THE STANDING ROCK PROTEST: GENOCIDE, ECOCIDE, & CHANGE, Part 2

An 1899 chromolithograph of U.S. cavalry pursuing American Indians, artist unknown. Source: Werner Company, Akron, Ohio. Published before 1923. In the public domain.
An 1899 chromolithograph of U.S. cavalry pursuing American Indians, artist unknown. Source: Werner Company, Akron, Ohio. Published before 1923. In the public domain.

by Anthony J. Marsella

PATHWAYS TO GENOCIDE

I do not know what actions the Trump presidential administration will take regarding the energy-genocide-ecocide tradeoff in which “Oil” always seems to win. I do know, however, what actions the existing Obama administration has taken! Oil trumps people! Oil trumps pollution! Oil trumps reason! It is ecocide! All aspects of nature are at risk: water, air, land, animals, and people. It is genocide! Do we forget the man-made disasters associated with oil production? Imagine the consequences of a pipeline rupture for the upper Missouri River! Remember! It is lawys after fact apologies and inadequate compensations. Too late!

Standing Rock now is symbolic with “cide.” It is ecocide, genocide, suicide, and nationcide. (See www.fun-with-words.com, for a list of hundreds of words ending in “cide.”) In all instances, “cide” refers to the act of killing.

Yes, it is Genocide! This traumatic frightening term has been commandeered by so many others across the world, justified in all instances, but now reluctantly assigned to the destruction, violence, and war characterizing centuries of abuse against the Native American Indians. It is a final battle, apocryphal in proportion.

Genocide is a term coined in 1944 by Raphael Lemkin to describe the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group. It is defined in Article 2 of the  Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG) of 1948 as “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the groups conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. (Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Note: “ethnical”, although unusual, is found in several dictionaries) (Wikipedia Website).

The pathways to Genocide are many; each pathway carries with it the potential for destruction of a people and a way-of-life. The push is always the same! “You are either with us or against us,” demonic leaders cry as they seek total control. Homogenization is sought; a world of total agreement and conformity to a catastrophic vision in which protests must be subdued, even if it requires the destruction of lives and ways-of-living.

Anthony J. Marsella, Ph.D., a  member of the TRANSCEND Network, is a past president of Psychologists for Social Responsibility, emeritus professor of psychology at the University of Hawaii, and past director of the World Health Organization Psychiatric Research Center in Honolulu. He is known nationally and internationally as a pioneer figure in the study of culture and psychopathology who challenged the ethnocentrism and racial biases of many assumptions, theories, and practices in psychology and psychiatry. In more recent years, he has been writing and lecturing on peace and social justice. He has published 15 edited books, and more than 250 articles, chapters, book reviews, and popular pieces. He can be reached at marsella@hawaii.edu.