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| Part of a museum exhibit in Rwanda about the country's genocide [A] |
Over-use of a word leads to it losing meaning. Think of “neoliberalism”. More recently no current affairs show goes by without the word “trauma” being heard.
I believe that is happening to the word “genocide” as well. In the last year and a half or so it has been used relentlessly. You don’t need to have paid much attention to the coverage of the Ukrainian war to remember President Vasily Goloborodko using it whenever he felt like it, you only need some memory.
And, to be fair, he may not have been the most assiduous user of the word. Vitali Klitschko, the Kiev Mayor, could well beat him.
The end result? I myself remember hearing a news report where a local man from Derna saying of the flash flood affecting that Libyan town last September that is was not terrible, tragic, catastrophic even apocalyptic, but “genocide”.
I sincerely hope to be mistaken, but I fear the siege of Gaza by the Israeli military may provide a bloody illustration of the real meaning of the word “genocide”.
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The Gaza Strip is a small place: some 365 km² in area. To give Australians an idea how small that is: Hobart, the smallest capital city of an Australian state/territory, is over four times larger.
Population-wise, however, things are much different: some 2.3 million Palestinians live inside those 365 km². In Hobart’s case, less than one tenth as many people.
On top, Hobartians are free to leave their town whenever they please. The inhabitants of Gaza are trapped there.
And they are facing a powerful enemy, one that never cared much about human rights, international laws or the customs of war and that now, if one trusts media reports, are filled with justifiable hatred towards Palestinians.
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Many Australians, particularly the self-described educated, need to learn what “genocide” means. Unfortunately, it seems they’ll learn by becoming accomplices of genocide (some, like Peter Dutton, eager accomplices). Prime Minister Albanese and Minister Wong: this may happen during your watch. If it does, you will be remembered in part for that. What are you doing to prevent it?
Update (16/10/2023):
Quotable quotes:
Image Credits
[A] “A collection of human skulls. This is part of a museum exhibit in Rwanda about the country's genocide”. Author: Fanny Schertzer. Source: WikiMedia. File licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. Nobody endorses me or my use of the file.
Sarah Ferguson: You are saying that Hamas is responsible even for those people who are killed by Israeli weapons?
Tzipi Livni: Yes. What did they think when they decided to enter into Israeli areas and enter Israeli homes and to massacre and kill women and children and babies and to kidnap?So, there you have it, folks: Hamas is responsible not only for their own crimes, but for the crimes Israelis commit. I mean, they asked for it.
Image Credits
[A] “A collection of human skulls. This is part of a museum exhibit in Rwanda about the country's genocide”. Author: Fanny Schertzer. Source: WikiMedia. File licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. Nobody endorses me or my use of the file.
