warning sign of genocide means that action needs to be taken, I would propose
that: all countries stop any trade with Russia and that major states and
international organisations provide financial support for Ukraine, and publicly
condemn both the invasion and the toxifying rhetoric being used.
Similarly, Donald Trump has historically adopted and utilised toxifying
language when speaking about immigrants. Key examples of this include,
referring to Mexican immigrants “like an invasion” (2018), and that “these aren’t
people, they are animals” (2018). This perception of immigrants as animals that
are invading, has toxic connotations of disease carrying creatures that are
attacking in groups. The use of such terms so casually downplays the significance
of what is being said and normalises the use of such toxifying vocabulary. This is
particularly dangerous due to Trump’s immense support whereby the 2019 El
Paso shooter murdered twenty-two people “in response to the Hispanic invasion
of Texas” (Wong, 2019). Echoing the words of the then President. Additionally,
this is an early warning sign of genocide, as such rhetoric was prevalent in the
years prior to the Rwandan genocide.
When Trump was President, I would have suggested that leaders of states
publicly condemn Trump’s use of such language and highlight to everyone the
damaging impact it already has and can continue to have in terms of possible
genocide. Furthermore, these two modern examples have the potential to be
even more damaging than the events of Rwanda, as particularly in America there
is no limitation on media availability. Whereby such toxifying rhetoric used by
Trump and his supporters can be widespread across the country and therefore
normalised extremely easily.
In both examples of Putin and Trump, despite neither having committed
genocide, the toxification model provides a strong identifier for the potential for
early warning. However, there are some limitations to Neilsen’s model. Firstly,
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