The Great Replacement as a Crime (VI. Lemkin and Genocide)

The very first definition of genocide

(Note: this essay is part of a series.)

I have examined whether the Great Replacement matches the common definitions of genocide, especially the “official” one from the United Nations. However, it might be interesting to test it against the very first definition, which was written by Raphael Lemkin in 1944. He was a Polish-Jewish lawyer who, in the 1940s and ‘50s, coined the term “genocide” and lobbied for the United Nations convention against it.

I will quote his definition in full, dividing it into parts and commenting on each one.

By “genocide” we mean the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group. This new word, coined by the author to denote an old practice in its modern development, is made from the ancient Greek word genos (race, tribe) and the Latin cide (killing), thus corresponding in its formation to such words as tyrannicide, homicide, infanticide, etc.

Note the immediate use of the word “group”. Genocide is only possible because groups are a real thing. If they were not, genocide would be inconceivable and we would have only “mass murder”, which might capture the physical act (eg. killing many individuals) but would miss the significance and intent.

In addition, if the genocide does not entail actual killing (and Lemkin says it usually doesn’t) then it can only be perceived at all if one understands that a group is being attacked. Otherwise, the non-murderous actions taken against a set of individuals seem aimless, random and possibly even (as in the case of the Great Replacement) benign.

In short: the concept of genocide is built upon the concept of human (racial) groups, and genocide can only be real if human (racial) groups are real.

It is necessary to point all of this out because one of the intellectual “bulwarks” enabling the Great Replacement is the idea that there is no White race to be replaced, or any English ethnic group to be replaced, or Swedish, or German, etc. It is also necessary because the tendency of the centre and centre-right ever since 1945 has been to deny any group affiliation or care for such things. This (per)version of Classical Liberalism leaves them unable to combat, or even acknowledge, the Great Replacement. (See “right-wing” radio host Mike Graham’s various denials of the reality, for example.)

Generally speaking, genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by mass killings of all members of a nation.

This is very important. Lemkin is saying that genocide, as he intends the term, is usually not what people nowadays think of when they hear it (mass killing). That very violent and immediate version is, in his view, a rare subset of genocide, which he defines very broadly:

It is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves.

He stipulates that genocide must have the aim of “annihilating” the group. It would be impossible to argue with certainty that the Great Replacement will completely annihilate Europeans (even if that is its likely long-term result) or that that is its aim. However, this stipulation was not carried over to the UN’s 1948 definition, which is thus even broader than Lemkin’s original and easily met by the Great Replacement.

The objectives of such a plan would be the disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups

Most of these objectives are, as shown here, being achieved in every European country via the combination of mass immigration with the various artificial conditions that have been set up. The only thing you might say isn’t being disintegrated is language, although even that is being degraded by the erosion of standards in culture and education, and also “enrichment”.

Our “political and social institutions” have not been disintegrated, because in our homelands we are not a minority population whose assets can be disintegrated, but a majority population whose assets must rather be repurposed. In other words, since we are so numerous, our institutions are too prominent to be destroyed, but they can be subverted against us. And that is exactly what has happened. Every one of our institutions, ostensibly a bulwark of our existence, now works against it.

As for disintegrating our “culture, national feelings, religion” - the very purpose of “our” institutions today is to do this. It is not called “disintegration” of course, but “decolonising” or “diversifying”, etc. but the end result is multiple generations of Europeans who either do not know their own history or actively despise and renounce it.

As for “the economic existence” of European groups, that is threatened in a dozen different ways. One would be the syphoning of their wealth (via taxation) to state treasuries and from there to private corporations. Another would be the many schemes to help foreigners become wealthy in our societies, and especially to own property and businesses. For several years now, more London property has been owned by Indians than by English people. With economic wealth come cultural, social and political power - all of which should be ours in our society, but are instead going to foreigners, increasing their agency and reducing ours.

[The objectives of a genocide plan might also include] the destruction of the personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and even the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups.

Here is the version of “genocide” that exists in most people’s heads, and which is used to deny White Genocide. But as Lemkin says, direct killing of the ethnic group is only one of many ways to endanger its long-term existence. And indeed, as is implied by his next sentence, we shouldn’t dwell too much on the fates of individuals, because that can cloud the reality of what is happening to their group.

Genocide is directed against the national group as an entity, and the actions involved are directed against individuals, not in their individual capacity, but as members of the national group.

This is why it is so stupid when someone denies the Great Replacement by saying things like “who’s being replaced? I’m still here. You’re still here. Nobody’s being replaced!” In order to perceive the replacement, you have to perceive the group - then you will see that the group is slowly but steadily being replaced with other groups. If you perceive only individuals, you will be blind to what is actually going on. (And blindness here is neither an advantage nor a virtue. In life, it is no doubt best to turn a blind eye to some things, but can the preventable extinction of an ethnic group really be among them?)

Genocide has two phases: one, destruction of the national pattern of the oppressed group;

By “national pattern”, I think Lemkin means what he said earlier: “the political and social institutions… culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence [of a group]”. It is all of the apparatus that keeps a human group healthy, strong and aware of itself. As outlined earlier, the national pattern of every European nation has indeed been destroyed and repairing it made extremely difficult.

In each country, this is how it has been done:

1. the national pattern has been dissolved with multiculturalism, egalitarianism and nihilism, and the “hollowing out” of tradition via rank consumerism

2. the desire to preserve/restore the pattern has been demonised as illiberal, racist, fearful, irrational, immoral, and at any rate antithetical to multiculturalism and therefore impossible and outrageous

3. the idea that the country ever had a national pattern has been undermined (“Britain has always been multicultural!”)

4. the idea that the country’s main ethnic group exists (and could therefore have a pattern) has been undermined (“Britain is a nation of immigrants!”)

5. the very existence of the White race has been undermined (“we all came from Africa!”)

the other [phase of genocide is], the imposition of the national pattern of the oppressor. This imposition, in turn, may be made upon the oppressed population which is allowed to remain, or upon the territory alone, after removal of the population and the colonization of the area by the oppressor’s own nationals.

Now we run into a mismatch between Lemkin’s definition and the Great Replacement. This, along with the lack of actual killing, is the biggest obstacle to categorising the Great Replacement as a genocide. (It also impedes arguing that it is happening intentionally.)

In a “classical” genocide such as Lemkin was familiar with, an “oppressor” imposes its “national pattern” upon a conquered group and thus either destroys them or leaves them as atomised human material that it will absorb into itself. The Great Replacement is slightly more complicated than that. There are not two sides with one conquering the other, but two sides with one conquering the other by means of many “third parties”. There is an oppressor; its “pattern” is globalism, and it is imposing that pattern upon us, but not with a view to absorbing us into its nation, but rather having us absorbed into many others. The oppressor is doing everything but the final act of absorption, which it has out-sourced to others and made seem like a natural, inevitable and even very desirable process.

This is why it is possible for the naive to assume that the White race isn’t being destroyed: there is no visible oppressor doing it. Our oppressor remains unseen, behind the curtain, while his pet hordes do publicly that which he has privately worked to make inevitable. Bluntly: our oppressor has brought a set of foreign populations into our midst, destroyed our national pattern, and encouraged us to reproduce either with the foreigners or not at all. The end result will be genocide, but of an insidious form that has never occurred before in all of human history.