![\"Jim](\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/2024-06-13_GenocideConferenceSeminar-1-300x200.jpg\")
\u201cCommit to the hard work of making discomfort productive,\u201d he told them. \u201cThat discomfort can have a value to it if we agree to make it productive.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the 19 participants knew when they applied to be fellows in the 2024 edition of the week-long Scheidt Family Seminar on Genocide Studies and Prevention<\/a> at UConn that they\u2019d be covering difficult topics, it\u2019s clear that most of them did not expect to be challenged at 10:45 a.m. on day one, right out of the gate.<\/p>\n In contrast to the uneasiness of the fellows, their instructor for this exercise, Vahidin Omanovi\u0107<\/a> \u2013 a genocide survivor, peacebuilder, and co-founder of the Center for Peacebuilding in Sanski Most, a town in Bosnia and Herzegovina \u2013 is a model of calm. And dry wit.<\/p>\n He\u2019s asked the fellows to draw six boxes on a piece of paper, to think about themselves, and to write a word in each square that describes a part of their individual identity.<\/p>\n One identity in each of the six boxes. Simple, right?<\/p>\n Maybe not.<\/p>\n \u201cIt can be anything from how you perceive yourself, to how your community perceives you,\u201d he explains, but after a few moments of silence, the questions start.<\/p>\n Can we write more than six?<\/p>\n No. Only six.<\/p>\n Can we hyphenate? Like, put professor-slash-researcher in one box?<\/p>\n \u201cAre you a cheater?\u201d is Omanovi\u0107\u2019s retort.<\/p>\n But what if I can\u2019t choose only six?<\/p>\n \u201cNo hablo Espanol,\u201d he responds, though no one in the room is actually speaking Spanish at this moment.<\/p>\n When they\u2019ve completed the task, they go around the room and each share what they\u2019ve written. Mother, father, grandparent, student, teacher, activist, woman, human, Jew, Catholic, cat meme aficionado \u2013 all these words that wrap up into six neat little boxes who they each believe themselves to be.<\/p>\n Then Omanovi\u0107 gives them their next step. They have to cross out the two least important boxes.<\/p>\n Jaws drop. The uncomfortable shifting begins, as does the negotiating.<\/p>\n Do we have to? Two of them? Really? Least important, how<\/em>?<\/p>\n \u201cNo hablo Espanol,\u201d Omanovi\u0107 responds.<\/p>\n Once they cross off two, Omanovi\u0107 comes at them again. They now have to cross off two more, leaving them with only the two identities that they perceive as their most important written on their papers.<\/p>\n There\u2019s less negotiating this time around. The fellows know there\u2019s no way out of this, so boxes are dutifully crossed.<\/p>\n And then comes the predictable final blow \u2013 Omanovi\u0107 tells them to cross off one more box.<\/p>\n They\u2019re left with only one identity left on the page, the one that should mean the most to them.<\/p>\n As they start to go around the room to explain why they chose that last box as their most important, the guilt some of them feel is palpable. Crossing off \u201cmother\u201d or \u201ceducator\u201d in favor of something else feels like a denial or a betrayal of some part of themselves \u2013 or of other people in their lives.<\/p>\n The point of the exercise, Omanovi\u0107 explains, is to help make each fellow aware of who they are, but also to help them think of themselves in terms of how their identity is disseminated and how each part of a person\u2019s identity can relegate them into a group.<\/p>\n Because in the world of genocide prevention, as Waller explained earlier that morning, identity matters an awful lot.<\/p>\n One social identity \u2013 one box on a piece of paper, with one word written inside \u2013 could be a society\u2019s dividing difference.<\/p>\n \u201cThe heart of genocide,\u201d says Waller, a social psychologist who has spent his career studying and teaching about perpetrator behavior and genocide prevention, \u201cis one social identity hoping to wipe out another social identity. In a deeply divided society, the differences matter to people, not the similarities.<\/p>\n \u201cThe crime of genocide is essentially about saying to someone, \u2018You think you\u2019re all these things, but to us, you\u2019re just this one thing and this thing only. And this thing doesn\u2019t deserve to live,\u2019\u201d he says.<\/p>\n This year marked the sixth time the seminar has been held, but the first time at UConn \u2013 Waller originally launched the program during his time at Keene State College in New Hampshire with support from the Charles E. Scheidt Family Foundation and brought the program with him when he joined the faculty at UConn and Dodd Impact Programs in 2023.<\/p>\n Though the seminar has been continually refined since it first launched in 2016, its goal remains relatively the same \u2013 it uniquely focuses on the study, research, and teaching of genocide prevention across all phases of the conflict cycle.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is not a focus on history lessons,\u201d Waller says, \u201cbut on lessons learned from history.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s that focus on prevention that makes the program unique, Waller notes, because genocide doesn\u2019t just happen out of the blue. It\u2019s a process. There are signs and symptoms that tell when a society is on the verge of genocide.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd that process is important, because if you start at the end-state \u2013 piles of bodies \u2013 there\u2019s no prevention at that point,\u201d Waller says. \u201cWe have to go back to the beginning of the process. When you understand the process that leads to the end state, you open those windows of opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n After the introductory first day, each consecutive day of the seminar \u2013 led by an international teaching team, including UConn faculty \u2013 focuses on a different aspect of genocide prevention: upstream prevention, which involves recognizing the risk factors and taking action before atrocity occurs; midstream prevention, including responses to genocide and atrocity as it\u2019s happening; and downstream prevention, which happens after an atrocity has occurred and includes transitional justice and the importance of memory and how we deal with the past.<\/p>\n Each aspect of the program is just as relevant now as it was when the seminar first launched, the organizers say.<\/p>\n More than 50 percent of the world\u2019s population currently lives in a country led by an autocratic or authoritarian regime, and even functioning democracies around the world are currently struggling with what it means to be a democracy, according to Waller.<\/p>\n \u201cIn deeply divided societies, the fault line is always there,\u201d says Waller, \u201cand you\u2019re just waiting for something to trigger that potential for violence.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf we don’t address these issues, if we don’t take them seriously, then this pattern of violence, of one group against another, and of divided societies, will simply continue, and that is a danger to every one of us,\u201d says Charlie Scheidt<\/a>, the former chief executive officer of Roland Foods<\/a>, supporter of the seminar, and a lifelong advocate for genocide prevention who joined this year\u2019s fellows for the first two days of the program.<\/p>\n \u201cThis seminar is an opportunity to reach teachers and practitioners and academics and researchers who can make a difference and who can spread the belief that genocidal violence is caused by people. If it’s caused by people, then it can be stopped by people, and it’s up to each one of us to do our part,\u201d Scheidt says.<\/p>\n The fellows who take part in the program do so in order to take what they\u2019ve learned back to their home institutions, programs, and countries to develop minors, majors, modules, and courses related to genocide prevention.<\/p>\n While the materials that they study and the techniques that the fellows learn play an important role in that effort, one of the longer benefits of the program, Waller says, is the international community of academics and activists committed to genocide prevention that\u2019s been built by the program\u2019s fellows over the last eight years.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat I’ve been struck with is just the networking that continues after they’ve gone, whether it’s on WhatsApp or it’s through some of the more formal systems we set up,\u201d he says. \u201cWe have a very active alumni base of now close to 120 people who’ve been through this program. We’ve really had some incredible success with people leaving the seminar, and they’ve made their own courses, or they’ve reconfigured a large part of a course. We\u2019ve had a couple of universities develop a minor in Holocaust and genocide studies because of their time here.\u201d<\/p>\n This year\u2019s fellows have now joined that important network, and while 2024 marked the first year that the seminar was held at UConn, it won\u2019t be the last.<\/p>\n Scheidt\u2019s foundation has agreed to support four more years of the program in Storrs because, as Scheidt notes, \u201cRome was not built in a day\u201d and the need is still great.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery time the seminar occurs, we make the world a better place, little by little,\u201d Scheidt says. \u201cWe believe that we can make the world a better place today and for the future \u2013 for future generations. That’s what motivates me.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n![\"Participants](\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/2024-06-13_GenocideConferenceSeminar-3-300x200.jpg\")
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![\"Participants](\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/2024-06-13_GenocideConferenceSeminar-6-300x200.jpg\")