Genocide has come to have a very broad meaning, which is a huge problem.
According to the roots of the word, it's supposed to mean eliminating an entire race, such as was the goal of Nazi Germany. In that case, they mechanized and modernized the systematic rounding up and elimination of an entire people from all the regions they controlled.
Genocide is obviously bad. It has been attempted in a few different scenarios throughout the years. It was common in the premodern world, but in the modern and postmodern world it's considered much worse since we have a much more universalist morality.
The broadening of the term genocide has come to mean "killing a lot of people", which doesn't really pass basic sniff tests -- the soviet repressions weren't really genocide, they were just a hideously murderous, repressive regime. Same with Mao's China. I'd argue that at no point did the Americans intend to destroy the Japanese race in Japan, so the bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki may have been horrific acts of war perpetuated against largely civilian populations, but they weren't at all genocide. By definition a war between North Korea and South Korea couldn't really have a genocide since it was the same people fighting -- even if the Koreans totally wiped out the Koreans, the Koreans would still be there.
Not every genocide is intentional. In Canada, there were disputes between indigenous people on one of the islands of the east coast (I believe it was Prince Edward Island), and through those personal disputes one of the only fully successful genocides took place. Similarly in Australia, there was a quite successful genocide against some of the aboriginal populations, but at least judging from the rhetoric of the people at the time, they fully intended to do the right thing and modernize those populations so they could successfully integrate into modern society and they just failed miserably.
The word officially has also come to mean situations where you don't kill anyone, but you try to get rid of the original culture within the people. I think this is a good example of another thing which can be really bad but isn't actually genocide. First, it might not be so bad if the original culture was reprehensible. For example, does anyone lament the "cultural genocide" committed against Nazi culture in Germany following World War 2? Probably nobody worth listening to. However, that's exactly what was successfully done. Even in Japan, arguably the massive overhaul of their culture could be considered cultural genocide, but most people are happy to have the current Japan rather than the militarized, imperialistic Japan that fought in the world wars. On the other hand, there are plenty of examples (such as Canada and Australia) where a group's culture was at least attempted to be destroyed because it was inconvenient. "Kill the Indian, save the child" is in my view a rather progressive viewpoint, but trying to destroy native cultures just because they weren't European and Christian is a pretty bad thing (though I'd argue not genocide by definition, even if that definition was officially changed to fit later)
I have to admit, before I thought more about it, I'm sure I've incorrectly used the term myself.
Whether the situation in the middle east is a genocide, I think what we've seen suggests that while what Israel is doing is distasteful, it isn't a genocide, but the likely goal of Palestine is genocide. Israel has citizens who are Arab Muslims who live in the society, but in Palestine the number of Jews sits at a single digit percentage, and the rhetoric of "from the river to the sea Palestine will be free [of jews]" is genocidal. That being said, I think reasonable people can agree that regardless of what you label it, there's some pretty nasty stuff on both sides of that conflict. Regardless of whether Israel wants to kill *every* Arab Muslim in the region, there can be little doubt the intention is to enter the region and have Israeli Jews largely dominating the west bank and the existing Arab Muslim population become marginalized.
Anyway, energy drink it wearing off now and I think that's more than enough ruminations on the nature of genocide for one morning.
According to the roots of the word, it's supposed to mean eliminating an entire race, such as was the goal of Nazi Germany. In that case, they mechanized and modernized the systematic rounding up and elimination of an entire people from all the regions they controlled.
Genocide is obviously bad. It has been attempted in a few different scenarios throughout the years. It was common in the premodern world, but in the modern and postmodern world it's considered much worse since we have a much more universalist morality.
The broadening of the term genocide has come to mean "killing a lot of people", which doesn't really pass basic sniff tests -- the soviet repressions weren't really genocide, they were just a hideously murderous, repressive regime. Same with Mao's China. I'd argue that at no point did the Americans intend to destroy the Japanese race in Japan, so the bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki may have been horrific acts of war perpetuated against largely civilian populations, but they weren't at all genocide. By definition a war between North Korea and South Korea couldn't really have a genocide since it was the same people fighting -- even if the Koreans totally wiped out the Koreans, the Koreans would still be there.
Not every genocide is intentional. In Canada, there were disputes between indigenous people on one of the islands of the east coast (I believe it was Prince Edward Island), and through those personal disputes one of the only fully successful genocides took place. Similarly in Australia, there was a quite successful genocide against some of the aboriginal populations, but at least judging from the rhetoric of the people at the time, they fully intended to do the right thing and modernize those populations so they could successfully integrate into modern society and they just failed miserably.
The word officially has also come to mean situations where you don't kill anyone, but you try to get rid of the original culture within the people. I think this is a good example of another thing which can be really bad but isn't actually genocide. First, it might not be so bad if the original culture was reprehensible. For example, does anyone lament the "cultural genocide" committed against Nazi culture in Germany following World War 2? Probably nobody worth listening to. However, that's exactly what was successfully done. Even in Japan, arguably the massive overhaul of their culture could be considered cultural genocide, but most people are happy to have the current Japan rather than the militarized, imperialistic Japan that fought in the world wars. On the other hand, there are plenty of examples (such as Canada and Australia) where a group's culture was at least attempted to be destroyed because it was inconvenient. "Kill the Indian, save the child" is in my view a rather progressive viewpoint, but trying to destroy native cultures just because they weren't European and Christian is a pretty bad thing (though I'd argue not genocide by definition, even if that definition was officially changed to fit later)
I have to admit, before I thought more about it, I'm sure I've incorrectly used the term myself.
Whether the situation in the middle east is a genocide, I think what we've seen suggests that while what Israel is doing is distasteful, it isn't a genocide, but the likely goal of Palestine is genocide. Israel has citizens who are Arab Muslims who live in the society, but in Palestine the number of Jews sits at a single digit percentage, and the rhetoric of "from the river to the sea Palestine will be free [of jews]" is genocidal. That being said, I think reasonable people can agree that regardless of what you label it, there's some pretty nasty stuff on both sides of that conflict. Regardless of whether Israel wants to kill *every* Arab Muslim in the region, there can be little doubt the intention is to enter the region and have Israeli Jews largely dominating the west bank and the existing Arab Muslim population become marginalized.
Anyway, energy drink it wearing off now and I think that's more than enough ruminations on the nature of genocide for one morning.
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