The Man Who Named Genocide
As a copywriter, I'm a big believer in the power of words.
Not just for business and marketing, but for education, activism, communication, and so much more.
One of the 22 books my wife Sarah read this summer (!) was "A Problem from Hell": America and the Age of Genocide. She told me a story from it that I can't get out of my head so I wanted to share it with you.
Almost exactly 84 years ago, the Nazis were ravaging eastern Europe and preparing to invade Poland.
Raphael Lemkin was a Jewish scholar of international law living in Poland alongside his parents. He pleaded with them to leave Poland before the Nazis arrived, but they refused.
Lemkin escaped to the U.S. His parents stayed and were killed along with 49 other relatives and six million Jewish people.
They were two of over eleven million victims of the Holocaust - the most widespread, destructive, violent genocide in human history.
But what you may not know is that even as these crimes were being committed on a global scale, the word "genocide" didn't actually exist yet.
In 1941, Winston Churchill referred to the Holocaust as "the presence of a crime without a name."
Raphael Lemkin believed that naming that crime was the first step towards ending it.
Lemkin was a scholar of international law, but also a linguist - he spoke 12 languages. He had long been fascinated by George Eastman and the Kodak company, as Eastman had created the name "Kodak" out of thin air.
The word stuck, and soon become synonymous with photography - just as "googling" or "Kleenex" came to communicate much more than a company name.
So Lemkin knew this approach worked for the camera - but could it work to put a name to the slaughter and annihilation of an entire people?
He insisted that it could.
What was critical, he thought, was to find a word that had "the color of freshness and novelty", but was also "as short and poignant as possible."
Lemkin ended his long search by fusing the Greek derivative geno, meaning "race," with the Latin derivative cide from the verb "to kill."
He included the word in his 1944 work "Axis Rule in Occupied Europe", where he documented the Nazi's mass killings of ethnic groups.
For the next four years, he relentlessly begged the United Nations to take action - until the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide was finally passed in 1948.
The international treaty outlawed all acts intended "to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group."
Even then, the United States didn't sign the treaty against genocide until forty years later (because their treatment of African American people would make them guilty of genocide under international law).
So after 3,211 consecutive speeches (!) from U.S. Senator William Proxmire, the convention was finally passed in 1988.
Given the heartbreaking list of genocides that have occurred since then, we know that naming the crime is just the first step.
But thanks to Lemkin's work, the International Crime Court is able to prosecute the criminals behind genocide and work to end crimes against humanity for good.
Something that's been on my mind since hearing that story for the first time is this:
If Lemkin learned what he did from a brand like Kodak, what that tells me is that the words we use - as people or as brands - hold a LOT of power.
It goes without saying that the atrocities Lemkin addressed are on a totally different plane of meaning than any business problem.
But if one person can create a word and bring clarity to the "crime without a name," then the words we use must have an impact - positive or negative.
Not every business chooses to get involved in so-called “social issues”.
And the truth is that you shouldn’t unless:
You mean it
You’re willing to humbly learn and adapt
You’re willing to get your hands dirty
Short of activism (which some brands do well), there are small actions you can take that make you take stock of the messages your brand puts out into the world.
Be mindful of…
The behavior you call out (or don't) when you see it
The images you use
The ethics and sustainability of the other businesses you support and associate with
The type of people you include (or don't) in your marketing
The people, stories, and perspectives you highlight
The people, stories, and perspectives you don't highlight
I hope it's clear that the implications of this story reach far, far beyond business and marketing.
But businesses - both large and small - hold more change-making power than they realize.
Do you?