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POPE FRANCIS AND THE ORIGINAL GENOCIDE
Aleteia
April 20 2015
The tragic history of the coining of a word
Pope Francis created an international stir when he described the
1915 massacre of the Christian Armenian people as "genocide." It
would be wrong to debate that description in any great detail, as the
term so perfectly fitted the event. Outside the bizarre intellectual
bubble that is Turkey, few competent historians would challenge the
description. What is there left to discuss?
What is startling, though, is that so few commentators noted the
obvious irony involved in asking "Did this violence qualify as
genocide?" In fact, the Armenian murders contributed overwhelmingly
to creating the original concept of genocide, and ultimately of the
word itself. The events of 1915 were not just an instance of genocide,
but rather the prototypical act of that behavior.
The story goes back to the immediate aftermath of the First World War.
Seeking revenge for the massacres, militant Armenian death squads
assassinated former Ottoman leaders and collaborators, including
leaders of the country's wartime junta. One of these actions would
have a powerful aftermath, when in Berlin in 1921 an Armenian named
Soghomon Tehlirian killed Talaat Pasha, reputed mastermind of the
genocide. Tehlirian's supporters turned his subsequent trial into
a sensational expose of the genocide, in effect putting the former
Ottoman regime in the dock. They succeeded so powerfully in stating
their case that the German court actually freed Tehlirian on the
basis of the horrors he had undergone. (He eventually died in Fresno,
California, in 1960).
The case attracted international attention, and it particularly
intrigued a Polish Jewish lawyer named Raphael Lemkin. Why,
he wondered, did courts try a man for a single murder while no
institutions existed to punish the murderers of millions? In the
absence of international institutions to combat such massacres,
he noted, surviving victims were forced to resort to vigilante justice.
That paradox continued to trouble him until, in 1933, new massacres
of Assyrian Christians in Iraq forced him to define his ideas still
further. Using the case of the Assyrians, and of the Armenians
before them, he argued for a new legal category to be called crimes
of barbarity, primarily "acts of extermination directed against
the ethnic, religious or social collectivities whatever the motive
(political, religious, etc)." Such crimes, he argued, should be an
offense against international law that demanded to be punished by a
special court or tribunal.
In 1943, Lemkin coined a new word for this atrocious behavior--namely,
"genocide." For many years, he was the most vigorous and visible
campaigner to secure global recognition for the new concept, and
finally, in 1948, the United Nations adopted the Convention on the
Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. However familiar
the notion of genocide might be today, it originated at a specific
(and quite recent) historical moment, and was largely formulated by
one man, who must be remembered as one of the greatest humanitarian
thinkers of the twentieth century.
Moreover, the concept of genocide as a uniquely horrible act demanding
international sanctions has its roots in the thoroughly successful
movements to eradicate Middle Eastern Christians, and above all,
the Armenians. When Pope Francis denounced the Armenian massacres
as "the first genocide of the 20th century," he was speaking a
self-evident truth.
Philip Jenkins is a Distinguished Professor of History at Baylor
University and author of The Great and Holy War: How World War I
Became a Religious Crusade.
http://www.aleteia.org/en/society/news/pope-francis-and-the-original-genocide-5795597768458240
From: A. Papazian
Aleteia
April 20 2015
The tragic history of the coining of a word
Pope Francis created an international stir when he described the
1915 massacre of the Christian Armenian people as "genocide." It
would be wrong to debate that description in any great detail, as the
term so perfectly fitted the event. Outside the bizarre intellectual
bubble that is Turkey, few competent historians would challenge the
description. What is there left to discuss?
What is startling, though, is that so few commentators noted the
obvious irony involved in asking "Did this violence qualify as
genocide?" In fact, the Armenian murders contributed overwhelmingly
to creating the original concept of genocide, and ultimately of the
word itself. The events of 1915 were not just an instance of genocide,
but rather the prototypical act of that behavior.
The story goes back to the immediate aftermath of the First World War.
Seeking revenge for the massacres, militant Armenian death squads
assassinated former Ottoman leaders and collaborators, including
leaders of the country's wartime junta. One of these actions would
have a powerful aftermath, when in Berlin in 1921 an Armenian named
Soghomon Tehlirian killed Talaat Pasha, reputed mastermind of the
genocide. Tehlirian's supporters turned his subsequent trial into
a sensational expose of the genocide, in effect putting the former
Ottoman regime in the dock. They succeeded so powerfully in stating
their case that the German court actually freed Tehlirian on the
basis of the horrors he had undergone. (He eventually died in Fresno,
California, in 1960).
The case attracted international attention, and it particularly
intrigued a Polish Jewish lawyer named Raphael Lemkin. Why,
he wondered, did courts try a man for a single murder while no
institutions existed to punish the murderers of millions? In the
absence of international institutions to combat such massacres,
he noted, surviving victims were forced to resort to vigilante justice.
That paradox continued to trouble him until, in 1933, new massacres
of Assyrian Christians in Iraq forced him to define his ideas still
further. Using the case of the Assyrians, and of the Armenians
before them, he argued for a new legal category to be called crimes
of barbarity, primarily "acts of extermination directed against
the ethnic, religious or social collectivities whatever the motive
(political, religious, etc)." Such crimes, he argued, should be an
offense against international law that demanded to be punished by a
special court or tribunal.
In 1943, Lemkin coined a new word for this atrocious behavior--namely,
"genocide." For many years, he was the most vigorous and visible
campaigner to secure global recognition for the new concept, and
finally, in 1948, the United Nations adopted the Convention on the
Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. However familiar
the notion of genocide might be today, it originated at a specific
(and quite recent) historical moment, and was largely formulated by
one man, who must be remembered as one of the greatest humanitarian
thinkers of the twentieth century.
Moreover, the concept of genocide as a uniquely horrible act demanding
international sanctions has its roots in the thoroughly successful
movements to eradicate Middle Eastern Christians, and above all,
the Armenians. When Pope Francis denounced the Armenian massacres
as "the first genocide of the 20th century," he was speaking a
self-evident truth.
Philip Jenkins is a Distinguished Professor of History at Baylor
University and author of The Great and Holy War: How World War I
Became a Religious Crusade.
http://www.aleteia.org/en/society/news/pope-francis-and-the-original-genocide-5795597768458240
From: A. Papazian