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Here is an article laying out why some call Putin's actions a genocide (and why some don't). https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61017352 https://www.bbc.com

Here is an article laying out why some call Putin's actions a genocide (and why some don't). https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61017352 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61017352 No one is saying the situation is as bad as the Holocaust. However, among other war crimes, large numbers of Ukrainian children have allegedly been abducted and forcibly transported to Russia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_child_abductions_in_the_2022_Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_child_abduction... According to the United Nations, that is a form of genocide. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_Convention https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_Convention

DiogenesKynikos 4y ago
This is a classic example of a Motte-and-Bailey argument. Everyone knows what "genocide" means. It means an attempt to murder an entire group of people. That's why the word ends in "-cide," like "homicide," "suicide," "regicide," "fratricide" and other words that have to do with killing. When you say that Russia is committing genocide, everyone thinks you're saying that Russia is attempting to kill every single person in Ukraine. That's what the word means in the English language, as understood by the gobal community of native speakers. The people using the word "genocide" are doing so precisely because the word has such a strong connotation. They want people to make the connection to the Holocaust, Rwanda, and other cases of mass murder of an entire people. However, that comparison is obviously absurd, because Russia isn't trying to wipe out the Ukrainian population. So when pressed, defenders of the use of the term "genocide" retreat to a much narrower argument. They argue that according to a particular reading of the Genocide Convention, Russian actions fall into some technical definition of "genocide" - a definition that has absolutely nothing to do with how normal people understand the term. Now, that reading of the Genocide Convention is an enormous stretch, but people who want to use the word "genocide" fall back to it. But of course, nobody is interested in a highly tendentious, dubious reading of the Genocide Convention. People are interested in whether Russia is committing "genocide" as the word is actually understood by real people. I'll also add that even going by the Genocide Convention, the claim that Russia is committing genocide is still absurd. I don't want to get into it in detail, because it's a technical argument that's unrelated to what people actually care about. However, I'll just point out that the Ukrainian government is claiming that literally every Ukrainian child in Russia is abducted. Anyone who knows anything about Ukraine and Russia knows how absurd that claim is. There are very tight familial connections between Russians and Ukrainians (they were part of the same country for most of the last 400 years, after all). Because of that, Russia is the #1 destination for Ukrainian refugees. A lot of people escaping the violence have gone to live with family in Russia. Using that to accuse Russia of genocide is a really bold rhetorical gambit.
- SyzygistSix 4y ago
  >Everyone knows what "genocide" means. It means an attempt to murder an entire group of people. It doesn't mean that. It means to annihilate a culture or people. That can be done by killing them or it can be done by destroying their culture and making their language, religion, holidays, culture, and cultural identity illegal or otherwise unable to exist. That includes forced assimilation.
  - DiogenesKynikos 4y ago
    Actually, the UN explicitly says that forced cultural assimilation is not genocide[0]: > Cultural destruction does not suffice, nor does an intention to simply disperse a group. Etymologically, the word genocide comes from "genus" (roughly meaning "race") and "-cide" (meaning "killing"). It was invented to describe the Holocaust, and every event that is widely accepted as being a genocide has been an attempt to murder an entire group of people. 0. https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.shtml https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.shtml
- Huh1337 4y ago
  Russians are absolutely doing genocide. They are removing the Ukrainian language, history and culture, they are burning Ukrainian schoolbooks, they are stealing children and re-teaching them to be Russians, they are targeting Ukrainians based on their nationality and killing them. Who doesn't sing the Russian anthem gets tortured.
  - DiogenesKynikos 4y ago
    Even if your claims about Russia trying to destroy the Ukrainian language and Ukrainian culture were true, that would not be genocide. And just to give you some perspective, the claims you're making almost exactly mirror Putin's equally spurious (and disingenuous) claims that the Ukrainian government was trying to commit genocide against Russian speakers in Ukraine. His claim was based on attempts by the Ukrainian government to remove traces of Russian culture from eastern Ukraine (for example, by promoting the Ukrainian language over the Russian language in schools, by renaming cities, and by removing statues to cultural and historical figures associated with Russia), and on the Ukrainian government's shelling of Donetsk over the last 8 years. Putin is engaged in the exact same abuse of the term "genocide" that you're engaging in.

DiogenesKynikos 4y ago

This is a classic example of a Motte-and-Bailey argument. Everyone knows what "genocide" means. It means an attempt to murder an entire group of people. That's why the word ends in "-cide," like "homicide," "suicide," "regicide," "fratricide" and other words that have to do with killing. When you say that Russia is committing genocide, everyone thinks you're saying that Russia is attempting to kill every single person in Ukraine. That's what the word means in the English language, as understood by the gobal community of native speakers. The people using the word "genocide" are doing so precisely because the word has such a strong connotation. They want people to make the connection to the Holocaust, Rwanda, and other cases of mass murder of an entire people. However, that comparison is obviously absurd, because Russia isn't trying to wipe out the Ukrainian population. So when pressed, defenders of the use of the term "genocide" retreat to a much narrower argument. They argue that according to a particular reading of the Genocide Convention, Russian actions fall into some technical definition of "genocide" - a definition that has absolutely nothing to do with how normal people understand the term. Now, that reading of the Genocide Convention is an enormous stretch, but people who want to use the word "genocide" fall back to it. But of course, nobody is interested in a highly tendentious, dubious reading of the Genocide Convention. People are interested in whether Russia is committing "genocide" as the word is actually understood by real people. I'll also add that even going by the Genocide Convention, the claim that Russia is committing genocide is still absurd. I don't want to get into it in detail, because it's a technical argument that's unrelated to what people actually care about. However, I'll just point out that the Ukrainian government is claiming that literally every Ukrainian child in Russia is abducted. Anyone who knows anything about Ukraine and Russia knows how absurd that claim is. There are very tight familial connections between Russians and Ukrainians (they were part of the same country for most of the last 400 years, after all). Because of that, Russia is the #1 destination for Ukrainian refugees. A lot of people escaping the violence have gone to live with family in Russia. Using that to accuse Russia of genocide is a really bold rhetorical gambit.

SyzygistSix 4y ago
>Everyone knows what "genocide" means. It means an attempt to murder an entire group of people. It doesn't mean that. It means to annihilate a culture or people. That can be done by killing them or it can be done by destroying their culture and making their language, religion, holidays, culture, and cultural identity illegal or otherwise unable to exist. That includes forced assimilation.
- DiogenesKynikos 4y ago
  Actually, the UN explicitly says that forced cultural assimilation is not genocide[0]: > Cultural destruction does not suffice, nor does an intention to simply disperse a group. Etymologically, the word genocide comes from "genus" (roughly meaning "race") and "-cide" (meaning "killing"). It was invented to describe the Holocaust, and every event that is widely accepted as being a genocide has been an attempt to murder an entire group of people. 0. https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.shtml https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.shtml
Huh1337 4y ago
Russians are absolutely doing genocide. They are removing the Ukrainian language, history and culture, they are burning Ukrainian schoolbooks, they are stealing children and re-teaching them to be Russians, they are targeting Ukrainians based on their nationality and killing them. Who doesn't sing the Russian anthem gets tortured.
- DiogenesKynikos 4y ago
  Even if your claims about Russia trying to destroy the Ukrainian language and Ukrainian culture were true, that would not be genocide. And just to give you some perspective, the claims you're making almost exactly mirror Putin's equally spurious (and disingenuous) claims that the Ukrainian government was trying to commit genocide against Russian speakers in Ukraine. His claim was based on attempts by the Ukrainian government to remove traces of Russian culture from eastern Ukraine (for example, by promoting the Ukrainian language over the Russian language in schools, by renaming cities, and by removing statues to cultural and historical figures associated with Russia), and on the Ukrainian government's shelling of Donetsk over the last 8 years. Putin is engaged in the exact same abuse of the term "genocide" that you're engaging in.