Now it is a crime in France to deny the armenian genocide, and a Turkish writer.....

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by GePap
Second, currently, the "Holocaust" label applies only to the specific campaign by the Germans to wipe out Jews, the Roma, and other undesirables, but the label is not generally applied to the murder by neglect of millions of Soviet prisoners, nor would it have been applied to the planned extermination by famine and slave labor of tens of millions of Slavs in the East.

In my earlier post I was going to say that the unique character of the Nazis is part of what sets the Holocaust apart, in my mind, and refer to other groups which were either getting it, or in line to get it, as you have done above. It was part of a continent-wide programme of anihilation, rather than the vicious logic of disputed territory or control in local turf wars.

I think the Khmer Rouge campaign of class-extermination is closer to the Nazis than the ethnic slaughter in Rwanda. The latter seemed to be more of a localised, hot-blooded get-them-before-they-get-us frenzy, rather than a cold blooded ideological slaughter, if I have understood it correctly.

With regard to scale, your points about this being a feature of the country in question and its objectives are fair, but the size of its targets and intended empire are again specific characteristics of Nazi madness.

[GePap]

The Rwandan Genoicde was pre-planned, in the sense that the Hutu Power regime had spread caches of weapons around the country, had continued the use of ethnic identity in the national ID cards, to ensure that people's ethnicity could be found out quickly, and once the killing began, they coordinated the efforts nationwide and used the mass media to control their campaign. It was certainly not just a sudden thing. You don;t eliminate 1 million people in 3 months without some organization and without having created an ideology behind it to justify the actions to the vast majority of the population.

[Heresson]

Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly
The problem is, it wasn't a genocide. An atrocity, sure. A war crime, definitely. A crime against humanity even. But not a genocide.

Armenians in Eastern Turkey were led on a forced march that killed a huge number of them before arrival at their new destination (the parallels to the forced removal of the Chreokee from Georgia -- the Trail of Tears -- are very, very striking). At the same time, Armenians living in Istanbul, Izmir and elsewhere were left entirely alone.

That is not true. Some remained in Istanbul, but only because of foreign pressure. Keep in mind that armenian patriarchate of C-ple was deleted by turkish authorities.
Armenians were delt with in entire Turkey, though the ones in the east came first. The only Armenians that were left alone were some muslim ones.
Nor all were forced to march (into desert through the mountains, by the way). Some were killed at once. Some in a slower way. Some sent on boats and thrown into the sea.
I don't think Turks were out to destroy entire armenian rase in the world, but I don't think Hitler even dremt of destroying all the Jews in the world, in America, Australia etc.
Turks simply wanted to assure their souvereignity over whatever they could save of their empire. I don't think Armenians were detested much more than others, nor that they would be persecuted if they lived on territory Turkey was sure it'd loose anyway.
But it is not about intentions.
Definite most of Armenians lived under Turkish rule. Turkey claimed de facto all the terrirories inhabited by Armenians. And was it not for that Moscow's interest in eastern edge of Armenia was involved, perhaps it would have got them all. In fact, it got part of pre-ww1 russian territory (Kars) in Armenia.
Because deliberate state politics, there are practically no Armenians in Turkey, lands that were they homeland for thousands of years. A scale of losses of armenian population in turkish, which - according to turkish authorities! - was at 25-50% (300-600 000 people out of 1,2 mln according to turkish data) level, speaks for itself. If You accept universally accepted numbers, it was much worse.
Naming doesn't change the meritum. It was a giant ethnical cleansing, a destruction of entire culture. Destruction of traces of armenian presence - place-names, architecture etc - followed.

btw,
one of the teachers in my arabic studies proposed that my master's degree work was a translation of eye-witness accounts of slaughter of christian Syriacs by turkish authorities at this time (they were slaughtered by the way of Armenians). I have other plans, though

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Spiffor

IIRC, it's been seen (a handful of youngsters).
However, this is absolutely not the crux of the matter.

Thats what I suspected. That what was being compared was a willingness to tolerate acts of violence on the one hand, with a an intellectual dislike of Islam, and an emotional resentment against the group associated with physical harm, and a fear of venturing into certain neighborhoods on the other.

A muslim who opposes violence against Jews, but considers Judaism a despicable religion, is a moderate. A Jew (or Christian) is only a moderate about Islam if they actually affirm that Islam per se is not a bad thing.


Now I myself do NOT consider Islam per se a bad thing (as I hope you know) but I am troubled by this assymetry.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Heresson


I don't think Turks were out to destroy entire armenian rase in the world, but I don't think Hitler even dremt of destroying all the Jews in the world, in America, Australia etc.

Im not sure why you dont think he dreamed of it. He clearly was interested in destroying all the Jews in areas he conquered. He pressed all his allies to turn over their Jews. He had his minions hunt down hidden Jews, Jews whod converted to Christianity, etc. The only question is whether he expected to conquer the entire world or not. While he may not have had concrete plans to do so, he certainly dreamed of doing so.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by GePap
The Rwandan Genoicde was pre-planned, in the sense that the Hutu Power regime had spread caches of weapons around the country, had continued the use of ethnic identity in the national ID cards, to ensure that people's ethnicity could be found out quickly, and once the killing began, they coordinated the efforts nationwide and used the mass media to control their campaign. It was certainly not just a sudden thing. You don;t eliminate 1 million people in 3 months without some organization and without having created an ideology behind it to justify the actions to the vast majority of the population.

Yup. IIUC, the day after the plane crash that started things, Radio des Milles Collines, the Hutu Power radio station, was busy broadcasting incitement.

[Bosh]

Originally posted by GePap


The Khmer Rouge set out to destroy entire "classes" of people, city dweller and the educated. That fits the definition of Genocide, which does not apply only to ethnic or religious groups. And they were rather successful at it too, seeing how they killed almost 1/3 of the countries' population.

That's silly. City dwellers are not a "genos."

[Barnabas]

is killing everyone in the high class because you want to exterminate them
a genocide?


Is killing all the members of the communist party in a countrybecause you want to exterminate them
a genocide?

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly
So genocide only matters once a well-organized, well-funded lobby cries "genocide"? Well, that's certainly the moral high ground.

You work for the government. You know how laws get passed. Had the French Armenians not been organized and determined, the law we're discussing would have never taken place. It's probably not good (I actually don't defend the law, I'm undecided about it - I try to describe how it is over here). But it's how it works.

BTW, the Armenians are no immense force in France. However, they're extremely determined: the genocide is an essential part of their history, and it has basically been denied or ignored for something like 70 years. The Armenians want to re-appropriate their history (that, and migrants have a higher tendency to worry about past offenses, while locals are generally more able to move on), it is very important to them. As a result, the Armenian community is almost insignificant in all issues in French politics, except the genocide issue, into which they invest almost all of its energy.

The Congolese have other issues to edeal with. As individuals, most are recent immigrants who have no established financial situation, and as such they have to look for their daily bread first. Secondly, for those who have the comfort to serve a cause, the genocide is not the only cause they can serve. The antiracist cause is more immediaate to them, as well as its Black Identitarian corollary.

If the French Congolese community develops a strong sense of uniqueness, and if more of its members can devote themselves to a cause, I suppose they'll do what it takes to have the Congolese genocide officially acknoledged. However, it doesn't look like an essential issue for now.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
Thats what I suspected. That what was being compared was a willingness to tolerate acts of violence on the one hand, with a an intellectual dislike of Islam, and an emotional resentment against the group associated with physical harm, and a fear of venturing into certain neighborhoods on the other.

A muslim who opposes violence against Jews, but considers Judaism a despicable religion, is a moderate. A Jew (or Christian) is only a moderate about Islam if they actually affirm that Islam per se is not a bad thing.

I have nothing against anyone considering Islam a despicable religion, since I'm an atheist, and I find all religions bad, including yours

However, I have a serious problem with people thinking who paint Muslims (i.e individuals who happen to believe in one religion) with a broad negative brush. The expression of this belief isn't similar to the expression of antisemitism, but it is very wrong nonetheless. And these broad generalizations contribute to an "us vs them" climate, which is not only wrong (see my point in this thread), but also very bad for the cohesiveness of the French society.

Now, I'm sure you're aware that I don't solely blame the Jews for this climate. Almost all groups that derive a sense of identity from religion, or from their attachment to a side in the middle east, contribute to that ****.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Spiffor

IIRC, it's been seen (a handful of youngsters).
However, this is absolutely not the crux of the matter. I can see among my Jewish friends and relatives the rise of distrust/dislike for Muslims as a whole. Broadsweeping negative generalizations of the kind I didn't hear a few years back. While I don't know people who are outright hateful, I think this will come in only a few years.

Let's face a few facts. The rising mood against Islam is largely (if not entirely) the result of Islamic militants acting like animals and the majority never standing up against the barbarians in a convincing way. If the majority are completely unwilling to stand up for what is right or for their supposed beliefs then why are they in any way relevent? In short their silence is interprited to be consent and these people have tacticly agreed with the most evil and disgusting ideology on Earth today.

If firmly place this into the catagory of Germans who would not stand up to Nazism. Until the muslims stand up to this clear evil and hatefilled ideology then they are no better then the Germans who stood silent when faced with Nazism. They are part of the evil and deserve all the blame which can be heaped on them.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by _BuRjaCi_

Americains tend to diss the UN wenhever it trys to do something they don't like and they shoot it down. But when someone (like China or Russia) does the same thing, they call the UN incompetent.

The UN is incompetant no matter who wealds the veto. It is good as a distributor of aid during natural disasters and to serve common medical needs (fight disease ect...) but is little good for anything else. That's why the UN has only took forceful action twice in its history (Korea and the first Iraq war).

The first because the Americans tricked the Soviets into walking out in protest (thus allowing the Americans to ram through the resolution against North Korea's invasion) and the second was against a state who all five of the major powers hated (or at least the Russians were in no position to object since the USSR was in the process of falling apart). Other then that the UN has been largely useless when faced with real events. The genocide in Darfur is a clear cut case of genocide yet no one acts. A dozen dictators starve and beat their populace and no one acts.

As a group the UN just doesn't function very well and it never will.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Bosh


That's silly. City dwellers are not a "genos."

Then write a letter to the UN demanding the definition of Genocide be changed.

[Provost Harrison]

Now it is a crime in France to deny the armenian genocide, and a Turkish writer.....

So what do you get for denying a Turkish writer?

[Heresson]

a French one (of armenian descent)