36) observed that ‘wars, violent conflicts between people, as well as sexual attacks on women, are historical and social processes that are carried out collectively and, thus, must have a collective meaning’. Starting her analysis from the same historical period, the Yugoslav wars, Seifert examines various instances of sexual violence alongside the twentieth century, such as the Nanking massacre in 1937, the North-African campaign in Morocco in 1943, and the Bangladesh genocide in 1971, and concludes that rape and sexual violence against women are not just “side effects” of wars, regarded by many as ‘excesses of singular hordes run wild’, rather an integral part of warfare, a military strategy with a specific purpose (ibid. p. 37). Indeed, the traditional idea of “proper” war involved the confrontation between (male) soldiers, while civilian casualties are consider unintentional by-products of war. However, Seifert notices, since civilian casualties often outnumber military ones, the term “by-product” is inappropriate from a moral and analytical point of view (ibid. p. 38). In line with the conception of new wars formulate by Kaldor, she points out that one of the primary goals in war is in fact the destruction of the enemy’s identity as community, and not necessarily the defeat of its army, and sexual violence is a privileged tool to achieve it (ibid. p. 40). As a matter of fact, women are in times of war ‘those who hold the families and the community together’, and ‘the destruction of their integrity affects overall cultural cohesion’(ibid.). This is particularly patent in what happened in Yugoslavia wars, where camps explicitly intended for sexual torture were established. Seifert concludes by adding that another dimension of rape is that it converts the victims suffering into a display of power, and since it is perpetrated on women, it is translated into male power (ibid. p.
36) observed that ‘wars, violent conflicts between people, as well as sexual attacks on women, are historical and social processes that are carried out collectively and, thus, must have a collective meaning’. Starting her analysis from the same historical period, the Yugoslav wars, Seifert examines various instances of sexual violence alongside the twentieth century, such as the Nanking massacre in 1937, the North-African campaign in Morocco in 1943, and the Bangladesh genocide in 1971, and concludes that rape and sexual violence against women are not just “side effects” of wars, regarded by many as ‘excesses of singular hordes run wild’, rather an integral part of warfare, a military strategy with a specific purpose (ibid. p. 37). Indeed, the traditional idea of “proper” war involved the confrontation between (male) soldiers, while civilian casualties are consider unintentional by-products of war. However, Seifert notices, since civilian casualties often outnumber military ones, the term “by-product” is inappropriate from a moral and analytical point of view (ibid. p. 38). In line with the conception of new wars formulate by Kaldor, she points out that one of the primary goals in war is in fact the destruction of the enemy’s identity as community, and not necessarily the defeat of its army, and sexual violence is a privileged tool to achieve it (ibid. p. 40). As a matter of fact, women are in times of war ‘those who hold the families and the community together’, and ‘the destruction of their integrity affects overall cultural cohesion’(ibid.). This is particularly patent in what happened in Yugoslavia wars, where camps explicitly intended for sexual torture were established. Seifert concludes by adding that another dimension of rape is that it converts the victims suffering into a display of power, and since it is perpetrated on women, it is translated into male power (ibid. p.