1914-18 : The Great Slaughter - Challenging A Year Of Myth Making.

[phildwyer]

But since you've picked on the example of what you've chosen to call by the derogatory term"Sioux" - by which you mean the Dakota/Lakota/Santee etc peoples of north America - I see absolutely no problem as describing their treatment by European settlers as genocidal.

Oh fuck it, you can have the Tasmanian Aboriginals too.

 

[toggle]

he WANTED to but didn't suceed thank god. and wiping out every polish person in poland (which fair enough I don't think he wanted to do) would be genocide ffs!

not quite.


Cannuk mentioned Generalplan Ost, the plan for the conquest of the east, putting lebensraum into practice. It details the planned death rates for a number of eastern european ethnic groups. of those who survived, they would either be deported east, or remain behind as slaves. the experiments on mass sterilisation performed by mengele were aimed at how this slave population might be controlled.

 

[ViolentPanda]

What bearing does that have on the Armenian genocide?

Sigh.

It means that the Ottomans were already paranoid about their (ever-shrinking in the 19th century) borders, and that their fears extended to worrying about an Orthodox Armenia and Orthodox Armenians. It means they'd already "othered" Armenians, and that the successor power to the Ottoman empire (which was Turkey) would be inclined to see them in that light too.

 

[toggle]

dunno about another genocide but he certainly engaged in ethnic cleansing, look what happened to the crimean tartars, he also thought of sending the jews to birobidjan as well

there were forced population movements through the whole of Stalin's rule. Most took place either during the purges or shortly after ww2. Some were just to be somewhere else, others were moved with the knowledge that the place they were being moved to would not have been able to support that level of population, even with resources and time. Although individuals would have been able to survive, the culture of that group would not.

 

[stowpirate]

The more you delve into Armenian History you can identify the similarities to the historic persecution of Jews? No surprise then that they had a national liberation movement with a dream of a free Armenian homeland.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Armenia#Ottoman_Armenia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamidian_massacres

 

[ViolentPanda]

At the end of WWII I have a feeling that Stalin if unchecked by other members of the Allies Big Three, there would have been another genocide? There was a right bloody mess in Eastern Europe in aftermath of WWII. Even Winston Churchill did not engage brain?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_and_expulsion_of_Germans_(1944–50)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_war_crimes#Murders_of_civilians



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evacuation_of_East_Prussia#Aftermath

The expulsion of ethnic Germans from various central and eastern European states post-war wasn't a genocide, insofar as while mass death occurred, it wasn't engineered.
It was pretty horrific, though. Communities that had existed for as many as 600 years, and who spoke various archaic forms of German as pretty much a 2nd rather than 1st language, were expelled from everything they;d ever known, and were expected to make shift in Germany.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I think phil, your distinction is an interesting one but it doesn't really stand up. Not legally, see below,

​

Pffft. phil knows better.

phil always knows better.

 

[co-op]

Oh fuck it, you can have the Tasmanian Aboriginals too.

Yep they are pretty obvious candidates. I think what you are trying to do with your definition is interesting but I don't think you can make it work. The trouble is, as you say, it makes 'genocide' a bit everyday but the sad truth might be that it is (historically speaking).

 

[co-op]

Pffft. phil knows better.

phil always knows better.

But he's brassy and well read. And polite.

 

[stowpirate]

The expulsion of ethnic Germans from various central and eastern European states post-war wasn't a genocide, insofar as while mass death occurred, it wasn't engineered.
It was pretty horrific, though. Communities that had existed for as many as 600 years, and who spoke various archaic forms of German as pretty much a 2nd rather than 1st language, were expelled from everything they;d ever known, and were expected to make shift in Germany.

Even before WWII ended the Soviets wanted access to a baltic sea port. There was I have read some appalling atrocities involved in the clearing of this corridor to the sea? Stallin & Churchill I think had already decided that the German population must go west?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaliningrad

 

[co-op]

It is impossible to have a consciously false belief.

But removing the word "consciously," you describe my position correctly.



Yes. They believed that wrongly, and demonstrably so.

Thus my definition would have no difficulty in securing a conviction of genocide against the Nazis.

It is true that by my definition no-one but the Nazis could be convicted of genocide.

That is precisely my point.

But if they don't know the beliefs they hold are false, then how can they be guilty? If they genuinely believed that they were taking their revenge against the jews for the terrible things the jews had done to Germany, surely that's ok (by your definition) - it's just another ethnically-based war, another Armenia/Turkey.

Did Hitler really understand that his scientists' proof that jews had evolved separately from the rest of homo sapiens (and weren't actually fully human) was bollocks? I guess he believed this absolutely wholeheartedly - and he had scientific evidence to back him up.

 

[toggle]

Yep they are pretty obvious candidates. I think what you are trying to do with your definition is interesting but I don't think you can make it work. The trouble is, as you say, it makes 'genocide' a bit everyday but the sad truth might be that it is (historically speaking).

more so when you also consider cultural genocide, although the usages of that term can be controversial

 

[ViolentPanda]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...s-former-leader-found-guilty-of-genocide.html

Good to see this old bastard get sent down.

The Yanks won't be happy. This'll have ripples in Guatemala, and they don't want ripples on Guatemala.
Me, I've got a big shit-eating grin on. Been waiting a long time to see Rios Montt get his!

 

[ViolentPanda]

1918 is worth commerating as the end of the tragic war.
1914 was the start but nothing worth commerating the british empire probably couldnt avoid being sucked into it but it was hardly a fight for freedom.

We could commemorate 1914 as the largest and worst brain-fart Sir Edward Grey had while Foreign Secretary, perhaps by going and shitting on his grave.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Even before WWII ended the Soviets wanted access to a baltic sea port. There was I have read some appalling atrocities involved in the clearing of this corridor to the sea? Stallin & Churchill I think had already decided that the German population must go west?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaliningrad

Yup.
For many of the states that expelled their ethnic German minorities, above all (in post-war states whose economies were "on the floor") the decision was economic. Expelling millions of people, mostly with what they could carry, gave those states' economies a boost in terms of expropriated goods, money and land. We always mention the utter expropriation of German Jews, but often forget or ignore the expropriation of ethnic Germans.
That isn't to say that ethnic German communities were entirely "innocent" of Nazism - the pre-war ethnic German communities were over-represented in the Nazi hierarchy, for example - but their expulsions were mostly bald-facedly political and economic, as well as a collective punishment pour encourager les autres in a part of the world where ethnic populations pre-existed most state borders.

 

[phildwyer]

Yep they are pretty obvious candidates. I think what you are trying to do with your definition is interesting but I don't think you can make it work. The trouble is, as you say, it makes 'genocide' a bit everyday but the sad truth might be that it is (historically speaking).

OK, I do see your point.

But I still think it's vitally important to distinguish the Jewish Holocaust from other genocides, because of its bureaucratic-industrial procedures, pseudo-scientific rationale, entirely civilian victims, location in an allegedly "modern," self-consciously "advanced" society and, last but certainly not least, its scale.

It's not really comparable to the Armenian, Tutsi or Sioux tragedies for all the above reasons, and more.

I suppose we can agree to call it "the Holocaust," and extend the term "genocide" more widely.

 

[Pickman's model]

OK, I do see your point.

But I still think it's vitally important to distinguish the Jewish Holocaust from other genocides, because of its bureaucratic-industrial procedures, pseudo-scientific rationale, entirely civilian victims, location in an allegedly "modern," self-consciously "advanced" society and, last but certainly not least, its scale.

It's not really comparable to the Armenian, Tutsi or Sioux tragedies for all the above reasons, and more.

I suppose we can agree to call it "the Holocaust," and extend the term "genocide" more widely.

you could of course adopt the internationally accepted definition of genocide:

genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
• (a) Killing members of the group;
• (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
• (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its
physical destruction in whole or in part;
• (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
• (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

http://www.oas.org/dil/1948_Convention_on_the_Prevention_and_Punishment_of_the_Crime_of_Genocide.pdf

 

[phildwyer]

But if they don't know the beliefs they hold are false, then how can they be guilty? If they genuinely believed that they were taking their revenge against the jews for the terrible things the jews had done to Germany, surely that's ok (by your definition) - it's just another ethnically-based war, another Armenia/Turkey.

Again, I see your point. The difference I would note is that the things the Armenians had done to the Kurds were physical. While the things the Jews had allegedly done to the Germans were metaphysical or (which comes to the same thing) "financial."

But then again the moral difference is that the former things were real and the latter unreal. The Nazis' inability to tell reality from unreality compounds their crimes rather than excuses them.

Did Hitler really understand that his scientists' proof that jews had evolved separately from the rest of homo sapiens (and weren't actually fully human) was bollocks? I guess he believed this absolutely wholeheartedly - and he had scientific evidence to back him up.

You bet. In fact I would argue that the Nazi Holocaust is an indictment of science in general. But not here.

 

[Pickman's model]

We could commemorate 1914 as the largest and worst brain-fart Sir Edward Grey had while Foreign Secretary, perhaps by going and shitting on his grave.

not really fair to the relatives of those buried nearby who would have to negotiate a pile of shit the size of dwyer's ego when visiting graves.

 

[phildwyer]

you could of course adopt the internationally accepted definition of genocide

Read the thread, fool. That was three pages ago.

 

[Pickman's model]

Again, I see your point. The difference I would note is that the things the Armenians had done to the Kurds were physical. While the things the Jews had allegedly done to the Germans were metaphysical or (which comes to the same thing) "financial."

But then again the moral difference is that the former things were real and the latter unreal. The Nazis' inability to tell reality from unreality compounds their crimes rather than excuses them.



You bet. In fact I would argue that the Nazi Holocaust is an indictment of science in general. But not here.

so what you're in fact saying is that what the coalition government is doing to people through their use of atos and the withdrawal of benefits is in fact unreal. which it is, but not in your intended sense. this is taking your 'argument' and applying it to a different situation to show you bereft of any sort of reasoned position.

 

[phildwyer]

so what you're in fact saying is that what the coalition government is doing to people through their use of atos and the withdrawal of benefits is in fact unreal. which it is, but not in your intended sense.

Are you mad?

 

[Pickman's model]

Are you mad?

no. but you are.

 

[ViolentPanda]

not really fair to the relatives of those buried nearby who would have to negotiate a pile of shit the size of dwyer's ego when visiting graves.

The new "highest mountain in the UK" within very short order, then!

 

[Belushi]

Even before WWII ended the Soviets wanted access to a baltic sea port. There was I have read some appalling atrocities involved in the clearing of this corridor to the sea? Stallin & Churchill I think had already decided that the German population must go west?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaliningrad

The 'evacuation' of Germans from East of the Elbe is the largest ethnic cleansing in history; between 10-12 million iirc.

 

[frogwoman]

OK, I do see your point.

But I still think it's vitally important to distinguish the Jewish Holocaust from other genocides, because of its bureaucratic-industrial procedures, pseudo-scientific rationale, entirely civilian victims, location in an allegedly "modern," self-consciously "advanced" society and, last but certainly not least, its scale.

It's not really comparable to the Armenian, Tutsi or Sioux tragedies for all the above reasons, and more.

I suppose we can agree to call it "the Holocaust," and extend the term "genocide" more widely.

i agree it's unique for some of those reasons, with the advance of technology probably won't be long till it happens again tho. there's already evidence that north korea has got death camps and gas chambers and people (the families of criminals) are being sent there to be killed, only not on a wide scale.

give it time tho. that's why we need a communist revolution or we'll all be fucked.

 

[phildwyer]

i agree it's unique for some of those reasons, with the advance of technology probably won't be long till it happens again tho. there's already evidence that north korea has got death camps and gas chambers and people (the families of criminals) are being sent there to be killed, only not on a wide scale.

give it time tho. that's why we need a communist revolution or we'll all be fucked.

Didn't they try that in North Korea?

 

[frogwoman]

Didn't they try that in North Korea?

I mean real communism not some fuckin stalinist/state capitalist nightmare.

 

[co-op]

OK, I do see your point.

But I still think it's vitally important to distinguish the Jewish Holocaust from other genocides, because of its bureaucratic-industrial procedures, pseudo-scientific rationale, entirely civilian victims, location in an allegedly "modern," self-consciously "advanced" society and, last but certainly not least, its scale.

It's not really comparable to the Armenian, Tutsi or Sioux tragedies for all the above reasons, and more.

I think you could stick the destruction of the native peoples of the USA and Australia/Tasmania into all of the categories you list above, although I suppose you could argue that they were not 'entirely civilian' because the distinction didn't really exist (although of course there was - some - armed resistance by jews in Nazi-occupied lands too).

I think the main difference is that the various genocides carried out by - e.g. - British settlers are rather more embarrassing than The Holocaust which the Germans have - very sportingly imo - agreed to take the full blame for, unlike just about any other historical perpetrator. But political/cultural embarrassment apart, there's not much difference between any of these really.

 

[frogwoman]

And actually the dominant opinion these days is that north korea's government is closer on an ideological level to the far-right.