How do you say “genocide” in Arabic ? | AlJumhuriya.net
▻https://www.aljumhuriya.net/en/content/how-do-you-say-%E2%80%9Cgenocide%E2%80%9D-arabic
One of the first genocides in modern history took place, in part, in the Arab world, including in Syria. That mass murder is happening again in Syria today offers a chance to draw new attention to this long-neglected subject, and explore the ties that may exist between the two exterminations.
The recent translation by Yassin al-Haj Saleh of parts of Adam Jones’ Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction reads like echoes coming from afar. In his introduction to the translation, al-Haj Saleh writes that he did not find a suitable equivalent of the word “genocide” in Arabic, arguing that the usual term ibada (“extermination”) is inadequate. He adds that while there is a library-full of material on genocide in English, there is nothing of importance in Arabic. The “historic roots” of genocide are very deep in the Middle East, yet to start reflecting about it we need to borrow texts from far away, written for a different audience, and with other concerns in mind. Jarablus, Azaz, Meskene, Raqqa, Deir al-Zor, Markade, Ras al-Ayn, are names of Syrian towns. They are also names of concentration camps and locations of mass graves dating from the First World War. Syria, the land where some of the darkest chapters of the first modern genocide took place; where in 1915 the first concentration camps of the twentieth century were located (German military officers serving in the Ottoman empire used the term konzentrationslager to describe those camps); where the first mass butchery took place in 1916; more than a century later needs to borrow texts from afar to study the contemporary predicament.
