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Raphael Lemkin Definition Of Genocide

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The word genocide itself was not coined until 1944. In that year, a Polish-Jewish lawyer created a new term to help describe the policies implemented by the Nazi’s. Raphael Lemkin, the lawyer in question, made use of the ancient languages to create the perfect term. Using the Greek genos, meaning race or tribe, and the Latin cide, meaning killing, Lemkin eventually introduced the word Genocide to the United Nations. The precise definition for the new word, according to Lemkin himself, was as follows:

“A coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves."

Two years after the introduction of the word, genocide was “affirmed” …show more content…

Over time, slight adjustments continued to be made in regards to the definition: accounts of rape, causing harm (both mentally and physically), and inflicting measurements to prevent reproduction are among these additions.
Perhaps this information would be considered sufficient. We can draw up a conclusion and leave this as it is. We have answered our question: The word genocide was coined in the modern age, so there are no genocides to have laws on before that. However, the fact that something did not have a name yet does not equate to the event in question never occurring. Merely the definition of the word is enough indication to decide whether or not anything would count as such.
With that hiccup out of the way, it should be easier to continue in our search for an answer, but we face another challenge: throughout history, before the rise of mass media and communication, it may have occurred more than once that only one side of a story saw the light of day which, in the case of either murder or genocide, would always be that of the “victor”, the conqueror, the murderer. This will likely have led to unreliable sources. The person writing their account of what happened will likely decide to leave out how many people they killed, but lay on thickly how brave the warriors had been. Therefore, we cannot state that this or that should be considered a genocide, but we can speculate and draw conclusions from things we do know for

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