Isn't "ethnic cleansing" itself a euphemism for genocide?
this post was submitted on 24 Feb 2025
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I think "ethnic cleansing" is a subset of genocide.
You are correct. Genocide encompasses ethnic, national, racial, or religious groups.
https://treaties.un.org/doc/publication/unts/volume%2078/volume-78-i-1021-english.pdf
No, ethnic cleansing does not necessarily imply killing. It is the forced depopulation of an area, which can be by means of deportation, economic pressure, threat of violence, etc. Genocide is the most extreme form of ethnic cleansing.
Genocide also doesn't imply killing.
I feel like in common use it does. Some formal definitions don't require it, but then there's contradicting formal definitions.
No, genocide is explicitly defined as:
the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/genocide
-Cide is to kill or killing, and is derived from Middle French, from Latin -cida, from caedere to cut, kill
Yes, and you can destroy a group by means other than killing its members, such as forced sterilization, systematic abuse, or the transfer of children away from the community. It's the demo that's being killed, not necessarily its individual members.
You're incorrect on this one. Abducting "enemy" children and brainwashing them is genocide. Erasing local language from books and signage is genocide. Part of the definition. You can kill an ethnicity by erasing it and not have to kill a single person.
If you want to argue a dictionary then be my guest.
maybe read the actual convention on genocide instead of relying on a dictionary then?
because the case of abducted children stated above is explicitly stated in the convention...the dictionary definition you found is simply wrong and incomplete.
The definition isn't wrong, they just didn't read it correctly. Those things in the UN convention are methods that could be used to "cause the destruction of a people". They're spelled out to avoid people misinterpreting the definition just like they did.
yes, true, but not exactly why i used the phrasing "wrong AND incomplete":
i wrote it that way, because without clarifying that "destruction" means many different things apart form the common interpretation of "to kill", it's difficult for a casual reader to know what the convention actually says.
if anyone wants to shorten the definition to fit into a dictionary, they should be more responsible in their phrasing, so that this exact problem is less likely to occur.
so i do fault merriam webster here for providing an incomplete, oversimplified definition.
Nobody is saying the dictionary is wrong, they're saying that there are international groups that have specific definitions for what qualifies as genocide and those don't necessarily line up with the dictionary. Saying the dictionary is wrong because of the organizations' use or the organizations are wrong because of the dictionary's use are both foolish.
I'd argue that the convention on genocide serves as a dictionary in this case. It's the most common and accepted definition, and it includes cultural forms of genocide, not just physical ones.
Neither is wrong, they just serve different purposes. Dictionaries track usage of the general populace, not industry experts. It's wrong to use the dictionary as evidence that the convention on genocide is using the term incorrectly though, definitely.
It can also mean displacement while genocide means the destruction, in whole or part, of a people. Things like the trail of tears are both: People were displaced, also, the US cared so little about native's lives that a quarter of the displaced straight-out died, which constitutes genocide. But it's in principle possible, and has occasionally happened, that the displacement doesn't go hand-in-hand with murder.
Originally it was. Now, in the aftermath of said ethnic cleansing, it's like a byword for genocide-lite.
The term kind of has the implication that things will be less dirty and more organised when it's done.
Pretty much. The Nazis thought of their thing that way, and as Wikipedia points out even used similar language, but fascists don't need more than a paper thin justification for why it's totally different this time to keep their rhetoric going. It's not based on logic, after all, and anyone making the obvious historical comparisons can just be cast as more victimisation of them for their "honesty".
We all are pretty comfortable calling Bosnia a genocide now, though, so they've moved on to new euphemisms like "remigration".
Yeah, because when you do the Israel lobby crawls out and calls them a Jew hating Nazi.
Y'all ever notice that arguments about how to call something steal oxygen away from what to do about it?
Genocide, ethnic cleansing, and mass-murder are just words. Calling it a pumpkin pie won't bring back one dead child.
Reality is independent from language. Words borrow meaning, they're not the source of it.
There's no such thing as just words.
Language is humanity's superpower. It's what allows us to share ideas, pass down knowledge generationaly, specialize labor, and form communities.
Words have meaning, and intentionally avoiding words that accurately describe events is incredibly harmful. There's a reason that when a school is bombed, they call a bunch of the 13-17yo victims "military-aged males" instead of "children."
Genocide, ethnic cleansing, and mass-murder are just words.
And language is extremely important to how we think and form our understanding of the world.
Words are importing because 80% of the population is unable to assert reality and will accept whatever wording is provided to them. Even when provided with evidence in 4K.
Yeah but by turning people away from the media we also isolate them from groups with similar ideals, forcing them into bubbles/echo-chambers which are easily radicalized to promote violence and insurgency.
America did it to my people and never called it what it was and never made amends, and now Americans moralize to me about events across the planet lol
Can we all just agree there is no "good" media? Journalism died for profits
No, there are some great independent outlets that are still doing exceptional journalism. Many of the new outlets were founded by reporters who came from mainstream or traditional media but were either laid off or quit because of the profit-above-all-else mindset. As citizens and news consumers this means we have to be pickier and more discerning when it comes to what we read, because we can’t trust that we’ll get everything we need from just a single newspaper anymore. But if you look around you’ll still find some very high quality journalism, it’s just a bit more diffuse than we’re used to.
The article itself claims that 87% of news outlets are avoiding the phrase “ethnic cleansing”. There are those that are calling it for what it is.
If you want an example: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/05/un-chief-warns-against-ethnic-cleansing-after-donald-trump-gaza-proposal
“Journalist” is not an ethnicity but they can be cleansed too.