Death Policies II

In the 20th century, the culmination of necropolitics occurred in the domains of Nazi Germany, where millions of people, especially Jews, were systematically murdered in extermination camps, and in the Stalinist USSR, where millions died of starvation and thousands were executed. To prevent further total crimes, the international community (the United Nations) adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Today, not only have zones of exception and death multiplied, but the international legal framework that should favor the resolution of international conflicts through negotiation and prevent the violation of the laws of war and humanitarian law is being broken. The invasion of Ukraine, the war in Gaza, and now the conflict between Israel and Iran have further opened the doors to the demons.

The fear of a regional war in the Middle East, which some analysts would consider a prelude to a new world war, and the media's tendency to focus on the latest news, threatens to divert attention from Gaza and Ukraine, conflicts where war crimes and crimes against humanity have been committed, such as the bombing of hospitals, schools, and residential areas, and the brutality of the civilian population. While violations of the rules of war have long multiplied worldwide, the destruction of basic infrastructure in Gaza, the blockade, and subsequent reduction in food supplies are bringing the population to the brink of famine, as documented by the neutral international organization Doctors Without Borders. The disdain of the terrorist group Hamas and the Israeli government for human life is evident. To the thousands of lives cut short or maimed in Israel by the criminal terrorist incursion, To the 55,000 deaths and more than 100,000 injuries or amputations caused by the bombing and attacks in Gaza, thousands more children will suffer a slow death or stunted growth.

In Ukraine, where the illegal Russian invasion has escalated into violence, there have been not only obvious war crimes in the destruction of cities and countryside, but also torture, sexual violence, and the confinement of journalists and "opposition members" in Russian prisons where they are tortured or murdered (The Guardian). Furthermore, as documented by the Yale School of Medicine and the Institute for the Study of War, the Russian government organized the systematic abduction of tens or hundreds of thousands of children from occupied areas, bringing them to Russia where they would be "adopted" and "re-educated" by local families. Thus, the destruction of territory and cultural heritage is compounded by the tearing apart of families and communities.

In these and other cases, warlike rhetoric and the demonization of the "Other" weaken empathy and solidarity. As Judith Butler wrote, in the wake of US war propaganda after 9/11, these discourses dictate that some lives deserve to be mourned and others that do not. Adopting this perspective in internal or international conflicts implies abandoning a sense of humanity and favoring the rise of the politics of cruelty with which authoritarian governments seek to justify the violation of human rights or the denial of civil rights, today against some ("enemies"), tomorrow against everyone.

Naming a few places where horror is destroying lives, cities, and fields, and suffocating all hope for a livable future should not blind us to the social suffering in many other regions of the planet, where capitalist-militarist rationality is producing the worst monsters. The enthronement of money as the supreme value, the denial of the interdependence of human beings and of humankind with nature, for the benefit of a selfish international elite eager for power and wealth, puts our very survival at risk.

Actively opposing the politics of death in our country, where we bear the shame of more than 120,000 missing persons, would be a first step toward reclaiming our own humanity.