Top Ten Outrages of the Past Half Millenium

[Ned]

Molly, does the recounting of the Rape of Badajoz affect in any way our thinking about the Rape of Nanking?

[Wernazuma III]

Evidently if a landowner could claim that his workers were continuing in their pagan ways he could legally continue to own them. I'm sure that if this could be done in Mexico, it could be done in the other colonies.

A Spanish lawyer and chruch law theoreist would have had to disagree. It was especially the recognition of Indians as "pagans" (i.e. who didn't know the Christian faith before) in contrast to the black population, which, being from the Old World, was categorized as "heathen/heretic". That thinking paved the way for the critics of their initial enslavement.
The article of the link you're giving is not especially well written and makes several mistakes, like saying that blacks were incorporated in the encomienda system, which is completely untrue. The encomienda was especially designed for the relations between Indian communities and the Spanish encomendero, with - ideally - mutual duties, though actually it was most often a one-way-road: Indians giving tribute or temporary forced labor (and the tributes they had to provide did shrink as their population shrinked and was continuously recalculated), the encomendero ensuring "protection" and the saving of Indian souls by paying a priest. The fact that the priest was not rarely nothing but another plague which has not been asked for didn't cross the minds of the Spanish back then, however. But the protection was sometimes, as cynical as it may seem, very necessary to prevent encroachments by other Spanyards.
It was forbidden for Spanish and Indians to live under one roof, in order to prevent the worst exploit behind closed walls and there were many restrictions for Spanish to settle down in Indian communities to prevent further abuses.
One other thing is, although the article itself says that it was the epidemics which killed most Indians, that they didn't kill those who were enslaved, but rather especially those who lived in close contact to Europeans, especially the old Indian centers, especially cities like Mexico City/Tenochtitlan and of course spared the more isolated regions of, say, Oaxaca. This says nothing about those Indians living in proximity to Europeans being slaves.
Forced labor did exist, I nowhere deny this, but once again, they were no slaves. They could not be sold, encomenderos under all circumstances were forbidden to use Indians for personal services and were not allowed to physically mistreat Indians. It still happened, but it was breaking the laws. Forcing the Indians for public works is also forced labor, but they did get a wage and returned after the work was done. Feudal exploitation, I'd call that. Of course, that is hardly freedom, but it's different from a slave position.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Ned
Molly, does the recounting of the Rape of Badajoz affect in any way our thinking about the Rape of Nanking?

Only if you think Badajoz was policy, as Dr. Strangelove implies. The reaction of Wellington and Wellington's officers, show that this was not the policy of the British Army, and that conditions of discipline broke down at Badajoz. Discipline did not break down in Singapore, Manila, Nanking, and the Burma Railroad and elsewhere-it was policy and disregard for the lives of Chinese and Filipinos, and impressed workers.

I do not excuse the actions of the soldiers who rampaged, but given the conditions of the siege, the number of British dead, the staunch defence, ferocity of fighting and the availability of alcohol, you have a fairly potent mixture that would enable discipline to break down the way it did.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by molly bloom



Not quite the way I see it- and it was as late as 1812.

'Inside the town all hell was let loose as the victorious British troops embarked on the now infamous orgy of debauchery and destruction, fuelled not only by the fury of the assault but also by the large amounts of liquor found inside the town. They had endured a miserable last 21 days in the trenches and had suffered terribly getting inside the town. Once there, however, their anger found vent and they dissolved into a dangerous mob of drunken disorderly soldiers.


'The day after the taking of Badajoz 10,000 British soldiers, maddened with drink, rampaged for 29 hours. Old men were shot, children bayoneted, women raped and churches looted. Most of the 5,000 of the town's 21,000 population who had not fled were killed or wounded.

Attempts by Wellington's officers to halt the rampage, often fuelled by liberated drink, failed. A gallows was erected to hang the miscreants but a number of officers who tried to intervene were shot.

William Napier's description of the looting makes it clear that at the onset, before the killing began nothing was done to stop it, even though some officers had requested his orders regarding the disorderliness of the troops. Wellington said that they should "give the men their leave". Only once civilians were being murdered did he order the officers to try to contain the riot.

[Ancyrean]

Originally posted by Evil Knevil


But don't you realise, the Jews declared war on Germany! Talk about provocation!

There was plenty of provocation, in at least Jewish people resisted their increased isolation. They also fought back, by killing officials.

Neither were the concentration camps attempts to force mass killing, no they were more like badly organised prison camps. After all, several documents about prisoner transfer have been found hinting to their civil crimes.... Surely during a war to end all wars, the Germans were justified in locking up these criminals, especially since they had declared war on Germany themselves!


Am I the only one who sees the parallels?

This isn't to say that the Armenians were blameless; a proto-holocaust. However the Armenian denial is surprisingly precient.....

Knevil, let me put down where I fundamentally disagree with you:

1) What did the Jews do to provoke extinction? Sure, they were successful people in their societies they lived in and sure enough they might not have been as integrated into those societies as worshippers of uniformity would like them to. But this was in NO WAY a PROVOCATION to justify their mass murder. If we cannot agree on this one, or if you think Nazis were a victim of an unjust smear campaign, or if you are further of the opinion that Holocaust did not take place at all, then at this point let's just say we realise we disagree fundamentally, and you need not read further on in this post.

2) Jews declared war on Germany? And they did what? Jews worldwide boycotted German goods worldwide...? Jews worldwide and/or in Germany attacked officials with a view to destabilise government? So there was a widespread Jewish uprising against German state? And so much so that Germany felt threatened by the security situation that it suddenly discovered the merits of anti-semitic literature and decided it was time for gas chambers for everybody?

Nazism had an established race theory as part and parcel of its ideology. It was a mind-boggling attempt to marry social resentment with biology into a political action plan. Although anti-jewish social theories were around for centuries, Nazis refined it into a political program, way, way before they came to power, so they only started implementing it after they came to power, with or without ‘provocation’.

3) Concentration camps were masterful designs of psychological control. They were the logical consequence of Nazi social and political theory. Their primary aim was to destroy all the enemies of society that Nazism declared, including communists, socialists, social democrats, gays, the disabled, gypsies, slavs and jews and who not. There were studies about efficiency of various gases and how fast they killed humans. What should be the slope angle of the floor of the gas chamber should be, so that the dead bodies will automatically roll down to the lower hatch of the chamber for being loaded on carts? How should the components of hope and despair can be utilised so that you can control 100 prisoners with only two guards? Badly organised? By no means. They were disgraceful masterpieces of organisation.

4) In light of these above, there is utterly NO parallel between Holocaust and the events of 1915. Saying this is not a 'denial' but an effort against the remnants of a blind hatred stemming from a frustration of historic dreams now in search of meaning.

Many people just parrot genocidal terminology about 1915 because it's the most politically correct course on a topic that comes up every now and then but on which they know next to nothing.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by Thorgal

i found most sources saying 5-15 millions in USA + Canada. Most of them living in USA. Only Cherokee tribe had 500,000 to near one million of indians. In 1900 there were only 250,000 indians in all NA.
It is no clear how many indians there were in today´s USA territory before europeans arrived but 2 millions is a TOO low estimation.

Yet we're told that there were only about 10 million Indians total in the entire hemisphere by the early 17th century. If that is the case than 2 million sounds about right, since the area that became the USA clearly was not among the areas with the heaviest population of Native Americans.

[Evil Knevil]

Originally posted by Ancyrean


Knevil, let me put down where I fundamentally disagree with you:

1) What did the Jews do to provoke extinction? Sure, they were successful people in their societies they lived in and sure enough they might not have been as integrated into those societies as worshippers of uniformity would like them to. But this was in NO WAY a PROVOCATION to justify their mass murder. If we cannot agree on this one, or if you think Nazis were a victim of an unjust smear campaign, or if you are further of the opinion that Holocaust did not take place at all, then at this point let's just say we realise we disagree fundamentally, and you need not read further on in this post.

Of course I was being sarcastic, as well as attempting to draw a parrallel between your arguments and the arguments used by Holocaust deniers: like the fact that there was an alledged state of war between the two races involved. Also the arguement that the concentration camp system wasn't as planned or as deliberate as people say....

I have to reiterate, I am not a Holocaust denier! I was suggesting those horrible ideas/links/pictures because they draw parrallels with your arguement.

[Ancyrean]

Originally posted by Evil Knevil


Of course I was being sarcastic, as well as attempting to draw a parrallel between your arguments and the arguments used by Holocaust deniers: like the fact that there was an alledged state of war between the two races involved. Also the arguement that the concentration camp system wasn't as planned or as deliberate as people say....

I have to reiterate, I am not a Holocaust denier! I was suggesting those horrible ideas/links/pictures because they draw parrallels with your arguement.

I'm sorry Knevil, I didn't mean to label you a Holocaust denier, didn’t intend no offence. I should admit that I was carried away by the argument enough to miss the sarcasm

About the parallels you point to, all I'm trying to say, when it comes to Holocaust and the events of 1915, there are no comparably decisive evidence of the Ottoman government's intent to genocide its Armenian citizens.

- Whereas the Nazis had a declared political program to exterminate Jews, there was no historic despise of Armenians by Turks and to the contrary there was a government practice to employ Armenians in important posts (until the troubles, that is).

- Whereas there are tons of detailed orders of the execution of the Holocaust, there's no SINGLE document in the meticulous records of the Imperial Archive (open to public and researchers) to the effect to initiate and direct any "extermination" of Armenians. The allies, who themselves cooked up the whole genocide perspective during the war (a la the campaign to 'inform' the Allied public that the Germans were eating babies in Belgium) looked for it or for any sign of cover up extensively after WWI but to their simmering dismay, they failed to do so. What records show amply, on the contrary, is orders for the provision of food and security for the relocees.

- Whereas 'the Jewish threat to Germany' was a sick fantasy, the Armenian insurgence in Eastern Turkey was real, tangible and significant and threatened the integrity of Turkey's Eastern Front. The decision to relocate Armenians was an act of desperation whereas Holocaust was the end result of long and conscious deliberation.

I'm saying here that I'm really sorry about the deaths and sufferings of Armenians in that period, but this suffering happened in a context, a context so fundamentally different than Holocaust and a context in which untold thousands of Turks also suffered.

I'm aware that in the Western public in general there's virtually no knowledge of this side of the issue, and hence it's very easy to draw superficial parallels between these two events, but I'm saying that singling out these events in genocidal terminology and comparing them to Holocaust is a horrible disservice, if not unintentional disrespect, to the sufferings of the other side of the story.

That's all

[Heresson]

First of all the psychological aspect of the Armenian struggle is of utmost importance to get a clear picture. The strife between our peoples

I'm not Armenian. Just some Armenian roots. And what Armenian... Armenians of Poland used to speak Turkish, not Armenian. Now they speak Polish. But for turkologs from Cracow, they are still a "Turkish" minority. Ironic, isn't it.

With the liberation of many Balkan countries in their historical homelands brought renewed hope to the Armenian nationalists

As well as it caused Turkish grief and fear that a similar situation could happen in Armenia as well

Whereas, for example, Bulgarians or Albanians could take comfort in their populations being in the majority in the lands they have just wrested out of Ottoman control, the Eastern Anatolian region had long ceased to have an Armenian majority after nearly a millennium of cohabitation with the Turks (more on this below).

That's not true. Turks were a majority in some Bulgarian regions, and as long as I know, Albanians weren't so keen on independance.
|When it comes to "Eastern Anatolia", it is a complicated matter. First of all, Turkish understanding of this word is somewhat differant than its original meaning, which is - Asia Minor, everything that is west to Taurus mountains.
As Turks did not wish to use name "Armenia" for Armenian plateau, they seem to have hm enlanghtened the meaning of Anatolia also for those grounds. So, whether Armenians were majority in "eastern Anatolia" is is a matter of discussion; I've seen the lands Armenians claimed to as for their autonomy in XIX century. It was up to Amasya and Sivas, and almost up to Urfa. Armenians weren't a majority there; these were all the lands (escept for Urfa and Cilicia) that Armenians lived. But if it comes to the lands that Armenians were given later according to Sevres I think (Van, Bitlis, Erzerum, Trebizond, Kars), Armenians were a slight majority there, and worth mentioning that not all other groups there were Turks; Trebizond region was Greek, then came Laz people, some Turks, and Kurds in the south.

This was another obstacle for the Armenian nationalists, but later with their agitation and escalation of violence, the trust broke down and the spiral of violence triggered.

I would blame it on turkish nationalists as well, not only Armenian

What I imply here is that even the acts of violence that the Armenians suffered from in the late 19th century were triggered by extreme nationalist Armenians, by their acts of agitation (One may prefer to see it as the opening shots of a war of independence, but it does not deduce from my argument of action-reaction)

Perhaps partially, but remember that at the same time, massacres of Christians happened in Syria...

as opposed to the idea that it suddenly dawned on the Ottoman government out of the blue to ?exterminate? Armenians because they hated them. This is opposed to for example what you have in the Holocaust, when the Jews were persecuted without any provocation but on the outrageous grounds that they are under-humans polluting this world. That?s a crucial starting point for an overall evaluation of the issue.

Oh, I agree to some extent. But we use name "holocaust", at least I, as a name for murdering entire nation, or large part of it. It's not about the reason of it.

On the contrary, if they were not in majority, then it would give leverage to the argument that Armenian nationalists would be very much inclined to create that majority, for after al this would be a rectification of a historical aberration of Turks being in the majority in a part of the world considered to be part of historic Armenia.

There's some point, but pagroms of Armenians in earlier times can not be explained this way. Also, You may portray it as a civil war, but I may claim these lands were so important for Turks because they were in between them and Azerbeycan, in between of them and the rest of Great Turan. Also, massacres of Armenians happened also there where they were a minority. Would Armenians try to massacre Azerbeycan people in Baku, surrounded by kilometres of almost clearly Azerbeycan populated lands? In the name of what? Of Greater Armenia? No Armenian claimed Baku and other cities massacres happened in as part of their fatherland.
It's rather a fear of possible Armenian independance, Muslim hatred towards Christians, their own nationalism and simple greed, as Armenians were best educated and partially very rich part of Ottoman society, that caused pagroms, not actual Armenian actions.

International scholars of the time give a number between 1.2 and 1.5 million for all Armenians.

Nope. These are turkish numbers. And international - when it comes to Armenian losses.

As for the ?6 provinces? demanded by nationalists and where majority of the disturbances took place, Patriarchate numbers for Armenians failed to be coherent again: In 1880 it claimed there were 1 million Armenians as opposed to 1.2 million Muslims. In 1881 it ?revised? this number to 1.3 million Armenians and 0.9 million Muslims (and thereby conferring Armenians the status of majority).

If they were to lie, they'd have lied in the first version as well.

In all these figures, the Patriarchate counted all Christians in the region (including Nestorians and others of Gregorian faith) as Armenians, whereas in giving the number of Muslims it only referred to Turks.

Not sure.

Of the 6 provinces, the number of Armenians was 553.000 as opposed to 2.133.000 Muslims in 1893. Muslims included Turks and the Kurds.

But those numbers are doubtful, no matter who was the leader of the office, his aim was to serve his state's interests. How would Armenians try to get rid of Muslims in the region anyway - as You claimed - while being 25% minority?

(supported by the fact that it was overseen by a bureau headed by anybody but the Turks, and the fact that it was vital to calculate accurately the poll tax levied from different nationalities), by 1915, Armenians were unlikely to be in a position of majority in Eastern Anatolia.

I may believe in it, in fact (that they were not a majority even in those provinces), as me myself while reading pro-Armenian books, was pretty suprised that through almost 1000 years of Turkish rule, they treat these lands as if they were still clearily Armenian, emmigration is pretty probable, and those provinces covered pretty large lands, but what I wrote earlier (how would they attack 4x more numerous neighbours) is still valid. Also, the census shows no other groups,
and I just recalled one thing; 1000 years of Muslim rule, yes, but not without breaks (Partial independances, Georgians, Mongols), and not always Turkish, which is shown by the fact that today, these are not Turks that are majority there, but Kurds; Turkey did not claim these lands for ethnic reasons.

The Armenian nationalists were highly organized not only in Istanbul, but also in Eastern Anatolia, being in contact with Tsarist Russia, securing large quantities of arms over years. These were sometimes intercepted by Ottoman officials, but with the outbreak of WWI, that virtually ceased to be the case. The net result was that Armenian ?bands? were certainly not bandits, were led by people with highly political motives and trained abroad, mainly in Russia. Their acts of violence were following a political mandate (creating/increasing the Armenian demographic and political dominance in the region) and were very conscious. That is why at one point, the Ottoman high command realised the that the acts of these bands were a mortal threat to the war in the Eastern front: The level, sophistication and coordination of attacks against Muslim villages (including Kurds, who later acted particularly bitterly against the relocees on their way to Syria) required much more than the meager police forces in the region, plus the ?bands? also very successfully were attacking regular army supplies to the front, much more efficiently and on a massive scale than an irregular bandit happenstance would cause. Hence the decision, in desperation to relocate all Armenians.

I firmly doubt Armenians living in Syria could actually be so well-organised and armed; more probable is that the groups of Armenians fighting on Russian side were formed under Russians and were passing the border/front line, perhaps profitting from local help.

The mass graves. Well, those mass graves were uncovered upon the recollection of survivors, who told the tale. In the mass graves were so many Muslim artifacts as opposed to no Christian ones. The point is, without trying to describe a picture of those graves, in Eastern Anatolia there?s a very vivid folk memory of Armenian acts from those days. They are probably comparable to the stories Armenians have of Turks.

Doubt those stories. Knowing how indoctrinated most of Turks are, and how firm is the attitude of any Turkish gouverment, I may be not wrong treating it as false.
Not necessarily completely, though.

The cases of violence against Armenians elsewhere in the Empire were sporadic in nature and with no state sanction.

Not according to, not only Armenian, witnesses.

Deplorable as they were, they were by no means massive or endemic. The extreme nationalist Armenians were so blinded by their ideals, that after the WWI the French formed Armenian regiments for use in Cilicia (allocated to France after the War. That period is also in the Turkish folk memory (like the sufferings of Armenians are in Armenian folk memory).

I am not so into this history, but; it was after earlier massacres, and what do You expect Armenians to have done... Also, somehow Turks still live in Cilicia - Armenians don't.

but it is equally outrageous to say that this was intentional

And I don't claim it was. But for the gouverment, it was no difference, bah, it was even better.

there was practically no choice left to the state

If it really wished to keep these lands, yes. But that's no excuse.

it wasn?t a clear cut case of genocide as was the case in the Holocaust

I don't claim it was

There was no previous hatred towards Armenians as part of Turkish folk or state worldview

That I'm not so sure. And it's not only about Turks, but Kurds. Let's be honest. Neighbours usually hate each other.

In 1915, the suffering was immense, but was not in the monopoly of any one side.

Let me summarise my view now.
There was no monopoly, and the case is not black&white, but the picture is about clear. Turks weren't majority in these lands, and are not even today. Their state was claiming grounds it had not much bigger right to than to any part of Ottoman Empire (The question is a bit fragile, as in fact, Turks were guests everywhere and Greece could claim Ankara for historical reasons). No matter what was happening there earlier -however your claim of attempted Armenian ethnical clearings I do not find justificated - the final victim, the one who paid uncomparably bigger price in men, were Armenians; the disputed lands were cleared of them, one way or another. Cities like Van, Malazgirt, Kars, or Ararat mountain were (perhaps with exception of Malazgirt for the battle that allowed Turks to enter Asia Minor) were for Turks just a stop in a way of unificating all Turkish tribes that lied behind them, no matter who lived there. For Armenians they were something more. I pity Turkey of that time, as pretty idealistic views of Young Turks were broken not quite of their fault.
Entire Turkish tradition was destroyed, and surrounding nations, all been there before Turks, could claim for their lands, and did. The panIslamic bubble bursted, the ottoman bubble bursted. Only nationalism was left, and it was the only thing that allowed Turkey to survive in fact. But the nationalism was as extreme as nowhere else. Turkey couldn't "back off to its original boarders" simply because it had no such. It kept what it could and tried to build a national state later (yes, I'm talking about post-ww1 times). Look, Atatuerk was a great man for Turkey, but his ideology was a bit twisted. Christian minorities like Armenians and Greeks were banned. Muslim ones were told, and were being told up till recently, that they are Turks. Turks needed some new ideaology to believe in, and some reason for their existance in this place and for new, non-Muslim, non-Ottoman pride. And were given it also in some bizzare ways. I'm not suprised Turks could not deal with responsibility of their state, even former state, of what happened to Armenians. hopefully they will in the future.
And hey! I like Turks.

Still, there are some fundamental differences between what happened to Jews and Armenians, and I do not disagree with that.

----------------------

When it comes to the Polish thing in this thread.
When it comes to Germans rellocated and Ukrainians after the war; strictly speaking, legal Polish gouverment existed in London and in fact, it had some doubts towards adding Lower Silesia to Poland for the large number of Germans in it. It weren't Poles that ordered the action - the Allied were. It weren't Poles that carried out the action - Poland was under USSR's occupation, and worth to mention that Poles from Ukraine and Byelorus were given the same fate.
When it comes to Ukrainians, one more thing has to be said. During the war, Ukrainians played on German side - and nothing THAT wrong in that, as they could not count on Poland nor USSR in their aspirations. But the important thing is that it were Ukrainians that, under German rule, done ethnical clearings on Poles (most of them were moved by USSR to Kazakhstan and inner Russia 1939-41 anyway). At least 100 000 Poles were killed by UPA organisation in Wolyn, Podole and Galicja provinces. The truth is though that after the survivers reacher other bank of Bug river, pagroms on Ukrainians were made, up to 20 000 victims. I was supposed to post a thread about that, as Poland todays tries to be friends with Ukraine, and a common celebrations were held in the place where massacre in Wolyn started in the anniversary.