What is the relationship between atrocity denial and emotion in violent ethnic conflict? Atrocity denial is often anchored in instrumental calculations, as it facilitates implicated parties escaping legal and political accountability; yet it is also a phenomenon tethered to personal and mass emotions in important ways. Freud's classic intuition that denial arises from a subconscious desire to suppress painful emotions resonates specifically in the context of atrocity denial, since association with morally reprehensible acts can generate difficult sentiments of shame, guilt, and remorse that perpetrators and their constituents would prefer to avoid. Atrocity denial conventionally understood is thus a defense mechanism, designed to blunt distressing emotions, and its effect on violence is permissive—neutralizing the uncomfortable emotive sentiments that might otherwise constrain conflict in the future.

Using the case of the Ethiopian civil war, we argue that this classic conception of the atrocity denial-emotion nexus misses an important dimension. Atrocity denial blunts certain emotional responses, but appeals to emotion as well, including the very emotions that cause and sustain violent ethnic conflict. Careful analysis of two specific alleged atrocities committed in the course of the war—the Mai Kadra massacre and the ethnic of cleansing of Tigrayans in Western Tigray—and the corresponding denial narratives of the various parties to the conflict, highlight the ways in which emotions such as hatred, fear, and resentment are consistently invoked in denial accounts. Atrocity denial is thus not simply an act of defense via emotional supression, but through emotional appeals, constitutive of political violence itself.

暴行与暴行有何关系暴力种族冲突中的否认和情绪？否认暴行往往以工具计算为基础，因为它有利于相关方逃避法律和政治责任；然而，它也是一种在重要方面与个人和大众情感联系在一起的现象。弗洛伊德的经典直觉认为，否认源于潜意识中抑制痛苦情绪的欲望，这一点在否认暴行的背景下特别能产生共鸣，因为与道德上应受谴责的行为联系起来可能会产生犯罪者及其选民宁愿避免的羞耻、内疚和悔恨的困难情绪。因此，传统意义上的否认暴行是一种防御机制，旨在减弱痛苦的情绪，

以埃塞俄比亚内战为例，我们认为这种否认暴行与情感联系的经典概念忽略了一个重要的维度。否认暴行会削弱某些情绪反应，但也会诉诸情绪，包括导致和维持暴力种族冲突的情绪。仔细分析战争期间犯下的两起具体的暴行——麦卡德拉大屠杀和西提格雷对提格雷人的种族清洗——以及冲突各方相应的否认叙述，突显了诸如此类的情绪的方式。因为仇恨、恐惧和怨恨在否认账户中不断被援引。因此，否认暴行不仅仅是一种通过情感压抑的防御行为，而是通过情感诉求，构成政治暴力本身。