Ten years ago a recrudescence of age-old ethnic tensions spilled over
into the worst bloodbath that Europe had witnessed since World War II.
The United Nations report duly noted the grisly details of the
Srebrenica massacre:
"The mortal remains of close to 2,500 men and boys have been found on
the surface, in mass graves, and in secondary burial sites. Several
thousand more men are still missing.Numerous eyewitness accounts, now
well corroborated by forensic evidence, attest to scenes of mass
slaughter of unarmed victims."
Apparently that report never made it to the desks of the UN bigwigs in
Turtle Bay.
Because a few years later the Security Council came out with a
resolution that made this
surreal claim: "women and children account for
the vast majority of those adversely affected by armed conflict."
Were the framers of the UN Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace, and Security
blissfully unaware of the Srebrenica carnage? Was the Bosnian massacre a
quirk of history?
Or is it possible the UN Security Council got it all wrong?
Last year political scientist Adam Jones came out with
Gendercide and
Genocide, a gem of a book that combs the historical record and comes to
conclusions that will certainly jolt the smug complacency of the
politically-correct.
The tome documents historical cases when women were targeted for
gendercide, including the practice of female infanticide, the
witch-hunts in Europe, and war rapes. But, horrific as they were, it
turns out those events are exceptions to the rule.
Professor Jones recites the grim litany of human tragedies that have
plagued our planet over the last 100 years. The Armenian genocide of
1915-1916. Stalin's Great Terror. The 1971 liberation war in East
Pakistan. Cambodia under Pol Pot. The Kurds in Iraq. Delhi, India after
the assassination of Indira Gandhi.
The tale of horrors continues to the present era: Peru, 1990. Sri Lanka,
1991. Bosnia-Herzegovina, 1991. Rwanda, 1997. Colombia, 1998. Kosovo,
1999. Kashmir, 1999. And of course, Srebrenica.
The pages of history reveal an awful truth: in each case, it was
innocent civilian men who were targeted for elimination. Jones concludes
that "noncombatant men have been and continue to be the most frequent
targets of mass killing and genocidal slaughter."
Why are men being targeted for this gender carnage? First, chivalrous
social mores seemingly place a higher premium on the lives of women. As
Leo Kuper put it, "While unarmed men seem fair game, the killing of
women and children arouses general revulsion."
Second, civilian men in the 15-55 year-old age range are prime recruits
for civil conflicts, so wiping out the male population becomes a
pre-emptive military tactic.
Some persons dismiss these facts, noting that since the perpetrators
were men, the deaths of their male victims are somehow less
consequential. Professor Jones evinces little patience for that
attitude, branding it "bigoted and dangerous."
Consider the practice of female genital circumcision, a procedure that
is performed by women. Has anyone ever dismissed the barbarity of this
ritual with the riposte that "after all, it's women who are brutalizing
their own kind"?
Likewise during the 1994 Rwanda genocide, Hutu women played a prominent
role in the brutalization of the Tutsi populace. Pauline Nyiramasuhuko,
the former Rwandan minister for family and women's affairs, personally
handpicked the "nicest" Tutsi women to be taken away and raped by the
Hutu militiamen. Nyiramasuhuko was later tried for war crimes by the
International Criminal Tribunal.
Did anyone in their right minds discount the anguish of those women who
were raped at the behest of Ms. Nyiramasuhuko because she was female?
Of course there are those who arrive at a vastly different
interpretation of world events. Hillary Clinton
once
told an astonished
audience, "Women have always been the primary victims of war" for the
reason that "Women lose their husbands, their fathers, their sons in
combat."
Yes, imagine those cold-hearted cads, allowing themselves to be tortured
and murdered, subjecting their mothers, wives, and daughters to such
inconvenience.
UN Resolution 1325 foreshadowed the pro-feminist hysteria that envelopes
the United Nations to the present day.
Just last month the UNESCO approved a resolution that proposes the UN
should pay greater attention to the health of women -- but ignored the
dire health problems of men. To make sure the irony didn't pass
unnoticed, UNESCO anointed its resolution with a grandiose title: the
Universal
Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights.
Yes, human rights and sexism are comfortable bedfellows at UNESCO.
Earlier this week UN ambassador John Bolton likened his first three
months on the job as being "caught in a time warp, with discussions they
could have had in the '60s, '70s, '80s." Bolton then called for a
"revolution of reform" at the world body.
But given all the foolishness and falsehoods that regularly emanate from
the UN, maybe it's a little too late to be talking of reform.
