Let's start discussion here.
Why is genocide still possible ?
All people ask separately are strong against it and it happens
everyday.
Does not history teach us anything ?
ted here are 20th century. Someone want to add something about the Cathars and the Pope's (Innocent III, I think) declaration of a campaign of extermination? The slaughter of Huguenots would also be a worthwhile addition. --Belltower
*The ethnic Chinese *city dwellers *those who were educated *those who had been exposed to Western ideas - French speakers, English speakers
There was a vast amount of overlap between these groups.
US genocide - The number killed on the Trail of Tears is around 4000, not 100,000. Speading smallpox among Indians was never US government policy.
Correct. The smallpox was spread by Britain, particularly General (Later Lord) Jeffrey Amherst (as in Amherst, Massachusetts) in 1763 during the French and Indian war.
See http://www.nativeweb.org/pages/legal/amherst/lord_jeff and particularly www.nativeweb.org/pages/legal/amherst/34_40_305_fn.jpeg and www.nativeweb.org/pages/legal/amherst/34_41_114_fn.jpeg for scanned images of letters to and from Amherst on the subject, from the Library of Congress and the British Manuscript Project.
I changed the subject heading to North America from the United States, since the United States did not exist during this war, so it is hardly fair to blame it on them. Probably a complete catalog of genocidal events, or a catalog of crimes against Indian peoples, would require a more detailed category scheme then what we have here, - Tim
The 100,000 is an estimate of the entire death count, not just trail of tears, but we do need a more authoritative number. --Dmerrill
One real problem with efforts such as this is that apparently politically motivated people toss out numbers apparently off the tops of their heads. There have been estimates of the number of Indians killed that have exceeded other people's estimates of the total Indian population of North America. So to get historically accurate numbers, or at least fair estimates, is a challenge. - Tim
Armenian genocide was described as the first genocide of the century. However, Mexican regimes murdered probably more than 1 million people from 1900-1920. It is likely that more Indians were murdered by the Mexican government in the 20th century then were murdered by the US government in all its history - but you don't hear about that, because it doesn't really serve anyone's agenda to remember those victims.
Well, wikipedia is your chance to document it for those of us who are ignorant. Please take advantage of it. :-) --Dmerrill
The fact that we are morally repulsed by a particular mass murder shouldn't get in the way of accuracy in the articles here. If genocide is defined to be a particular kind of mass murder, rather than just any form of mass murder whatsoever, then we should definitely not include certain political killings in that category. Create another article if you want, but let's not let our emotional feelings about the issue cloud the accuracy of our articles. Unless the Cambodian mass murders can be described as directed as a particular ethnic, racial, religious or similar such grounds, then it should not be included in this article. I am not saying that the Cambodian killings should not be considered genocide, but I do think that we need to understand how the Cambodian killings fall under the definition of that term.
Are you saying that people who want to kill communists aren't motivated by pure hatred, or that people who want to kill an ethnic group don't believe "if we don't kill all the ###, they'll take over the country!"
It's pretty clear that people who advocate mass murder of this sort are motivated by the same things.
And etymology isn't any important for science. --Taw
Regarding political vs. racial, religious, ethnic and/or cultural: It seems to me that there is usually significant overlap between political views and what sub-groups a particular individual belongs to. I don't see any situation in history where killings were done for purely political reasons.
Political views seem to me to often (not always) be an outgrowth of a person's ethnic background, religion, and culture... and because of those, race as well. I'm not just talking about stereotypes here either, there's a lot of self-selection going on. Blacks (African-Americans, or whatever) in the USA have often stuck with the Democratic party because they have believed that if they stick together, they will have more political influence in the party, and thereby in general if the Demos win elections. This has worked... sort of. -- ansible
You are correct to note that political groups singled out for killing often overlap with racial or ethnic ones; but that does not prove that there is no practical difference. At best it shows that the same events can sometimes be classed as both political killings and genocide.
Finally, Merriam-Webster supports my definition. (Though to be fair the American Heritage Dictionary 3 doesn't.) But irregardless, the legal sense certaintly is the original sense of the term. -- Simon J Kissane
The same applies to communist genocides.
And "legal" definitions are also of little use for science. --Taw
What does science have to do with it?
Genocides are phenomenon which can be, and actually are, scientifically studied, with good results. --Taw
Well, it is clear that the Australian government did remove Aborigines from their parents, and that most of these Aborigines claim they were forced to give their children up.
Related to australia - have I missed it, or has the genocide of the Tasmanian Aborigines been omitted? And I think that the "Stolen Generation" issue deserves it's own page. -- MB
As an old fellow and a strong supporter of the Wikipedia project, I would condemn any actions that would harm the project. However, as a responsible wikipedian, I find myself commissioned to discuss this topic. It is very easy to write on disputable facts based on falsified documents, faked pictures and exaggerated figures that would only distort history and the definition of genocide. This kind of authorship can give harm to the essence of Wikipedia project. Wikipedians should be very careful about not including the questionable subjects as sheer and undiscussible facts and should also not forget that this is not an area of discussion and debate. This is the very reason that I do not simply change or delete these statements (about Young Turks) and instead try discussing them.
It should not be forgotten that Armenian genocide is still a historical hypothesis that is dominantly advertised by the Armenian diaspora and is still pending for reliable proofs. There are scholars working on this issue all over the world and some accept the existence of a possible genocide, while some do not. Both sides have reliable and emotional proofs for their own beliefs. The supporters of the Armenian genocide are showing the pictures of the burried remnants of Armenian people killed by Ottoman soldiers, whereas the supporters of the other side is showing the pictures of Turkish people, who were killed by Armenian soldiers. It is not fair to base such a disputable issue by just showing one single reference. I can find lots of debateful articles in Britannica about Turkey or Turkish people and I can also give other references which do not support the existence of a genocide.
| 1 (http://azerbaycan.hypermart.net/tragedy.htm)
| 2 (http://azerbaycan.hypermart.net/testimony.htm)
I will not copy and paste these references because of the copyright restrictions.
What I understand from the discussions about this issue is shortly as follows: The ethnic struggles between Turkish and Armenian communities began about two centuries ago. As the Ottoman Empire weakened, Russia and Great Britain provoked one of the main ethnic groups of the Ottoman State, the Armenians to uprise in the eastern parts of the Empire. First sporadic clashes were seen between the Turkish and Armenian settlements. When the Russian army began to invade Eastern Anatolia in World War I, the Armenian gangs with the helps of Russian army, started systematic attacks against Ottoman troops and their civilian Turkish citizens. The same gangs are also accused of cutting the supply lines of the Ottoman army, which was fighting with the invading Russian forces. Under these circumstances, the Ottoman Government decided to relocate the Armenians to the other provinces in the Empire. The reason for that was to prevent the fights between Turkish and Armenian communities and cut the support extended by the Armenian towns to the Russians. During the period of this enforced delocation, hostilities between two communities and famine heavily affected the Armenian people. The policy of enforced delocation was a routine application for Ottoman Empire and it had been applied to a variety of communities including Turkish people. Young Turks were guilty for not protecting their citizens duely and also by applying this primitive and ancient policy. However, not only Armenians but many other Ottoman citizens suffered from these treatments throughout centuries and Ottoman governments never seem to carry any intention of giving end to an entire ethnicity. By contrast, it is possible to see many Armenian people in the highest ranks of the Ottoman hierarchy (ministers, architects etc). Any researchers working on Young Turks can easily agree that these people never carried ideologies related with the termination of any community. Indeed, the fact that the same events did not affect tens of thousands of Armenian subjects of the Ottoman Empire, living in Istanbul (then the capital of Ottoman Empire) is the strongest evidence why this incident can not be labeled as ?genocide?. It is also worth mentioning that in the time frame subject to those claims, an Armenian, Noradounghian Efendi, served as the Ottoman Foreign Minister. Moreover, it has been stated in some official records (see references) that when the British forces (who had complete control over all Ottoman official records) occupied Istanbul after World War I, they admitted that they could not find any evidence of an organized genocide against Armenians.
I do not say that I know what the truth is but I just want to draw attention to the other side of this discussion and to remind that we must be very careful when we are writing such sensitive and debateful articles that could easily be abused for political reasons. I do not find myself authorized to change this article, since I am not an expert of this subject. I believe that we must be very careful about these statements for some mentally sick people could more easily find reasons for their aggressive actions and it should not be forgotten that many innocent people were already killed by such people in this context.
SJK draws attention to the decisions of several parliaments of different countries. I wrote about my concerns in the Talk section why these decisions should not be accepted as real proofs and why we should not base our articles on such decisions. I believe with all my heart that the sinful secrets of history should be uncovered for the welfare and goodness of future generations. But I also believe that this should be done with a sense of equality and justice. This would be much more fair for the souls of Turkish people, who seem to have died or killed in similar conditions as Armenian people. ErdemTuzun
Johannes Lepsius, a German historian, has written "The Condition of the Armenian People in Turkey" in 1917 using German government dispatches and documents as primary sources, which inconclusively prove the Armenian genocide. This does not matter for ErdemTuzun, as he is not interested in history, but only the fabrications made by the Turkish government.
Also as many of you know in Asia Minor, has been inhabitated by Greeks also for thousands of years and now the Greeks who numbered over 2 and half million(this is not counting muslims Greeks most of whom are assimiliated as Turks right now) at the turn of the 20th Century, cannot fill a city of 100,000 today in modern Turkey. The Kurds have also always been in the area and they do not fare well under Turkish yoke either. The Committe of Union and Progress did not want Anatolia to be a multicultural Empire, they wanted everyone to be assimilated as Turks, and those they could not assimilate were removed forcibly. The Armenian genocide was also very much motivated by economic means as the Christians(Armenians and Greeks) were in possession of most of the wealth in Ottoman Turkey. -Nicholas
This needs to be reworked. There is a whole body of literature on why genocide happens that isn't mentioned here, and the first reason given needs to be attributed rather than stated as a bold fact.
Governments commit genocide because they believe it will advance their political interests. Almost always their interests are held to be inseparable from their hold on power. Genocides are therefore attempts to strengthen a government's hold on power by eliminating and terrorizing groups that are perceived to be a threat. They are also an assertion of power that warns other potential political enemies to stay in line.
Often genocides are commited to make its citizenry more uniform. Many politicians have thought that it would be much easier to rule if everyone shared common beliefs, religion, habits, etc.
The individuals who participate in genocides may have personal motives, and it is not unlikely that many participate in the killings because they enjoy killing. But the opportunity to participate arises only if a genocide is already occuring, which can only be the case if a government believes it will serve its purposes.
I do not understand how people suggest that something they have not personally witnessed have definitely happened or not. Obviously, their ?beliefs? about the existence of an event depend on some sources (books etc.), which may be equally wrong and deceitful as other?s sources. So, I strongly protest the attitudes and wordings of people, who try to suppress a discussion on a topic just because this topic is not compatible with their own beliefs.
As far as I know, scientific facts and hypothesis are discussed by counter-facts and counter-hypothesis rather than conspiracy theories and impolite condemnations. I read my discussion several times and I could not find any sentence, which states that Ottoman Empire did not attack to its ethnic minorities. Ottoman Empire was a gigantic, feudal state and it had the habit of suppressing the local uprisings very harshly just like its predecessors including Roman Empire and Byzantine Empire. Additionally, Ottomans were not Turkish; they were Ottomans, which means that their major goal was to try to protect the benefits of the Ottoman dynasty rather than Turkish people or other ethnicities. That explains why Turkish people were also strongly suppressed, when they started rebellions and such. Especially in 19th and 20th century, these rebellions increased substantially as the general economical status of the state got poorer and as the waves of nationalism stroke. As any governmental authority would normally do, Ottoman governers tried to restrain these upheavals sometimes successfully and sometimes not.
In the Armenian question, I honestly declared that I did not know the ultimate answer, but I wanted to mention that there were other stories about these events, which were different than those advertised by some Armenians and I thought that people had the right to learn these stories and give their own decisions about this matter. I guess those who state that some event has definitely happened, without giving proper facts and logical statements should check their own honesty about learning the historical truths.
My questions were:
1. Was this a one-sided event or a double-sided one? In other words did Armenian soldiers attack and kill huge number of Turkish people at the same date and location and were Turks also vigorously delocated from their villages as the Russian and Armenian armies invaded ex-Ottoman territories in Caucasia? Well, my sources say yes to these questions. Surely, people can say that this is falsified data and state propaganda, but then I can say the same thing for the Armenian allegations, so this means dead end for the discussion. So, this does not seem to be the best attitude for a discussion and generally it is not polite to lay blame on opponents? data and I believe that this only proves the discussing person?s prejudice and intolerance to disparate ideas. This also means putting a large group of people, who claim that their ancestors were killed by Armenians in that specific time point, in the position of a liar.
2. Is it suitable to call Ottoman government?s actions as genocide or not? I think the key concept of the word genocide and originally where the word comes from is murdering members of an ethnicity intentionally just because these people are belong to this ethnicity. Not because they have done something wrong or they have come against the authority. In this respect, what happened to Armenians during World War I does not seem to deserve the term genocide. But certainly semiology is a flexible branch of science and the meanings of the words can be expanded or narrowed due to people?s own pleasures and I am ready to discuss this issue in a more polite, friendly and scientifically compatible environment.
These were the points that I tried to make in my previous discussion and I was expecting to hear more intellectual words supported by facts and proofs.
As a last word, it is not even close to reality that it is only the Turkish people, who support this theory and there are at least two non-Turkish names that I can remember at the moment. One of them is Bernard Lewis, a British professor of Princeton University and an expert of Near East history. He was strangely condemned by a French court because of declaring that there is no such thing as Armenian genocide. Second and more recent name is Samuel A. Weems, who wrote a book about this issue named ?Armenia the Great Deception?, the summary of which can be found in |this website (http://www.stjohnpress.com/the_great_deception.htm).
As to the question of Greek people in Ottoman territory, I have never heard anything stranger than that. Yes, as the Ottomans invaded the Eastern Roman Empire, they mixed with the local Greek people, as well as other ethnicities and that is why Greek and Turkish people look so similar to each other. For instance, British or French people invaded Western Roman Empire and mixed with local Roman people. Now there are no Roman people and the Latin language is dead. Does this mean that people of the Roman Empire were massacred and assimilated by the European countries? governments? No, they simply melted in the same cultural pot. It is true that Greek people?s population in Anatolia decreased substantially in early 20th century, because Greece and Turkey signed a treaty to exchange their people. So, Greek people immigrated to Greece and vice versa. In the same way the numbers of Turkish people in Greece decreased substantially for the same reason. It is certainly not a sign of good intention not to mention this important information. On the other hand, present Greece was once an Ottoman territory. So, how come did the Ottomans not assimilate Greek people living in present Greece and only assimilated those living in present Turkey? If they were assimilated then who founded Greece in 19th century. Isn?t that paradoxical? After almost five centuries of Ottoman dominance, many Balkan nations founded their own countries as they were inspired by expanding nationalistic ideas and Turkey is one of these countries. Even this shows that despite some nasty habits, Ottomans were not that bad to their ethnicities and did not genuinely try to eradicate their cultures. Can anyone imagine any Jews living in Europe after five centuries of a possible Nazi domination in the continent? ErdemTuzun
http://users.ids.net/~gregan/ That site documents how Professor Heather Lowry is paid to be revionist by the Turkish state and make Armenians into assailants and not victims.(Site made by an Armenian and he probably thinks they are "anti-Turkish" and will dismiss it even though it documents press coverage of this travesty.)
http://www.cridder.com/glue/4-22-98/gen-side "Nearly eighty-three years after the blood has dried, disputes about the mass murder of Armenians by the Turkish government has invaded a new battleground: universities. Turkey's program to endow a series of chairs in Turkish and Ottoman studies has found takers in several U.S. universities, but others have refused the money, concerned that it is tied to conditions which tilt the historical record for political purposes."
http://www.isg-ags.org/newsletters/25/microsoft "An attempt was made in June 2000 by Microsoft management to revise articles in Encarta, their CD-ROM encyclopedia, written in 1996 by Helen Fein on genocide and by Ronald Grigor Suny [University of Chicago] on Armenia in order to cast doubt on their previous factual acknowledgment of the Armenian genocide. This attempt was foiled by the resistance of these authors and some editors at Encarta"
Bernard Lewis, the historian Erdem cites is a Western historian bought by the Turkish government, do not be fooled. There is not documentation online of every revionist paid for by the Turkish government, though, but any who reads the links I give can get the picture.
I will not address all of Erdem's arguments as they are beneath contempt or merit. No Russian army ever entered Turkey till 1916, the Armenian genocide occured mostly during 1915. The Armenians were disarmed from the start so it is ridicilous to suggest they could attack 16 million muslims like the propagandists state given these very basic facts.
-Nicholas
Removed:
Not clear what incident it refers to and doubtful it meets a standard for genocide. --rmhermen
Although the term genocide carries the connotation of mass murder, in the sense of an enormous massacre, technically many instances of "genocide" appear to be rather "crimes against humanity". Basically, if you're trying to eliminate a "people" it's genocide; if you're trying to wipe out political opponents it's a crime against humanity.
I'm not sure why the ICC treaty is making this distinction. My personal impression is that genocide is "any mass murder of one million or more people", but none of my recent research supports this definition.
Perhaps, then, the general term should be mass murder. When an article requires, we could attempt to determine the legal classification of an instance of mass murder, as "genocide" or as a "crime against humanity". In either case, just as many helpless people are killed.
In its Article 7, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court says:
The word was coined with a meaning - it is shown in the first paragraph. Who claims "it is generally accepted" anyway? --rmhermen
I am not sure whether this can be classified as an attempt of genocide anymore than, say, the suicide bombings. The same holds true to Jenin. I am, however, considering adding details about the 1948 fighting, including the Deir Yassin massacre, the sack of Gush Ezion and the Arab war plans. --Uri
This article is unfortunately used by different authors for political ends. As Ed points out, genocide has a very clear and simple definition, the extermination of a people. To label the conflict between Arab countries and Israel "attempted genocide" because someone used the phrase "push Israel into the sea" is, quite frankly, ridiculous, and so is the use of the term for the Jenin massacre (if there even was a massacre). To even merit the phrase "cultural genocide" with a mention is bad enough, but this should at most be done in the first part of the article, not in the list of genocides that meet the accepted definition.
The major genocides of the 20th century were the Holocaust (extermination of the European Jews), the Rwanda genocide, and the attempted genocide by the nazis during their invasion of the Soviet Union ("Vernichtungskrieg" and re-settlement). I have therefore removed some items, re-worded and re-ordered the list of genocides. I am also missing information about the various genocides that the Japanese are supposed to be responsible for:
"Genocide also targeted at Koreans, Philippines, Dutch (Netherlands), Vietnamese, Indonesians and Burmese."
What were these operations, to which extent were they completed, from when to when lasted they? If this information is not provided, the paragraph should be removed.
Also:
Thanks, Eloquence. IMHO, you added a much-needed measure of common sense and NPOV to this article. Danny
216, please provide a reference for the "500 thousand...killed" claim. And if you have the time, could you also please research how many other people were murdered by the Cambodian gov't itself? I've seen estimates ranging from 900,000 to over 2 million. The movie The Killing Fields may have alerted us to the problem, but we need some hard facts. Cheers, --Ed Poor
Along the same line, over 600,000 people died in the firebombing of Japan cities during World War II (not counting Hiroshima and Nagasaki). This is not generally considered genocide or even a war crime. User:Fredbauder. But not sure what article it would belong in.
This passage was removed. It is a completely unsubstantiated claim. The expulsion was perhaps
an unjust deed; probably there were even crimes committed during the expulsions.
But calling this genocide is just impudent. These figures are incredible. Proof ?
Kpjas
This was removed from the article:
I agree that as currently written this is not NPOV. However, I'm familiar with the debate; though it's debated, there are some good arguments for characterizing this as a genocide, and a few references are provided. I don't think simple excision is the answer in this case.
Perhaps - a very Wikipedia answer - we could spin off a link on "Disputed Cases of Genocide" and place the for/against arguments for things like this in that article. If it proves to be used extensive enough, the "Disputed Cases" link could lead to a set of articles dealing with each disputed case. -- April
Kpjas, April, Rmhermen, let's work together on organizing this sort of information. If "genocide" isn't exactly the right word, how about "mass murder", "extermination campaign", "purge" or whatever? The legal category doesn't matter to me as much as what readers will expect to find it under. --Ed Poor
It seems the word genocide no longer means "the killing of huge numbers of helpless civilians, either by their own goverment or a foreign invader". I am a bit confused about why (a) I keep thinking that's what it means and (b) the UN has defined it otherwise.
I guess it's like a "hate crime". If I beat up some other kid in my neighborhood because I don't like him, it's just assault and battery. But if I beat him up because he's gay or black or Jewish, etc., then it's a "bias crime" or "hate crime" and gets all sort of special attention.
What does it matter? A corpse smells just as bad after three days, regardless of whether his murderer wanted to wipe out his whole group (or whether his group is one of the UN categories protected by the UN, such as an ethnic minority). The victim's family is just as sad and angry...
I don't know whether what I just wrote has anything to do with improving the article; I'm just upset and wanted to share that... --Ed Poor
Personally, I find all mass killings to be utterly reprehensible, and I might cynically suggest that some governments want to reserve the right to kill lots of people as long as it's "only" for political reasons. But at least I think I comprehend the overall rationale. -- April
Yet somehow the current (and former?) definition of "genocide" doesn't seem to fit, so we keep snipping facts out of articles. I'd hate to think we were CENSORING these facts on pedantic legal grounds. What can we do? --Ed Poor
Not sure, bacterian schock is say to have played major role in the a huge mortality of South American Indians. According, to some historians the project of Cortez was to build a multi-ethnic country. This not deny the fact there were a lot of criminal act against the native at this time as reported among other by Las Cazas. Ericd 21:58 Sep 8, 2002 (UTC)
Article was improved since I wrote this remark. I was speaking of the massive assination of Cambodian by Cambodian. Someone improved the article to precise that for a part massacres in Cambodia were ethnic-selective and thus can be qualified as genocide. Ericd 21:49 Sep 8, 2002 (UTC)
Search Encyclopedia
|
Featured Article
|