Amid the genocides of the Uyghurs and Rohingya and the persistent terror of Hamas, Hezbollah, and al Qaeda, it is clear that our efforts to stop these murderous scourges have largely failed. Leaders declare, “Never again!” But the global reality is “Ever again.”
Perhaps we should ask, “What really causes these horrific outbreaks of violence?” Conventional wisdom blames genocides on “ancient hatreds” and explains terrorism as a response to both poverty and the legacy of Western colonialism. In this view, mass killings are the inevitable outcomes of impersonal forces, leaving little space for prevention. But these popular causation theories are profoundly wrong.
The “ancient hatreds” theory of genocides ignores the historical reality that rival ethnic groups have mostly lived side by side in peace. Genocides are the rare exception. And the poverty/colonialism theory of terrorism is rebutted by the fact that most terrorists have above-average incomes and education levels, and countries that were never colonized, such as Saudi Arabia, produce at least as many terrorists as do former colonies.
One significant clue to the causation puzzle is the fact that virtually all campaigns of genocide and terrorism are preceded and accompanied by massive outputs of “us-versus-them” hate propaganda, which targets the eventual victims. From Nazi Germany in the 1930s to al Qaeda, Hezbollah, and Hamas outposts in the 1990s, the local public discourse is flooded with a tsunami of hate propaganda, while more peaceful counternarratives are brutally suppressed.
Add to this mix the fact that both terrorists and perpetrators of genocide have been found to consist largely of ordinary people, lacking any distinctive pathologies or violent propensities. The perpetrators are not born that way; they are made and shaped by circumstances in their environment.
A further clue emerges from several psychology experiments conducted after World War II, which asked the question: How could so many people carry out the unthinkable atrocities of the Holocaust? The most famous of these — Stanley Milgram’s “shock-learner” experiments of the early 1960s — demonstrated that ordinary people, when asked to inflict terrible pain on others for some greater cause, will readily do so. The other experiments similarly reveal that ordinary people — that is, all of us — possess several hard-wired predispositions for extreme violence and cruelty, which are easily activated by the psychological triggers of mass hate campaigns.
In sum, the mass dissemination of “us-versus-them” ideologies of hatred, especially in the absence of any counternarrative, comprises a central, causal trigger of both genocidal and terrorist violence. This explains the deluge of hate propaganda that preceded the Nazi, Serbian, Rwandan, and virtually all other genocides. It also explains why the highest per capita production of terrorists occurs in the region most deeply saturated with ideological hate incitement through its state-controlled schools and media: the Middle East.
Accordingly, whenever we send our best and bravest abroad to hunt down the most dangerous terrorist groups, the next generation of terrorists in those same lands are already being indoctrinated to resume the fight once our troops go home. We will never reduce the ravages of terrorism and genocide without also targeting and eliminating their sources, namely, the ideologists, disseminators, and narratives of mass hatred.
At the same time, hate propaganda is not the sole cause of mass killings. Researchers have identified other risk factors for such atrocities, which include autocratic governance, suppression of basic rights, widespread corruption, and closed leadership structures. Interestingly, all of those other factors share one characteristic: They each negate one or more of the core features of liberal democracy.
And statistical analyses of state violence reveal another pertinent fact: The forms of governance least likely to generate genocidal or terrorist violence are stable, liberal democracies. Liberal governance also means less lethal governance.
To defeat the terrorists and to realize the post-Holocaust pledge of “Never again,” two policy avenues are critical. First, map, counter, confront, and disrupt the sources of mass ideological hate indoctrination. Diplomatic efforts, economic pressures, and targeted sanctions could do much to effect those objectives.
Second, wherever possible, support agents of liberalization and democracy in venues most at risk for ideologically driven mass violence. Liberalizers the world over look to the United States for support; they deserve our best efforts. Taken together, such a coordinated approach could save literally millions of lives around the world.
Henry Kopel is the author of the book War on Hate: How to Stop Genocide, Fight Terrorism, and Defend Freedom (Lexington Books/Rowman & Littlefield, 2021).
