*FROM COLONIAL BARBARITY TO THE NAZI POLICIES OF EXTERMINATION*
Speech presented by* Rosa Amelia PLUMELLE-URIBE* - Jurist and Member of the International Observer of Oury Jalloh court process in Dessau. Oury Jalloh was burned to death in the Police cell in January 2005.
*Organized by the European section of the AfricaAvenir Foundation*
*Dialogue Forum Berlin, June 14, 2006*
-(DEUTSCH:
anbei ein link zu einem artikel von rosa amelia plumelle-uribe auf deutsch: Von der kolonialen Barbarei zur Vernichtungspolitik des Nationalsozialismus http://africavenir.com/news/2007/12/1646/plumelle-uribe-von-der-kolonialen-barbarei-zur-vernichtungspolitik-des-nationalsozialismus
-(FRENCH:
De la barbarie coloniale à la politique nazie d’extermination
Communication présentée par Rosa Amelia PLUMELLE-URIBE
Organisé par la section européenne de la Fondation AfricAvenir
Forum de Dialogue, Berlin, 15 juin 2006. http://www.africavenir.com/publications/occasional-papers/UribePolitiqueNazie.pdf
unten steht die übersetzung ins englische,
see the English text below:https://thevoiceforum.org/node/672
******
Speech presented by* Rosa Amelia PLUMELLE-URIBE*
We are here today to analyze the bond which, like a connecting thread, conduces the colonial barbarity to the Nazi policies of extermination. We are dealing with an effort whose objective is, in the very least, to detect the main elements that directly or indirectly favored the political development and ideological success of a dehumanizing enterprise such as the Nazi barbarity here in Germany and beyond.
This contribution is useful for all those initiatives which seek to put an end to all types of discrimination---no matter where they come from---beginning with this discrimination which consists in choosing between crimes in order to select the crime to be denounced based on the identity of the victims and/or the victimizer. This hierarchy of crimes and their respective condemnation is one of the greatest obstacles in the struggle to prevent further crimes against humanity, one of which is genocide.
*Slavery and the Slave Trade*
We should begin by specifying that the wars of conquest and the crimes associated with colonial domination and the enslavement of human beings was already a reality even in the period of Antiquity. For instance, at the time when Muslim-Arab domination extended to Europe, the trafficking of human beings was already a millenary enterprise amongst the Europeans. From 711 to 1492, the Kingdom of Islam in Spain simply dynamized the intra-European slave trade[1] <#_ftn1>, converting the continent into an important provider of slaves---both men and women---who were exported to the Islamic countries.
The prisoners, the vast majority of whom were Slavs, served as nourishment for the trafficking of human beings between Venice and the Arab-Muslim Empire south of the Mediterranean. Hence, the word 'esclavo,' 'esclave,' or 'slave' came to replace the Latin word 'servus' to designate those workers deprived of their liberty. Put another way, for several centuries, European Christians sold other Europeans to Jewish merchants who, moreover, were specialized in the fabrication of eunuchs[2] <#_ftn2>, a particularly valuable and sought after merchandise in the Arab-Muslim Empire.
Some investigators, specialists in slavery in Europe during the Middle Ages, having analyzed the system of slavery inaugurated in the Americas under colonial domination, found a bond of continuity within the European slavery institutions. Professor Jacques Heers, ex-director of the Mediaeval Studies Department of the Sorbonne in Paris, said that, "it is an unquestionable merit of Charles Verlinden, true precursor in this field, of having point out that the conquest and colonial exploitation of the Americas served as ample inspiration for certain recent experiences in the Mediterranean, which can be directly inscribed in an uninterrupted continuity of mediaeval precedents[3] <#_ftn3>."
Nevertheless, I have decided to develop this analysis beginning in 1492, the date of arrival of the Europeans to the American Continent. I have made this decision because, in spite of what I previously mentioned regarding the antiquity of slavery, it results that the destruction of the autochthonous peoples of America, the instauration of colonial domination and the system of dehumanizing Black people in this continent had no historical precedence. But above all, because the prolongation of this experience for more than three centuries powerfully determined the theoretical systematization of inequality---including racial inequality---the consequences of which are still felt even today.
*The First Modern Genocide*
In the 20th Century, some historians who carried out investigations regarding the conquest of America more or less reached an agreement as to the number of inhabitants residing in the continent just before the invasion. In their estimates, just before 1500 there were approximately 80 million people inhabiting the Americas. These statistics were compared with the figures obtained fifty years later based on the census carried out by the Spaniards[4] <#_ftn4>.
According to these figures, by around 1550, of the 80 million indigenous people, no more than 10 million were remaining. In other words, in relative terms the destruction of the autochthonous peoples was on the order of 90% of the entire population. It was a true hecatomb, because in absolute terms we are talking about the diminution of 70 million human beings. Moreover, it is worth noting that South American historians have recently reached the conclusion that, in reality, more than 100 million people inhabited the Americas at the time of the conquest. Seen from a European perspective, these figures are unacceptable, and understandably so, because if they are indeed true we are speaking about the disintegration of 90 million human beings.
But beyond the number of exterminated indigenous, the collective behavior adopted by the Christian conquerors had consequences which still endure to this very day. For example, the subsequent justification of this genocide conditioned the cultural, ideological and political evolution of white supremacy vis-à-vis other non-European peoples and, eventually, within the very heart of Europe.
The impunity which the conquerors enjoyed inevitably favored the rapid appearance of very worrisome practices. Thus, for example, the bad habit of feeding indigenous peoples to the dogs, sometimes even with babies who were torn from their mother's arms and thrown as feed to hungry dogs. Or the tendency to find enjoyment by burning indigenous peoples alive by throwing them into the bonfire in order to watch them roast[5] <#_ftn5>. This disaster was the first direct consequence of what some historians continue to denominate the "discovery of America."
*The African Solution*
Having devastated the American continent by eliminating their population, the incipient Western powers converted Black Africa into a provider of slaves for the Americas. This enterprise disarticulated the economies and robbed those countries of an important part of their populations in what continues to be the most gigantic deportation of
human beings ever known to humanity. At this point, it is necessary we remember the situation of the African countries before or at the moment of being overtaken by the Europeans.
It is a truth that, although the mode of production in Black Africa was not fundamentally that of slavery, these societies did in operate with certain forms of servitude. As mentioned before, in mediaeval times, slavery as well as trading in human beings was a generalized practice, and Africa was no exception. Since the 7^th Century, Black Africa, as Europe since the 8^th Century, supplied the Arab-Muslim Empire with slaves.
It seems that, at the time, the dimension and modalities of trafficking in slaves were not incompatible with economic growth in the countries implicated in the trading of human beings. It should be noted that it is widely recognized that Europe began to leave behind the mediaeval period under Islamic domination in Europe. As for Africa, we should remember that during the 15^th Century, in spite of the bloodshed occasioned by Arab-Muslim slave trade, the countries of this continent enjoyed a high-level of social welfare.
The depopulation of the continent, the same as the misery and indigence of its sick and hungry inhabitants described by the travelers who reached Black Africa in the 19^th Century, contrast with the densely populated countries; thriving economies, abundant agriculture, diversified craftwork, intense commerce and, above all, a level of social welfare described by diverse geographers and navigators who traveled in Black Africa in the period between the 8^th and 17^th Centuries and whose testimonies we now know thanks to the investigations carried out by Diop Maes[6] <#_ftn6>.
Between the 16th and 19th Centuries, the wars and roundups favored by the slave traders in order to kidnap captives provoked the almost irreversible destruction of the economy, the social fabric and the demography of the African peoples. In just three centuries, the massive and even industrial character of the Transantlantic slave trade caused the entire devastation and destruction this continent on a level never even imagined---in spite of eight centuries of the Arab-Muslim slave trade. This new disaster was the second consequence of the colonization of the Americas.
*A Dehumanizing Enterprise*
Under the regiment of colonial domination in the Americas, the indigenous survivors, stripped of their lands, were expelled and confined in reservations which they could only leave under the risk of being murdered. At the same time, millions of African women, children in men were ripped out of their homes and countries and deported to the Americas, where they were systematically expelled from the human species and reduced to the category of private property or sub-human. The racial inferiority of non-whites and its twin, the superiority of the white race, were inscribed in law, consecrated by Christianity and reinforced through deeds.
The colonial powers, Spain, Portugal, France, England, Holland, legislated in order to create the legal framework in which the dehumanization of Blacks could be performed in a legal manner. Thus, each metropolis created its own juridical arsenal necessary to regulate its respective genocidal policies in the '/universo concentracionario de América/' or concentration camp universe known as the Americas. In this regard, the most complete and elaborate legislation was the Code Noir---the Black Code[7] <#_ftn7>. Promulgated in 1685, this judicial monstrosity remained in effect until 1848, the time of the second abolition of slavery in French colonies.
It is quite significant that, as far as we know, at least during the 16^th and 17^th Centuries, there was not one single voice authorized to denounce and condemn the legalized expulsion of Blacks being vomited out of the human species. Moreover, even in the 18^th Century, during the time of the so-called Enlightenment, not one of the great philosophers formally demanded of the competent authorities the immediate, real and unequivocal suppression of the laws which regulated these crimes[8] <#_ftn8>.
*A Unanimously Shared Ideology*
It is customary to ignore the fact that, thanks to the racialization of slavery in the concentration camp universe known as the Americas, the superiority of the white race and the inferiority of the Blacks became a firmly rooted axiom of Western culture. This pernicious inheritance of European colonial domination conjugated with the nefarious effects of the mania characteristic of the Enlightenment philosophers; this mania of systematizing everything, of creating hierarchies and classifications, stimulating the emergence of a culture more or less favorable to the extermination of groups considered to be inferior.
During the period comprised of the 15th to 19th Centuries, all of the literary and subsequent scientific production regarding the autochthonous peoples of the Americas was oriented toward justifying past and future exterminations. Following three long centuries of colonial barbarity under Christian control, one of the valid principles of Spanish Catholics was the profound conviction that killing an 'Indian' was not a sin[9] <#_ftn9>. This consciousness was reinforced by English-speaking Protestants, who were convinced that a 'good Indian' is a 'dead Indian.' In the same manner, all of the literature regarding the beastialization of Blacks in the concentration camp universe known as the Americas was nothing more than propaganda in favor of the slave trade and the enslavement of Blacks, which were presented as an advancement of civilization.
When America's concentration camp universe was finally dismantled, the changed provoked by the abolition of slavery had a very limited effect. For example, the essential aspects of the structures and the social and economic relations established by the institutionalized barbarity remained practically intact. Moreover, the triumph of scientific thought over religious faith granted the race of the slave drivers and values of Western civilization a credibility which religion did not enjoy in the midst of the more enlightened spirits. Since that time forward, the colonization and acts of barbarity inherent in the conquering other peoples, for instance the extermination of groups considered to be inferior, was executed thanks to the support given by scientific discourse.
*A Culture of Extermination*
It would undoubtedly be of great utility to carry out an exhaustive investigation as to the role played by Western scientists in the development of a culture of extermination which prevailed in the 19^th Century and at the beginning of the 20^th Century in the colonizing countries. In spite of its close relation to our analysis, this is not the central theme of this discussion. Nevertheless, it is worth highlighting a few points of interests for those who wish to investigate this issue further, something which the existing literature thankfully makes possible.
At the middle of the 19th Century, the most prestigious scientific associations of their time were the Geographical Society, the Anthropological Society in London as well as the Société de Géologie in Paris. On January 19, 1864, the Anthropological Society organized a round-table discussion on the topic of "the extinction of the inferior races." In said discussion, the participants discussed as to how the superior races had the right to colonize the territorial spaces considered vital to their interests.
A summary of the participants' debates was published in the 'Journal of Anthropological Society of London, vol. 165, 1864.' The issue to be resolved was whether the extinction of the inferior races would be inevitable in each case of colonization, or if it would be possible that they could coexist with the superior race without being eliminated[10] <#_ftn10>. At the time, in addition to the genocide committed against the Indigenous peoples of North America and that of the Aborigines in what is now Australia, England had already executed the particularly ferocious genocide against the peoples of Tasmania.
In France, Albert Serraut, in a discourse he pronounced in front of students of the Colonial School, affirmed: "It would be childish to oppose European enterprises of colonization the assumed right of occupation [...] which would eternalize the useless possession of wealth---with absolutely no utilization whatsoever---in the hands of incompetents[11] <#_ftn11>." For his part, French sociologist Georges Vacher Lapouge sustained that there could be nothing more normal than the subjugation of the inferior races to slavery, pleading instead for one exclusive race which could be balanced out through selection.
*Some Reactionary Scientists*
It is interesting to know that the majority of German anthropologists, even if they were convinced of racial superiority, did not share with their British, North American and French colleagues the conviction that the inferior races should necessarily disappear upon coming in to contact with civilization. Between 1859-1862, professor Theodor Waitz, for instance, developed a work challenging the theoretical fundaments propagated by his Western colleagues who were engaged in the scientific justification of the exterminations committed by their countries.
Later, in 1868, his disciple George Gerland presented a study on the extermination of inferior races. In this study, he denounces the physical violence used by the colonizers as the most important factor of extermination. He affirms that there is no natural law which says that the primitive peoples need to disappear in order for civilization to advance. The argument of this German scientist in favor of the right to life of the races considered to be inferior is an extremely rare act for this period of history.
In 1891, German professor Friedrich Ratzel published his book 'Anthropogeographie'. In Chapter 10, sub-titled 'The Decadence of the Peoples of Inferior Cultures when Coming into Contact with Culture,' the author expresses his hostility towards the destruction of the indigenous peoples: "It has become a deplorable norm that the less-advanced peoples die when they enter into contact with highly-civilized peoples. This has been applied to the immense majority of Australians, Polynesians, Northern Asians, North Americans as well as numerous peoples of South Africa and South America. (...) The indigenous peoples are assassinated, hunted, proletarized and their social organization is destroyed. The principal characteristic of the Whites is the use of violence of the strongest versus the weakest. The objective is to take over their lands. This phenomenon is has become preponderant in North America. White people, thirsty for land, concentrate themselves in the weakened and partially disintegrated indigenous territories[12] <#_ftn12>." This was the last discourse in which professor Ratzel would express an unfavorable---even hostile---position to the extinction of the supposedly inferior peoples.
*An Unfortunate Evolution*
During the period of 1885-1885, the former slave drivers met in Berlin to official the tearing apart of Africa. In this Berlin Conference, Germany assured its control of Southeast Africa (today Namibia), East Africa (corresponding to the current territories of Tanzania, Burundi and Rwanda) as well as dominion over Togo and Cameroon.
The participation of Germany in the colonial adventure marked a sensible hiatus between the discourse of the German scientists of the 1890's and the discourse which they would later have on the very same topic: The extermination of the races considered to be inferior or their subjugation according to the necessities of the conquerors and the advancement of civilization.
In effect, in 1897 professor Ratzel published his book 'Political Geography' in which the author openly assumes a position in favor of the extermination of the inferior races. He affirms that a people in stages
of development require more and more territories which need to be conquered, "transforming them into lands inhabited by the death and displacement of their inhabitants[13] <#_ftn13>."
Combined with racist methods, economic domination gave birth to Christian white supremacy. Its hegemonic ideology reigned without concession all over the planet, reaching its splendor between the second half of the 19th Century and the first half of the 20th. The triumph of this ideology was such that, even in the formerly colonized countries, the extermination of the races deemed to be inferior formed part of official policy.
*A Triumphant Ideology*
The majority of countries of the Americas gained their independence in the 19th Century. Because they descended from the European adventurers who frequently raped indigenous women, the ruling class of these countries believed and perceived themselves to be white. These elites, who always identified themselves with their white ancestors, took control over their countries in the aftermath of the wars of independence. In fact, they even adopted the same methods of extermination of indigenous peoples inherited from colonial policy.
In April, 1834, in Argentina, a country that had recently become independent of Spanish domination, the authorities initiated the 'Desert Campaign,' whose objective was the extermination of the indigenous survivors inhabiting the pampas. This campaign, organized in coordination with the Chilean government, was lead by Juan Manuel de Rosas, Argentinean President as of 1835. The extermination of the indigenous survivors provided such an interesting perspective that the first constitutional government of Uruguay, led by Fructuoso Rivera, joined the campaign intended to convert these lands into inhabitable spaces.
In spite of the extreme violence of the 'Campaign', not all indigenous people died, which seems to have exasperated President Rosas, who considered that the 'Indians' reproduced like insects. At that time, to remedy what was considered to be a failure, in 1878, upon the initiative of Argentina's acting Minister of War, Julio Argentino Roca, the Argentinean National Congress voted and approved a law for the "expansion of borders" up until the Rio Negro. This was the beginning of the second 'Desert Campaign', which was intended to definitively clean and clear the pampas of its indigenous population in order to advance civilization.
*A Vital Space Before Its Time*
The 'Campaign' took place at a time when the indigenous survivors were persecuted and hunted throughout the entire continent. In North America, they were massacred and expelled from their lands in order to liberate a space which had become vital for the installation of civilized families, i.e. white and Christian. In Argentina, the declared objective of the 'Campaign' was identical: The replacement of the local population with a civilized population capable of guaranteeing the incorporation of the pampas and the Patagonia into the nation of Argentina.
A few decades later, Heinrich Himmler would defend this same principle of supplanting the local population when he affirmed: "For one group, the only means to solve the social problem is to kill the others and take over their country[14] <#_ftn14>." But in the 19th Century, this horror took place in the Americas to the detriment of the populations of non-European descent. Minister Roca, who initiated the second 'Desert Campaign', managed to exterminate so many indigenous that he even won the 1880 national elections in which he was elected president of Argentina.
Suddenly gripped by enlightenment, some voices rose up to criticize the barbarity of the atrocities committed during the 'Campaign'. In general terms, however, the inferiority of the victims wasn't refuted, and the government of Julio Roca, considered to be the Conqueror of the Desert, is perceived as the *founder of modern Argentina*. The official version of the history of Argentina has chosen not only to teach but above all to praise the fact that under President Roca the country advanced towards the separation of Church and State, civil matrimony, birth registration and secular education. Even today, one of the largest cities of Patagonia carries the name Julio Roca.
Not too long ago, historian Felix Luna was cynical enough to say, "Roca embodied progress. He inserted Argentina into the world: I put myself in his shoes to understand what it meant to exterminate a few hundred '/Indios/' in order to govern. One has to consider the context of that time in which a Darwinistic atmosphere marked the survival of the fittest and the superiority of the white race (...) With errors, with abuses, paying a price is what made Argentina what we now enjoy today:
the parks, the buildings, the palace of Public Works, the tribunals, the Government House[15] <#_ftn15>."
*Exterminable Because Inferior*
It should be noted that following the first genocide of the modern era, committed by the Christians in America beginning in 1492, the situation of the non-European peoples in general and Blacks in particular has since been governed by the stipulations of white superiority. In the concentration camp universe known as the Americas, Blacks were expelled from the human species as nothing more than sub-humans or pieces of property. Since then, nor have Blacks ever been truly reintegrated nor has their humanity been restored. In terms of the indigenous survivors, they were massacred in mass in order to transform their lands into *inhabitable spaces*.
In Africa, the peoples of Congo, under the administration of that tyrant known as King Leopold, were subjected to forms of servitude that caused the destruction of half of the country's population, which diminished from twenty to ten million inhabitants[16] <#_ftn16>. In this same continent, the German state, too, just like those before it, applied the good principles of colonization. Between 1904 and 1906, in other words, in just two short years, the Germans exterminated three-fourths of the Herero people. And this is without counting the deaths of the peoples of Nama, Baster, Hotentotos, etc[17] <#_ftn17>.
Within the framework of German colonial domination, professor Eugen Fischer went to Namibia in 1908 in order to investigate "the problem of bastardization in human beings" amongst the Baster people living in Rehoboth. The recommendations of this investigator are explicit and fully lacking in ambiguity. In his treatise, professor Fisher expresses his recommendations regarding 'mestizos' as follows: "They should then be guaranteed the precise grade of protection which is necessary for them as a race inferior to ours, nothing more and only as long as they continue to be useful to us. Otherwise, it should be left to free competition. In other words, in my opinion they should disappear[18] <#_ftn18>."
This study, in which professor Fischer believes to have scientifically proven the inferiority of Blacks, gave glory and prestige to its author way beyond the borders of his own country. Years later, when Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933, professor Fischer naturally put all his prestige and authority conferred to an internationally respected scientist at the service of the racial policies of the new German state. In reality, this was the case of the scientific establishment as a whole[19] <#_ftn19>.
*The Risk of Being Classified as Inferior*
It is a verifiable fact that the exterminations performed at the end of the 19th Century and during the first decades of the 20th Century against all those human beings considered to be inferior or the organization of their disappearance was a reality which did not awake huge manifestations of solidarity with the victims. This is why the Nazi leadership in Germany concentrated their energies on convincing the German people that the Jews, as the Slavs and other groups, were different and therefore inferior.
It was in this context so favourable to the extermination of inferior peoples that the scientific advisors entrusted with Nazi Germany's economic planning took the logic of extermination even further than their predecessors. And in a terrible and sinister combination of ideological factors and utilitarian motivations, they programmed the extermination of 30 million people from Eastern Europe.
In their book 'Architects of Annihilation,' Susanne Heim and Götz Aly point out that the economic planners, chosen for their political militancy and not for their professional competence, based their recommendations on strictly economic and geopolitical considerations, without making even the most minimum reference to racial ideology. Heim and Aly transcribe the minutes of a meeting during which the economic advisors explained their plans for food provisions in the presence of Goebbels.
Goebbels noted in his diary from May 2, 1941: "In order for the war to continue, it is indispensable that Russia supply the entire German Armed Forces during the third year of war. Several million people will have to die of hunger if we manage to appropriate all of the provisions we weed [20] <#_ftn20>." And indeed, the first stages of this plan were intended to cause the death of approximately 30 million Slavs. But the important aspect is that this plan was to assure Nazi Germany the supply of provisions for a period of one year and, moreover, transform these lands into uninhabited spaces in which German families could be later be implanted.
*A Sinister Tradition*
In this manner, Hermann Göring, whose father was the first German governor in Namibia, was capable of telling his cohort Count Ciano, then Italy's Minister of Foreign Affairs: "This year, 20 to 30 million people will die of hunger in Russia. Perhaps it's better that way. Certain nations should be annihilated anyway [21] <#_ftn21>." Those who, in an extreme association of racist ideology and utilitarian motivation, programmed the extermination of 30 million Slavs could plan the same type of extermination without heed against another group, in this case the Jews, who were also considered inferior.
It's no coincidence that professor Wolfgang Abel, "entrusted with the high command of the armed forces to carry out anthropological studies on Soviet prisoners of war, proposed, among other options, the pure and simple elimination of the Russian people[22] <#_ftn22>." Before becoming his assistant, Professor Abel was a student of Professor Fischer. Together they worked to form the first scientific experts entrusted with selecting the persons who, guilty of not being Arian, were to be exterminated in Auschwitz or other camps[23] <#_ftn23>.
In terms of the Soviets: "On February 1, 1942, of the 3.3 million soldiers of the Red Army captured by the Germans, 2 million had already died in the German camps or during transport---in other words, 60% of the prisoners. If we disregard the first three weeks of the war, during which the first prisoners were able to survive thanks to their physical reserves, this figure corresponds to a mortality rate of 10,000 men each day[24] <#_ftn24>."
*Tragedy for Some, Benefits for Others*
The immense majority of Germans, happy to be on the right side of the fence, accepted the consumed act; that is, the exclusion of the non-Arians and their removal from any possible benefit whatsoever. It is evident that solidarity with the groups considered inferior was not a characteristic of the dominant culture during the period in question. Several centuries of propaganda and ideological conditioning in order to justify the terrorizing of the colonized and enslaved peoples could obviously neither favour nor preserve human sensibility or the altruistic sentiments of those who benefited from this system[25] <#_ftn25>.
As Aly pointed out: "The Nazi government revived the dream of a popular automobile, introduced the concept of vacations, until then practically unknown, doubled the number of holidays and began to develop mass tourism as we know today. (...) There were other equally accepted measures, such as tax exemptions on bonuses for night-shifts, Sundays and holidays given after the victory against France and up until recently considered to be social acquisitions. (...) Hitler favoured the average Arian in detriment to the vital minimum of other categories[26] <#_ftn26>."
The money pillaged from the European Jews and the countries under German occupation served the Nazi government to finance its social policies with which they intended to improve the living standards of the Arians. Thus, it's possible to comprehend that in the aftermath of the war there were so many Germans who could privately admit that the most prosperous period of their lives was experienced under the Nazi government, even during the war...
*Conclusion *
Colonial domination over other peoples has always created the indispensable conditions to ensure the functioning of the system of coldly regulated subjugation and dehumanization. This is how it developed in the concentration camp universe known as the Americas, where the colonial powers invented a judicial system within which the beastialiation of Blacks because they were Black was completely legal. In the 19^th Century, the British colonization of Australia resumed the old methods of genocide which had previously been employed in North America.
In Africa, the people of the Congo suffered their very own Adolf Hitler, embodied in the person of the King of Belgium. This criminal, not satisfied with having half of the population killed, had the right hand cut off of anybody who attempted to escape forced labour [27] <#_ftn27>.
In Namibia, colonial Germany committed its first genocide. The list is so large that we cannot name everything. There is sufficient information to understand that the Nazi enterprise of dehumanization is inscribed within a continuity marked without interruption by the colonial barbarity.
At the end of the war, the colonial powers, victorious, decreed that Nazism was incomprehensible and frightening, because behind the atrocities there was no economic rationality. As the utilitarian motivation was also invoked to guarantee the enterprises of dehumanization realized against other, non-Europeans, it thus resulted absolutely necessary that the Nazi enterprise of dehumanization was devoid of any utilitarian motivation.
This demand provides the background for the reductionist interpretation that has historically converted Nazism into an isolated phenomenon, focalizing the attention on the atrocities committed by the Nazis. In reality, the focalization of the atrocities committed by the Nazis permits an abstraction of the factors without which, it is important to know, this frightening disaster never would have reached the disproportion which we are all familiar with.
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[1] <#_ftnref1> In this respect, see Charles Verlinden, 'L'esclavage dans l'Europe médievale,' Volume 1, Peninsule Ibérique, France, 1955 ; Volume 2, 'Italie Colonies italiennes du Levant latin Empire Byzantin,' 1977.
[2] <#_ftnref2> Verlinden, 'L'esclavage dans l'Europe médiévale,' Volume 2, especially in regards to Chapter II, 'La traite vénitienne et la traite juive', p. 115 et seq. ; also see Chapter III, 'La traite de eunucos,' p. 981 et seq. This book, which can no longer be found in any French library, can be consulted at the libraries of the Centre Pompidou and at the Sorbonne.
[3] <#_ftnref3> Jacques Heers, 'Esclaves et domestiques au Moyen Âge dans le monde méditerranéen,' Paris, 1981, p. 12.
[4] <#_ftnref4> For more information see Tzvetan Todorov, 'La conquête de l'Amérique La question de l'autre,' Paris, 1982.
[5] <#_ftnref5> See Bartolomé de Las Casas, 'Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias,' Buenos Aires, 1966 as well as 'Historia de las Indias,' México, Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1951.
[6] <#_ftnref6> 'Afrique Noire Démographie Sol et Histoire,' Paris, 1996, the pioneering work of Louise Marie Diop Maes, will be of particular significance and value to the interested reader.
[7] <#_ftnref7> Louis Sala-Molins, 'Le code noir ou le calvaire de Canaan,' Paris, 1987.
[8] <#_ftnref8> Louis Sala-Molins, 'Les Misères des Lumières. Sous la Raison, l'outrage,' Paris, 1987.
[9] <#_ftnref9> In 1972, a group of illiterate peasants in Colombia appeared before a court in order to respond to a premeditated massacre committed against eighteen indigenous men, women and children. Because they could demonstrate that they did not know that it was a sin---much less a crime---to kill 'Indians', the accused were acquitted by a jury. For more information see Rosa Amelia Plumelle-Uribe, 'La férocité blanche Des non-Blancs aux non-Aryens Génocides occultés de 1492 à nos jours,' Paris, 2001; see also, German Castro Caycedo, 'Colombia amarga,'
Bogotá, 1986.
[10] <#_ftnref10> Sven Lindqvist, 'Exterminez toutes ces brutes. L'odysée d'un homme au cœur de la nuit et les origines du génocide européen,' Paris, 1999.
[11] <#_ftnref11> Aimé Césaire, 'Discours sur le colonialisme,' Paris, 1955.
[12] <#_ftnref12> Lindqvist, op. cit. , p.189-190.
[13] <#_ftnref13> Ibid, p. 192.
[14] <#_ftnref14> Götz Aly and Susanne Heim, 'Les architectes de l'extermination Auschwitz et la logique de l'anéantissement,' Paris, 2006, p. 25-26.
[15] <#_ftnref15> See Diana Lenton, 'La cuestión de los Indios y el genocidio en los tiempos de Roca : sus repercusiones en la prensa y la política,' SAAP- Sociedad Argentina de Análisis Político
www.saap.org.ar/esp/page/
[16] <#_ftnref16> Adam Hochschild, 'Les fantômes du roi Léopold II. Un holocauste oublié,' Paris, 1998.
[17] <#_ftnref17> Ingol Diener, 'Apartheid ! La cassure,' Paris, 1986.
[18] <#_ftnref18> Benno Muller-Hill, 'Science nazie, science de mort,' París, 1989, p. 194.
[19] <#_ftnref19> See Muller-Hill.
[20] <#_ftnref20> Aly and Heim, op. cit., p. 271-272
[21] <#_ftnref21> Ibid, p. 267.
[22] <#_ftnref22> Ibid, p.289
[23] <#_ftnref23> Muller-Hill, op. cit.
[24] <#_ftnref24> Götz Aly, 'Comment Hitler a acheté les Allemands,' Paris, 2005, p. 172.
[25] <#_ftnref25> See Plumelle-Uribe, op. cit.
[26] <#_ftnref26> Götz Aly, 'Comment Hitler a acheté les Allemands,' Paris, 9, p. 28.
[27] <#_ftnref27> Hochschild, op. cit.