Samenvatting

The politization of the concept of genocide by Western states has been severely criticised, because it has led to an impunity for genocidal crimes. In certain instances however, such criticism has contributed to the dynamic of victimization, instead of resisting it. The article discusses how Professor Edward S. Herman and journalist David Peterson’s staunch criticism of the politics of genocide amounts to a brazen denial of the genocide against the Tutsi which recycles much of the extremist discourse of the former Rwandan authorities that were implicated in genocide. In this case Herman and Peterson’s resistance against the politics of genocide has profound implications, several of which the article will address.