The Armenian Genocide

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The Armenian Genocide, started on April 24, 1915 and lasted until 1918. It was known as the first genocide of the modern world and contributes to the understanding of the nature of violence in modern history. To understand the nature of violence in this genocide, there must be a clear interpretation of the meaning. The World Health Organisation defines violence as ‘the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment or deprivation’. The Armenian Genocide showed the true horror that mankind can inflict on society. The Armenian race experienced the …show more content…
This genocide was the first of its kind, the first systematic genocide of the twentieth century where the elimination of Armenians was evident. The coordination of the violence by the Young Turks the created a mass of conflict which lead to the mistreatment of the Armenians and inhumane act of rights. The coordination of the mass killings were highly advanced for the time, with the use of coded telegrammed orders which were transmitted to all provincial governors throughout Turkey. A telegram received by from Constantinople on July 16, 1915 from the American Ambassador claims that Ottoman Turkey is seeking to exterminate the Armenian population, “Deportation of and excesses against peaceful Armenians is increasing and from harrowing reports of eye witnesses it appears that a campaign of race extermination is in progress under a pretext of reprisal against rebellion.” It is clear, through this telegraph, the extent to which the nature of violence has been used through the coordination of mass killings, genocide. Further, Armenian political leaders, educators, writers, clergy and dignitaries in Constantinople were taken from their homes, briefly jailed and tortured, then hung or shot. With this in mind, arrests on mass were made by Turkish soldiers, with local Turks joining to the systematic killing by arming …show more content…
As the denial of the slaughter of over a million Armenians is evident, majority believe that it was not a genocide, just many massacres. There is evidence towards the acceptance of this genocide, through primary sources, actual accounts. There is no denying that Armenians were publicly killed, hence showing the brutality and the countless numbers of killings which left the Armenian community in ruins, and present-day Armenia is only a fraction of the size of Armenia before the rue of the Ottoman Empire. However, many nations including the United States do not call the slaughter of over one million Armenians genocide, as they argue, the government of the Ottoman Empire did not have a preconceived plan to exterminate the Armenians. The United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide defines genocide as "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such; Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part, imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group and forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.” Although the Armenian Genocide, reaching some of these points from the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the

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