Mass Killing Summary
How does distinguishing Genocide from Mass Killing help in the prevention and punishment of the crime?
The term genocide is derived from “the Greek word genos (tribe, race) and the Latin cide (as in tyrannicide, homicide, fratricide).” Raphael Lemkin saw genocide as a process rather than a specific act or event stating that “Genocide has two phases: one, destruction of the national pattern of the oppressed group; the other, the imposition of the national pattern of the oppressor. This imposition, in turn, may be made upon the oppressed population which is allowed to remain…” He emphasised that total extermination was not necessary for genocide to occur. Since then, legal scholars, philosophers, social scientists, historians and a whole host …show more content…
of other academic disciplines have debated whether mass killing should or should not be definitional to genocide. Within this debate, I will be examining primarily two positions, that of Claudia Card and Martin Shaw who both offer interesting insight for understanding mass killing and its relationship to genocide. This essay will argue that Claudia Card’s concept of ‘social death’ provides an interesting insight into the idea of genocides committed without mass murder, with the focus on specific harm to the social vitality of communities. However, this cannot provide much of a stable framework for preventing or punishing the perpetrators in the international courts. Martin Shaw on the other hand gives a much more cogent argument, by wanting to go back to the original definition proposed by Lemkin and give a general framework for understanding any violence committed against civilian groups. Using Carl von Clausewitz in his work, Shaw understands genocide as a form of war directed against unarmed civilians. Rather than being stuck on how to define genocide, Shaw’s argument is important as it gives an insight into ways of going about prevention. Here Shaw offers a much more practical study of genocide that can aid in international politics whilst Card is primarily focused on the philosophical distinction stating herself that “social scientists have been empirically oriented, focused on such matters as origins, contributing causes, effects, monitoring, and prevention.”
Large scale atrocities committed against unarmed civilian populations are widely considered to have occurred for hundreds if not thousands of years, with figures exceeding 860 million prior to the twentieth century. During the Second World War, Winston Churchill speaking of actions proclaimed that, “we are in the presence of a crime without a name.” It took the major event in the first half of the 20th century to establish the term ‘genocide’ as an international crime, Claudia Card states that “the term ‘genocide’ is thus relatively new, and the holocaust is widely agreed to be its paradigmatic instance.” Generally considered to be an ancient practice, this was the first time in which States responded collectively to declare such acts as ‘crimes against humanity’ during the Nuremberg Trials carried out between 1945 and 1949. Raphael Lemkin known as the “father of the genocide convention” first used the term in his book Axis Rule in Occupied Europe. In his work, Lemkin set out to describe such crimes committed against civilians, proposing the new concept of ‘genocide’ to describe the Turkish massacres of the Armenian people as well as the Nazi crimes against European Jewry during the Second World War. He hoped that this term would be adopted into the world of international law, with the primary purpose of preventing and punishing such horrific crimes. Lemkin succeeded and on the 9th December, 1948, the United Nations adopted the ‘Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide’, under which genocide was defined as “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.” The actions cover “killing members of the groups”;, “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part”; “imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group”; and “forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.” Much to his regret, the UN Convention gives a much narrower definition of the crime of Genocide than was originally proposed by Lemkin, who wanted to provide a broad framework for understanding and bring to justice the perpetrators of these heinous crimes. This narrow definition can be explained by the divided Cold War atmosphere between States. Leo Kuper, argues that the major sections under discussion include; groups protected by the convention, the question of intent, inclusion of cultural genocide, issues of punishment and enforcement, the type and extent of the destruction that would constitute genocide and the very nature of the crime.
The debate about whether or not mass killing is definitional to genocide has raged on since the coining of the term by Raphael Lemkin, one of his biggest disappointments was the omission of cultural genocide from the UN Convention. Here two very different, yet fixed positions have arisen from the debate. Firstly, the inclusivist camp: essentially one that treats genocide as a broad phenomenon, they embrace the term as a measure of all human rights catastrophes. A key inclusivist thinker is Israel Charny who wants to extend the term to almost all instances of one-sided killing committed against civilians. He states that “unless clear-cut self-defence can be reasonably proven, whenever a large number of people are put to death by other people, it constitutes genocide.” On the other side is the exclusivist camp, who restrict the usage of the word genocide specifically to a very small, if not sole case of the phenomenon. Steven Katz, a prominent advocate of this position argues the "concept of genocide applies only when there is an actualized intent, however successfully carried out, to physically destroy an entire group (as such a group is defined by the perpetrators).” With the controversy in this debate, certain key scholars have proposed other terms in order to clarify, that which is seen to be muddled. Rudolph Rummel’s dissatisfaction with the legal definition in the UN Genocide Convention led him to propose the new word ‘democide’ to cover all cases of mass killings by a government. Democide is defined as “The murder of any person or people by a government, including genocide, politicide and mass murder.” This definition is highly problematic and offers little to no value in understanding the phenomenon of genocide. As a result, many including Leo Kuper suggest that in view of the “bewildering array of definitions… the UN Genocide Convention is indeed the only reasonable option.”
Focusing on the inclusion of cultural genocide as definitional to the concept of genocide, I will now turn to the position of Claudia Card. Her interest here is studying the very specific ‘evil’ committed in genocides with the intention of understanding the specific form of harm and its relationship to other cases of mass killings. Overall, she argues that the crime of genocide is distinguishable from other forms of mass murder, this is because of what she calls ‘social death’ taken from Orlando Patterson’s terminology. For Card, the concept of ‘social death’ is central to the crime of Genocide and should be used to help us “distinguish the peculiar evil of genocide from the evils of other mass murders.” This concept focuses heavily on the idea of a ‘social vitality’ that exists within communities through certain relationships and can be passed on by each generation. For her, this is what creates the sense of identity within groups, and that which gives meaning to their lives. Therefore, within this debate, Card argues that genocide can occur without any cases of mass killing, though the most extreme form of ‘social death’ is carried out through such means. She states that “In my view, the special evil of genocide lies in its infliction of not just physical death but social death, producing consequent meaningless of one’s life and even in its termination.” The key question here is ‘can the concept of ‘social death’ provide a better framework for distinguishing the crime of genocide from mass killing and aid in its prevention?’ The idea of social death is helpful in terms of reconciling the victims, in the hope that the ‘social vitality’ of the affected community can be restored. Furthermore, it allows for a fuller explanation in relation to the meaning of genocide. However, the concept of ‘social death’ cannot aid in prevention or punishment for the crime of genocide in the legal sense, this is backed up by the fact that Card includes the loss of social vitality in actions such as; banishment, or excommunication. This would raise a number of issues for example as to whether the Catholic Church has committed genocide by committing social death through excommunication.
Moving on to another key academic in the study of genocide, Martin Shaw.
Shaw argues that studies on genocide have concentrated too heavily on the specific perpetrators and victims with regard to intentions and identities respectively. Instead, he wants to propose that the crime of genocide should be understood within the structure of conflict situations. The most important aspect of genocide studies from the point of view of politics is that the concept of genocide must be clarified, Shaw believes that scholarship should provide this elucidation. By returning to the original definition proposed by Lemkin, the focus is more generally on attacks by the armed against the unarmed. Shaw states that “Lemkin invented ‘genocide’ because he wanted to describe – and highlight for countervailing action – a general class of violent actions.” Taking lessons from one of the most influential studies on war by Carl von Clausewitz, Shaw sees genocide as a form of war directed against civilians. Debates about genocide have certainly advanced since the introduction of the term, yet, Shaw feels these debates from the 1940s onwards have lost two very key aspects of the original concept. In agreement with Lemkin the omission of cultural genocide or social destruction meaning not just physically but a way of life and how genocide relates to war are vital in understanding the nature of the crime. He argues that “Genocide always involves physical violence but it involves many other things as well. Defining genocide by killing misses the social aims that lie behind it. Genocide involves mass killing but it is much more than mass killing.” Similar to some of the arguments made by Claudia Card in relation to the inclusion of cultural genocide, Shaw’s assertion that genocide must be viewed in the context of war provides a valuable framework for understanding the particular violence against civilians. The use of word civilians here is important for Shaw, rather than the UN Genocide
Convention concentrating on certain, national, ethnical, racial or religious groups. He states that “all groups or populations targeted in genocide are overwhelmingly civilian in character, and it is their civilian identity that makes their targeting genocidal.” Therefore, the distinction that marks off this form of political violence from other examples is that the core social distinction between civilians (non-combatants) and combatants is fundamentally altered. Shaw offers his own definition of genocide placing it within a sociological framework as a way of setting out (much like Lemkin) a model that will be useful for understanding the phenomenon. His conclusion is that “genocide is a form of violent social conflict, or war, between armed power organisations that aim to destroy civilian social groups and those groups and other actors who resist this destruction.” Genocide then, rather than restricting its use solely to mass killing, is a general type of social action and conflict that can be identified regardless of success or scale. This identification should allow for a basic framework capable of aiding in prevention as well as punishment of the perpetrator of genocide. Understanding it within the context or as a form of war will provide better warning signs for any violent action carried out against civilian groups.
Leo Kuper wrote in a seminal text on genocide studies that “the word is new, the concept is ancient.” Raphael Lemkin in just four years was able to coin the term genocide in which he was able to concisely capture this age-old historical phenomenon and place it within the global historical context of the Third Reich. In the last 70 years, the term has been so overly applied to different circumstances that much of its original meaning has been forgotten. Mark Levene states that “the fact is that the term [genocide] now is so broadly used and abused that it has become much less of a tool for understanding and much more a millstone around our necks.” Both Claudia Card and Martin Shaw aim to address this problem by offering conceptual analysis of the phenomenon in relation to other forms of mass killing. The main debate here concerns whether or not cultural genocide should be included in the definition of the Genocide Convention, and if it is helpful in aiding prevention and punishment in the international courts. Claudia Card’s concept of ‘social death’ is insufficient at gaining a better framework for understanding the origins, contributing factors, effects and prevention of the crime of genocide. It is problematic in that instances of excommunication or banishment can involve forms of ‘social death’ which could render the political use of the concept of genocide even more unworkable than the UN Convention. Instead, Martin Shaw, provides conceptual clarity on the issue of debates surrounding genocide. By focusing on the original definition of genocide and framing it as a form of war albeit very one-sided, Shaw through his definition is able to explain the full range of organised violence that is specifically targeted at civilian populations. Understanding it in this way enables us to see the important connections between this kind of anti-civilian violence and the much more common kind perpetrated both intentionally and unintentionally in warfare.
The term genocide is derived from “the Greek word genos (tribe, race) and the Latin cide (as in tyrannicide, homicide, fratricide).” Raphael Lemkin saw genocide as a process rather than a specific act or event stating that “Genocide has two phases: one, destruction of the national pattern of the oppressed group; the other, the imposition of the national pattern of the oppressor. This imposition, in turn, may be made upon the oppressed population which is allowed to remain…” He emphasised that total extermination was not necessary for genocide to occur. Since then, legal scholars, philosophers, social scientists, historians and a whole host …show more content…
of other academic disciplines have debated whether mass killing should or should not be definitional to genocide. Within this debate, I will be examining primarily two positions, that of Claudia Card and Martin Shaw who both offer interesting insight for understanding mass killing and its relationship to genocide. This essay will argue that Claudia Card’s concept of ‘social death’ provides an interesting insight into the idea of genocides committed without mass murder, with the focus on specific harm to the social vitality of communities. However, this cannot provide much of a stable framework for preventing or punishing the perpetrators in the international courts. Martin Shaw on the other hand gives a much more cogent argument, by wanting to go back to the original definition proposed by Lemkin and give a general framework for understanding any violence committed against civilian groups. Using Carl von Clausewitz in his work, Shaw understands genocide as a form of war directed against unarmed civilians. Rather than being stuck on how to define genocide, Shaw’s argument is important as it gives an insight into ways of going about prevention. Here Shaw offers a much more practical study of genocide that can aid in international politics whilst Card is primarily focused on the philosophical distinction stating herself that “social scientists have been empirically oriented, focused on such matters as origins, contributing causes, effects, monitoring, and prevention.”
Large scale atrocities committed against unarmed civilian populations are widely considered to have occurred for hundreds if not thousands of years, with figures exceeding 860 million prior to the twentieth century. During the Second World War, Winston Churchill speaking of actions proclaimed that, “we are in the presence of a crime without a name.” It took the major event in the first half of the 20th century to establish the term ‘genocide’ as an international crime, Claudia Card states that “the term ‘genocide’ is thus relatively new, and the holocaust is widely agreed to be its paradigmatic instance.” Generally considered to be an ancient practice, this was the first time in which States responded collectively to declare such acts as ‘crimes against humanity’ during the Nuremberg Trials carried out between 1945 and 1949. Raphael Lemkin known as the “father of the genocide convention” first used the term in his book Axis Rule in Occupied Europe. In his work, Lemkin set out to describe such crimes committed against civilians, proposing the new concept of ‘genocide’ to describe the Turkish massacres of the Armenian people as well as the Nazi crimes against European Jewry during the Second World War. He hoped that this term would be adopted into the world of international law, with the primary purpose of preventing and punishing such horrific crimes. Lemkin succeeded and on the 9th December, 1948, the United Nations adopted the ‘Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide’, under which genocide was defined as “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.” The actions cover “killing members of the groups”;, “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part”; “imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group”; and “forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.” Much to his regret, the UN Convention gives a much narrower definition of the crime of Genocide than was originally proposed by Lemkin, who wanted to provide a broad framework for understanding and bring to justice the perpetrators of these heinous crimes. This narrow definition can be explained by the divided Cold War atmosphere between States. Leo Kuper, argues that the major sections under discussion include; groups protected by the convention, the question of intent, inclusion of cultural genocide, issues of punishment and enforcement, the type and extent of the destruction that would constitute genocide and the very nature of the crime.
The debate about whether or not mass killing is definitional to genocide has raged on since the coining of the term by Raphael Lemkin, one of his biggest disappointments was the omission of cultural genocide from the UN Convention. Here two very different, yet fixed positions have arisen from the debate. Firstly, the inclusivist camp: essentially one that treats genocide as a broad phenomenon, they embrace the term as a measure of all human rights catastrophes. A key inclusivist thinker is Israel Charny who wants to extend the term to almost all instances of one-sided killing committed against civilians. He states that “unless clear-cut self-defence can be reasonably proven, whenever a large number of people are put to death by other people, it constitutes genocide.” On the other side is the exclusivist camp, who restrict the usage of the word genocide specifically to a very small, if not sole case of the phenomenon. Steven Katz, a prominent advocate of this position argues the "concept of genocide applies only when there is an actualized intent, however successfully carried out, to physically destroy an entire group (as such a group is defined by the perpetrators).” With the controversy in this debate, certain key scholars have proposed other terms in order to clarify, that which is seen to be muddled. Rudolph Rummel’s dissatisfaction with the legal definition in the UN Genocide Convention led him to propose the new word ‘democide’ to cover all cases of mass killings by a government. Democide is defined as “The murder of any person or people by a government, including genocide, politicide and mass murder.” This definition is highly problematic and offers little to no value in understanding the phenomenon of genocide. As a result, many including Leo Kuper suggest that in view of the “bewildering array of definitions… the UN Genocide Convention is indeed the only reasonable option.”
Focusing on the inclusion of cultural genocide as definitional to the concept of genocide, I will now turn to the position of Claudia Card. Her interest here is studying the very specific ‘evil’ committed in genocides with the intention of understanding the specific form of harm and its relationship to other cases of mass killings. Overall, she argues that the crime of genocide is distinguishable from other forms of mass murder, this is because of what she calls ‘social death’ taken from Orlando Patterson’s terminology. For Card, the concept of ‘social death’ is central to the crime of Genocide and should be used to help us “distinguish the peculiar evil of genocide from the evils of other mass murders.” This concept focuses heavily on the idea of a ‘social vitality’ that exists within communities through certain relationships and can be passed on by each generation. For her, this is what creates the sense of identity within groups, and that which gives meaning to their lives. Therefore, within this debate, Card argues that genocide can occur without any cases of mass killing, though the most extreme form of ‘social death’ is carried out through such means. She states that “In my view, the special evil of genocide lies in its infliction of not just physical death but social death, producing consequent meaningless of one’s life and even in its termination.” The key question here is ‘can the concept of ‘social death’ provide a better framework for distinguishing the crime of genocide from mass killing and aid in its prevention?’ The idea of social death is helpful in terms of reconciling the victims, in the hope that the ‘social vitality’ of the affected community can be restored. Furthermore, it allows for a fuller explanation in relation to the meaning of genocide. However, the concept of ‘social death’ cannot aid in prevention or punishment for the crime of genocide in the legal sense, this is backed up by the fact that Card includes the loss of social vitality in actions such as; banishment, or excommunication. This would raise a number of issues for example as to whether the Catholic Church has committed genocide by committing social death through excommunication.
Moving on to another key academic in the study of genocide, Martin Shaw.
Shaw argues that studies on genocide have concentrated too heavily on the specific perpetrators and victims with regard to intentions and identities respectively. Instead, he wants to propose that the crime of genocide should be understood within the structure of conflict situations. The most important aspect of genocide studies from the point of view of politics is that the concept of genocide must be clarified, Shaw believes that scholarship should provide this elucidation. By returning to the original definition proposed by Lemkin, the focus is more generally on attacks by the armed against the unarmed. Shaw states that “Lemkin invented ‘genocide’ because he wanted to describe – and highlight for countervailing action – a general class of violent actions.” Taking lessons from one of the most influential studies on war by Carl von Clausewitz, Shaw sees genocide as a form of war directed against civilians. Debates about genocide have certainly advanced since the introduction of the term, yet, Shaw feels these debates from the 1940s onwards have lost two very key aspects of the original concept. In agreement with Lemkin the omission of cultural genocide or social destruction meaning not just physically but a way of life and how genocide relates to war are vital in understanding the nature of the crime. He argues that “Genocide always involves physical violence but it involves many other things as well. Defining genocide by killing misses the social aims that lie behind it. Genocide involves mass killing but it is much more than mass killing.” Similar to some of the arguments made by Claudia Card in relation to the inclusion of cultural genocide, Shaw’s assertion that genocide must be viewed in the context of war provides a valuable framework for understanding the particular violence against civilians. The use of word civilians here is important for Shaw, rather than the UN Genocide
Convention concentrating on certain, national, ethnical, racial or religious groups. He states that “all groups or populations targeted in genocide are overwhelmingly civilian in character, and it is their civilian identity that makes their targeting genocidal.” Therefore, the distinction that marks off this form of political violence from other examples is that the core social distinction between civilians (non-combatants) and combatants is fundamentally altered. Shaw offers his own definition of genocide placing it within a sociological framework as a way of setting out (much like Lemkin) a model that will be useful for understanding the phenomenon. His conclusion is that “genocide is a form of violent social conflict, or war, between armed power organisations that aim to destroy civilian social groups and those groups and other actors who resist this destruction.” Genocide then, rather than restricting its use solely to mass killing, is a general type of social action and conflict that can be identified regardless of success or scale. This identification should allow for a basic framework capable of aiding in prevention as well as punishment of the perpetrator of genocide. Understanding it within the context or as a form of war will provide better warning signs for any violent action carried out against civilian groups.
Leo Kuper wrote in a seminal text on genocide studies that “the word is new, the concept is ancient.” Raphael Lemkin in just four years was able to coin the term genocide in which he was able to concisely capture this age-old historical phenomenon and place it within the global historical context of the Third Reich. In the last 70 years, the term has been so overly applied to different circumstances that much of its original meaning has been forgotten. Mark Levene states that “the fact is that the term [genocide] now is so broadly used and abused that it has become much less of a tool for understanding and much more a millstone around our necks.” Both Claudia Card and Martin Shaw aim to address this problem by offering conceptual analysis of the phenomenon in relation to other forms of mass killing. The main debate here concerns whether or not cultural genocide should be included in the definition of the Genocide Convention, and if it is helpful in aiding prevention and punishment in the international courts. Claudia Card’s concept of ‘social death’ is insufficient at gaining a better framework for understanding the origins, contributing factors, effects and prevention of the crime of genocide. It is problematic in that instances of excommunication or banishment can involve forms of ‘social death’ which could render the political use of the concept of genocide even more unworkable than the UN Convention. Instead, Martin Shaw, provides conceptual clarity on the issue of debates surrounding genocide. By focusing on the original definition of genocide and framing it as a form of war albeit very one-sided, Shaw through his definition is able to explain the full range of organised violence that is specifically targeted at civilian populations. Understanding it in this way enables us to see the important connections between this kind of anti-civilian violence and the much more common kind perpetrated both intentionally and unintentionally in warfare.