1999 Tulane International Development Seminar Series

Tulane Institute for International Development Invites you to a Seminar on:

"The Seven Stages of Genocide"
Speaker:
Dr. Gregory Stanton

Materials:
Seven Stages of Genocide
The Campaign to End Genocide
Audio:
Introduction
First half
Second half
Q/A/Discussion

Genocide has seven stages or operational processes.  Each stage reinforces the others.  A strategy to attack genocide should attack each stage, each process.   The seven stages of genocide are classification, symbolization, dehumanization, organization, polarization, identification, and extermination. Classification is the "us vs. them" stage. Symbolization includes naming and yellow stars.   Dehumanization turns ordinary human classification into genocidal vilification: labeling people as vermin or cockroaches.  Organization is the collective stage of genocide which is always carried out by groups, usually with the support of the state.

Polarization carries a society downward in a whirlpool of killings that drives out the moderate center.  Identification is the stage of death lists, maps, and house marking.  Extermination is the "final solution."  At each of these stages, specific counter-steps can be taken to stop the genocidal process, steps that can be promoted by both local and international institutions.  These targets for intervention will be discussed in detail at the presentation. 

About the Speaker:      Dr. Gregory Stanton has studied and worked against genocide for over twenty years.   He is an international lawyer with a J.D. from Yale Law School, a cultural anthropologist with a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, and a graduate of Harvard Divinity School and Oberlin College.  He has been a law professor at Washington and Lee and American Universities, a Foreign Service Officer with the State Department, a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Ivory Coast, and a relief program field director in Cambodia. Dr. Stanton founded the Cambodian Genocide Project at Yale in 1982, drafted the U.N. Security Council resolutions that created the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and is the founder of Genocide Watch.  Currently he is the Coordinator of the Washington Working Group on the International Criminal Court for the World Federalist Association in Washington, D.C. and is Director of the Campaign to End Genocide, an international coalition of human rights, educational, legal, religious, and civic groups dedicated to preventing genocide.