Improved Empire?

         Genocide is messy. Empires use mass killings as a way to clean up territories, thus purging the land of unwanted blood. For as long as history has been recorded there have been mentions of genocide like events, of the mass killing of a specific group of people. Militaristically it makes sense to remove a people when they pose a threat. This obviously poses a moral issue, but Empires rarely focus on the moral when control is in jeopardy. The Nazi’s killed all the Jews they could find in WWII, and in the early 1900s the Turks did the same to the Armenians. Burbank and Cooper specifically mention the Armenian Genocide.

         The Armenian Genocide involved thousands of Armenians being removed from their homes and taken on a journey, not unlike the trail of tears experienced by the Native Americans in America in the 1900s. Many died along the way and those who survived the journey, were killed upon completion. Today the Turkish government does not recognize what happened as genocide and the words “Armenian genocide” are forbidden from being spoken in schools and public places. Burbank and Cooper called the Armenian situation in Turkey a “Massacre”. I do not know if they choose to refrain from using the more widely accepted phrase “genocide” to avoid political issues, or simply because they saw the event as such. I see little different between massacre and genocide, other than genocide specifically targets a single people group and massacre does not.

         The close of World War I was suppose to represent the coming of a new world, a new age, and a new form of empire. I question whether the use of methods such as genocide proves that empires essentially remain the same. At times the ancient Chinese killed those that intruded, as did the Japanese, Australian, some Native American Tribes, and at one point or another, most successful nations. The presence of genocide in the world today, proves that Empires do not change, they only shift forms, adapting to modernity. Instead of spears soldiers carry guns, and instead of horses they ride in tanks. Does war really improve life, or does it escalate the expectations for next time?