OTTAWA: Genocide might be one of the most hard-hitting words in the entire world. Coined by Polish-Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin in 1944, the word combined the Greek word “geno” (tribe) with the Latin word “cide” (killing) to create a new way to describe the deliberate and systematic destruction of a people. Upon formation in 1946, the United Nations made it a crime under international law and specifically defined what constitutes a genocide with 1948’s Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG).
The word still carries incredible weight today, whether it’s with President Barack Obama describing Daesh attacks as attempted genocide, or it’s the Turkish government’s international campaign to prevent the 1915 mass killings of Armenians being labeled a genocide. And this week, a landmark study in Canada has brought new debate over the very nature of the word genocide.
That study, written by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, offers a detailed and thorough examination of the practice of sending Canadian aboriginal children to attend state-funded residential schools. It doesn’t use the term genocide to describe a mass killing. Instead, the report is talking about what it labels a “cultural genocide” — the killing of a culture.
Canada mulls ‘cultural genocide’ of its aboriginal population
Canada mulls ‘cultural genocide’ of its aboriginal population
