Linguistic analysis of Prime Minister's Office response to petition to recognise the Armenian Genocide
"The British Government acknowledges and regrets the terrible events that afflicted the Ottoman Armenian population at the beginning of the last century, when over a million ethnic Armenian citizens of the Ottoman Empire were killed. Many were massacred; some were victims of civil strife, starvation and disease, which ravaged the whole population of Eastern Anatolia during the First World War."
Use of the verb "afflict", which is usually used to refer to a problem or an illness is quite interesting. Considering that the genocide was not an illness caused by unknown virii or bacteria, it is difficult to see why the Armenian population is characterised as being "afflicted" by the genocide. One of the possibilities that suggests itself might be the desire to anonymise the well defined and known perpetrators of this crime - many of whom were tried by Ottoman courts martial and condemned for their crimes shortly after they were committed. The next expression which merits consideration is "ravaged the whole population of Eastern Anatolia". This passage is intended, without doubt, to convey the message that it is not only the Armenians that have suffered, and in this sense it is of course completely true - huge numbers of Greeks, Assyrians and other Christian minorities were massacred as well. However no ethnic or religious group was massacred at the scale of the Armenians, and no other nation was robbed of its homeland of over two thousand years as a result of these massacres.
"The massacres were an appalling tragedy, which the British Government of the day condemned. We fully endorse that view. However, neither this Government nor previous British Governments have judged that the evidence is sufficiently unequivocal to persuade us that these events should be categorised as genocide as defined by the 1948 UN Convention on Genocide, a convention which is, in any event, not retrospective in application."
The keywords to be analysed in this paragraph are "judged", "evidence", "sufficiently unequivocal", "persuade", and "in any event not retrospective". Let us deal with these key words in sequence. "Judged", "evidence" and "sufficiently unequivocal" suggest a legal process, where a suspect is brought before a judge and evidence is presented but is not found "sufficiently unequivocal". We are not told why it should be unequivocal and just how unequivocal it should be to be sufficient? However what is crucial is that it is the event, rather than the perpetrators, that is judged, and there is no mention of standard of proof. This begs the question, just how unequivocal should evidence of the crime which almost annihilated a whole nation be to be sufficiently unequivocal? Next keyword which merits our attention is "persuade" - use of this word suggests that one party is trying, is ought to or needs to persuade another (in this case the British Government). The effect of this word is that an objective historical fact is reduced to an arguable point, of which some may be persuaded (perhaps by improper means or due to their gullibility) while others stay steadfast (like the British Government) in not being "persuaded" - and thus staying above the whole artificially created argument. Needless to say, the British Government of the day could not call these massacres "genocide" simply because the word "genocide" did not exist at the time when it was committed. The government called them "crimes against humanity", which is the same category of crime. Finally, the paragraph includes a "grace clause", which seems to say that even if it was a genocide, no legal consequences would ensue. There are two problems with this approach. A crime is a crime regardless of what you call it. A word is used to refer to a concept, it does not create it. The word "genocide" was defined recently, not so the concept or practice of "genocide". As to the applicability of the UN Genocide Convention opinions differ on whether this particular legal instrument - unlike the definition of genocide itself - applies. However, once it is established that the events constitute genocide, the words speak for themselves.
Use of the verb "afflict", which is usually used to refer to a problem or an illness is quite interesting. Considering that the genocide was not an illness caused by unknown virii or bacteria, it is difficult to see why the Armenian population is characterised as being "afflicted" by the genocide. One of the possibilities that suggests itself might be the desire to anonymise the well defined and known perpetrators of this crime - many of whom were tried by Ottoman courts martial and condemned for their crimes shortly after they were committed. The next expression which merits consideration is "ravaged the whole population of Eastern Anatolia". This passage is intended, without doubt, to convey the message that it is not only the Armenians that have suffered, and in this sense it is of course completely true - huge numbers of Greeks, Assyrians and other Christian minorities were massacred as well. However no ethnic or religious group was massacred at the scale of the Armenians, and no other nation was robbed of its homeland of over two thousand years as a result of these massacres.
"The massacres were an appalling tragedy, which the British Government of the day condemned. We fully endorse that view. However, neither this Government nor previous British Governments have judged that the evidence is sufficiently unequivocal to persuade us that these events should be categorised as genocide as defined by the 1948 UN Convention on Genocide, a convention which is, in any event, not retrospective in application."
The keywords to be analysed in this paragraph are "judged", "evidence", "sufficiently unequivocal", "persuade", and "in any event not retrospective". Let us deal with these key words in sequence. "Judged", "evidence" and "sufficiently unequivocal" suggest a legal process, where a suspect is brought before a judge and evidence is presented but is not found "sufficiently unequivocal". We are not told why it should be unequivocal and just how unequivocal it should be to be sufficient? However what is crucial is that it is the event, rather than the perpetrators, that is judged, and there is no mention of standard of proof. This begs the question, just how unequivocal should evidence of the crime which almost annihilated a whole nation be to be sufficiently unequivocal? Next keyword which merits our attention is "persuade" - use of this word suggests that one party is trying, is ought to or needs to persuade another (in this case the British Government). The effect of this word is that an objective historical fact is reduced to an arguable point, of which some may be persuaded (perhaps by improper means or due to their gullibility) while others stay steadfast (like the British Government) in not being "persuaded" - and thus staying above the whole artificially created argument. Needless to say, the British Government of the day could not call these massacres "genocide" simply because the word "genocide" did not exist at the time when it was committed. The government called them "crimes against humanity", which is the same category of crime. Finally, the paragraph includes a "grace clause", which seems to say that even if it was a genocide, no legal consequences would ensue. There are two problems with this approach. A crime is a crime regardless of what you call it. A word is used to refer to a concept, it does not create it. The word "genocide" was defined recently, not so the concept or practice of "genocide". As to the applicability of the UN Genocide Convention opinions differ on whether this particular legal instrument - unlike the definition of genocide itself - applies. However, once it is established that the events constitute genocide, the words speak for themselves.
posted by Edgar Danielyan at 1/20/2008
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