Raphael Lemkin on
genocide (in his own words - reproduced by A. Dirk Moses): “‘[M]ass-murder or
extermination do not convey the elements of selection and do not indicate the
losses in terms of culture represented by the nation’s victims.’”[1] In other words, Lemkin’s definition of
genocide focuses on the destruction of a culture rather than restricting the
word to mass killings.
To elaborate: in A. Dirk Moses’ analysis, Lemkin
believed that “[g]enocide could occur...when libraries, houses of religious worship,
and other elite institutions of cultural transmission were destroyed, even if
the mass of the population survived and continued some hybrid popular culture.”[2] This can lead to potentially confusing
conclusions - as Moses again reports, there were those who believed “it showed
‘a lack of logic and of a sense of proportion to include in the same
[definition] both mass murder in gas chambers and the closing of libraries.’”[3]
Such a viewpoint as Lemkin's,
especially when considered in the aforementioned context of human interest, can
seem at best the product of a mind trapped in an ivory tower, and at worst
grossly callous. Holding such a
viewpoint requires one to place utmost importance in the preservation of
culture (as opposed to, potentially, human life). This is perhaps an unfairly polarizing characterization –
humans (when not committing genocide) surely ascribe at least slightly more
value to the lives of others than to the preservation of a ‘culture.’ Don’t they?
Probably. That does not mean, however, that an
‘average’ person does not ascribe importance to the protection of their
cultural heritage.
Consider recent
and ongoing events in Afghanistan.
What the New York Times has reported as two NATO personnel burning
approximately ten to fifteen copies of the Koran (allegedly sans knowledge of
the act’s significance) has incited massive riots in Afghanistan with massive
international implications.[4] Official apologies from the highest
levels (General John Allen of NATO and President Obama) have been issued for
the burning. Afghanistan’s
stability is at stake.
People are dying.[5]
While it would be
close-minded to attribute the explosive response solely to the sacrilegious
Koran-burning (U.S.-Afghani relations weren’t particularly rosy before the
incident), the tremendous popular reaction offers a strong argument against the
implied criticism of Lemkin’s emphasis on the cultural aspect of genocide as
‘too academic.’ The average person
- or at least the average Afghani - clearly cares about their cultural heritage
and will go to great lengths to protect it if they feel it threatened. Sometimes, as evidenced by the
Afghanistan riots, said average person will prioritize the preservation of said
heritage ahead of the preservation of their own life. Which means Lemkin, in ascribing importance to culture in
his definition of genocide, was far from an out-of-touch academic, but instead
party to an impulse buried deep within the human soul. He got it. And, given the right set of
circumstances, so, apparently, do we.
[1] A. Dirk Moses, “Raphael Lemkin,
Culture, and the Concept of Genocide,”
in The Oxford Handbook of Genocide
Studies, eds. Donald Bloxham and A. Dirk Moses (New York: Oxford University
Press), 28, quoting “Memorandum from Raphael Lemkin to R. Kempner, 5 June
1946. United States Holocaust Memorial
Museum, R. Kempner Papers (RS 71.001).
[2] Moses, 29.
[3] Moses, 38, quoting Matthew Lippman,
“The Drafting of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the
Crime of Genocide’, Boston University International Law Journal 3:1
(1985), 45.
[4] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/22/world/asia/nato-commander-apologizes-for-koran-disposal-in-afghanistan.html?pagewanted=2&sq=koran%20burning&st=cse&scp=5
[5] http://rendezvous.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/23/damage-control-again-in-afghanistan/?scp=1&sq=koran%20burning&st=cse
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