Victims of genocides must be given a voice
The term “genocide” was coined by Raphael Lemkin in 1944 while he was studying the mass murder of Armenians at the turn of the century. He was alarmed that there was no international legal basis to hold the Ottoman perpetrators accountable for various crimes against humanity. His analysis became the basis for the Geneva Conventions — a set of international law protocols that frame the judicial mechanism to study, determine and respond to genocide. The four protocols were also ratified as a consensus mechanism for “never again,” a call to action for preventing genocide.
But the world of today is a very different place from 1944. And even though we have seen additional protocols proposed, but not all ratified since, the Geneva Conventions remain the only lens through which the processes of justice and accountability start and finish in a court of law. The Geneva Conventions are based on a global understanding and imagination of genocide as scenes of immediate killings, mass displacement and extremely visible suffering. But what about the genocides and crimes against humanity that are suffocatingly slow, long-term in strategic policy and almost invisible?
Shockingly, since these conventions were first inked, the world has seen a growing number of genocides that have been fueled by innovative military and militant strategies, perverted appropriation of religious texts, legitimized occupation and colonialism, and uncontested subjugation creatively birthed by principles of inhumanity. International law, as it currently stands, offers insufficient means and innovation to uphold and preserve humanity. Instead, courts of law place survivors of genocide on the defensive to make their case. And that is only if survivors even get to see their day in court.
In its definition, now almost 80 years old, the Geneva Conventions imagine a world ordered by states and governments. But in our world today, the perpetrators are no longer only states, they are policies defined by political dynasties, nonstate armed groups, global corporations and, painfully, stakeholders who are committed to a policy of inaction. Accountability requires a new world order, one where every citizen has a responsibility to call for recognition, justice and accountability, humanitarian and peace commitments, and assured prevention. The media
Lynn Zovighian is the co-founder and managing
director of The Zovighian Partnership, a family-owned
social investment platform that conducts communitycentered research, designs and implements humanitarian and socioeconomic
interventions. needs to assume a new role as a deep listener and deep amplifier as well.
On the sixth annual commemoration of the 2014 Yazidi genocide, my Yazidi friends and I invited Iraqi President Barham Salih to share his opening remarks and he stated on the record: “Yes, indeed, there was a genocide perpetrated against Yazidis.” On the same occasion, I invited Prince Turki Al-Faisal to voice his solidarity and, in his keynote speech, he said: “To ensure that our Yazidi brothers and sisters, and fellow human beings, our friends and colleagues, never suffer again, I call on the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the Arab League to form the International Muslim and Arab Friends of the Yazidi people, dedicated to bringing world peace, intercultural dialogue and international awareness of the rights of all minorities.” So why do such moments of truth and solidary not evoke seismic shockwaves across the parliaments, governments and communities of our Middle East?
There is only one genocide that saw legislative deliberations in Middle Eastern parliaments: The Armenian genocide, which was recognized by Lebanon in a unanimous vote in 2000, followed by Syria in 2020. Abu
Dhabi has called for full recognition by the UAE and Saudi ambassadors to both the US and Lebanon have made symbolic statements commemorating and calling for the historical truth to be made clear. But that is all.
When Lemkin proposed his legal covenants, he leveraged his mastery of multiple languages to propose a definition for genocide and legal mechanisms for truth and justice.
It is chilling to think that he studied linguistics in Lwow, now Lviv, in Ukraine. He spoke a language of law. And in doing so, he gave genocide a stage to speak.
Today, we need to give genocide a voice. A language of survivors. A language of diplomacy. A language of science. A language of action. We need a multilateral linguistic, legal and human framework that sets forth rigorous, agile and urgent pathways for victims and survivors to be honored and empowered with unconditional solidarity. Many of these survivors are from the Middle Eastern and Muslim worlds. Will Middle Eastern policymakers finally step up and take their seats as needed diplomats on a global mission to recognize, respond to and prevent genocide? We owe it to survivors of our region and beyond.