We need to talk about ‘genocide’

Reflecting on the problems of political language, George Orwell noted: ‘The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies “something not desirable”.’ What would Orwell have made of the use of the word ‘genocide’ today?

Initially coined to capture the idea of the systematic destruction of a people, and tied to the horrors of the Holocaust, it now seems to have a much wider application. Israel’s war in Gaza is widely described as a genocide: both the International Association of Genocide Scholars and an EU commissioner have described it as such. In September, the UN’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory published a report claiming that Israel was committing acts consistent with genocide and there was ‘direct evidence of genocidal intent’.

Beyond the Middle East, supporters of Ukraine often argue that Russia’s war is genocidal – targeting not just territory but the destruction of a people. China is said to be committing a genocide against the Uyghurs, and genocides are said to be taking place in Myanmar (against the Rohingya) and in Sudan (against the Masalit and other non-Arabs).

In each of these examples, the suffering of large numbers of people is not in doubt. But do they amount to genocide?

While there is little consensus on precisely what constitutes a genocide, most refer to the UN convention of 1948 which states that a genocide is ‘any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such’. Clearly, the key part of the definition is the concept of ‘intent’. Brutal wars might involve all kinds of horrors, but unless there is the intent to destroy a group, it is unlikely to meet the threshold of genocide.

As with all legal definitions, there can follow endless debate, claims and counterclaims. Is the bigger issue that our moral language has lost the ability to distinguish between different kinds of violence or tragic events, or is focusing on the precision of language a linguistic evasion of real-life atrocities? Can we discuss what we mean by genocide without becoming drawn into emotive finger-pointing or taking sides in the Israel/Gaza conflict?