What is genocide, and why do we come across this concept so often?

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:54

Today, our inquisitive compatriot, watching international relations and bickering between different political groups within the country, often encounters the concept of "genocide". However, such discussions regularly turn from a constructive exchange of opinions in the press and on television into a stream of mutual accusations and a desire to portray oneself as a victim of the opposite side, thereby creating a villainous image for it. And sometimes it is quite difficult to figure out for yourself in fact, what is genocide? In order to understand this issue, we, firstly, need to familiarize ourselves with the relevant UN document, and secondly, plunge into the history of international relations and consider similar cases that are labeled with this label.

Genocide. Definition

For the first time the thesis about the existence of such a phenomenon was raised during the Second World War, as a reaction to the need to adequately assess the German war crimes against civilians. The question of what genocide is was initiated by the Polish Jew Rafael Lemkin in connection with the large-scale actions of the fascist command for the systematic destruction of six million people of the Jewish population. The main thing here is the very fact of the destruction of the Jewish population on the simple basis that they are Jews. Thus, we can draw the first conclusion about what genocide is: it is the destruction of a certain people on the basis of ethnic hostility. Thus, the head of the Auschwitz concentration camp, Rudolf Goess, was very proud of his innovation, which made it possible to exterminate Jews in gas chambers more quickly and on a large scale. He came up with the idea of using pesticide crystals and cyclone B, which caused suffocation very quickly.

Officially, the term "genocide" as a crime against humanity was enshrined by the UN on December 9, 1948. The Convention, in connection with the question of what genocide is, characterized it as an action aimed at the destruction of a certain religious, ethnic, national group with the aim of destroying it in whole or in part. In addition to direct murder, the convention equated to genocide the deliberate creation of unfavorable living conditions for such a group that will lead to its destruction, infliction of bodily harm on certain representatives of an ethnic or religious group, actions aimed at preventing childbearing, forcible selection of children from the group.

Genocide. History

In his logic, Rafael Lemkin, in addition to the Jewish question, also appealed to the existing Armenian question. We are talking about the genocide of the Armenian population in the Ottoman Empire in 1915-1923. However, there is a problem that does not

It's so easy to prove the fact of deliberate genocide. What for the Armenian side looks like a deliberate large-scale destruction of their nation, for the Turks is a just suppression of anti-state rebellions with the destruction of criminal elements along the way. Of course, the casu alty figures are also disputed. The genocide of the Ukrainian people during the period of Stalin's collectivization in 1932-33 stands apart. For some, this is the deliberate destruction of seven million Ukrainians as a peasant nation of owners. For others, these are accidental costs of the punitive apparatus, carried away by restoring order.

Conclusion

One way or another, the concept of genocide in our time is becoming extremely popular due to its attractiveness for cementing people's historical memory. It is not uncommon to come across a statement that a genocide of the Russian people is being carried out. After all, if such statements gain a critical mass of support, they will become a unifying idea for the people, and its disseminator will be in a very advantageous position.