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By Dr Rebwar Fatah
15/11/2009
Genocide, insurgency and multiculturalism
Dr Rebwar Fatah
The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
In December of 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which came into effect in January of 1951. The Convention represented the culmination of years of lobbying.
Adopting the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide was a major step which has some inevitable implications, such as accepting each other as members of the human community.
The Convention was adopted to “prevent” and “punish” crimes of genocide. However, 60 years later, it is obvious that despite its contribution, the Convention has not achieved its objectives; genocide is conditional and perpetrators are not punished. I understand that the process by which genocide is established may not be a simple one. However, the problem is not technical; rather it is political and commercial. The United Nations represents states, not people such as ethno-religious groups. There is a balance in the United Nations Security Council. [1]
Re-definition of genocide
Article 2 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, enacts measures to stop any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
I am re-defining genocide; what we already know about it; what I think about it. It is useful to first determine what constitutes “genocide”, which is categorized as a “crime against humanity”, and criminalised under international law.
We, as human community, need to move beyond the idea of genocide as merely being a physical elimination; other aspects which are non-physical need to be recognised.
Genocide, to this point, has been described as the act of destroying, or attempts to destroy, all or part of a community, whether it be national, ethnic, racial or religious. This is viewed as being an action with physical consequences. I would argue that actions with non-physical consequences, i.e., the destruction of a community’s culture, language or any other aspects of their existence, also constitute the crime of genocide. This is not included in the traditional definition.
I also argue that if an authority does not allow a particular ethnic group or community to speak their own language, this constitutes linguistic genocide. A perfect example has occurred in Turkey, where the speaking of the Kurdish language has been banned. This should be treated as genocide; if we are forbidding an ethnic group to speak in their own language, then we are forbidding them to think in their own language, and this will inevitably result in the elimination of who they are as Kurds, ultimately causing them to lose their identity entirely. This is not a physical elimination per se, but slowly, this non-physical form of genocide will lead to physical elimination, as this ethnic group gradually disappears and takes on the identity of the culture being forced upon them, i.e., the Kurds will become Turks. (Slow-release genocide, you could say.)
Additionally, if an authority, whether it is a constitutionally responsible ruler or otherwise, does not allow a particular religious group to practice their religious customs and traditions, this constitutes faith genocide.
I argue that genocide does not have to be the physical elimination of an ethno-religious group, a sect or a community, but it can also be the elimination or forbidding of a certain practices, aiming to eradicate an ethno-religious group’s heritage, culture, religion, language etc.
The denial of the existence of an ethnic or religious group or their demonisation should be regarded as genocide. For example, Turkey and Syria both deny the existence of Kurds officially. In both of their constitutions, Kurds do not exist. Furthermore, their constitutions, respectively, claim that their nations are comprised of Turks and Arabs. This is the denial of existence. In addition, measures are put in place to demonise Kurds via constitutional and non-constitutional organisations. This is genocide. One outcome of this demonisation is that all of the states’ troubles and failures are blamed on the Kurdish people. Such demonisation will result in the separation and withdrawal of the persecuted ethnic group into an isolated, homogenous group. As a result of this isolation and the inevitable difficulties associated with it, they will begin to regret being themselves and try to become something else. This is another slow form of elimination.
In Turkey now, many Kurds believe that being Kurdish is who you are at home, within the family and in your village, but then after you have been educated and leave the family, you graduate to being a Turk. This is extremely dangerous and is leading to the physical elimination of an ethnic group.
Genocide vs. insurgency
The Convention identifies the perpetrator as “persons” in Articles 4, 5 and 6. In Article 4, the Convention recognised the perpetrators as:
“Persons committing genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in Article 3 shall be punished, whether they are constitutionally responsible rulers, public officials or private individuals.”
We now have the re-definition of genocide as being the systematic elimination or attempt to eliminate an ethno-religious group or aspects of their existence, such as their culture, language, homeland, etc. The main point is that it is an action that is systematic and planned (like a project that can be achieved).
In contrast, random killing is mainly attributed to “insurgencies” or what are commonly known as “terrorist” or “insurgent” groups, who randomly terrify a community to achieve a political or ideological goal.
Genocide is therefore an organised activity of an authority, but random killing is an activity of “terrorist” or “insurgent” groups. In Article 4, the role of a “private individual” should have been defined, as he or she cannot commit a crime of genocide, according to this wording; genocide is beyond the ability of one individual. However, an individual can promote the genocide of a group of people.
Furthermore, the known genocides, including the Holocaust of Jews in Nazi Germany, the Armenian genocide under the Ottoman Turks, the Kurdish genocide under Saddam Hussein, known as Anfal, and the genocide of Darfur’s people under Bashir in Sudan, share one common theme; they were/are all conducted by an authority and were/are part of the planned elimination of an ethno-religious group.
The international community and certain organisations have been either passive or very reactive in their behaviour; this can be directly linked to the mutual interests of the perpetrating regime and influential members of the international community and those organisations. For example, Britain, the U.S. and other Western countries remain silent about Turkey’s activities because their partnership with Turks involves extremely lucrative arms deals. (Basically, this is the foundation of these political “partnerships” and affiliations.)
The main issue here is that the dominant culture always holds more power at the international level than the minority cultures. The UN is a club of dominant cultures that over the years, has developed norms, laws and conventions which they would never undermine. In addition, most of them have minority issues; examples are China, Russia, Turkey, Iran, most of the Middle Eastern states, and so on. Therefore, they are obliged to turn a blind eye to the atrocities that their member states commit against non-dominant ethno-religious groups.
Genocide vs. multiculturalism
So far, the international community has been reactive in its response to genocide or attempts at genocide. While genocide is the elimination of a group of people who share one culture, multiculturalism promotes and recognises the cultures of the members of distinct communities within the society. In contrast to genocide, multiculturalism utilises cultural diversity to promote social cohesion. In multiculturalism, there is not one single norm to which everyone must adhere.
Genocide exists in direct contrast to multiculturalism. For example, countries like Turkey, Syria, Russia, China, Iran and even France have chosen not to accept diversity in their societies. In another example, the ECHR, in several cases which have involved the banning of the Islamic headscarf, has given states a very wide “margin of appreciation”, which allows for different standards and interpretations between countries, and therefore facilitates the lack of multiculturalism. (See Sahir v Turkey, a recent case.)
Conclusions
This paper has argued that there is a strong link between genocide and authority. It has re-defined genocide to incorporate other, “softer” and rather contemporary methods of genocide. It has suggested multiculturalism as a way to proactively combat genocide according to its new definition given in this paper. It has compared the activities of insurgent groups with those of authorities; the latter has the ability to conduct genocide, while the former creates chaos.
1. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, adopted by Resolution 260 (III) A of the United Nations General Assembly on 9 December 1948, http://www.hrweb.org/legal/genocide.html
This paper is a summary of several talks which are given in different seminars about genocide by the author. The author can be contacted at: rebwar@ikurd.com.
* KurdishMedia.com
