Daniele Conversi Genocide, Ethnic Cleansing and Nationalism
Genocide and nationalism share common etymological roots: genocide derives from the ancient Greek genos (stirp, race, kind, category, overlapping with class, tribe and people), subsequently leading to the Latin gens. Nationalism comes from the Latin verb nascor, nasci , natus sum (to be born), later leading to the substantive natio, nationis. The suffix -cide, from the Latin caedo, caedere, cecidi, caesus (to cut (down) or kill), has been added onto the Greek root. The word itself was coined in 1944 by the Polish-born US jurist Raphael Lemkin (1944: 19). A new term needed indeed to be minted as humanity emerged from a crime without historical antecedents, the Holocaust (Hebrew, Shoah). Since the combination of genocide and nationalism characterized the darkest era of human history and occurred during the past century, both are often associated with modernity and rapidly modernizing societies.Moreover, both relate to a third set of terms also describing common descent and membership in a single ‘extended family’: ethnicity, ‘ethnie’ and ethnic group. In its original Greek connotation, ethnos was already associated with the idea of shared descent and lineage. The term ‘ethnic cleansing’ has various origins, but its contemporary popular usage is a verbatim translation of the Serbian etničko čišćenje, which began to be used widely in the global media since the 1990s. Initially, it was a more ‘benign’ way to describe the same unspeakable event, genocide. The exaltation of a dominant nation as superior to all others, particularly subaltern groups, inevitably leads to a series of discriminatory acts against competing nations, ranging from assimilation and marginalization to genocide. The role of central governments and the military appears to be crucial in most instances of genocide, together with media censorship and popular misinformation.
Genocide and nationalism share common etymological roots: genocide derives from the ancient Greek genos (stirp, race, kind, category, overlapping with class, tribe and people), subsequently leading to the Latin gens. Nationalism comes from the Latin verb nascor, nasci , natus sum (to be born), later leading to the substantive natio, nationis. The suffix -cide, from the Latin caedo, caedere, cecidi, caesus (to cut (down) or kill), has been added onto the Greek root. The word itself was coined in 1944 by the Polish-born US jurist Raphael Lemkin (1944: 19). A new term needed indeed to be minted as humanity emerged from a crime without historical antecedents, the Holocaust (Hebrew, Shoah). Since the combination of genocide and nationalism characterized the darkest era of human history and occurred during the past century, both are often associated with modernity and rapidly modernizing societies.Moreover, both relate to a third set of terms also describing common descent and membership in a single ‘extended family’: ethnicity, ‘ethnie’ and ethnic group. In its original Greek connotation, ethnos was already associated with the idea of shared descent and lineage. The term ‘ethnic cleansing’ has various origins, but its contemporary popular usage is a verbatim translation of the Serbian etničko čišćenje, which began to be used widely in the global media since the 1990s. Initially, it was a more ‘benign’ way to describe the same unspeakable event, genocide. The exaltation of a dominant nation as superior to all others, particularly subaltern groups, inevitably leads to a series of discriminatory acts against competing nations, ranging from assimilation and marginalization to genocide. The role of central governments and the military appears to be crucial in most instances of genocide, together with media censorship and popular misinformation.
Genocide and nationalism share common etymological roots: genocide derives from the ancient Greek genos (stirp, race, kind, category, overlapping with class, tribe and people), subsequently leading to the Latin gens. Nationalism comes from the Latin verb nascor, nasci , natus sum (to be born), later leading to the substantive natio, nationis. The suffix -cide, from the Latin caedo, caedere, cecidi, caesus (to cut (down) or kill), has been added onto the Greek root. The word itself was coined in 1944 by the Polish-born US jurist Raphael Lemkin (1944: 19). A new term needed indeed to be minted as humanity emerged from a crime without historical antecedents, the Holocaust (Hebrew, Shoah). Since the combination of genocide and nationalism characterized the darkest era of human history and occurred during the past century, both are often associated with modernity and rapidly modernizing societies.Moreover, both relate to a third set of terms also describing common descent and membership in a single ‘extended family’: ethnicity, ‘ethnie’ and ethnic group. In its original Greek connotation, ethnos was already associated with the idea of shared descent and lineage. The term ‘ethnic cleansing’ has various origins, but its contemporary popular usage is a verbatim translation of the Serbian etničko čišćenje, which began to be used widely in the global media since the 1990s. Initially, it was a more ‘benign’ way to describe the same unspeakable event, genocide. The exaltation of a dominant nation as superior to all others, particularly subaltern groups, inevitably leads to a series of discriminatory acts against competing nations, ranging from assimilation and marginalization to genocide. The role of central governments and the military appears to be crucial in most instances of genocide, together with media censorship and popular misinformation.
Genocide and nationalism share common etymological roots: genocide derives from the ancient Greek genos (stirp, race, kind, category, overlapping with class, tribe and people), subsequently leading to the Latin gens. Nationalism comes from the Latin verb nascor, nasci , natus sum (to be born), later leading to the substantive natio, nationis. The suffix -cide, from the Latin caedo, caedere, cecidi, caesus (to cut (down) or kill), has been added onto the Greek root. The word itself was coined in 1944 by the Polish-born US jurist Raphael Lemkin (1944: 19). A new term needed indeed to be minted as humanity emerged from a crime without historical antecedents, the Holocaust (Hebrew, Shoah). Since the combination of genocide and nationalism characterized the darkest era of human history and occurred during the past century, both are often associated with modernity and rapidly modernizing societies.Moreover, both relate to a third set of terms also describing common descent and membership in a single ‘extended family’: ethnicity, ‘ethnie’ and ethnic group. In its original Greek connotation, ethnos was already associated with the idea of shared descent and lineage. The term ‘ethnic cleansing’ has various origins, but its contemporary popular usage is a verbatim translation of the Serbian etničko čišćenje, which began to be used widely in the global media since the 1990s. Initially, it was a more ‘benign’ way to describe the same unspeakable event, genocide. The exaltation of a dominant nation as superior to all others, particularly subaltern groups, inevitably leads to a series of discriminatory acts against competing nations, ranging from assimilation and marginalization to genocide. The role of central governments and the military appears to be crucial in most instances of genocide, together with media censorship and popular misinformation.