The world paused Friday to mark the 100th anniversary of the systematic relocation and extermination of Armenians during World War I. The April 24 date signifies the deportation of intellectuals by the Ottoman Turks in 1915.
Authorities rounded up Armenian Christians due to concerns they were allying with Russia during World War I. An estimated 1.5 million people died, but recognizing the tragedy and how exactly to describe it has been controversial ever since.
Turkey approaches the event from a position that it doesn’t meet the legal definition of genocide, especially since the term wasn’t coined until after the Second World War. Polish attorney Raphael Lemkin coined the term in the early 1940s.
“He felt it brought together two words – a Greek word, genos, that had to do with family, and tribe, race, and then cide, which had to do with killing,” said Rebecca Cruise, a regular contributor to KGOU’s World Views and the assistant dean of the College of International Studies at the University of Oklahoma. “He had in mind, of course, the Holocaust, which he was witnessing. But he also specifically mentioned the Armenian genocide. So from the very construction of the word, the Armenian situation was in mind.”
Turkey doesn’t dispute the events, but often argue the number of people involved was much smaller. They also say that since the UN General Assembly didn’t codify genocide as a violation of international law until 1948, they shouldn’t be punished for a crime that didn’t exist 33 years earlier.
“The United States as a partner to Turkey, has been very hesitant as well,” Cruise said. “President [George W.] Bush would not recognize the term. And Obama, though he promised to do so, has not done so yet either.”
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