Yael Stein, Tamar Pileggi, Alex Barnea Burnley
In GPN Issue 1, we published a time line of statements of hate language and incitement (HL&I) by President Ahmadinejad, his predecessors, associates and other major figures of the Iranian ruling leadership.
In this issue, we update this timeline, but now assess each statement in terms of what types of hate language and incitement it represents.
Perpetrators use hate language to incite groups to commit genocide and other mass atrocities directed against vulnerable populations. Equally important, perpetrators use HL&I to silence, intimidate and desensitize bystanders and to signal intent.
This timeline shows that the leaders of the Iranian regime are continuing their genocidal incitement, as they continue to suppress human rights of their own people with ever increasing brutality, move towards nuclear capacity, support terror surrogates, and engage in terror themselves. The Islamic Regime’s motifs recycle those in Hitler’s Mein Mampf, and echo those in traditional Shiite texts. Our past work has shown that this incitement goes back to 1979-80, or thirty years, a period some two and a half times longer than that of the 12 year life span of the Nazi regime.
Click here for Timeline of Iranian incitement to genocide.
This project results from the work of GPN World Genocide Situation Room of the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide in Jerusalem (www.genocidepreventionnow.org) in conjunction with the Genocide Prevention Program of the Hebrew University-Hadassah School of Public Health and Community Medicine.
For more information, contact Yael Stein at yst.gpn@gmail.com
Yael Stein MD is a researcher-team member of the World Genocide Situation Room, the website of the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide in Jerusalem of GPN. She has experience in Occupational Medicine, Epidemiology and Hospital Administration and is currently studying towards a PhD degree in Public Health at the Hebrew University-Hadassah School of Public Health and Community Medicine. Yael describes herself as a "goal-oriented, idealistic entrepreneur, seeking spiritual and ethical fulfillment" in her work; "I focus on making a difference."
Tamar Pileggi studied for her BA at Atlantic University and Florida State University in Pre-Health and International Relations. She has volunteered for Shevet Achim, a non-profit amutah that provides life-saving heart surgeries to Palestinian children in Israel; Four Homes of Mercy, a home for physically and mentally handicapped children in the West Bank; French Hospital, a Catholic Hospice and Christ Church, an Anglican Church in Jerusalem.
Alex Barnea Burnley, MSc in Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict is Research Assistant and Project Manager of the World Genocide Situation Room section of GPN, the website of the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide in Jerusalem. He acted as project manager for UK relief work in Tsunami-affected Thailand and later as consultant to a Cambodian NGO - orphanage.
In this issue, we update this timeline, but now assess each statement in terms of what types of hate language and incitement it represents.
Perpetrators use hate language to incite groups to commit genocide and other mass atrocities directed against vulnerable populations. Equally important, perpetrators use HL&I to silence, intimidate and desensitize bystanders and to signal intent.
This timeline shows that the leaders of the Iranian regime are continuing their genocidal incitement, as they continue to suppress human rights of their own people with ever increasing brutality, move towards nuclear capacity, support terror surrogates, and engage in terror themselves. The Islamic Regime’s motifs recycle those in Hitler’s Mein Mampf, and echo those in traditional Shiite texts. Our past work has shown that this incitement goes back to 1979-80, or thirty years, a period some two and a half times longer than that of the 12 year life span of the Nazi regime.
- Standard definitions of incitement refer to something that incites or provokes; a means of arousing or stirring to action. Incitement to action can be cast in the form of threats, or threats phrased as predictions and prophecies, or praising persons who have carried out acts of genocide or genocidal terror, or elevating them to hero status.
- Hate language refers to terms which are used to dehumanize demonize, stigmatize, delegitimize, or slander groups defined by their national, ethnic, religious, racial, or political identity.
- Dehumanization refers to hate language which includes terms and metaphors-usually of epidemic disease, cancer, or physical decay from public health and medicine-- which induce disgust, revulsion, fear and hate for the other.
- Demonization usually invokes motifs overpowering danger and threat abd evil intent. Delegitimization refers to terms and motifs which deny the identity and political, national, ethnic or religious status of a group, and denigrate its status.
- Double standards are used to judge a group by norms not applied to all other groups, so as to cast the group or members of the group in an unfavorable light.
- Disinformation pertains to the spreading of misinformation with the aim of demonization or delegitimizing a group.
- Denial of past genocides –e.g. denial of the Armenian genocide, the Holocaust, or the Rwandan genocide, is used to lay the groundwork for future genocides. There are other forms of hate language, such as the use of euphemisms, and mirroring, as well.
Click here for Timeline of Iranian incitement to genocide.This project results from the work of GPN World Genocide Situation Room of the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide in Jerusalem (www.genocidepreventionnow.org) in conjunction with the Genocide Prevention Program of the Hebrew University-Hadassah School of Public Health and Community Medicine.
For more information, contact Yael Stein at yst.gpn@gmail.com
Yael Stein MD is a researcher-team member of the World Genocide Situation Room, the website of the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide in Jerusalem of GPN. She has experience in Occupational Medicine, Epidemiology and Hospital Administration and is currently studying towards a PhD degree in Public Health at the Hebrew University-Hadassah School of Public Health and Community Medicine. Yael describes herself as a "goal-oriented, idealistic entrepreneur, seeking spiritual and ethical fulfillment" in her work; "I focus on making a difference."Tamar Pileggi studied for her BA at Atlantic University and Florida State University in Pre-Health and International Relations. She has volunteered for Shevet Achim, a non-profit amutah that provides life-saving heart surgeries to Palestinian children in Israel; Four Homes of Mercy, a home for physically and mentally handicapped children in the West Bank; French Hospital, a Catholic Hospice and Christ Church, an Anglican Church in Jerusalem.Alex Barnea Burnley, MSc in Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict is Research Assistant and Project Manager of the World Genocide Situation Room section of GPN, the website of the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide in Jerusalem. He acted as project manager for UK relief work in Tsunami-affected Thailand and later as consultant to a Cambodian NGO - orphanage.
