2 of 2

The language of mass murder is also how we determine what level of moral wrongdoing has been reached, and thus what action to take against the perpetrators. A "massacre" usually means the murder of a (typically unarmed) group of people, usually in the same location at the same time. "Atrocities" is an all-purpose word for a one-sided campaign of rape, maiming and murder. "Ethnic cleansing" suggests a sustained and premeditated purging campaign by one group to get another group out of its hair, using murder as a way to do it. "Genocide" is when one group wants another not just out of the country, but off the face of the earth. "Holocaust" is when "genocide" kills millions. But start calling every massacre a "holocaust," and it starts to diminish the unique awfulness of the Nazis.

While it's hard to say why certain words take on different meanings and moral distinctions, the United Nations takes the distinctions very seriously, as Secretary of State Colin Powell knows. In an interview with the New York Times on June 11, Powell attempted to express the U.S. government's growing disapproval over the murder of thousands of people in the Darfur region of Sudan by apparently state-sponsored Arab militias.

"Mr. Powell steered clear of the term genocide in describing the events in Darfur but said that administration lawyers had begun a review to determine whether the conditions for genocide have been met," the Times reported, noting that the Bush administration has only used the term "ethnic cleansing" to describe the situation so far (while the recent G8 summit settled on the wishy-washy "massive human rights violations" for the situation in Sudan). "Such a determination would increase the pressure on the United States, a signatory to the United Nations Convention on Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, to more actively intervene in the region."

The political weight of the term "genocide" has grown since Samantha Power won a Pulitzer Prize for her book about the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide. The book recounts the Clinton administration's reluctance to use "genocide" to describe what was happening in Rwanda (and its resulting failure to intervene), a reluctance for which Clinton has apologized since leaving office. Today, saying "genocide" amounts to a warning that another Rwanda is taking place.

The Bush administration doesn't want to play the "genocide" card too quickly, the Times said, fearing it could "overstate the case" and cause "diplomatic fallout" with the recently cooperative Sudanese government. Powell said he appreciates the technicalities but warned that definition should not dominate the discussion.

"I'm not prepared to say what is the correct legal term for what's happening," Powell told the Times. "All I know is that there are at least a million people who are desperately in need, and many of them will die if we can't get the international community mobilized. … And it won't make a whole lot of difference after the fact what you've called it."

Nathan Bierma, editorial assistant for Christianity Today sister publication Books & Culture, writes the "On Language" column for the Chicago Tribune.

Copyright © 2004 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Bierma also writes the Content & Context weblog for Books & Culture.

The Press-Enterprise of Riverside, California, noted another incident of Campolo using the term "ethnic cleansing" to describe the Palestinians' plight.

NPR's All Things Considered also discussed the linguistic considerations of the White House in discussing Darfur.

If the residents of Darfur "aren't victims of genocide," says New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof, "then the word has no meaning."

first page |  2 of 2

share this page

June (Web-only) 2004, Vol. 48