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 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.