Genocide is one of the most frightening terms one could hear, sending shivers down your spine just to hear the word. Genocide is the intent of extermination of a national, ethnical, racial or religious group. One of the best known Genocide’s to the world is known as the Holocaust. Germans exterminated over 6 million Jews in just a couple of years. Families were torn apart, and some of the worst things you could ever do to a human being were done in these times. After the Holocaust everyone said Never Again, but it has happened over and over. If we follow the steps to preventing genocides, we can stop history from repeating itself and keep the people of the world safe.
Genocide has been affecting many people; one event that became well known was the Holocaust. The term Genocide was made in 1944 by Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin, who combined the Greek words geno (race) with the Latin word cide (kill). Article 2 of the Convention on the Prevention of and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide states “In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: Killing members in a group, causing serious bodily or mental harm to member of a group, deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical or destruction in whole or in part, imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group, or forcibly transferring children of the group to another group” (Overview: Defining Genocide). Genocide is is made up of individual acts and individual choices to perform them. The Holocaust was one of the most noticed genocides, the holocaust started in 1933 when adolf hitler came to power. The holocaust is an example of genocides because it specifically targeted jewish people. Overall 6 million jews were killed, the holocaust also targeted other groups because of their racial inferiority, political, ideological, and behavioral grounds including the: Gypsies, the disabled, and some of the Slavic people. On September 1941 more than 33,000 jews were killed in just two days. Although many people believe...
The analysis of this empowering term is fairly self-explanatory when the time is taken to break it down. Linda Jacobs Altman author of Genocide The Systematic Killing of a People claims that in 1944 the Greek word genos, meaning “race” or “tribe” and the Latin cide, which means “killing” were combined to result in the title of genocide. Altman states that today’s definition recognizes genocide as “Acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group, as such”. A similar description has genocide as “A form of one-sided mass killing in which a state or other authority intends to destroy a group, as that group and membership in it are defined by the perpetrator”(Altman). Due to genocide being a worldwide issue, definitions have been known to cause controversy. Countries that represent perpetrators of past genocides often argue, on ridiculous terms, that their actions did not constitute a formal genocide. The breakdown of the word is helpful in the decision making process when determining if acts truly are those of genocide.
One reason why the US shouldn’t intervene in genocide happening in other countries is because both countries can be hurt by it in many different ways, such as physically and even economically. In dozens of Washington post interviews with the Iraqi people, their attitude towards the United States intervention isn’t what would have been thought. They said “their lives were safer and more prosperous under Hussein and that the U.S. invasion was not worth the price both countries have paid (Sullivan 2).” If this is the case why would we interfere where we are not needed or wanted. Which is a waste of a lot of the U.S.’s money for no reason and possibly lives. A New York Times article also said “. . . The worst thing in Darfur would be an Iraq style intervention. That would almost certainly spread the civil war to other parts of Sudan.” If this is correct, then why would the U.S. intervene with something were they would do more harm than good, and put more lives in danger than there already is. The U.S. should not intervene because we can ultimately hurt both countries.
Genocide is a fairly new term. The word was created in 1944 by Raphael Remkin (1900-1959), he was also from poland, a lawyer, and jewish. He tried to create a word specifically to describe what was happening in Europe with World War two, and the massacre of of jewish people. Then name, like many of our present day words derived from ancient Greek, and Latin. ‘Geno’ is greek and means race or tribe, ‘cide’ is Latin and means to kill, or killing. the next year genocide was used as a describing words for crimes against humanity, not a law though. It was not until December 9th,...
“The U.S. had never intervened to stop genocide and had in fact rarely even made a point of condemning it as it occurred” (Power 3). Genocide is described as a deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group (Genocide 1). Thus stating, millions to trillions of innocent lives have been taken, including children, due to the act of genocide. America should intervene in foreign affairs, such as genocide, because of the Genocide Convention, We have a strong-based military, and it’s dangerously immoral.
Despite overwhelming evidence of genocide and knowledge as to its perpetrators, United States officials decided against taking a leading role in confronting the slaughter in Rwanda. Rather, US officials confined themselves to public statements, diplomatic demarches, initiatives for a ceasefire, and attempts to contact both the interim government perpetrating the killing and the RPF. The US did use its influence, however, at the United Nations, but did so to discourage a robust UN response (Document 4 and Document 13). In late July, however, with the evidence of genocide littering the ground in Rwanda, the US did launch substantial operations—again, in a supporting role—to assist humanitarian relief efforts for those displaced by the genocide.
History contains horrific periods of time that which people suffer and are murdered. This period of time is known as genocide. The legal definition of genocide is “the international destruction of a group of people as such, a crime so severe that it demands immediate and total condemnation” (Rothenberg 395 ). The most well known genocide is the Holocaust, a genocide in which six million Jews were killed by Nazi Germany. After World War II and the Holocaust, the word genocide was originated by Raphael Lemkin. Lemkin coined the word “genocide” by combining Greek genos, meaning race or group, with Latin cidere, meaning to kill or murder.
There are many worldwide conflicts that occurred throughout history that made a negative impact on the world, but there’s one of these conflicts that stood out from the rest, and still remains present in today’s society. This conflict is called a genocide; the deliberate and systematic extermination of a nation, racial, political or cultural group ( United States ). According to the united sates holocaust memorial museum the term genocide didn’t really come about until 1944.
Genocide: a horrible occurrence where the word sends varying messages to people across the globe. Genocide in Germany means the slow, efficient near extinction of millions of the Jewish population, as well as the more discreet murdering of gypsies and homosexuals. Genocide in Rwanda means the most brutal slaughter the world may have ever seen: over 800,000 members of the Tutsi tribe were dead in little more than 100 days. Genocide in Darfur, a country with such restricted accessibility, means the reality of the death toll of the native tribal blacks is unknown, ranging anywhere between 200,000 and 2,500,000. Genocide means the murdering of one’s own people, time has no restraints on genocide, and it can happen anywhere.
The word genocide was coined by a Polish-Jewish lawyer known by the name of Raphael Lemkin, he generated the word genocide by incorporating the Greek word for tribe or race geno- along with the Latin word for killing or murdering cide-. The reason Lemkin sought out to create the term genocide was because he wanted to describe the Nazis structured system of murder during the Holocaust. The definition of genocide is, the deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group. Targets of genocide are typically the weak and the minorities, they are easy to hold responsible for the problems of the nation or the world. The initial “modern” genocide occurred in medieval Europe when heretics were massacred during the Albigensian Crusade, this all happened during the 13th century. Genocide leaves lasting impacts on a society such as: death, violence, disease, disability, poverty, loss of dignity, and a long term health impact; furthermore, genocide must be discontinued, not only because the effects it leaves on the people, but also because of the effects it leaves on the nation.
In December 1948, the then members of the United Nations General Assembly, without contention, passed the Convention on Genocide. It defined what the crime of genocide entailed and that it was an act to be prevented and its perpetrators punished. It has been 66 years since then and we have not been able to fulfill this promise - shattering its very principles time and time again - in places such as Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda or Darfur. Man - a supposedly civilized species - has not been able to resist the urge to systematically destroy the 'undesirable' members of a society. There has been and always will be characteristics which define and divide us - race, religion, caste and culture, among others. Classification is the first and ever-present stage of genocide - there will always be an "us" and a proverbial "them". Although prejudice is human nature and may be pardonable, acting upon prejudice is not.
During the years of the war, America’s immigration policy and the restriction of Jewish immigrants was very apparent. The January 1943 Telegram Confirming Reports of Mass Executions of Jews in Poland talks about the Immigration Reform Act of 1924 and how it passed tight quotas on immigration. In 1924, the Unites States passed the Immigration Reform act. This act granted as little as two percent of the immigrating population a visa they needed to enter the U.S. Getting a visa could mean life or death for many immigrants. Instead of America helping the Jews escape Germany and Hitler, they blocked them out with more strict immigration policies. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and other officials warned that stricter controls on immigration were needed to prevent foreign threats from invading our nation. But innocent Jews trying to escape death don’t seem that harmful to most people. They also refused to, “ raise their immigration quotas in order to accept large numbers of refugees” (Lichtheim and Riegne 1). Because of this, many European Jews were not expected into America and in return harshly affected by Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. Some even died a horrible deaths in concentration camps just because America was afraid of giving out too many visas. Because of actions like these, the Jews were turned down in their time of need, especially when they