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Definition Of Genocide

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What is genocide? Many times in life and in the media, the word genocide is thrown around for many reasons including a lack of knowledge of the actual definition of the word genocide. Genocide is a cruel but unique occurrence in history. Genocides are thought out, politically driven, and are against a group of defenseless people. A Polish Jewish man named Raphael Lemkin coined the word genocide. He combined both a Greek and a Latin word to make the word genocide. Lemkin possessed 5 categories of genocide. The 5 definitions are: (1) intentional group annihilation; (2) the intend was conceptualized; (3) how the mode of annihilation is defined; (4) how the agent of annihilation is defined and finally (5) how the victim of annihilation is defined. …show more content…

Many countries sometimes turn a blind eye to genocide and the signs of genocide. Some of the signs of genocide can easily be determined by change in political power, changes in race relations, and an incline in hostility between two countries. Also a way to stop genocide is by creating a clear definition of genocide that isn’t too specific and too vague. America and Turkey have been denying their role in genocide in their countries for several years and have been protected because U.N’s definition of genocide is too vague. In my effort to learn about genocide I have come up with a formula to make a clear definition of genocide. Genocide first has to have Agent. In other words genocide has to have a perpetrator to commit the crime. As I described earlier, the agent must be an organized group defined by the perpetrator. Also the Agent is almost always an organized majority or state with a political agenda. The political agenda is very important because all genocides are politically driven and have a political …show more content…

In other words, this is the group of people who are being affected. These people are always either a member of a group, race, nationality, political group, and or class. The people are targeted based on beliefs and involuntary qualities that are not changeable. This means that you cannot change the quality that is being targeted. A good example would be the color of your skin or the size of your feet. The next step to making a clear definition is the mode. The mode is the effect that the genocide causes on the people. In both the U.N’s definition and in lempkin’s definition the word annihilation and destroy are used to symbolize death or removal. These are descriptive but to make a clearer definition we must go into depth on the mode and the effect it has on the people. Lastly but the most important part of a clear definition is the intent. As the U.N and Lemkin stated earlier; the intent was to destroy in whole or in part. I believe the most descriptive definition is, “genocide is an organized group or state as defined by the perpetrator with a purposeful attempt at the physical destruction, in whole or in part, a group with a specific class, race, nationality, religion, political belief, and/or any other involuntary trait. I believe this definition can apply to all genocides in history. With this definition less countries will be able to deny the previous cases of

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