Restoring peace and coexistence in a divided society

Although the genocide committed in Bangladesh in 1971 meets the criteria set forth in the Genocide Convention, it has yet to receive formal recognition from the United Nations. Bangladesh is not alone in this regard. The United Nations has not formally recognised other major genocides either, including those in Armenia, Sudan, and Indonesia.

While these atrocities are widely acknowledged within academic scholarship, formal recognition has remained elusive due to the geopolitical interests of the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and the broader dynamics of global politics.

Alongside the ongoing struggle for legal and political recognition, however, the global academic community has increasingly shifted its focus toward genocide prevention. In particular, sociologist Helen Fein's Accounting for Genocide (1979) and Leo Kuper's Genocide: Its Political Use in the Twentieth Century (1981) were instrumental in establishing genocide studies as a distinct academic discipline. 

The academic world no longer confines discussions of genocide prevention to questions of justice or punishment. Increasingly, greater emphasis is being placed on how to identify the early warning signs of genocide and how to prevent it before it unfolds.

With these concerns in mind, the Scheidt Family Seminar on Genocide Studies and Prevention has been held annually for the past eight years at the University of Connecticut in the United States as a week-long academic seminar. I had the opportunity to participate in this year''s seminar, held in June.

Throughout the week, alongside sessions led by other scholars, the seminars director, Dr. James Waller, discussed the various stages of genocide prevention. He also elaborates on these ideas in his book Confronting Evil: Engaging Our Responsibility to Prevent Genocide.
In his work, Waller organises the global theory and framework of genocide prevention into three broad stages: primary prevention before genocide occurs, secondary prevention during the course of genocide, and tertiary prevention in the aftermath of genocide.

His framework is particularly relevant to Bangladesh, as no comparable preventive strategy was evident either during the 1971 genocide or in the various episodes of political and social violence that have occurred in the country since then.

Moreover, there has been little serious reflection at the state or policy-making level on whether Bangladesh has truly succeeded in ensuring peace and coexistence in the aftermath of violence.

The first component of Waller's model is primary risk assessment, identifying early warning signs and taking preventive action so that genocide never occurs in the first place.

The second component is secondary prevention, which seeks to reduce the scale of atrocities and human suffering through immediate and direct intervention once genocide has begun.

The third component is tertiary prevention, which focuses on rebuilding post-violence societies by fostering resilience and the capacity to recover from devastation, thereby protecting society against the recurrence of such atrocities in the future.

The three stages can be better understood through a closer examination with examples.

The first stage, primary risk assessment, is reflected in the annual lists published by various international human rights organizations identifying countries at risk of mass violence. The key indicators used in these assessments generally point to the characteristics of deeply divided societies.

A defining feature of such societies is bipolar polarisation. When a population becomes split into two sharply opposing groups based on class, religion, language, or political identity, and the divisions between them become deeply entrenched, opportunities for mutual trust and dialogue diminish. Those in positions of power often exploit and intensify these divisions to advance partisan political interests. A review of Bangladesh's political history over the past several decades reveals precisely such a deeply divided society, marked by steadily increasing intolerance and confrontation among political parties.

One might ask why the concept of a divided society is relevant to understanding the occurrence of genocide.

The explanation offered by Adrian Guelke, Professor of Politics at Queen's University Belfast, is instructive in this regard. According to Guelke, in deeply divided societies, entrenched lines of division become institutionalized and persist over long periods, creating conditions in which the threat of violence between different segments of society remains ever present.

Even when early warning signs are identified, however, political considerations at the national or international level often make violence impossible to prevent. For example, although Myanmar remained at the top of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's annual genocide risk assessment for three consecutive years, the Rohingya genocide in 2017 was not prevented.

Even nearly a decade after the genocide, powerful neighboring states such as India and China continue to prioritise geopolitical and commercial interests over accountability, leaving them largely ineffective in facilitating the repatriation of the Rohingya. In other words, without the political will of the international community, early warning alone is insufficient to stop genocide.

When primary prevention fails, the second stage—secondary prevention—comes into play. Once genocide or large-scale violence has begun, the objective is to reduce the scale of atrocities and human suffering through immediate intervention.

Such intervention may take two forms: cooperative negotiation—such as the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement in Bosnia, which brought the genocide to an end through diplomatic negotiations—or the imposition of punitive economic and military sanctions. Yet these secondary interventions have themselves often been shaped by the political interests of Western powers.
During the 1971 genocide in Bangladesh, for instance, influential states such as the United States and Saudi Arabia exerted no meaningful pressure on the Pakistani government, reflecting the priorities of their own foreign policy and diplomatic calculations.

The third stage is the most important—and the one most relevant to Bangladesh's present circumstances. It focuses on rebuilding peace, restoring coexistence, and repairing fractured social relationships after violence has ended, so that the cycle of mass violence is not repeated. (For example, in response to the ethnic violence in Darfur, the United Nations imposed an arms embargo and froze the assets of designated leaders in 2004.) According to Waller, justice, truth-telling, and the preservation of collective memory constitute the foundations of this final stage of prevention.

During such periods of transition, different countries adopt different approaches based on their own historical and political contexts. Notable examples include South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission and Rwanda's community-based traditional dispute resolution mechanism, the Gacaca courts.

Following Bangladesh''s recent July mass uprising, the interim government has placed its primary emphasis on judicial accountability. Although there were initial discussions at the policy-making level about establishing a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, no tangible progress has since been made.

Yet, in Bangladesh''s deeply polarised and divided political landscape, there is no viable alternative to reconciliation if the country is to achieve lasting peace and restore coexistence.

The central point is this: when primary prevention strategies fail and secondary measures also prove incapable of stopping genocidal crimes, what ultimately remains is a fractured society. Breaking this deadly cycle of violence requires a fundamental transformation of society itself.

In the context of Bangladesh, following the 1971 genocide and the successive waves of large-scale political violence that have occurred since, there has unfortunately been no coordinated or institutional effort to foster long-term unity and coexistence in a deeply divided society. While responsibility for this final stage of prevention rests primarily with the state, meaningful international support is also indispensable for building such preventive capacity.

In other words, without the political will of the international community, early warning alone is insufficient to prevent state-sponsored genocide.
If we are to build a society free from violence by learning from the historical mistakes of the past, the preventive theories and approaches developed within genocide studies deserve serious consideration.
James Waller's three-tiered model of genocide prevention offers a potentially valuable framework for Bangladesh to foster coexistence among political parties, reduce social polarisation, and prevent future large-scale violence.

* Umme Wara is Associate Professor, Department of Criminology, University of Dhaka
* The views expressed here are those of the author.
* This article appeared in Bengali in Prothom Alo print and online and has been translated by Ayesha Kabir for Prothom Alo English Online