>> 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).
> ---
That's their problem. I am only following the conventional, most legalistic and least politicised usage.
>>
>> 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.
> --->
I don't see that actively wanting to kill people is necessarily a part of genocide. In the great dispersals that you find throughout the colonization of Brazil, there wasn't really any wish to kill all the indians. But genocide it was. So too with the inhabitants of Hispaniola, whose brutal masters probably did not want dead since they were a handy source of labour.
>> 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.
> ---
Yes, I think it is best to go with the legalistic version rather than the emotive, my-enemy's-crimes one, or yours. By your definition, there have been next to no genocides in human history. I tend to think that the opposite is the case. Maybe I am unduly pessimistic.
Thiago