Pope Francis created an international stir when he described the 1915 massacre of the Christian Armenian people as “genocide.” It would be wrong to debate that description in any great detail, as the term so perfectly fitted the event. Outside the bizarre intellectual bubble that is Turkey, few competent historians would challenge the description. What is there left to discuss?
What is startling, though, is that so few commentators noted the obvious irony involved in asking “Did this violence qualify as genocide?” In fact, the Armenian murders contributed overwhelmingly to creating the original concept of genocide, and ultimately of the word itself. The events of 1915 were not just an instance of genocide, but rather the prototypical act of that behavior.
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