• Anarcho-Bolshevik@lemmygrad.ml
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    1 year ago

    The word genocide was created in the 50s as a response to the holocaust. It was invented to create a specific method of opposition to ethnic cleansing.

    Not really.

    The Polish jurist Raphaël Lemkin invented the term “genocide” in a book published in 1944 - not to describe what was later called the Holocaust, but to present the grievances and claims of exiled national groups [6]. Although some of these groups called themselves “governments in exile”, their status in 1940-45 was dependent on the Allies. In particular, the US and the USSR had the military power to re-allocate territory in Europe, and did, in 1945. Some nations disappeared in 1945: others might have. Lemkin’s evident political concern was to establish the permanent existence rights of nations, and to redirect the horror at Nazi atrocities into support for nationalism in Europe. That is propaganda: nationalist propaganda, substituting pro-nationalism for anti-fascism.

    (Source.)

    The term populicide would be better and less ambiguous when referring to a series of massacres against the same people. Unfortunately, it’s a much less common term.