Dehumanizing Language: A Dire Warning

"It's such a waste - to look at all others and only hope to see ourselves"

-Nathan Phelps

Last month, I went on a week-long trip to Germany to view historical sites relating to World War II and the Holocaust. While there, I visited the site of the former Dachau Concentration Camp, where over 41,000 Jews, Roma, Gypsies, Poles, and other enemies of the Nazi regime were brutally murdered en masse by the Nazis between 1933 and 1945. I saw the camp's gas chamber, the barracks, the whipping block, the graves of ashes, the barbed-wire fence, the guard towers, and the firing range where prisoners were used for target practice by the SS.

While I was there, one question kept ringing through my head: How could anyone be so inhuman and so cruel to his fellow man? How can anyone perpetrate this kind of inhumanity on others simply for being different than they are?

The Holocaust was by no means the only genocide. It wasn't the first racial extermination program, nor was it the last. Since 1945, we have seen genocide rear its ugly head in places like Cambodia, Bosnia, Bangladesh, East Timor, Kurdistan, Rwanda, the Congo, Darfur, and, now, Burma. 

Millions of innocent people have been slaughtered simply for being a different color, worshipping a different god, speaking a different language, or belonging to a different ethnic group.

Among these different genocides and mass killings, there is one constant consistency: Dehumanizing language. Dehumanization and demonization of "the other" is all too common both before and during a genocide. 

If one can dehumanize a perceived enemy, and convince people to see "the other" as subhuman, then it is much easier for his comrades to carry out the persecution and extermination of "the other" without reservation.

And that is exactly what has happened. 

During the Holocaust, the Nazis referred to Jews as "untermenschen" ("subhumans") and "rats". Racist and anti-Semitic movies, children's books, cartoons, toys, board games, and even decorations were produced during the Nazi regime, portraying Jews as greedy and scheming. Children were taught lessons with anti-Semitic undertones in school, and one textbook referred to Jews as a "poisonous mushroom".

In Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge denounced political opponents, intellectuals, and ethnic minorities as "dangkow" ("worms") and "parasites" who needed to be "weeded out". By exterminating ethnic minorities, the Khmer Rouge said, Cambodians would be "cleansing the country" and working towards "a purification of the populace".

During the Rwandan genocide in 1994, Hutu extremists referred to the ethnic Tutsi minority as "inyenzi" ("cockroaches") and "inzoka" ("snakes"). Extremist hate radio stations like RTLM broadcast racist, anti-Tutsi propaganda on a daily basis, encouraging Hutus to slaughter their Tutsi neighbors and transform Rwanda into a Hutu ethnostate. The radio even broadcast racist music to spread their messages of hate.

"Let us rejoice, friends! The cockroaches are no more!", blared one notorious song. "Let us rejoice friends! God is merciful to us!"

A segment from an RTLM broadcast, demonstrating the racist, dehumanizing rhetoric that Hutu extremists used to degrade the Tutsi minority during the Rwandan genocide.

And today, in Burma, extremist Buddhists have referred to the Rohingya minority as "dogs" and "animals" and call for a "cleansing" of Burma. Since 2017, more than 10,000 Rohingya have been killed by Buddhist nationalists, and hundreds of thousands have been displaced from their homes while extremists have been spurred on by fake news and racist rhetoric from Buddhist nationalists.

"[The Rohingya] are like African Carps!", commented the extremist Buddhist monk Ashin Wirathu, nicknamed the "Burmese bin Laden" for his vile rhetoric. "They breed rapidly, have violent behavior, and eat their own kind and other fishes! They destroy the natural resources and beauty underwater!"

Recently, we have seen this dehumanizing rhetoric take hold in the United States, and it has been propagated not just by extremist media pundits but even by the President of the United States himself.

President Trump recently went on the attack against four Democratic congresswomen, one of whom, Ilhan Omar, is a Somali refugee, and demanded that they "go back" to their "broken and crime-infested countries". Just last week, at a Trump rally in North Carolina, Trump supporters parroted the president's rhetoric, chanting "Send her back!" after Trump mentioned Omar during the rally.

This isn't the first time that Trump has engaged in such divisive rhetoric. Since he announced his candidacy for president in 2015, Trump has demonized and vilified immigrants and Muslims. He denounced illegal immigrants as "rapists" and "drug dealers" who are "coming with diseases" and "invading our country". He has called for a ban on Muslims from entering the US, and once claimed that "Islam hates us". 

Even more worrisome is the dehumanizing rhetoric that Trump has engaged in. He recently compared South American asylum seekers to MS-13 (a violent Hispanic street gang) and said of them: "These are not people. These are animals".

At a rally in 2017, Trump also compared the border situation with a poem about a snake biting its host, and warned against allowing illegal immigrants into the country.

"You knew damn well I was a snake when you let me in!", Trump recited from the poem, comparing the snake, in this fashion, with illegal immigrants.

This rhetoric is extremely dangerous. It echoes the messages of division and hate that we saw in Germany, Rwanda, and Burma. It is a dire warning of what is in store in the future. And to listen to Trump's quotes and compare it with quotes from Rwanda's extremist RTLM radio station is, to say the least, quite frightening.

For example, Trump's "These are not people. These are animals" comment is reminiscent of a quote from RTLM referring to the Tutsis: "You will find they look hideous with their bushy hair and beards full of fleas. They look like animals. Actually, they are animals!"

The "send her back" chant about Ilhan Omar is also reminiscent of RTLM. Hutu extremists denounced the Tutsi minority as an "impurity" and "invaders" who had "come from Ethiopia".

"Rwanda is our Hutu land!", snarled an RTLM pundit. "All cockroaches must go back to Ethiopia, and they must go back in coffins!"

Furthermore, Trump's recent comment about Omar and her colleagues, saying of them "I don't believe [they] are capable of loving our country" - that is, yet again, eerily similar to the propaganda spewed by RTLM: "Rwanda belongs to those who truly defend it! And you, cockroaches, are not real Rwandans!"

And, lastly, Trump's comment about illegal immigrants ("You knew damn well I was a snake when you let me in!") is eerily reminiscent of a quote from Hutu extremist Leon Mugesera, who said this of the Tutsis: "Consider this as gospel! If you allow a snake to live amongst you, it's you who will be exterminated!"

I could go on, but you get the idea. This provocative, divisive, and dehumanizing language propagated by Trump and his supporters is dangerous and detrimental to everything this country stands for. This rhetoric fuels resentment, division, and hatred between Americans. We have already seen a sharp increase in racist and anti-Semitic hate crimes in the US since the 2016 election. Hate groups are at an all-time high, and extremists who were once relegated to fringe corners of the internet are now having their messages broadcast from the Oval Office itself.

We cannot afford to let this language become normalized. It is not normal, and it should never be normal. We've seen where this path ends, and it never ends well for anyone.