The other significant instance of Chomsky’s alleged genocide denial is in regards to the Bosnian genocide. Chomsky employed a similar style of scepticism to the mainstream media narrative regarding genocide in Bosnia as he had during the Cambodian Genocide – scepticism that was at times healthy, and at times a bit much. The evidence coming out of Bosnia was of higher quality and abundance than that which had been coming out of Cambodia two decades earlier, and he failed to adequately adjust for that fact. For example, he doubted the veracity of one particular photo of Bosnians in a concentration camp which was prominently featured in the Western media. While he was right to be cynical of their intentions, the photo was genuine.
Key context for this is that an article questioning the veracity of this photo – which, at the time, was not nearly as clear as it later became – was published in one tiny Marxist newspaper in Britain. In response, ITN, who had originally published the photo, sued this newspaper into oblivion for libel. They won the case, which resulted in the end of the newspaper and ruined the lives of its editors, who had not actually even written the article themselves.
Chomsky saw this as a ridiculous attack on freedom of speech – a multi-million dollar media company silencing criticism, wrong as it may have been, from a tiny hobbyist publication.
This affair clearly negatively polarized him into clinging onto the notion that the photo was fake, when it obviously wasn’t.
However, aside from this photo affair, Chomsky did not actually deny the events of the Bosnian genocide themselves – so him being accused of being a denier is quite interesting. For example, in 1994 he wrote in a book that Bosnia was “approaching genocide”, something you couldn’t imagine someone who is characterised as upholding the Serbian nationalist genocide denial narrative would ever say. And in 1996, he actually argued that the USA had not done enough to stop the Bosnian genocide, in contrast with the image it was peddling of fake concern for Bosnians. He literally argued that the US should participate in UN peacekeeping operations. So clearly, he wasn’t even actually against US intervention – rather, he just believed that it should be carried out under the much more neutral framework of a UN operation, rather than the NATO one that actually ended up happening.
And he has explicitly acknowledged the facts of the Srebrenica massacre, contrary to what some believe. The idea that he denied it was spread by a libellous interview in the Guardian, published in 2005. This article used the headline of:
“Q: Do you regret supporting those who say the Srebrenica massacre was exaggerated?
A: My only regret is that I didn’t do it strongly enough."
The Guardian had to admit that so such question was even posed to Chomsky during the interview. In actual fact, what he had said was that he regrets not defending another author who had planned to release a book denying the Srebrenica massacre – not because he agreed with her, but rather because he is a free speech absolutist who simply believes that she should have had the right to publish her work on the matter, even if it is wrong.
In the same interview, the interviewer claimed that Chomsky had written the word “massacre” in regards to Srebrenica in quotes in order to imply that it had never happened - something that he had never actually done, and which she invented. In actual fact, the interview was not about Srebrenica at all, aside from that one mention of it in regards to the publication of someone else’s book, and the interviewer had edited it and even outright fabricated portions of it in an attempt to make it look like Chomsky denied it.
Chomsky does not use the term “Bosnian genocide” or “Srebrenica genocide”, though he does acknowledge the facts regarding the atrocities. His reasoning for not specifically calling Srebrenica or Bosnia as a whole genocides, past the one time he almost did, is because, as I explained earlier, he simply does not often utilise the term, and has a very high standard for when it should be used, which he applies very consistently. You can disagree with this – I do too – but that’s not the same thing as actual denial of the events themselves, which is what those who call him a “genocide denier” are clearly implying.
He also said that Slobodan Milosevic, the president of Serbia, likely was not involved in the Srebrenica massacre. While I don’t believe this to be the case myself, as there is plenty of evidence that Serbia supported the Bosniak-Serb separatists who carried out the massacre, his position is nonetheless a valid one to hold. The International Court of Justice ruled that Serbia itself was not directly responsible for Srebrenica, and had only failed to prevent it, so his position on this is actually, if anything, the most mainstream one you could hold, as it’s in line with the ruling of the most important international court case to date on the matter. Milosevic himself died before he could be individually tried for the crime, and I think it’s unlikely that he would have been convicted for it, as Serbia had already previously been found not guilty of the crime by the ICJ, and he was its president.
Again, Chomsky’s position on Milosevic’s personal responsibility here is not one of denying the events – it’s rather one that is quite reasonable for someone to hold, even if I disagree. His personal guilt is not some objectively settled matter for which you can accuse someone of having committed some sort of unforgiveable slight if they think it’s overblown.
So clearly, the idea that Chomsky is a “Genocide denier” regarding Bosnia is not based on an assessment of his overall stance on the matter, on his opinion regarding what actually happened in the broad sense, but rather from outright slander, and from him having some reservations regarding much smaller things, like the veracity of a singular photo. If someone is to marked as a “Genocide Denier” and thus basically an unperson for life, whose thoughts on anything should be discounted, just because they stubbornly refuse to acknowledge the authenticity of one single photograph depicting a wider event that they do actually acknowledge happened – then what the fuck does “Genocide Denier” even mean aside from “I’m looking for literally any reason to delegitimise this person’s broader body of work, so I’m going to laser focus in on this one instance in which they were wrong and blow it massively out of proportion.”
The reason why this smear against Chomsky originated, and why it is still prominent today, is mostly out of outrage regarding his scepticism of the mainstream media, his demand for higher standards of evidence to be met before he believes their conclusions, and the way that he has consistently attempted to teach the wider public to be similarly sceptical of mainstream Western narratives for his entire career. They zero in on the one or two occasions where Chomsky turned out to be wrong in hindsight to attempt to delegitimise him and his wider methodology, while ignoring the balance sheet where these methods resulted in him being vindicated on dozens of other occasions - where they themselves were, by their own standards, the so-called “genocide deniers.”
Sometimes these allegations get so ridiculous that Chomsky is called a “genocide denier” for what others have said. Spread as common knowledge among people who just repeat what they’ve heard others say, is the idea that Chomsky “denied the Rwandan genocide”. In actual fact, Chomsky himself has said almost nothing on the Rwandan genocide. He wrote a preface to one book by someone else who denied the Rwandan genocide in that book. The author, Edward S. Herman, a frequent collaborator with Chomsky, was a bit of a kook who, while being a solid critic at times, had bizarre opinions on seemingly random things. This included a twisted narrative of the Rwandan genocide, and a denial of Srebrenica. But Chomsky’s preface to his book merely approved of his broader thesis regarding the political usage of the term “genocide”, and did not say anything about Hermann’s mistreatment of the Rwandan genocide.
In correspondence on the matter, Chomsky made it clear that the only thing he approved of in the book was its broader thesis regarding the usage of the term “genocide”, and that he disagrees with the examples that Hermann used to argue for it. He explicitly acknowledged that Srebrenica involved 8000 deaths, which is in line with official estimates on the death toll, and said that 1 million were murdered in Rwanda, which is actually a substantial overestimate over the most commonly used ones. Chomsky’s main concern as a media critic was simply with how genocide denial is completely normalized in the much more numerous cases where it’s committed by Western nations and their allies, and are in fact mainstream, supposedly ‘respectable opinions’ to hold, yet a massive media furore was concocted around it when Hermann did the same from the left. He simply seems to have not wanted to get dragged into the game of ritualistic, performative denouncements of certain historical events that have been designated as what he called “Holy Causes” of Western status quo intellectuals.
Chomsky could certainly be accused of poor judgement for having contributed that preface to his friends’ book, but to call him a “genocide denier” by association is clearly a stretch.
The other significant instance of Chomsky’s alleged genocide denial is in regards to the Bosnian genocide. Chomsky employed a similar style of scepticism to the mainstream media narrative regarding genocide in Bosnia as he had during the Cambodian Genocide – scepticism that was at times healthy, and at times a bit much. The evidence coming out of Bosnia was of higher quality and abundance than that which had been coming out of Cambodia two decades earlier, and he failed to adequately adjust for that fact. For example, he doubted the veracity of one particular photo of Bosnians in a concentration camp which was prominently featured in the Western media. While he was right to be cynical of their intentions, the photo was genuine. Key context for this is that an article questioning the veracity of this photo – which, at the time, was not nearly as clear as it later became – was published in one tiny Marxist newspaper in Britain. In response, ITN, who had originally published the photo, sued this newspaper into oblivion for libel. They won the case, which resulted in the end of the newspaper and ruined the lives of its editors, who had not actually even written the article themselves. Chomsky saw this as a ridiculous attack on freedom of speech – a multi-million dollar media company silencing criticism, wrong as it may have been, from a tiny hobbyist publication. This affair clearly negatively polarized him into clinging onto the notion that the photo was fake, when it obviously wasn’t.
However, aside from this photo affair, Chomsky did not actually deny the events of the Bosnian genocide themselves – so him being accused of being a denier is quite interesting. For example, in 1994 he wrote in a book that Bosnia was “approaching genocide”, something you couldn’t imagine someone who is characterised as upholding the Serbian nationalist genocide denial narrative would ever say. And in 1996, he actually argued that the USA had not done enough to stop the Bosnian genocide, in contrast with the image it was peddling of fake concern for Bosnians. He literally argued that the US should participate in UN peacekeeping operations. So clearly, he wasn’t even actually against US intervention – rather, he just believed that it should be carried out under the much more neutral framework of a UN operation, rather than the NATO one that actually ended up happening.
And he has explicitly acknowledged the facts of the Srebrenica massacre, contrary to what some believe. The idea that he denied it was spread by a libellous interview in the Guardian, published in 2005. This article used the headline of: “Q: Do you regret supporting those who say the Srebrenica massacre was exaggerated? A: My only regret is that I didn’t do it strongly enough." The Guardian had to admit that so such question was even posed to Chomsky during the interview. In actual fact, what he had said was that he regrets not defending another author who had planned to release a book denying the Srebrenica massacre – not because he agreed with her, but rather because he is a free speech absolutist who simply believes that she should have had the right to publish her work on the matter, even if it is wrong. In the same interview, the interviewer claimed that Chomsky had written the word “massacre” in regards to Srebrenica in quotes in order to imply that it had never happened - something that he had never actually done, and which she invented. In actual fact, the interview was not about Srebrenica at all, aside from that one mention of it in regards to the publication of someone else’s book, and the interviewer had edited it and even outright fabricated portions of it in an attempt to make it look like Chomsky denied it.
Chomsky does not use the term “Bosnian genocide” or “Srebrenica genocide”, though he does acknowledge the facts regarding the atrocities. His reasoning for not specifically calling Srebrenica or Bosnia as a whole genocides, past the one time he almost did, is because, as I explained earlier, he simply does not often utilise the term, and has a very high standard for when it should be used, which he applies very consistently. You can disagree with this – I do too – but that’s not the same thing as actual denial of the events themselves, which is what those who call him a “genocide denier” are clearly implying. He also said that Slobodan Milosevic, the president of Serbia, likely was not involved in the Srebrenica massacre. While I don’t believe this to be the case myself, as there is plenty of evidence that Serbia supported the Bosniak-Serb separatists who carried out the massacre, his position is nonetheless a valid one to hold. The International Court of Justice ruled that Serbia itself was not directly responsible for Srebrenica, and had only failed to prevent it, so his position on this is actually, if anything, the most mainstream one you could hold, as it’s in line with the ruling of the most important international court case to date on the matter. Milosevic himself died before he could be individually tried for the crime, and I think it’s unlikely that he would have been convicted for it, as Serbia had already previously been found not guilty of the crime by the ICJ, and he was its president. Again, Chomsky’s position on Milosevic’s personal responsibility here is not one of denying the events – it’s rather one that is quite reasonable for someone to hold, even if I disagree. His personal guilt is not some objectively settled matter for which you can accuse someone of having committed some sort of unforgiveable slight if they think it’s overblown.
So clearly, the idea that Chomsky is a “Genocide denier” regarding Bosnia is not based on an assessment of his overall stance on the matter, on his opinion regarding what actually happened in the broad sense, but rather from outright slander, and from him having some reservations regarding much smaller things, like the veracity of a singular photo. If someone is to marked as a “Genocide Denier” and thus basically an unperson for life, whose thoughts on anything should be discounted, just because they stubbornly refuse to acknowledge the authenticity of one single photograph depicting a wider event that they do actually acknowledge happened – then what the fuck does “Genocide Denier” even mean aside from “I’m looking for literally any reason to delegitimise this person’s broader body of work, so I’m going to laser focus in on this one instance in which they were wrong and blow it massively out of proportion.”
The reason why this smear against Chomsky originated, and why it is still prominent today, is mostly out of outrage regarding his scepticism of the mainstream media, his demand for higher standards of evidence to be met before he believes their conclusions, and the way that he has consistently attempted to teach the wider public to be similarly sceptical of mainstream Western narratives for his entire career. They zero in on the one or two occasions where Chomsky turned out to be wrong in hindsight to attempt to delegitimise him and his wider methodology, while ignoring the balance sheet where these methods resulted in him being vindicated on dozens of other occasions - where they themselves were, by their own standards, the so-called “genocide deniers.”
Sometimes these allegations get so ridiculous that Chomsky is called a “genocide denier” for what others have said. Spread as common knowledge among people who just repeat what they’ve heard others say, is the idea that Chomsky “denied the Rwandan genocide”. In actual fact, Chomsky himself has said almost nothing on the Rwandan genocide. He wrote a preface to one book by someone else who denied the Rwandan genocide in that book. The author, Edward S. Herman, a frequent collaborator with Chomsky, was a bit of a kook who, while being a solid critic at times, had bizarre opinions on seemingly random things. This included a twisted narrative of the Rwandan genocide, and a denial of Srebrenica. But Chomsky’s preface to his book merely approved of his broader thesis regarding the political usage of the term “genocide”, and did not say anything about Hermann’s mistreatment of the Rwandan genocide.
In correspondence on the matter, Chomsky made it clear that the only thing he approved of in the book was its broader thesis regarding the usage of the term “genocide”, and that he disagrees with the examples that Hermann used to argue for it. He explicitly acknowledged that Srebrenica involved 8000 deaths, which is in line with official estimates on the death toll, and said that 1 million were murdered in Rwanda, which is actually a substantial overestimate over the most commonly used ones. Chomsky’s main concern as a media critic was simply with how genocide denial is completely normalized in the much more numerous cases where it’s committed by Western nations and their allies, and are in fact mainstream, supposedly ‘respectable opinions’ to hold, yet a massive media furore was concocted around it when Hermann did the same from the left. He simply seems to have not wanted to get dragged into the game of ritualistic, performative denouncements of certain historical events that have been designated as what he called “Holy Causes” of Western status quo intellectuals. Chomsky could certainly be accused of poor judgement for having contributed that preface to his friends’ book, but to call him a “genocide denier” by association is clearly a stretch.