What is meant by “genocide”?

Armenian Genocide: Coverage in New York Times (1915-1916)

Genocide: The Origins of a Word

Rafael Lemkin (1900-1959): coined the term “genocide” in 1943 from Greek genos (family, tribe, race) and Latin –cide (killing, murder)

UN General Assembly (1948-1951): Convention on the Prevention & Punishment of the Crime of Genocide defines 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.

Nearly everyone who considers the definition finds it insufficient for one reason or another. It manages to be at one and the same time both too broad and too narrow.

A Century of Genocide: Utopias of Race & Nation (2003)

Genocide: Establishing Terminology

1) Government policy or participation

2) Intent to destroy particular groups

For genocide to occur, there needs to be demonstrable intent to destroy “in whole or in part” particular population groups. This is a central point that distinguishes genocides from the civilian casualties that may occur in wartime, from pogroms, from massacres, from forced deportations—even if the number of victims is massive, and although any one of these actions may subsequently evolve into a genocide. [9]

A Century of Genocide: Utopias of Race & Nation (2003)

Armenian Genocide (1915-1923): Historical Context

Ottoman Empire: “The Sick Man of Europe” (late 19th century)

“Armenian Question”1) Who will speak up for this Christian minority?2) Who will be their protectors among European powers?

Growth of Nationalism (with growing “Turkish” identity)1) The Armenian population stood out because

a) Protected groupb) Religious minorityc) Successful economically

2) The “Young Turks” (modernizers, nationalists, ambitious reformers)a) make the Ottoman Empire more efficientb) infiltrated positions of powerc) came to power in 1908

The Great War or WWI (1914-1918)1) Armenians seen as dangerous alien minority living within Turkish

borders2) Russian involvement becomes of increasing concern3) Shift away from earlier “Ottomanism” to focus on ethnic Turkish identity

Treaty of Berlin (1885)