genocide

[Victor Steinbok]

One lynching of one or a small group of people does not constitute
genocide--there is a difference between racism (however murderous) and
genocide (just like there is a difference between murder and "targeted
killing"). But the government looking away while 7, 8, 10, 15 lynchings
take place may well qualify as systematic and fall under the definition.
With war crimes, it's different--a single criminal act is enough to qualify.

BTW, Wilson, "keeping them in their place" may well be covered under
genocide--even if no one is actually killed, the goal is systemic
repression, which may set up exterminating conditions indirectly. But
genocide, technically, is not mere separation and domination--there has
to be more. Cultural genocide is a subcategory--systemic eradication of
cultural identity of a group. There is some question as to whether this
includes language and how aggressive the external policies have to be,
but the rule of thumb is that if the dominant group restricts the rights
of cultural expression, then it's covered, but if the impetus for
assimilation comes from the dominated group, then it's not.

It's interesting that no one jumped on me for trying to impose a legal
definition when Jon just posted a single "live" expression. As I said
earlier, this is not the issue that I am concerned about. Generally,
legal definition is what is going to be brought forth by people who deal
with such definitions day in and day out. Certainly, a Libyan Ambassador
to the UN knows the legal definition, which is why I see his comment as
a deliberate misstatement to inflate the international importance of the
events in Libya and to gin up support for opposition. Of course, it is
not uncommon for people to refer to mass-murder as "genocide", even if
legally this classification may be fuzzy. I am sure I can go through
posts on DailyKos or Atrios over the last five years and find dozens of
comments referring to "genocide" that do not fit the legal definition
(e.g., collateral casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan, suppression of
political speech by legal and illegal means in Iran, Gitmo, Abu Ghraib,
Reagan policies in Central America, etc.). I would have no problem with
any of /them/ used as supporting examples of the kind of definition Jon
proposed. But when the comment comes from a particular international
diplomat or official, it's a different game. These people are paid to
manipulate language, not simply express what's on their minds. When in
doubt, I assume that the misstatements are deliberate. An alternative
interpretation would have to rely on more than a single statement.

     VS-)

On 2/21/2011 11:32 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 21, 2011 at 10:27 PM, Victor Steinbok<aardvark66 at gmail.com>  wrote:
>> I have no problem with the older quote except for the words "one or more".
> And rightly so! Otherwise, a good old American lynching could be
> counted as an act of genocide against, in the relevant context,
> horse-thieves and cattle rustlers. Even when you take into
> consideration the more-stereotypical lynching of black people, the
> intention was only to "keep them in their place" and not to erase them
> entirely from the face of the earth.
> --
> -Wilson

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