First, let’s get some definitions on the table.
genocide: The systematic and planned extermination of an entire national, racial, political, or ethnic group.
All through high school I was forced to go to different assemblies at different points of the year so I could be educated on some group of people that were done wrong by the tyranny of white man. I, being one of these white men, had no such assembly for my people, even if they weren’t the ones wearing the swastikas or the white sheets, but rather the subject of their cruelty as well. White is white, I suppose.
One of these assemblies was unique, as it wasn’t all whites that were the instigators here. The Armenian Assembly. This assembly brought us such pearls of greatness as the Armenian rapping duo that sang “1915, Never Again.” The whole point of the assembly was to educate the masses on the Armenian Genocide. One of the key points of this education is that one side denies the entire happening. If my people were slaughtered and driven from their homeland, then the people who did it denied it, I might get a bit pissed myself. My problem is with the vocabulary they use. Genocide.
By the definition given above, which was taken from dictionary.com, it’s a genocide when the entire race has been killed. I know several Armenians, so it couldn’t have been a genocide. I suppose you could use holocaust, but then it would only truly be applicable if the Armenians were subject to flame and fire.
Really I don’t have much to say on the whole history aspect of the whole situation. I just wish they would call it the Armenian Massacre, or something else that allows for the fact that maybe at least one of the Armenians survived.