Research essay 3000 question, What is genocide? What are the objectives of genocide? Examples of cases the Armenian and Holocaust Genocide? check if the answer is correct, check grammar punctuation sp

Running head: Research Essay 0

PICT3013_Research Essay

Name: Gorgees Zia

Student ID: 44830769

Date: 05/06/2020

What is genocide? What are the objectives of genocide? Examples of cases the Armenian and Holocaust Genocide

Genocide is a new term was established in the last few decades by the United Nations but the concept of genocide is very ancient, which reflects back to different wars such as WWI and other conflicts that took place across the world at the beginning of 19th century. According to the author, ''The word "genocide" did not exist before 1944, it is a very specific term, referring to violent crimes committed against particular groups or minorities with the intent to destroy the existence of the group'', (Shaw, 2015)1. The essay will have four main sections to discusses the areas of each section. In the first section, the essay will discuss the history of genocide such as ''Polish-Jewish lawyer named Raphael Lemkin''2 who created the phrase of genocide. Also, it will explain the meaning of genocide in the 21st century according to the UN. In the second section of this essay, it will have a strong focus on the objectives of genocide, as well as the paper will illustrate the most targeted groups in the 19th century and the reasons why they were killed or persecuted at that time. In the third and four sections, its beings by addressing the two case studies which will define the Armenians and Germany ''Holocaust'' genocide. And in each of these cases studies the paper seeks to clarify the history of Armenian and Holocaust genocide, therefore why they were killed and how many people died. The case studies are examples and a reality of genocide that took place in two counties of Turkey and Germany. For instance, the two empires the Ottoman and Nazi killed millions of people mostly the minorities that belong to Armenian ethnics in Turkey and Jews in Germany. The paper concludes by summarising the concept of genocide in international law, also the which countries have accepted the Armenian and Jews Genocide as were crimes and abuse against their cultures.

The idea of Genocide has been there for many years, genocide is a term that used to describe all the crimes against humanity or harming and demolition different human groups and civilisations. The word genocide revealed during the second world war in early of the nineteenth century. It is simultaneously an empirical phenomenon, an analytical- legal concept, and a plea for intervention. The term comes from the Raphael Lemkin the Polish and Jewish Lawyer, he was the first Jewish man to coin the word for the crimes committed by some empires to multiple groups3. Mostly the creation of the word was because of the anti-Jewish programs in Europe and the killing of the Christians minorities of the Ottoman Empire in the world war one. In developing his catalysing idea, Rephael Lemkin was motivated above all by a need to protect threatened minorities, and to develop a legal system or instrument capable of mobilising international support for their defence4. Lemkin arrived in the United States as a boy to flee from the Nazi crimes, as he was a very powerful lawyer during the time when he was formulating the term of genocide. As a result, he was horrified by the damage and the harm that was done to the fabric of human civilization and the group destruction especially to minorities such as the Turkish massacre of millions of Armenian in World War I, and the Nazi crimes committed to Jews in Germany in the World War II. According to Adam, Lemkin defined the term by different meanings from other countries such as ''in 1944, he coined the term “genocide” by combining genos, the Greek word for race or tribe, with the Latin suffix cide (“to kill”), (Chalk and Jonassohn, 1990)5. Genocide is an old practice to kill people and minorities as a nation or destroy the lives of some members of the group. After that the term was introduced to the United Nations in 1948 as they announced a new policy to recognises in the Convention on Prevention and Punishment of the crimes which intent to destroy particular a national, ethnical, rational, or some religious group as an entire community or as a part. According to the UN, the crimes of genocide as they stated that in article II includes such as killing members of the group (religious groups), causing significant destruction to the body and mental health of members of the groups. And imposing serious harm to prevent women from giving births withing groups, also, taking children by force from their families to another member of the groups such as Aboriginals children in Australia were taken by force to white people groups in the nineteenth century6. The main purpose of the United Nations to set up laws against genocide was to protect human groups and the culture of those people from being destroyed, persecuted, killed, or forcibly deported from their land. In 1950s many countries around the world have accepted and signed to stand against genocide with the UN. For example, ''the convention entered into force in 1951 and has since been ratified by more than 130 countries, and the aim of the Genocide Convention protects people and criminalizes physical and biological genocide'', (Newbury, 1998)7.

Genocide, as we have seen, is a relatively recent concept. But the crimes against humanity are somewhat old, and this can be traced back to the wars and mass killing of members of the

groups before the world war one and after. Mostly the objective of the genocide is a plan committed by a large group or empire to destroy the other groups such as minorities in a whole or in a part8. And this can happen during the war or peace period or other time, which is directly crimes against peace to target people from being wealthy, religious, or becomes dominant in their countries. Empires or some groups can use different methods to destroy other groups, as there are many ways of destroying groups as a whole. For example, killing people in terms of total group size (the "quantitative approach"). Or the other ways are the destruction of the main part of the group, such as its leadership or cultural sites (the "qualitative approach")9. Therefore, genocide can lead to mass destructions in many cases, which includes damaging or breaking down the culture and the cultural sites, languages, national emotions, the economic, and especially the religions of targeted groups. Also, genocide makes significant devastation to personal values and security, dignity, and the health of the individuals which belongs to a particular group, and this because genocide points directly against the individuals of the national groups, (Lemkin 1944)10. All these destructions to the targeted groups which includes minorities, religious or ethnic groups can be done by different methods of crimes such as murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhuman acts committed against the civilian population. As well as in the modern world genocide has been practised by different groups in some of the countries, by using other methods of crime against humanity such as transfer of population, torture, rape, sexual slavery, forced pregnancy, and other forms of sexual violence. According to Kranz, where he describes that the genocide is still performing in a few countries such as ''in savagery, genocidal campaigns in both Iraq and Syria, ISIS sought to systematically exterminate Yazidis, Shiites, and Christians and destroy their villages. They also carried out mass rapes in these communities'', (Kranz, 2017)11. One of the most common crimes was used by empires during (World War I and II) is the prosecution. The crime against humanity of 'persecution' has served in practice, as a context and adjunct for other offences, rather than as a standalone offence. The persecution was used to wipe out the whole generation from their land or villages, such as the mass atrocities against Christians minorities by the Ottoman Empire in Turkey. Genocide is a very powerful topic; it remains pervasive features of our age12. The willingness of states and leaders also those global institutions such as the UN and the International Criminal Court, that are imposed and influenced by them- to intervene and to prevent and punish such mass murder or atrocities to national, ethnical, religious, or other group members.

Genocide and crimes against humanity remain potent threats to the security of individuals and communities, many years ago, a lot of people from particular groups like religious or ethnic have encountered genocide in different ways such as Armenian and Holocaust Genocide.

Armenian Genocide remains one of the largest and brutal genocide during World War One, millions of Armenians and other members of the group were killed or persecuted by the Ottoman Empire at the time when they were ruling state which known as Turkey. From the late of 1890s to the beginning of 1920s, Ottoman Empire (Turks)13, which ruled the country by the majority of Muslim's faith, they have had a policy by the Empire to destroy and kill all Christians minorities Armenians, Assyrians, and Jews. As the author stated that ''from 1915 to 1920, the Ottoman Empire, led by Muslim Turks, carried out a policy to eliminate its Christian Armenian minority'', (Adalian, 1991)14. Ottoman Empire was immensely powerful and in large numbers, they have controlled a few parts of east-south Europe includes Armenia and Anatolia and some parts of the Middle East as well. Christians Armenians were the second largest group after Muslim Turks, and they remained as second-class citizens and an influential part for Turks. Armenians have lived in their original land for more than 3,000 years, they were independent society and full of freedom, and Christianity was their official religion in the 4th century. Armenians were richer in culture, education, and wealthier than Turks, as well as they, were strong in their Christian religion. The Ottoman Turks were Muslims and they did not like Armenians, they treated them, unequal citizens. They banned all minorities across the state including Armenians, they called them as ''infields'' because of their religion, such as ''Christians Armenians had to pay higher taxes than Muslims, for example, and they had very few political and legal rights'', (Jones, 2010)15. As a result, From the 1890s the king of the Ottoman Empire ordered the Turks military to expel and murder every Armenians minority from the kingdom, more than hundreds of thousands of Armenians were killed at that time most of them were men. Also, the Empire destroyed and burned their villages, towns, businesses and even their marketplaces after that the Turkish Empire obtained all their personal wealth, homes, money, farms, and even goods. The purpose of the empire was to get rid of and remove Armenians from the map and their original country especially as they were Christians and not Muslims. Ottoman Empire had strict rules and policies regarding Armenians, many were killed, and many fled. But at those who remained in the state, the empire ordered them to become Muslims, according to the author Armenians faced different challenges from the Turkish Empire and this include limited and normal rights if they stay in the county ''they must become Turks by nationality and Muslims by religion'', (Melson, 1996)16. Another massacre during World War I was carried out against Armenians which led to almost one million dead. The Turkish Empire was killing Armenians people in public places to witnessed by other people. Despite this, they used different inhuman crime methods to Armenians people like burning and burying them alive, crucified and throwing them from the high hills, raping and taking their women, (Akçam, 2004)17, as resulted thousands of Armenians to deport from their native land. As Jones explained that the genocide had damaged the whole culture ''by the early 1920s, when the massacres and deportations finally ended, between 600,000 and 1.5 million Armenians were dead, with many more forcibly removed from the country'', (Dadrian, 2003)18. The massacres have impacted the entire population of Armenia men, women and also children, as well as to stop the growth of Armenian nationalism. For many years Armenians and other minorities gave millions of dead people to the Turkish Empire, the empire tried to vanish the Armenian civilisation because of their jealousy from their wealth and most important they were anti-Christians. To this day, the Turkish state has never confessed about the Armenian Genocide and the crimes they committed to Armenians, for instance, ''the Turkish government still does not acknowledge the scope of these events'', (Christopher,1980 )19.

Another genocide that caused millions of people to die because of their different nationalism and political ideologies. The Holocaust, the Jewish Genocide, which was committed by the Nazi-German Empire, was the most catastrophic and murderous events in the world's history of human culture. The term ''Holocaust'' comes from the Greek language which means ''Holo'' as a whole and ''Causets'' as burned, and this reflects back to the crimes were used against Jews community in Europe from the Nazi Empire. During World War two from 1933 to the end of 1940s, the German Nazi were a group of anti-Jewish ideology and the rules made by Hitler's regime was to eliminate and kill all people with Jewish, and Gipsies background as well as to murder any homosexual in the state. Jewish were viewed by the Nazi Empire as different and unequal citizens to the state due to the difference of their nationalism and faith ideology, for example, according to Duhring ''not even conversion would allow Jews to become the equals of Germans or other Europeans'', (Melson, 1996)20. Hitler's regime has controlled all Germany and occupied many parts of Europe, including Poland, as was the main centre to gather Jews in camps and started killing them in different ways. The crimes against Jews mainly was to wipe out or remove the whole Jewish community from Europe especially from Germany, and this led to the death of more than five million Jews by the hand of the Nazi Empire. The Nazi motivations and ideology were based on racial ideas such as the mass killing of all Jews, because in fear if they would become dominated in Germany and have conspiracy over Europe (Bauer, 1965)21. Also, because of their different rational, religion and political believes, and nationalism, have led Nazi to kill Jews with poisoning gas in camps in Poland and causing serious harm to their physical and mental effects. According to Bauer, '' the Nazi regime and their collaborators murdered six million European Jews as Nazi ideology was based on a set of racial ideals which were founded on the “scientific” principles of “Social Darwinism'', (Habodror, 2017)22. The German Nazi have ruled many places across Europe and using crimes against humanity for non-Germans was extremely devastating, for example, the expansion of Germany's regime resulted in hundreds of thousands of Jews and Gypsies transported from their native land to the Polish ghettoes in camps. After that, the Nazi military placed poisoning gas to the people in camps, so they can kill them all at once as the whole group (Staub, E. 1989)23. The massacres and deportation of Jews happened for more than ten years in many places, every month the Nazi Empire murdered Jews in groups. According to Hilberg, '' from 1941 to 1945, when German army invaded Russia, Jews were first killed by shooting squads, and later they were deported to murdering camps where they were gassed and cremated'', (Melson, 1996)24. Therefore, the Nazi government did not just kill Jews and other group members, but they also killed people with disabilities and even homosexuals. They tortured them to death especially men as they were meant not important in the society or '' as a hindrance to the preservation of the German nation'', this caused to another five million non-Jews people were dead, (Bauer, 1965)25. Germany in the 21st century has apologied for all crimes committed by the Nazi government, but the Nazi has denied the Holocaust in the 1940s, as they burned all victims and destroyed all their villages and evidence, to remain the victims in the dark, (Levy, 1975)26.

The Genocide term in international law was proposed and approved by the United Nations in 1948, and they set rules against genocide such as the ''Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide''. The United Nation Convention made decisions of punishment and consequences to anyone who commits genocide and crimes against human civilization. For example, the Genocide Convention stated that in the policy such as ''the Contracting Parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and to punish'', (Nersessian, 2003)27. Mostly the law of the UN about the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide came into effect in many countries in the 1950s, as well as the UN has declared and confessed different genocides those took place including Armenian and Holocaust Genocide, (William A. Schabas)28. The convention has nearly nineteen articles, and in these articles define the genocide by international law, what are the crimes of genocide, and more importantly which group members are protected by the UN. For example, in the article four, the UN stated that the ''Persons committing genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in article III shall be punished, whether they are constitutionally responsible rulers, public officials or private individuals'', (UN, 1948)29. The main purpose of the convention was to protect all people with different group members whether if by racial, religious, national, or other groups, also to prevent genocide in the future. For example, the Genocide Convention, which bans acts deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in a whole or in a part, (Power, 2002)30. Both Genocides the Armenian and Jews were the most murderous in human civilisation which caused millions to be victims. The United Nations and some other countries such as Canada, France, United States, UK, Greece and many others have accepted that the Armenian and Holocaust Genocide were crimes against human nature and adopted the legislation of the Convention by the UN, (Adalian, 1998)31.

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