genocide – Population Matters-USA

The map above, from Wikipedia, shows the extent of the Russian invasion as of 3/15/22

“We believe that widespread, effective and voluntary use of medically sound and individually acceptable birth control is an essential factor in any humane design to raise world living standards and achieve international peace.”

I read these words in Scientific American in 1960. It was close enough to World War II that I knew about the quest for the Germans for “lebensraum”, so it made intuitive sense.

Hitler was envious of the people who left Europe and settled the Americas. Immigrants were treated to unspoiled forests and fertile land, unlike what they had left behind in Europe. Those settlers used murder, disease and starvation to rid the land of the indigenous people who were already there. We descendants benefitted hugely from the Americas’ resources.

As part of the “Masterplan for the East”, Hitler and the Nazis invaded what is now Poland, Ukraine and other countries. This genocidal plot was to get rid the of the inhabitants of the rich land to the east and replace them with Germans. Fortunately, however, the Nazis were fighting on other fronts and the masterplan was only partially accomplished. Starvation, outright murder and disease were the Nazi tools of extermination.

The Russians took over after WW II, using similar techniques of annihilation. Stalin was just as cruel as the Nazis, and perhaps even more successful in killing. Although millions died, it was more than just luck that some survived. Survivors used whatever means they could to eke out a living. In 2008 my wife and I visited western Ukraine and met a distant family member who had been an OB-GYN in a town similar in size to Durango. (I have changed the family’s names.) Dimitri Kovalenko’s mother and grandmother planted plum trees during Stalin’s reign of terror, and sold prunes to pay Dimitri’s medical school tuition. After graduation, Dimitri was able to build two homes, one for his mother and the other where he raised his family.

When we visited, Dimitri’s wife, Iryna, was still working parttime as a pediatrician. Their two daughters, Kira and Natasha, were both in the same town. Kira, also a physician, lived in the house that Dimitri had built for his mother, a short walk away. Natasha had recently moved from Kherson, a large city to the south, to be with her elderly parents.

Kira’s husband, also a gynecologist, gave me a tour of the local hospital. The hospital was similar in many ways to what I was used to, but with some major differences. I remember a patient’s room as being drab, with no TV, and the equipment was similar to what we had in the USA 30 years earlier.

I have stayed in touch with this family. Dimitri’s health continued to deteriorate; he died 3 years ago. Iryna retired to help take care of him—she is now in her 80s. When the Russian invasion started, Kira and Natasha decided to leave Ukraine any way they could. Sasha wanted to stay in her home, understanding well the horrors she that might face. Fortunately, she has neighbors who will help take care of her.

The two younger women left Ukraine with only a small bag each, not knowing what the future held for them. They made their way to Moldova, then to Rumania and are now in Germany. They are safe there, living in the home of some kind strangers. Fortunately, they have had our help and the help of a friend who speaks German. I imagine that most of the Ukrainian refugees have no one who can translate for them, nor much money, nor friends in the USA to assist them.

US media talk about the millions of refugees from Ukraine. For me it is much more personal, knowing Dimitri’s family.

Many wars are over resources. Putin may want to take over the Ukraine’s rich agriculture and natural resources, including uranium, or it is possible that he is trying to reconstitute the Russian empire. What is clear is that Putin is a megalomaniac, and cannot be trusted. I don’t know if overpopulation is playing a part in the invasion of Ukraine, but in general, more people lead to more conflict.

Don’t Control Population this Way

There are many ways to decrease human numbers, and most of them should be shunned. Indeed, some of them are quite horrifying. In this and subsequent columns I’ll write about some of them.

It has been more than 20 years since the Rwandan genocide, but it stands out in my mind as the worst episode of human slaughter in recent history. Estimates of the number of people killed in a terrible 100-day period range from 1/2 million to a million. The population of Rwanda at that time was less than 8 million; a huge proportion of this small country’s people killed each other. In addition, an estimated 2 million were displaced or fled the country.

Genocide is the intentional destruction of a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. Theories about the causes of genocide include tribalism, autocratic rulers and lack of resources. An article about this genocide, “Remember Rwanda” by James Gasana was published in WorldWatch. Gasana is Rwandan and had held 2 different cabinet positions in that country. In this article he noted that murder was common where people went to bed hungry.

In 1994 Rwanda had an almost entirely agricultural economy and was overpopulated. As the population rose the size of landholdings shrank and the overworked land became less productive. Even if people wanted to limit their fertility, the predominant religion, Roman Catholicism, preached against “artificial” contraception.

That is in the past. With international help and amazing resilience, the Rwandan people have put that terrible part of their history behind them. However, another country appears to be enduring a religiously motivated genocide. The Rohingya people in Myanmar (Burma) are both an ethnic minority and, as Muslims, have different religious beliefs from the Buddhist majority.

Genocide Watch lists 10 stages that are seen in preparation for and carrying out a genocide: Classification, Symbolization, Discrimination, Dehumanization, Organization, Polarization, Preparation, Persecution, Extermination and Denial. Most of these stages can be seen with the treatment of the Rohingyas.

Although they live in Myanmar, the Rohingyas aren’t allowed citizenship classification. While they are not forced to wear identifying symbols, their freedom is restricted in other ways. They must live in ghettoes and are restricted by curfews–organization and polarization. Mobs attack Rohingya settlements while officials offer no protection–preparation. “Security” forces have killed thousands of Rohingyas while others have been tortured, “disappeared” or have suffered rape–extermination. The country admits to no wrongdoing–denial.

Perhaps the most dire of the measures against the Rohingyas is limitation of their reproductive rights. While there is no limitation on other people in Myanmar, the Rohingyas are only allowed to have two children. Apparently the Muslims tend to have larger families than the Buddhists in the same area. The state officials’ reason for this limitation is to “…ease tensions between Buddhists and their Muslim Rohingya neighbors.” Even if this is the true motivation, legislating the number of children in a family is wrong.

Unfortunately, Myanmar and Rwanda are not unique; there are many historical examples of peoples being singled out and exterminated. In the chapter on genocide, “The Great Big Book of Horrible Things” tallies an estimated 32 million deaths from genocides in the past 3 millennia. This includes a huge but unknown number of indigenous people killed in the Americas when we Europeans invaded.

Currently there are several countries where genocide is happening or is very likely. These include South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Yemen and the Democratic Republic of Congo, all of which have unstable governments and terrible records of civil rights.

What can we do to prevent genocide? In “Warning Signs of Genocide: an anthropological perspective” Drs. Gene and Barbara Anderson state that the most important protection against genocide is critical thinking–the process of independently analyzing, synthesizing, and evaluating information as a guide to behavior and beliefs. They have written a second book, “Halting Genocide in America”, in which they are concerned that some people in the USA are already taking steps along the road to genocide.

Genocide is perhaps the most vicious way to slow population growth, but there are several others on my list of means to reject. Nature tends to limit populations with disease and famine, over which we have only limited control. Some other ways of slowing growth are imposed by people and governments. These include eugenics, family size coercion, war, gun violence, and the Voluntary Extinction Movement. More about them in future essays.

The graph to the left shows a remarkable dip in the population of Rwanda, with the lowpoint in 1995. The numbers on the vertical axis are population in 1000s. Remember that population figures are approximate–especially in a less developed country.

Note the decrease started before the genocide, as people started to emigrate; and also note that the genocide didn’t seem to cause a permanent decrease in Rwanda’s population.

Update: Although this essay was written in 2015, I never published it on the blog. Since then I have been in Rwanda and witnessed both the horror of the genocide and also resilience of these wonderful people.