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Eliminationism is a political ideology that views a group within a larger social group as harmful and therefore believes it must be eliminated—by separation,censorship, orextermination—for the benefit of the larger group and in order to preserve its "purity."[1]
The various forms of eliminationism have included attempts to delete or change thecultural identity of the targeted group, the politicaldisenfranchisement of the group, the creation ofghettos for the group, theenslavement of the group, thesegregation of the group, thevoter suppression of the group, various forms ofapartheid targeting the group, thedeportation of the group, various methods offorced removal andforced marches targeting the group, the creation ofconcentration camps for the group, theforced sterilization of the group,anti-miscegenation laws targeting the group, thesystematic rape of the group, mass murder campaigns targeting the group, and the attemptedgenocide of the group.
The termeliminationism was made popular by American political scientistDaniel Goldhagen in his 1996 bookHitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust, in which he posits that theGerman public not only knew about, but supported,the Holocaust because of a unique and virulent "eliminationist antisemitism" within the German national identity, which had developed in the preceding centuries.[1]
The purpose of defining eliminationism is the inherent weakness of the term "genocide", which only allows for action where mass slaughter has already occurred. However, according to Goldhagen, extermination is usually seen as one (and the most extreme) option of getting rid of an unwanted people group seen as a threat, and in any case of extermination many of the other methods of eliminationism will also be present and probably used first.
There are five forms of eliminationism:[2]
In his 2009 bookWorse Than War: Genocide, Eliminationism, and the Ongoing Assault on Humanity, Goldhagen argued that eliminationism is integral to politics due to mass murder being "a political act", writing that "mass elimination isalways preventable andalways results from conscious political choice." Goldhagen describes various 20th-century atrocities, such as theIndonesian mass killings of 1965–66 and genocides inDarfur,Yugoslavia,Rwanda andGuatemala, arguing that each of these events were products of eliminationism, being perpetrated by "the decisions of a handful of powerful people" in contrast to popular perceptions of such events being carried out "in a frenzy of bloodlust."[3][4]
BusinessmanTheodore N. Kaufman self-publishedGermany Must Perish! in the United States in 1941. In the 104-page book, Kaufman advocated genocide throughforced sterilization of all Germans and the territorial disassociation ofGermany. The obscure book received very little attention in the U.S., but was eventually cited by theNazi regime as proof of a vastJewish conspiracy to annihilate Germany and Germans (Kaufman was a Jew). The Nazis published quotes from the book in wartimepropaganda, pretending that the book was indicative of the views of theAllied powers, which in turn was added justification for Nazi Germany's continued persecution of the Jews as part of the Holocaust.[citation needed]
During the 1991–2002Algerian Civil War, the predominant faction of the conflict's first phase was known asles éradicateurs for their ideology and for their rural and urban tactics. These hardliners were opposed in theArmy and theFLN byles dialoguistes.[citation needed]
JournalistDavid Neiwert argued in 2009 that eliminationist rhetoric is becoming increasingly mainstream within theAmerican right-wing, fuelled in large part by the extremist discourse found on conservativeblogs andtalk radio shows, which may provoke a resurgence oflone wolf terrorism in the United States.[5]
Professor of law Phyllis E. Bernard argues that interventions inRwanda andNigeria, which adapted American dispute prevention andresolution methods to African media and dispute resolution traditions, may provide a better fit and forum for the U.S. to address eliminationist media messages and their impact on society.[1]
