“History and Mass-Murder”
(Part VII of History and Sacrificial Death)
by Richard A. Koenigsberg

“History and Mass-Murder” appears below.
Click here to read the complete paper, History and Sacrificial Death.

"The creation of 'History' requires: (1) Political leaders who persuade human beings to perform acts of violence. (2) People (journalists and historians) who record performances of political violence. It is not as if the violent acts that constitute history are separate from the recording of these acts. Journalists and historians are active participants, not bystanders. Their role is to 'witness' violent political acts, and to thus create 'history' by recording them."

"Friedrich Nietzsche wrote a book entitled Human, All Too Human (1878). 'History' is made by human beings who aspire to be more than human. Many of us embrace this domain of 'history'—a realm of being that seems to go beyond ordinary human existence.

"Within this superhuman domain, human beings create transcendental ideologies—for which people die and kill. Sacrificial death seeks to prove that there is 'something else' beyond mere human existence. Killing and dying in warfare is undertaken to confirm the existence of this something else."


VII. HISTORY AND MASS-MURDER

An Atlantic Monthly article by Mark Bower (“Tales of the Tyrant,” May 2002) posed the question: "What does Saddam want?" Bower concludes that Hussein was primarily interested in fame, desiring above all to be "admired, remembered and revered." He notes that a 19 volume official biography was mandatory reading for Iraqi government officials.

Bowden concludes that Hussein’s bloody, single-minded pursuit of power seems to have been motivated primarily by "ego" or "vanity." It is not difficult to agree with this interpretation. However, are we willing to say the same about other violent political leaders—like Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin and Mao—that they were motivated primarily by ego and vanity?

Rudolph Hess often introduced his Fuhrer by declaring, "Hitler is Germany, just as Germany is Hitler." Men like Hitler, Stalin and Mao identify their "egos" with the ideology that they promote—an ideology they insist has the capacity to transform the world. "History" comes into being when political leaders authorize killing and dying in the name of an ideology with which they identify.

Sheikh Abdullah Azzam was an Islamic revolutionary whose thought exerted a significant influence upon Bin Laden. In "Martyrs: The Building Blocks of Nations" he sets forth a philosophy of history. "History," Azzam writes, does not write its lines "except with blood." Glory, he says, does not build its lofty edifice "except with skulls." Honor and respect cannot be established except on a "foundation of cripples and corpses."

Saddam Hussein put forth a similar philosophy of history. In his speech of January 6, 2003, he stated: "Our view of our history as a nation is tantamount to faith." History, he says, is a record of "sacrifices made in blood." What raises history and elevates it to the status of belief, according to Hussein, is the fact that "sacred blood is shed in the most crucial situations."

In Blood Sacrifice and the Nation (1998), American social theorist Carolyn Marvin proposes that what is really true in any society is what is "worth killing for,” and what citizens may be compelled to “sacrifice their lives for." Collective forms of violence perform a validation function. Social groups generate episodes of political violence in order to establish the truth of the ideology with which the group identifies.

Leaders promote collective violence in the name of cultural ideals such as "communism," or "Germany," or "Allah," or "freedom and democracy." Violent political performances (acts of war, genocide and terror) are undertaken in order to confer reality upon these ideologies. Violence is the way a society demonstrates that it takes its ideals seriously.

Of course, we tend to buy in to these violent political demonstrations. We find it difficult to imagine that those episodes of mass-murder that are the stuff of “history”—are full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. It seems inconceivable that wars and acts of genocide are undertaken in the name of no-thing. It's comforting to imagine that political mass-murder occurs in the name of some-thing.

"History" comes into being when a society or group produces death and destruction in the name of its ideology. Hitler, Stalin and Mao are remembered—not because of their contributions to civilization—but by virtue of the vast numbers of people that they killed. As Azzam puts it, the glory of an ideology or belief system builds upon an "edifice of skulls." The honor or respect accorded to an idea or ideal—its preeminence in history—grows out of a foundation of "cripples and corpses."

"Significance" is conferred upon a leader and his ideology based on the quantity of people killed in the name of the ideology that the leader represents. This is why historians are so keen to document the number of people that have died in a particular war, battle, genocidal episode, or act of terror. Historians establish the importance of an event by "counting skulls." History is the record of sacrificial dying that has occurred in relationship to ideologies that seek to transform the world.

Hitler, Stalin and Mao have established their places in history based on the prodigious number of people who died as a result of their political acts. Their reputations are built upon a foundation of "cripples and corpses." If history, as Saddam Hussein put it, is a record of "sacrifices made in blood," then men like Hitler, Stalin and Mao are the greatest history-makers—because they caused the greatest amount of blood to be shed.

Saddam Hussein too thought of himself as a "world historic personality" (a phrase Hitler often used to describe himself). He initiated wars and committed acts of genocide that led to the deaths of hundreds-of-thousands of people. Hussein conceived of himself as a brutal, pitiless dictator—in the mold of Stalin. However, in spite of his effort to play the role of brutal dictator—and the quantity of death, pain and suffering that he produced—Saddam Hussein somehow seemed clownish. He did not come across as a world-historic personality.

As post-modernism developed, it became more difficult to embrace and promote “grand narratives.” We became skeptical of politicians—like Hussein—who put forth grandiose claims. Francis Fukuyama’s influential book, The End of History and the Last Man was published in 1992. I interpret this phrase—the end of history—to mean that a certain kind of history begins to fade away when people no longer are willing to kill and die in the name of sacred ideologies.

If history is a record of sacrificial death enacted in the name of empires or nations or ideologies—then history begins to come to an end when people lose the will or desire to sacrifice their lives for the sake of a sacred ideal. If human beings are not willing to die and kill to establish the truth or validity of a sacred ideology—then what becomes of “history?”

Sheikh Abdullah Azzam wrote that the life of the Muslim Ummah is solely dependent on the "ink of its scholars and the blood of its martyrs." What is more beautiful, he says, than the writing of the Ummah’s history with "both the ink of a scholar and his blood"—so that the map of Islamic history becomes colored with two lines: "One of them black, and that is what the scholar wrote with the ink of his pen; and the other one red, and that is what the martyr wrote with his blood."

The creation of “History” requires: (1) Political leaders who persuade other human beings to perform acts of violence in the name of an ideology. (2) People (journalists and historians) who record performances of political violence. It is not as if the violent acts that constitute history are separate from the recording of these actions. Journalists and historians are active participants, not merely bystanders who observe what has occurred. Their role is to "witness" violent political acts, and to create “history” by recording these acts.

Human beings who strive to “make history,” we may hypothesize, are not unaware of the dynamics of history creation. They know that their acts of mass-murder are being observed and recorded by journalists and will be chronicled by historians after they have passed away. The worst thing that can happen to a political figure who seeks recognition is that he will be relegated to the the “dustbin of history” (Trotsky, 1917).

Events most likely to be recorded are those that result in the deaths of large numbers of people. Men like Stalin, Hitler and Mao become famous by virtue of the large number of deaths that they have caused. Radical political leaders generate episodes of mass-murder and are recognized and remembered for the havoc that they have wrought—in the name of ideologies they hope will transform the world.

Leaders slaughter people in order to confer reality upon the ideologies they represent. Stalin and communism are not separate phenomena. Hitler and Nazism are not separate phenomena. Leaders murder in a spirit of righteousness because their actions are undertaken in the name of maintaining or regenerating or perpetuating a sacred ideal. Hitler declared: “We may be humane, but if we rescue Germany we have performed the greatest deed in the world.”

Friedrich Nietzsche wrote a book entitled Human, All Too Human (1878). "History" is made by human beings who aspire to be more than human. Many of us embrace this domain of “history”—a realm of being that seems to consist of phenomena that go beyond ordinary human existence.

In the name of this superhuman domain of existence, human beings create transcendental ideologies—for which people die and kill. Sacrificial death seeks to prove that there is “something else” beyond mere human existence. Killing and dying in warfare is undertaken in order confirm the existence of this something else.

The desire for sacrificial death grows out of our attachment to ideologies that we conceive as absolutes. In order to provide evidence that an ideology is true, a society or group of people kills and dies in the name of this ideology. Political violence (war, genocide and terrorism) represents a mechanism of validation: proof of the pudding.