, on three different nights, she was beaten and raped by Zeljko Mejahic, the commander of the guards at Omarska, and by two of his underlings. According to Cigelj, during daylight hours, Omarska guards questioned and beat male detainees in the same rooms where at night they abused the women. Before the rapes would begin, the women had to scrub blood from the floors and walls. Serb guards also took pleasure in forcing these women, predominantly professionals, to do kitchen and cleaning duty. (p. 14)

Dr Kressel acknowledges that such testimony may not be completely reliable, but he doesn't rely upon that alone. He not only includes evidence to corroborate the horror stories he relates, he also includes the replies of the accused perpetrators when possible. For instance:

Zeljko Mejahic denies Cigelj's charges: "I don't know why I would do that, because she is forty-five years old while I am twenty-six, and I don't need a woman as old as that, particularly as she is a bad and unattractive woman. The way she was, I wouldn't lean a bicycle on her, let alone rape her." Even while defending himself, he fails to conceal a dehumanizing mindset that lends credibility to the charges. (p. 14-15)

Dr Kressel brings great mastery of the elaborate nuances of evidence and interpretation to all of his subjects, whether they be his case studies of Bosnia, Rwanda, New York City Muslim terrorism, or the Holocaust. (Unfortunately, he doesn't mention the FBI's involvement in the World Trade Centre bombing, in which the FBI's paid informant acted as an agent provocateur without whom the bombing may well have never occurred, but his subject is more the psychology of the participants in the bombing itself rather than who's ultimately to blame.)

In the latter half of the book, he explores the myriad studies that have been done in social psychology to attempt to explain how ordinary people could commit atrocities. These include the famous study by Stanley Milgram of "obedience to authority," a study done at Stanford University in which the students role-played as prisoners and guards, the "authoritarian personality" school of thought, and various other studies too numerous to mention about how people can be induced to participate in committing atrocities - or resist such inducement.

One point I'm especially glad to see him making is in regards to the "authoritarian personality" theory, which has it that some people are raised from childhood to be obedient to those they consider their superiors, driven to dominate their "inferiors," fixed in their ideas and values, prone to stereotyping, and overly punitive in their attitudes towards violations of their values. While this certainly does seem to describe some people in our society, two particularly damning criticisms of The Authoritarian Personality were never resolved adequately, and have led to other approaches. First, even if the authoritarian syndrome of personality traits and attitudes does exist, little evidence has been adduced to support the contention that it originates in childhood stresses, unconscious needs, and a web of defence mechanisms. The syndrome may be simply learned and absorbed from one's social environment.

Second, early critics noted that while the authors may have succeeded in identifying a right-wing type ready to follow fascists, they missed an important counterpart - authoritarianism on the left. Historically, tendencies toward obedience, aggression, and hostility have sustained left-wing dictatorships as well as those on the right. Yet the authors of The Authoritarian Personality, with their Marxist roots, had been blind to this possibility, even in an era when Stalin's Communists had murdered millions. Thus, conservatives and Republicans in the United States scored high on the F-scale, while liberals and leftists did not. This finding suited the politics of some social scientists just fine, but others attacked the approach for what seemed a manifest political bias. (pp. 222-223)

Unfortunately, it's when he comes to how to prevent or stop genocide and terrorism that Dr Kressel falls short. He does a good job of criticising the prospects of outside intervention. Attempting to use foreign aid, economic sanctions, or even direct military occupation all come up short in Dr Kressel's book:

The West may occasionally possess the means to intervene to keep a genocidal regime from carrying out its plans. More often, the moral and practical issues surrounding intervention are too complex to be resolved without much debate and deliberation. Yet it is precisely the time required for such deliberation that often diminishes the chances that an intervention might prevent or limit the scale of a genocidal massacre.... Failure to intervene may result in countless dead civilians, but intervention may lock Western nations into a divisive quagmire with unpredictable casualties...

Indeed, no nation can, or should, embark thoughtlessly on a program of policing the earth, for such programs often create as many problems as they solve. When a quixotic desire to fight evil is not weighed against the realistic costs of involvement, the result may be endless and futile involvement in bloody conflicts around the world. Broadcasting a military or economic threat may work.... On infrequent occasions, military intervention by the United States or a coalition of Western nations may be practical, and the moral costs of inaction may outweigh the economic, political, diplomatic, and human costs of action. (pp.267-268)

However, the only things that can come close to the "specific recommendations" promised on the book's cover are: (1) encouraging the spread of "democratic institutions"; and (2) bringing the perpetrators to justice by making them stand trial for their crimes. The first recommendation is so vague as to all but rob it of any meaning at all. What's meant by "democratic institutions"? Dr Kressel never goes into that subject at all. The second proposal is more specific, and probably a good idea in theory. However, there are a number of practical problems with it: who shall judge the criminals? In the Balkan War, diplomatic negotiations to end the war have made it difficult to bring those indicted for war crimes before the UN tribunal charged with their prosecution. Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic has been granted immunity from indictment in exchange for keeping the peace, even though "ethnic cleansing" was committed under his command authority. In Rwanda, there has been lots of trouble prosecuting Hutus for their murder of Tutsis because of a lack of physical evidence linking individual Hutus to individual victims plus tribal loyalties which give Tutsis motives to accuse any Hutus of being the ones who murdered their friends and family simply because they're Hutus. Even if the accused could be found guilty on the evidence, who would be the ones to enforce the verdicts? Dr Kressel doesn't address any of these questions, either.

Most sorely lacking, though, is any active role for the intended victims of genocide or terrorism to play. Dr Kressel's entire analysis focuses either on the motives of the perpetrators or what outsiders can or can't - mostly can't - do to stop them. If the possibility that the victims might resist their victimisation ever occurred to Dr Kressel, he doesn't show the slightest sign of it.

It so happens that a line of research has been started outside the circles of academia which indicates that resistance by the victims may very well be the best option available. Jews For the Preservation of Firearms Ownership (JPFO) has published a book called LETHAL LAWS, as well as other literature, arguing that one of the necessary preconditions for genocide is the disarmament of the intended victims. They document how this has been done in most of the major genocides in the 20th century, as well as several cases of successful armed resistance to genocide by the intended victims.

This solution would seem to combine many of the elements Dr Kressel talks about, but in a completely different way. If the "logic of the situation" may lead people to commit genocide, then changing the situation so that the intended victims are ready and willing to fight fire with fire, to resist their imminent extermination by fighting to the death in the hopes of at least taking as many of their would-be-murderers with them as possible, it may very well be enough to swing the balance of power sufficiently to discourage anyone from even attempting such genocide in the first place. If outside powers are unable or unwilling to intervene, as has most often been the case, then at least giving the victims the means to fight back will give them a better chance of stopping the genocide.

What's more, this solution has actually been proven to work in practice. In Rwanda, the Hutus committed what's probably the fastest genocide in recorded history, slaughtering about 500,000 Tutsis in a mere 100 days, until the Tutsi rebels of the Rwandan Patriotic Front took up arms against the genocidal Hutus, overthrew the government, and stopped the genocide. In Bosnia, the Moslems started to turn the tide against the Serbians when they got hold of guns from Iran. Only then did the Serbs start paying heed to outside attempts to make peace. When Chechnya declared its independence, the Chechens kept themselves from getting slaughtered as their neighbours in Ingushetia had been by the Russian Army by raiding the armories the Red Army had left behind and waging a successful guerilla campaign.

However, research in this area is still quite new at best. Dr Kressel deserves a lot of credit for making a significant contribution to the study of this subject. Unfortunately, the definitive study of the causes of genocide, terrorism, and how to stop them, it yet to come. I can only hope that someone will take up where Dr Kressel has left off.