Abstract
The label “genocide” emerged in the second half of the twentieth century. After years of campaigning, Raphael Lemkin succeeded in gaining international recognition for the term “genocide.” The term identified a peculiar type of mass atrocity that aimed at the annihilation of an ethnic group. The proper use of the term in historic and contemporary communications is a considerable undertaking, since it identifies not only a peculiar type of conflict but also the role of actors in that conflict. Genocide may or may not happen in global or civil wars. In genocide some actors are victims, and other actors are perpetrators. Since the deployment of the term is likely to result in the blame of some and the exculpation of others, it is a term that must be used judiciously and for the betterment of society. Understanding genocide as a process enables watchers to determine if a society is engaged in genocidal priming or recognize that it has entered the peak phase of genocide when mass murder happens. When the cry is properly deployed it can be an effective deterrent to halt ongoing genocide or to prevent an imminent genocide.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
- 3.
John Cooper, Raphael Lemkin and the struggle for the Genocide Convention (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 280.
- 4.
Raphael Lemkin, Lemkin on Genocide (New York: Lexington Books, 2012), 3.
- 5.
Cooper, Raphael Lemkin and the struggle for the Genocide Convention, 86.
- 6.
Cooper, Raphael Lemkin and the struggle for the Genocide Convention, 91.
- 7.
Mark Roseman, The Wannsee Conference and the Final Solution: A Reconsideration (New York: Henry Holt and Company, LLC, 2002),184.
- 8.
On the right to defend (R2D) and other methods of prevention see Scott Straus, Fundamentals of Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention (Washington, D.C.: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2016).
- 9.
John G. Heidenrich, How to Prevent Genocide: A Guide for Policymakers, Scholars, and the Concerned Citizen (West Port, Connecticut: Praeger, 2001), 94.
- 10.
Stephen K. Baum, The Psychology of Genocide: Perpetrators, Bystanders, and Rescuers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008),153.
- 11.
Lewy, Perpetrators: The World of the Holocaust Killers, 79.
- 12.
Lewy, Perpetrators: The World of the Holocaust Killers, 78.
- 13.
Levi, Survival in Auschwitz, 91.
- 14.
Lewy, Perpetrators: The World of the Holocaust Killers, 105.
- 15.
Lewy, Perpetrators: The World of the Holocaust Killers, 61.
- 16.
Victoria Barnett, Bystanders: Conscience and Complicity During the Holocaust (Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 1999),11.
- 17.
David I. Kertzer, The pope at war: the secret history of Pius XII, Mussolini, and Hitler (New York: Random House, 2022), 371.
- 18.
Lewy, Perpetrators,105.
- 19.
Baum, The Psychology of Genocide, 31.
- 20.
Baum, The Psychology of Genocide, 156.
- 21.
Alexander L. Hinton, Why Did They Kill? Cambodia in the Shadow of Genocide (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 34.
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Wilson, P.E. (2023). Cry Genocide!. In: The Degradation of Ethics Through the Holocaust. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30919-9_12
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30919-9_12
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