[lbo-talk] Genocide, Holocaust

Chris Doss itschris13 at hotmail.com
Sat May 31 03:45:19 PDT 2003



>From: Thiago Oppermann <thiago_oppermann at bigpond.com>


>I disagree. I think we should reserve 'genocide' for the extermination or
>attempted extermination of a 'gens' - a geographical-cultural unit - and
>use
>'holocaust' for a relatively successful or large scale genocide, or a very
>large scale mass killing (if you don't accept there is a crime of genocide
>in the technical sense). I think that is the clearest use of the words, and
>is the one closer to international law and also the least corrupted by
>political emotions.
--- I have no problem with that distinction. By "genocide" I meant the attempt to _physically annihilate_ a people. If you want to use the word "holocaust" for that and have a widen meaning of "genocide," fine (though I imagine it would piss a lot of Zionists off). ---
>
>The comment that removing Chechens to somewhere far, far away was not
>genocide as they were not to be killed is, I think, a little callous. The
>assumption is that Chechens could continue to live as Chechens after being
>transported to a completely different environment, after they lost all
>kinds
>of connections to place and each other, and had 25% of their number wiped
>out. If that's not genocide, then what is it? Administrative error?
--- Indifference. As far as I can make out, the majority of people died not because Stalin specifically wanted them to, but because he didn't particularly care what happened to them. Anyway, once again as far as I know, Stalin didn't set up one day and say "I must wipe out Chechen culture once and for all!" Believe me, if he wanted to, he could have. Same goes for the Gulag. --->
>You say that banning a language is clearly not genocide. Well, I think that
>is a very disturbing view. It is not too different from saying that the
>crusaders were not genocidal because they offered people the option of
>converting to Christianity.
--- Well, using my definition of "genocide," they weren't being genocidal. They were beinf murderous bastards, but thet's not the same thing. This all depends on whose def. of "genocide" we want to use. ---

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