What is genocide? The Necro Calculus of Black Life (1)

I earned my first PhD in 2018 in International Relations, and all during that time I taught different classes, including human rights. While we examine the diverse regimes of human rights and their theoretical dispositions, whether universalist or relativist, I usually encourage my students to consider whose definitions have become universalized and accepted as standard, as well as how power relations are implicated in this process.

Regarding genocide, I asked my students whether numbers and specific criteria should be part of the definition we use to assess the gravity of a tragedy. Who defines the criteria for determining genocide: those who are suffering the loss or those who stand outside of it? The concepts of scale and insensitive criteria are problematic and have significantly influenced the definition of genocide. The US looked away from Rwanda and several other atrocities across Africa because they considered the scale and some other nonsensical criteria.

I am angry at those who say the scale of the north's genocide against Christians is not genocide because everyone is affected, even if some are more targeted and affected than others. People who say this are among those who participate in anti-Blackness. They reduce Black lives to numerical figures and some reprehensible criteria. This anti-Blackness rhetoric belittles the horror of slavery and various atrocities, yet it never attempts to do the same with the tragedy of people who don't look like me.

Definition is a power issue, as Toni Morrison wrote that definitions sometimes belong to the definer, not the defined; hence, the definer can vacillate about the meaning of terms and events. If you claim that the situation of northern Christians in Nigeria is not genocide, and I respond by saying that losing your wife and children is not considered grief unless it meets a specific definition or criteria, how does that make you feel?

That said, I acknowledge the complexity of certain Western groups' or denominations' politicization of Christianity and how that amplifies the rhetoric and weaponization of "Christianity under attack." This is a Christianity without Christ that hides under the flag of "Christian persecution" to further resource extraction, imperialism, and exploitation, but it should not detract from the fact that what is going on in northern Nigeria should concern every conscious soul. This Christianity without Christ disregards the needs of the "least of these" locally but advocates for causes abroad.

The displacement, dispossession, and pain of people because of their religious conviction in northern Nigeria did not start with this administration; it has been going on surreptitiously for decades and has only been intensified recently. My family was a victim of violence over 25 years ago.

For the person who speaks from both sides of his mouth, I hope one day we will define who is an advocate and who is an adversary. I like African Americans for many reasons, one of which is that at any point in time most of them know those who are for them, standing on business ten toes down, and those whose mouths move differently at every turn.

That being said, if you treat your children well and equally, outsiders will not come in and start advising you on how to do it.

I pause my social media hiatus to comment on this