Nobody calls the war in Ukraine a genocide. They don’t, because the war between the Russians and Ukrainians is about a conflict of interest. Russia wants something, Ukraine wants something, but only one of them can fully get what they want.
Because both of these nations couldn’t reach a compromise, they had to go to war. Their war is a contest to see who is willing to bear with their loss in order to get what they want. When one side is no longer able to bear with their loss, then the warring sides will be able to reach a compromise, where the side that is unable to bear with their loss, will have to concede terms to the side that can.
When a conflict is about interest, a compromise will be reached at some point. The loser will have to make more concessions and settle for less, but they will not have to fear that the winning side will attempt to annihilate their identity or ethnically cleanse their population. Neither of the warring sides will have any such desires.
A conflict where one side is trying to annihilate the identity or ethnically cleanse a population on the other hand, is known as a genocide. In the case of a genocide, the conflict is not triggered by a conflict of interest, but a conflict of identity.
A conflict of identity occurs when a nation or a group of people are unable to be itself for as long as another nation or group of people desires to be itself.
Malaysia has participated in its share of wars, but we have never participated in genocide, at least in modern times.
The last genocide that we fought was probably during the 14th century, when the kingdom of Sri Vijaya was annihilated by the Majapahit empire.
The identity of Sri Vijaya was so completely annihilated by Majapahit, that it would be forgotten by history for centuries. It would only be remembered again when the French scholar, George Cœdès, resurrected its memory in the 1920s.
In the Sri Vijayan case, the Majapahit empire annihilated the Sri Vijayan kingdom, because the Sri Vijayans, who in their prime, were the overlords of the Nusantara region, had gotten so used to seeing themselves as the lord of the region, that they couldn’t acknowledge the rise of the Majapahit empire.
Although the Sri Vijayans had gone into decline for centuries, while Majapahit had been continuously rising, the fact that the population of Majapahit have always been their subordinate, made it impossible for the Sri Vijayans to deem them as their superior, even if in reality, the Majapahit empire had reached a position where they were self-evidently more powerful and stronger than the Sri Vijayans.
The stubbornness of the Sri Vijayans in resisting to acknowledge the superiority of the Majapahit empire, even when they were vulnerable and weak, while Majapahit was powerful and indomitable, would then possess the Majapahit empire with such fury, that they would launch a genocidal campaign against the Sri Vijayans, which resulted in the Sri Vijayan identity becoming completely wiped out from history.
That the war in Gaza today is now widely being considered a genocidal campaign, likely means that the contention between the Palestinians and the Israelis is more about identity than interest.
The Arab Palestinians, who are used to ruling over the middle east for centuries, in the same way that the Sri Vijayans are used to rule over Nusantara for centuries, are simply unable to accept the fact that their power and prestige has gone into decline, while the power and prestige of the Israeli Jews, who are a group of people who have always been subordinate to them, has been rising since the founding of the State of Israel.
The desire of the Jewish Israelis to see themselves as an sovereign and indomitable race, after suffering through centuries or even millennia of humiliation and defeats, is causing the Palestinians, who are descended from the Arabs who used to rule the region, to no longer be able to see themselves as the lord of the region.
In other words, the desire of the Israeli Jews to be themselves is causing the Arab Palestinians to not be able to be itself.
It is this conflict of identity between these two nations, just as the conflict of identity between the Srivijaya and Majapahit in the past, that is causing genocidal intentions to arise between them.
Going by the example of the Srivijaya and Majapahit, a conflict of identity will likely only settle after the losing side undergoes a drastic change of identity.
In the case of the Sri Vijayans and Majapahit, the conflict between Srivijaya and Majapahit only ended when the Sri Vijayans completely broke away from their past, by changing their identity and becoming the Malaccans of the Malacca Sultanate.
The change of identity by the Sri Vijayans was so complete, that even after the Malacca sultanate was able to revive their fortune, they never attempted to revive or re-establish the Sri Vijayan empire.
Going by that example, I would reckon that the genocidal war between the Palestinians and the Israelis would also only end when one of them undergoes a complete change of identity.
Either the Palestinians will have to break away from their past and no longer see themselves as the descendants of the Arabs who used to rule the region, or the Israelis have to drop the desire to become a strong and indomitable people, and resign themselves again to the state of being a weak and vulnerable race.
Until then, the cold hard truth is that the desire for genocide will likely keep raging in the hearts of both these nations.
Nehru Sathiamoorthy was a columnist at FMT, a frequent contributor to the South China Morning Post, MalaysiaNow and Malaysia-Today. By day he is a mathematics teacher in the Klang Valley, and by night he writes.
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