Encyclopedia > Talk:Genocide
Talk:Genocide
I have no problem with the new opeining definition Ed put in, but given that definition, which specifies "ethnic and nation" groups, the following sentence is a non sequitor:
- International treaties have narrowed the scope of the term, excluding extermination campaigns against political or social targets.
Time for some good old-fashioned samizdat right here in the intellectual Gulag we call the United States of America:
The following I originally wrote here, on Wikipedia, and subsequently copied to a discussion forum, which you will find at: http://www.guerrillanews.com/cgi-bin/wwwthreads/postlist.pl?Cat=&Board=state&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=0
America's Intellectual Terrorism: genocide denial
The Islamist terrorists exploit the yawning rift of America, to our ultimate ruin (as long as we remain a profoundly *dis*united people). I paste the following post, which I made to the Wikipedia online encyclopedia
article "Talk:Genocide" (I encourage readers of GNN to read and edit articles on Wikipedia) here:
The article "Genocide" fails to mention the Taiping Rebellion, in which, it is estimated, twenty millions of people were slaughtered in the latter half of the 19th century. There are also: the problem of the other "politically correct" (a term coined by the Communist Chinese)
- The term "politically correct" was not originally coined by the Chinese communists. Slrubenstein
- Is that a fact. Who did, then? mailto:f.g.wilson@sbcglobal.net
Ok, here's the straight dope: Wordorigins.org, the letter p (http://www.wordorigins.org/wordorp.htm) However, in the sense of dogma, enforced correct thought and speech, it originated in religion and found purchase in authoritarian political ideologies such as Marxism, so in that sense, the notion exists in China, whatever jargon they use to express the concept. Fredbauder 13:19 Oct 19, 2002 (UTC)
omission of abortion; infanticide by the Chinese as stated policy, by America as defined-away practice; the destruction of Iraq's infrastructure in 1992 and subsequent and ongoing death by starvation and disease; the Johnson/CIA overthrow of Sukarno and slaughter of an estimated million people in Indonesia in 1965; the killing of many tens, perhaps hundreds of millions through genocides by war, dislocation, starvation, and disease which accompanied the European, American, and African slave-traders[?]' exploits and the conquest of Latin America by the European Great Powers, over centuries; the centuries-old and continuing usury of banking, today through institutions such as the World Bank, IMF, and WTO, which results in genocides by economic, social, and agricultural dislocation, conflict, starvation, and disease; the prosecution of wars and World Wars (and the inculcation of the masses to believe that such wars are not only inevitable but desirable) by, through, or at the behest of these financial institutions and/or by the instruments of state power; intellectual genocide, wherein an anomalously aware schoolchild, for example, if he or she dared to stand up and say that the American people, by indolent ignorance or inculcation and indoctrination, are *complicit* in these ongoing crimes; further, that the crimes are compounded and perpetuated by such ingenious devices as renaming the violent or unlawful expulsion of governments, which once was called coup d'etat or violent overthrow, so that now it is called the innocuous, even beneficent "regime change" and the culture embraces the idea and champions the violence which necessarily attends it; further, that what was once covert because its perpetrators knew it was wrong, as in the case of the violent overthrow, with CIA help, of the duly elected Chilean government of Salvador Allende in 1973 (the war crimes of the coup and carnage/genocide in Indonesia, 1965 were more effectively covered up by Johnson and the CIA, so that today they are rarely aired) the ruling elite and the shapers of culture can now, over the smoking grave of intellectual genocide, laud and rewrite such a crime as a shining example of "regime change,"...that child, (or teacher, worker, elected official) would face, at the very least, ostracization, and possibly expulsion or worse; the ongoing setting of the stage, through the hideous hypocrisy of U.S. sponsorship of "Truth Commissions[?]" around the world, enabling the U.S. to stand apart and above as an unindictable judge of past genocides and perpetrator of those to come...these form the short list from a much larger category which the subject of genocide should include but in the currently dominating culture cannot, for it relies on lies, half-truths and distortions for its very existence, right down to this destined-for-deletion post (which I have taken the liberty of copying for posting elsewhere to document and demonstrate my point).
f.g.wilson@sbcglobal.net
It does appear that the Taiping Rebellion might be considered genocide although it was also a civil war, but it was a civil war over the activities of a religious group. I'm not up enough on it to defend adding it to the article, but feel free. By the way, only in the most egregious cases is anything removed from the talk pages of an article. As to all of the other stuff, you just need to think about where each of those facts fits into wikipedia and do it. Fredbauder 16:00 Oct 18, 2002 (UTC)
---
Last month, a band of Lendu stormed into a hospital with many Hema patients. They walked up and down the aisles cutting patients up in their beds. When they were done, about 1000 people had been killed. This was reported in the latest Economist, though I couldn't find the story anywhere online. So today, one group can murder 1000 people in a hospital, and no one will even hear about it. This was in Congo, by the way. Just another day in Congo, it seems. I thought of adding an entry to the genocide article: "Congo, 2002: Everyone killing everyone else, 50,000 dead."
But I had another idea that might be better and suited to Wikipedia. Once upon a time I started a page called Indian Massacres where anyone could add documented cases of Indians being massacred by the US government. I figured we could compile all known cases and end up with a accurate tally. There are questions about the methodological validity of this project, but I thought it was an interesting thing to try.
Could we do something similar with present day genocides, democides, etc.? Everytime there was a massacre of some sort we could add it to our page and create a running tally of how many people are being killed by government action or willful inaction. One purpose of doing this is to make it much harder to kill 1000 people in a hospital without anyone noticing.
- This is a wiki; if you find the article lacking, please do your best to improve it. --Brion 01:40 Oct 17, 2002 (UTC)
Confusion over the term genocide itself
Some people use genocide as a catch-all term for mass killings, especially when governments murder civilians. International treaties, however, divide atrocities into various legal categories -- such as crime against humanity, genocide -- which can lead to frustration among those who are already outraged by mass murder and are now stymied by petty ass disputes about what legal category a given atrocity has to be assigned before they can even talk about it.
I suggest, therefore, that we move slowly and gently in this area, taking into account the feelings of other contributors and keeping in mind that many people are not savvy about international law. --Ed Poor 14:01 Oct 18, 2002 (UTC)
I reverted Lir's change to the UN definition. The original text is found at http://www.un.org/law/icc/statute/romefra.htm. --rmhermen
I would like to organize the article by adding some headings:
- Origin of the term
- Various definitions
- International law
--Ed Poor
I would say if you want to call political killings genocide, first check if they were part of Lemkin's original definition... if they weren't, then the initial paragraph will have to change...
Also, are you sure that popular usage includes political killings? In my experience, popularly genocide means (1) the Holocaust (which was primarily about ethnic/racial/religious killings--the Nazis also of course killed people for political reasons, but these political killings don't play a large role in most people's concepts of what the Holocaust is), and (2) any other killings similar to the Holocaust in some significant way. Undoubtedly the Holocaust is the genocide par exellance, and all other genocides in the popular mind at least, to be called genocide, must be shown as similar to the Holocaust. Now I think ethnic/religious/racial killings are similar to the Holocaust, while political killings are not (or not as similar). Hence I think for most people genocide excludes political killings. -- Anonymoues
- I don't think posing the "original definition" gives a word creator the right to enforce his definition. Words can and do change. (like "gay")
- Yes, I'm quite sure that a popular usage of genocide includes mass murder. Most people I know don't give a rat's ass about what lawyers think.
- The Wikipedia article should not be swayed by (a) popular usage, (b) political advocacy or (c) international treaties. We must write a neutral article. --Ed Poor
I have yet to see evidence for the claim that popular usage equates genocide with "government sponsored mass murder in peace time" as Ed claims above. If this is indeed popular usage, then it must be extremely recent, since it is not reflected in any dictionary:
- "the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group" Merriam-Webster
- "The deliberate and systematic extermination of an ethnic or national group. " Oxford English Dictionary
- " the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, religious, political, or ethnic group." Encyclopedia Britannica
- "By ‘genocide’ we mean the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group. " (Lemkin)
The only disagreement seems to be whether to include political groups or not, with more recent definitions tending to include them. This disagreement should be mentioned in the article (and is). AxelBoldt 17:20 Nov 25, 2002 (UTC)
The following comments were added to the article body, apparently by user:172. They obviously violate the NPOV standard of Wikipedia. -- llywrch 14:50 Dec 26, 2002 (UTC)
[Concerning accusations of genocide by Stalin's Soviet Union:]
STALIN’S BRUTAL REGIME WAS CONSOLIDATING POWER, NOT COMMITTING GENOCIDE
PROPAGANDA
People's Republic of China
Mao's regime killed large number of people, depending on which sources are accepted. (Please provide accurate source.) The Chinese government accepts the lower figure.
Some have argued that the government of the People's Republic of China has committed genocide by killing members of many minority ethnic groups, including Uighurs, Tibetans and others during the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. Others argue that this is not a case of genocide but mass murder because while minority ethnic groups were killed, so were members of the majority Han Chinese, and at no time has the PRC government undertaken policies specifically to kill minority groups.
THE GREAT LEAP WAS MORONIC, BUT NOT GENOCIDAL. AND I SUPPOSE THAT THERE HAD NEVER BEEN A FAMINE PRIOR TO THE COMMUNISTS?
[Concerning the criminal mismanagement -- sometimes presented as "Education" of the native inhabitants -- of the Belgian Congo:]
As an aside, it must be noted that the integration of traditional economies in Africa within the framework of the modern, capitalist economy was also particularly exploitative. The most infamous example of this is the Congo Free State. The fortunes of King Leopold II, for instance, the famed philanthropist, abolitionist, and self-anointed sovereign of Congo Free State (1885)—76 times larger geographically than Belgium itself—and those of the multinational concessionary companies under his auspices, were mainly made on the proceeds of Congolese rubber, which had historically never been mass-produced in surplus quantities. Between 1880 and 1920 the population of Congo thus halved; over 10 million ‘indolent natives’ were the victims of murder, starvation, exhaustion induced by over-work, and disease.
- Belgium exhumes its colonial demons (http://www.guardian.co.uk/Print/0,3858,4460659,00)
WHAT ABOUT THE BELGIAN CONGO? WHAT ABOUT SLAVERY AND THE MIDDLE PASSAGE, THE MILLIONS OF BODIES UNDER THE ATLANTIC? WHAT ABOUT THE GERMAN EXTERMINATION OF THE HERERO?
http://www.africana.com/DailyArticles/index_20021014.htm
[Response to external links:]
[1] Figures from R. J. Rummel, "Death by Government".
==YEAH, THAT’S A CREDITABLE SOURCE. WHAT AGENDA? NORMATIVE BIASES?
[2] Figure from Britannica
CITE BRITANNICA, NOT POLEMICS!
Go online. Some groups think that the US manufactured the AIDS crisis in Southern Africa. That would be a CHARGE of genocide, wouldn't it? Go ahead, put those claims in the article and not refer to the sources as “very questionable”.
In that sense, I'll call those "Free Tibet" claims questionable.
- Actually, I wouldn't refer to these groups as "very questionable" either. I would certainly state that their views are not shared by many people and present counter-arguments; I would also be interested in actually hearing the arguments of the other side. Similarly, I do not state that the view by religious fundamentalists that sexual abstinence education works is "very questionable" although I think it is. The very idea behind the NPOV concept of Wikipedia is that virtually anyone can read an article and have their opinion properly represented. Please read NPOV and associated pages. --Eloquence
---
That's a good point. So change the wording, but indicate that the sources are very questionable indirectly.
- No, no, NPOV is not about somehow sneaking in your point of view, it's about presenting uncontroversial facts that are universally shared as such, and those that are not as properly attributed opinions. In this case, I have already done so by using the phrases "Most scholars" and "political groups" (I am relying on you on whether this is actually accurate). --Eloquence
Specifically, who holds this view:
- These charges help to indoctrinate impressionable youths in the Free Tibet movement. This movement is arguably a façade for groups with virulent anti-China, anti-modern, anti-Communist agendas, and even anti-capitalist agendas.
Please provide a citation. --Eloquence
I’m not resending my challenge.
Go online. Some groups think that the US manufactured the AIDS crisis in Southern Africa. That would be a CHARGE of genocide, wouldn't it? Go ahead, put those claims in the article and not refer to the sources as “very questionable”. (I don't believe these charges, of course, but I'd like you to prove your consistency.)
However, I’d prefer having the PRC article removed altogether. Make-believe charges diminish the seriousness of the actual incidents of genocide.
- Feel free to add information about the incidents in question and I will try to rewrite them as NPOV. "Very questionable" is not NPOV. If you want to move the PRC content, do so, but deleting correct, verifiable statements ("X believe that ..") is generally not acceptable. --Eloquence
172 --
1. Introduction of a capitalist economy is NOT genocide, in itself. This is irrelevvant to the article. Stop putting it in: at best it makes you look like a crank. At worst, it casts doubt on this horrible chapter of history.
And if you can't understand this, then add a section about how genocide was inflicted on Eastern Europe, when capitalism led to the reintroduction of feudalism there. F\erdinand Braudel makes an excellent argument about this.
2. Saying that the Tibetan Liberation Front is enough to raise suspicions whether genocide has actually occured there. By adding "extreme factions" you are disingenuously stating that not even the Tibetans believe this, & that anyone who insists that this is the case is wrong. If the majority of the Tibetans DON'T believe this, prove it.
So far all you've failed to convince me of anything I don't know. Except that you are probably the last hard-core Stalinist Communist in exsistence. And that you're arguing from faith, not from facts. -- llywrch 20:04 Jan 2, 2003 (UTC)
First, I am not a Stalinist. Second, if I have to convince you of what happened in Central Africa or Southwest Africa, then you’re ignorant. Third, if you are at all familiar with mainstream scholarship on Chinese history, then I wouldn’t have to convince you that those Free Tibet charges are extremely questionable. Forth, I’m not here to advocate anything.
- 1 & 4 -- You had me fooled. As you write, certain countries can do no wrong; oether countries can do no right.
- 2 -- If you would take a moment & compare the changes I have made with what you wrote, you will see I am trying to keep what you write within the NPOV guidelines. I would like an arto include something about the mismangement of the Free Congo Republic, but as I said, introduction of capitalism to a group is NOT genocide. And, as you have argued elsewhere, genocide requires proof of INTENT. I have been wondering when someone will bring up that point, & force this entire entry to be dropped, at which time I will be trying to argue to keep it in.
- 3 -- The point is not about what mainstream scholarship states, the point is what the Free Tibet group SAYS. If the majority of these groups state that this is NOT the case, then provide documentation.
I'm used to these ridiculous charges from the likes of people like you.
- How do you know who I am? My point is to get you to focus your emotion away from invective and accusations to making contributions that will endure under the NPOV.
User Tannin described them well:
"172, let's not get into a misunderstanding here. I would be the last person to call you a communist. Prior to your arrival, a good many of the history pages were rather shallow things, and showed little understanding of the interrelationship between history (in the traditional "kings and queens of England" sense) and the broad flow of economic change that underpins and (in general) controls the actions of statesmen, generals and inventors. You certainly do not fall into that trap! Your contributions have made significant inroads into the task of describing history as an interacting whole. Several others here have objected to what they see as a "communist bias" in your writing. In large part, these objections stem from two things:
Many people here have spent a lifetime steeped in a rather one-sided view of history - I'm talking about the sort of history that describes the Battle of the Bulge or Second Alamain in loving detail, but relegates Stalingrad to a footnote and doesn't even bother to mention Kursk; the sort of history that thinks Jethro Tull invented the seed drill and therefore we had an Industrial Revolution - and on reading the sort of thing that you write, they (very naturally) tend to say oh, this isn't what I'm used to seeing, therefore it must be wrong. You tend to write large slabs of text which is perfectly comprehensible if one concentrates but far from easy reading, particularly as it is liberally laced with the jargon of political economy. Many people see key words or phrases like "bourgeoise", "hegemony", or "accumulation of surplus" and (a) don't really understand them, and (b) assume that because the two or three Marxist or Leninist tracts they happen to have glanced at are filled with these same words, that the present work is more of the same. "
- Frankly, 172, my point of view is closer to yours than you might think. But like many people with leftist views whom I've had to debate, you believe too easily that if I don't agree with you, I must be entirely opposed to you. Learn to build consensuses, & maybe you won't be fighting every battle. -- llywrch 20:49 Jan 2, 2003 (UTC)
SOME COMMENTS !
- Cause of each case of genocide should be discuted in separate articles.
- A lot of people wish to highlight some case according to their opinion this should stop !
Can you please try to order the case of genocide in chronologic order and unify the typo. User:Ericd
- Hey, if 172 wants to write an article about the Belgian Free Congo with all of the economic commentary there, I'm happy with that. As long as she/he can keep it within the NPOV. -- llywrch 20:49 Jan 2, 2003 (UTC)
Addressing the Congo atrocities without addressing surplus value and mass-production is like referring to the Holocaust without referring to anti-Semitism.
- The same argument could be made about the highland clearances in the history of Scotland. It's irrelevant, & drags in a boogey man that obscures the issue. (And despite everything, the Scots are still with us.)
- Or maybe I should remain silent when someone shows that neither Leopold II nor any of his associates intended to exterminate the natives of the Congo. Unlike how Stalin's treated every ethnic group within the Soviet Union. -- llywrch 21:44 Jan 2, 2003 (UTC)
- Ah, but Stalin is 172's hero, he/she won't criticize HIM. -- Zoe
- Well, Che Guevara was well educated, more romantic and a dammed good photographer.
YES link something outside. User:Ericd
Removed :
The genocidal, but anti-Soviet Pol Pot regime was removed by a Vietnamese occupation. During the 1980s and 1990s, Pol Pot's guerilla group was supported by the United Kingdom and the USA as his genocidal history was considered preferable to the Vietnamese occupation.
Or should I write he was also supported by China. User:Ericd The USA supported Pol Pot after the genocide not when he comited genocide. User:Ericd
Did you read the page? The content pertains to major "CHARGES" of genocide.
In my opinion Mao, Stalin, and Leopold II did not commit genocide, but the Germans in SW Africa did fall in the parameters of the definition. But this opinion doesn’t matter. This is not for Wikipedia users to decide. Let's not remove anything and simply let’s continue to report what others have CHARGED.
The title "major charges of genocide" should make everyone happy.
I removed the following:
- The German extermination of the Herero in Southwest Africa might have been the first attempt by to systematically annihilate a single ethnic group. Up to one million might have been murdered.
We have cases of genocide prior to this. The mass murder of the Tasmanian Aborigines and certain groups of Native Americans were systematic attempts to "annihilate a single ethnic group." As for the numbers, the next paragraph gives a breakdown of the numbers--I took them from the Encyclopedia of Genocide, Dr. Israel Charney (Ed.), ABC-CLIO, 1999. They give 75,000. From there to one million is a bit if a stretch. It is less convincing if we have a breakdown of numbers that show 75,000 in the next paragraph. 172, what is your source for 1 million? Danny
- Beware vandalism. Someone has reinstated a highly POV thing, claiming as settled fact that there were systematic attempts to annihilate Tasmanian Aborigines by mass murder. The plain fact is, this is an open question and currently a highly contentious one. Keith Windschuttle, for one, is seeking to rebut it. Now, without asserting the truth or otherwise of the original matter, it is wrong (vandalism) to edit out the fact that it is both contentious (POV) and unresolved. You certainly can't safely present it as supporting evidence for something else. PML.
I removed the below, because its patently incorrect. It also fails to mention or consider America's greater likelihood of commiting atrocities upon Arabs, (given its supreme military standing )using its attack-dogs, like Britain, Israel, and so forth... Its quite reasonable, given Americas pulling of strings, the potential killing of (an additional) hundred thousands Iraquis, putting all of these things together, could, in the broadest sense, be called a campaing of genocide, over more than half a century. Be we dont add that, and we dont show our western bias, by adding the below. It may be a campaign of terrorism, but not genocide. Its inflammatory, and propagandist.
- On February 23, 1998 Osama bin Ladin of al Qaida issued a fatwah calling for the killing of "Americans and their allies-civilian and military" [1] (http://www.ict.org.il/articles/fatwah.htm).-Sv
I removed Jehovah's Witnesses from the piece on the Holocaust. Yes, they were targeted as a group and 5,000 Witnesses died. However, they did not constitute an ethnic group, and unlike any other group persecuted by the Nazis, all they had to do was to sign a form stating that they renounce their beliefs and they would be freed from the concentration camps. The vast majority did not, although a handful did. In other words, they were not targeted as an ethnic group for extermination. Once again, the definition is important. Danny
- But they surely constituted a religious group, and as such a cultural group? Also, murder is not required for genocide, just the intent to destroy a specific group by whatever means. This would fit the definition then. AxelBoldt 00:48 Apr 8, 2003 (UTC)
I think a distinction should be made here between genocide and cultural genocide. And yes, genocide is killing. Danny
- Anthropologists distinguish between "genocide" (killing people) and "ethnocide" (killing a culture). But frankly, I am not sure how much weight this article ought to give to this anthropological distinction (which Danny seems to share). Article II of the UN's Convention on Punishment and Prevention of Genocide (UN GOAR Res. 260A (III) 9) defines genecide as not only "killing members of a group;" it includes causing "serious ... mental harm," and "forcibly transferring children of the group to another group" (which is not murder but which does cut off the transmission of culture). So according to international law, genocide is not just killing. Slrubenstein
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