What is Genocide? Definitions and Conceptions Flashcards
What are the origins of the word genocide?
Greek:
genes – race nation tribe
Cide – killing
- Murder of the Jews became the ‘paradigm case’ of genocide and underlies the word’s origins
- Framework which ended up defining term
Who was Raphael Lemkin? and what did he contribute towards the debate?
- Largely ignored until 15 - 18 years ago
- Brought genocide into the political and legal domain
Inspired by Armenia:
- horrified by Turkish attempts to wipe out Armenians
- physical acts of revenge he witnessed
- He advocated for arrest and trying of ringleaders, however, no law or court for this
- Man as a myth… he became much more post-mortem than he was
What was the Madrid Conference?
1933 - 5th Conference for the Unification of Penal Law
- Experts from 37 countries
Lemkin submitted a paper
- Need for recognised crime which recognised the actions in Armenia
e. g. annihilation of religious and ethnic groups
e. g.2 destruction or vandalisation of culture - Extend international recognition
- Any offender should be punished regardless of country of origin
NOT ACCEPTED
Why weren’t Lemkin’s proposals in Madrid accepted?
Countries concerned that it would lead to a loss of soverignty
Soviet Union and Germany were most critical - shock
What was ‘Axis Ruled in Occupied Europe’? and what did involve?
1944 book written by Lemkin going further than the Madrid proposals
- Collected evidence, used at Nuremburg trials, to prove need for new kind of crime
- Coins the term genocide - mass murder and sterilisation not sufficient
- Touched on erasure through cultural genocide - said sterilisation could be part of genocidal campaign
- By destroying identity –> easier to destroy physical bodies
How did Lemkin describe the coordinated plan of actions in ‘Axis Ruled in Occupied Europe’?
did he describe techniques?
2 phases:
- destruction of national pattern of oppressed group
- Imposition of national pattern of dominant group
using the jewish case as a paradigm one Lemkin described the techniques that would flag up genocide:
Political – street names, family names, german admin
Social – social structures, take away legal system decline of independence
Cultural – no school, language, license for law
Economic – businesses closed, take away trade
Biological – lower birth rate by preventing marriage, ration food, withhold firewood and blankets in winter
Physical – kill people
Religious - ban/control/restrict practices
Moral - pornographic imposed to morally subdue, alcohol for same reason
HAD TO BE AGAINST A GROUP
What was Churchill’s quote? when did he say it?
1941 - “We are in the presence of a crime without a name”
Is there an important difference between genocide?
systematic
directed at group
intention to destroy
genocide cannot be indiscriminate - in genocide people cannot be able to leave that group
importance of eventual end whereas mass murder can be one off
genocide can have different faces of attack - mass murder is one form of genocide
genocide is a process
What makes genocide a powerful term?
- Connotations
- Images
- Scale
- Capability of man – look at ourselves
- Disturbing
- Genocide and holocaust is inseparable
- Because it’s so impersonal
o 6m breaks down individuality of group
o Perpetrators wanted us to see that as fragments without identity - Status in international law + responsibility
o Legally powerful term
- When was the Nuremberg Trials?
- what happened there?
- what were the implications from the judgements?
- 1945
- 12 members of the Nazi party put on trial for crimes against humanity
- Accused of intention to annihilate groups by taking away needs of that group e.g. language, health, family etc –> Jews, poles, Gypsies, russians
- Lemkin wanted the word ‘genocide’ included for magnitude –> it was omitted because too contentious - court and judgement was only for crimes during war
- punishment of peace time acts would have really set a precedent
- makes it look like acts only occur in war –> lies, 3rd Reich started before the war
what was the UN Convention of 1946? what happened? what were the fears?
A meeting of the UN to discuss the definition and appliance of the word genocide
Decided that genocide did not relate to political groups or to culture –> thought this was too weak (USSR?)
Desire for consensus –> reduced initial concept to physical and biological forms
Fears that could cause international tensions with anyone accusing anyone –> BUT needed universal term otherwise confusion
When was the UN Genocide Convention and what happened?
9th December 1948
It defined genocide and advised all participating members to PREVENT and PUNISH actions of genocide in war AND peacetime
What did article 2 say?
Defined genocide as:
any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or IN PART, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or MENTAL harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or IN PART;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
what did article 3 say?
Defined the crimes that can be punished under the convention:
(a) Genocide;
(b) Conspiracy to commit genocide;
(c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide;
(d) Attempt to commit genocide;
(e) Complicity in genocide.
What were the issues with ratification
USSR didn’t ratify until 1954 –> it preferred the terms crimes against humanity and crimes against peace
USA - threatened by fears of communism - did not ratify until 1988
Got 24 sig (20 req.) but sig weakened without largest powers
Lemkin lobbied for ratification incl. letter to Truman but convention lost tract down years because weak and ineffective, littered with frailties
What are the problems with the genocide convention?
The two most powerful nations did not ratify
Cultural and political factors left out - it mainly focused on murder
Nothing to oblige countries to act or prevent genocide - it is essentially a powerless document
Ambiguity of the term ‘in part’
No preventative machinery
Not explicit enough about what constitutes a genocidal act e.g. ‘mental harm’
No central body to define genocide?
Who are the main theorists of genocide?
Roger Smith Frank Chalk and Kurt Jonassohn Israel Chamy Leo Kuper Helen Fein Jean-Paul Satre Greg Stanton
What does Roger Smith say?
Calls for calculation not passions
5 forms of genocide:
Revenge - retribution (form of passion?)
Conquest - spread terror to show off power and prevent retribution (mainly pre-modern)
Gain (utilitarian) - with colonisation –> natives killed in name of progress
- ethnocentrism
- driven by greed
Power - monopolistic
Purification - ideological
- main differences between modern and premodern
- dehumanisation of victims
What did Chalk and Jonassohn say
- Nuance how we classify genocide
- Focus on intent
- It must be classed as something different
- Not just victim part of group but that group defined by the perpetrator - imaged victim groups
What did Israel Chamy say?
Quite a generalised theory
Argued destructive drive in humans caused by fear of death
- to survive groups will kill other groups
Happens to non-miltary people who are powerless and helpless to oppressors
- Stresses imp of power balance
Why does Leo Kuper disagree with Chamy’s theory?
Argues that under such terms every nation would commit genocide, which simply hasn’t happened
What does Helen Fein say?
Identifies 2 prime motives in pre-modern genocide:
1. the desire to get rid of religious adversaries
- to get rid of tribes that cannot be assimilated
She points to criteria when judging whether a genocide: - means to kill group - How long actions continued - How was it organised - was it the state? Did the state stand behind the perpetrators? were victims pre-selcted? - did victims resist?
what does Jean-Paul Satre say?
He emphasised the economic factors
Pointed to the colonized countries where indigenous were seen as an obstacle to progress e.g. markets
Recognises the othering of victim groups, endlessly defined by the oppressor as less than them
What did Leo Kuper argue?
He argued for the comparison of genocides so as to define the term
Identified 3 types of genocide: 1. 2. Colonisation 3. Plural societies - plural societies are closely related to outbreaks of genocide
Said there were 5 catalysts towards genocide:
- Manufactured cultural and occupational differences
- Disparity between political participation –> imbalance of political power
- Difference in religion, community or organisation. BUT relationships at different levels cut across basic dividing lines
- A history of conflict between groups
- Attempt to create an overall identity based on race, ethnicity or religion
When 5 factors come together there is a tendency for violence
