Cycles of genocide, stories of denial : Atom Egoyan's Ararat

This article focuses on Atom Egoyan's Ararat and explores how, through a convoluted narrative structure, Egoyan grapples with denial of the Armenian Genocide and the consequences of those denials for present generations—both Turkish and Armenian—illuminated in the film as an extension of the genocide. Egoyan uses a film-within-a-film to move beyond a popular definition of genocide as mass killing alone and links the understanding of stories, truths, and perspectives in everyday life to the dehumanizing acts of genocide. Employing the philosopher Emmanuel Levinas’ ethical theory of the Other (the ethical) and philosophical understandings of ontology (dehumanization) to illuminate the genocide and its ongoing denial, this article contends that Egoyan's focus on the generations of genocide survivors points to the ethical responsibility to one another that underlies everyday lives and sits at the heart of what is absent in the acts of genocide.

Not the holocaust memorial

Evoking Genocide compiles more than sixty short essays written by leading scholars and activists in the field of genocide studies. These authors pay eloquent tribute to the works of art and media that influenced their engagement with genocide and crimes against humanity. The subjects include books and stories, films, songs, drawings, documents, monuments, sculptures, personal testimonies, and even a Lego set. In an accessible and often deeply personal way, contributors explore their own relationships with the works in question. Edited by Adam Jones, recently selected as one of fifty key thinkers in Holocaust and genocide studies, Evoking Genocide makes an important contribution to the study of the art and culture of mass atrocity.

New approaches to Raphael Lemkin

Sri Lanka and the responsibility to protect : politics, ethnicity and genocide

This book provides a study of the war by Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to create a separate state in Sri Lanka. It examines the ways in which this war should, in principle, have invoked ‘Responsibility to Protect’ principles, as well as the political, legal and practical problems involved and, ultimately, why the international community failed to act.

Over the years there have been several events, including those in Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Timor-Leste, Darfur, and Kosovo, that have led the international community to accept a responsibility to protect. However, despite its overwhelming preliminary endorsement, the principles of this concept are still not universally sanctioned and there are some strong international opponents, including some countries that were initial signatories of the convention.

By considering the example of Sri Lanka, the text focuses on what conditions could satisfy or demand the application of responsibility to protect. It further presents a case as to why this conflict was, and may still be, the normative responsibility of the international community.

Sri Lanka and the Responsibility to Protect will be of great interest to students of South-East Asian politics, human rights, international law, ethnic conflict, security studies and IR in general.