Can The Genocide Be Explained Sociologically Criminology Essay

Can The Genocide Be Explained Sociologically Criminology Essay provide intellectually responsible explanations of these events, social scientists are therefore capable of producing explanations that can both interpret and create understanding. Their work allows further reflection on the problem of explanations in sociological work (Brown, 1963). This essay will focus on whether or not social scientists provide an explanation for genocide, in other words whether or not genocide can be explained sociologically. The beginning and emergence of genocide is unknown but it is assumed that the first genocide took place during the hunting and gathering period (Chalk and Jonassohn, 1990). After agriculture had been discovered there was a division within the world and it consisted of settlers and nomads. The settlers were good at gathering food and a conflict resulted between the two groups as the nomads would raid the settlers of their food, however they would not kill the settlers when doing so as they were still needed because the nomads planned to con tinue and raid the settlers in the coming years. The settlers could not defend themselves due to lack of resources (Chalk and Jonassohn, 1990). As time progressed the settler’s learnt how to improve their agriculture skills and their produce grew so well that they could support cities, rulers and armies. They became successful and wealthy and started to associate with trade and began to build empires and city states. As a result of this, conflict then grew over wealth, trade and trade routes. Wars were fought over this, and it was through these wars that people realised their victories were temporary. It became clear that the only way to have a guaranteed secure future was to eliminate those who were defeated completely. Thus the first reason for the first genocide appears to be elimination of any future threats (Chalk and Jonassohn, 1990). Genocide then grew and progressed from this. Genocide as defined by Lemkin (1944) who states that it is â€Å"the criminal intent to des troy or to cripple permanently a human group. The acts are directed against groups as such, and individuals are selected for distraction only because they belong to these groups† (Lemkin, 1944 p. 147). This is the definition that the UN (United Nations) Convention on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide relied upon (Andreopoulos, 1994). Following this, social scientists have redefined the term genocide to suite their theoretical perspectives. The definition of the UN convention however, remains the most popular and widely used. This is due to it being a legally accepted and a workable definition. Under the definition of the UN Convention, Genocide remains an international crime whether committed in peace or war this shows that genocide is a uniform phenomenon (Andreopoulos, 1994). Variations within genocide do exist, through its context and processes, for example, the distinction between domestic genocide and genocide done in international war. With domestic genocide, people have differences and conflicts within their own societies based on religious views, ethnicity and their race, while, with international war genocide, mass killings are committed due to conflict between two separate states (Andreopoulos, 1994). Through the UN Genocide Convention, genocide was deemed the most horrendous crime of all time and individuals would then use it as the defence to any form of discrimination, oppression and injustice (Martin, 2006). This resulted in disadvantaged groups trying to get sympathy by dramatizing their situations. For example, due to one of the articles of the convention, which claimed genocide included an intention to prevent any birth, led to claims that abortion clinics were a form of genocide. In more general terms if an individual’s rights were violated, this would also be taken as genocide. The concept was clearly being abused, and the UN became more and more resistant to charges of genocide. This may have contributed to the need of re-definition of genocide. It is therefore important to reach a generic definition of genocide which should be consistent with the everyday use of the word so that when people see a mass murder the only word available to them to describe such an event should be genocide (Chalk and Jonassohn, 1990).