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If those who fight forest fires were to angrily turn against those who fight house fires, we might be surprised. And if the anti-forest fire lobby were to say to their anti-house fire counterparts, “Imposters! House fires aren’t as destructive as forest fires, so house fires aren’t fires at all,” our surprise might become confusion.

“No one believes that forest fires are exactly the same as house fires,” we might appeal. “But since they share certain qualities, like destructive tendency and orangeness, they should share a name, as long as the particular danger posed by each is clearly indicated by the word that precedes ‘fire.’”

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Identifying a house fire doesn’t diminish the danger of a forest fire, and it doesn’t qualify the evil of a physical genocide to identify a cultural one.

Canada’s “What makes a genocide a genocide?” debate may be wearying, but it is not merely semantic or purely symbolic. The more frequently officials identify deliberate cultural extermination as a type of genocide, the more likely it is that cultural genocide may be criminalized in international law.