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WHAT IS GENOCIDE?I stand by my assertion that genocide is a politically and emotionally laden term invented to give emotional cover to the WWII victors for executing their former enemies
You don't know what you're talking about.
I do agree that we have to have “some” numbers rather than none at all. The only thing I maintain is that we should always consider them with a grain of salt, and we should always be on the look out for better evidence that can get us that much closer to the actual truth.
You don't know what you're talking about.
And why not? I was at Srebenica and drove down trails with skeletons scattered to either side and on the trail itself. I was also at several the mass grave sites in the Former Yugoslavia. I also have personal experience of what Genocide is claimed to be yet still reject the term.
The Rwandan Civil War of '94 should be on the list at a minimum. The media and bleeding hearts like to call it a genocide but it was in reality a short, extremely violent Civil War.
If you keep stating that "genocide is a politically and emotionally laden term invented to give emotional cover to the WWII victors for executing their former enemies" and the one here above, you'd better come with strong evidence to prove it.
I have already cited evidence to back up my assertion. Your evidence to refute me is?
The Rwandan Civil War of '94 should be on the list at a minimum. The media and bleeding hearts like to call it a genocide but it was in reality a short, extremely violent Civil War. Genocide is an artificial term coined in the wake of WWII to justify prosecuting Nazis. I don't think what the Nazis did was right but I also don't think we needed to make up crimes out of whole cloth to put those same Nazis up against a wall. It has traditionally been the victors right to do with his enemy as he sees fit. That should be plenty good enough. The Nazis were in our power and we detested what they did, therefor we executed them. Genocie is an artificial term invented to make what the Nazis did a punishable crime. It has subsequently been used for all kinds of reasons. It is just as politically loaded as calling something/someone racist. If you object to its use than you must be heartless, therefor I am a heartless, pitiless rogue because I object to tis use. I call it war deaths. Notice I did not say combat deaths, but war deaths. As to statistics, I remember a line about "numbers don't lie but liars use numbers." Any use of statistics or numbers in history are suspect and historians must be careful about using figures and most hedge when they do use numbers, especially about such things as war dead and population. That does not mean we must eschew demographic and casualty data because they are inherently unreliable. It means that historians must be careful about their assertions regarding such things. We have to use them, or what should we use in their stead? Vague statements like a lot, and a few don't seem to cut it.
You didn't cite any evidence but your own assertions. There is nowhere sources you can provide to support what you write.And you ask for mine ? However if you really know what you are talking about then you are borderline with genocide denial and if not with historical revisionism. - The Rwandan Civil War of '94 should be on the list at a minimum. The media and bleeding hearts like to call it a genocide but it was in reality a short, extremely violent Civil War. - Genocide is an artificial term coined in the wake of WWII to justify prosecuting Nazis.- It is just as politically loaded as calling something/someone racist. If you object to its use than you must be heartless, therefor I am a heartless, pitiless rogue because I object to tis use. You can check further about this here under :http://www.hdot.org/en/trial/defense/evans/6Especially in 6.20 and 6.21
You didn't cite any evidence but your own assertions. There is nowhere sources you can provide to support what you write.And you ask for mine ? However if you really know what you are talking about then you are borderline with genocide denial and if not with historical revisionism. - The Rwandan Civil War of '94 should be on the list at a minimum. The media and bleeding hearts like to call it a genocide but it was in reality a short, extremely violent Civil War. - Genocide is an artificial term coined in the wake of WWII to justify prosecuting Nazis.- It is just as politically loaded as calling something/someone racist. If you object to its use than you must be heartless, therefor I am a heartless, pitiless rogue because I object to tis use. You can check further about this here under :http://www.hdot.org/en/trial/defense/evans/6Especially in 6.20 and 6.21
Your reaction to my rejection of the term just proves my point for me. It is in fact an emotionally and politically laden term. I have not denied that crimes were committed, I just object to their characterization. I have not said these things did not happen, just that we did not need to invent a new word to describe things that had and have been going on since the beginning of time. My evidence was this:[color color=rgb(51, 68, 102)]WHAT IS GENOCIDE?[/color] The description of the origin of the term from the USHM website. They don't even deny that the term was coined in an atmosphere of politics and emotion. How else can you characterize the Jewish search for justice for the perpetrators of the Holocaust than one of politics and emotion? It was politics that made the prosecution possible and the term genocide is inherently emotional as it evokes images of death. One fed on the other. I have never denied that the holocaust happened and I resent the implication that my rejection of a term implies that I do. I cannot control what you think, but contrariwise neither can you control what I think. I stand by my original assertion that Genocide is an artificial term coined in the wake of WWII to justify prosecuting Nazis. The history of the word itself shows that. From my reference:
"The term "genocide" did not exist before 1944. ... In 1944, a Polish-Jewish lawyer named Raphael Lemkin (1900-1959) sought to describe Nazi policies of systematic murder, including the destruction of the European Jews. He formed the word "genocide" by combining geno-, from the Greek word for race or tribe, with -cide, from the Latin word for killing."
Can it be any clearer that I am correct in my assertions? I am starting to think I am not the one with the problem here.
Aetheling, why is this topic so important for you? Do you have relatives who went through the holocaust?
Aetheling, why is this topic so important for you? Do you have relatives who went through the holocaust?
Indeed. Do you think that I invented the story above ?I can't accept the term "bleeding heart" and calling other genocides as "extreme violent civil war" or else is already denial.If genocide is just an artificial term coined in the wake of WWII to justify prosecuting Nazis. why was it not use against Japan ? Even if that term was coined by Lemkin in 1944, why should it diminish its significance ? As if it could be used without serious investigations ? as calling something/someone racist ?Furthermore even if it's just a personal opinion, one can't say anything without evidence to demonstrate or prove it. Even under your first amendment of freedom of speech. Showing the USHM document as a reference isn't proving Scout's assertions. Scout does not demonstrate nor prove anything. Perhaps his assertions only are politically loaded ?
To be fair, I do see what Scout is saying, but here is the rub. Genocide, the term, is politically and emotionally charged. It's meant to be to describe the horrors of inhuman suffering and atrocities. It should be emotionally charged to match the hideous nature of racist war. So I also agree with you that there are racist wars. Even the United States fought a racist war in the Pacific Theater against the Japanese. Studs Terkel has a great book narrating the accounts of American bigotry toward their Asian enemy. Pearl Harbor and Bataan had a lot to do with the creation of the bigotry, but those events did not excuse American behavior. It was war, a bitter war to say the least, that actually decided the fate of the planet. The wars against the Native Americans is another example especially the whole culture behind “Manifest Destiny.” So both of you guys are correct to a certain degree.
I sort of agree with Donnie, but I would add that in order to divorce the word from political/emotional implications, it needs to be defined more narrowly. Here is the standard dictionary definition:"the deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group." This definitions seems to rule out mere "racist" wars, since racism/bigotry could be a motivation for war but without the intent to annihilate an entire group. Besides, if racism/bigotry were the grounds for genocide, then we could probably call virtually all wars throughout history "genocides" since these have probably been present in one form or another. But to do that would seem rather ridiculous.I agree that it's a made-up term, but I don't think that negates its usefulness, since it distinguishes a certain type of activity from other activities.And then, there's the implications of the word. Should perpetrators of genocide be punished any more than those who commit the same type of actions but without intent to systematically annihilate? Should its victims be treated any more sympathetically compared to those who suffer from malicious enemies not engaged in genocide? That, in my mind, is the real crux of the matter, and where politics enters into the picture.
I think part of the problem as well is the word is thrown around too often which makes it lose it's effectiveness. It's kind of like calling all those who oppose Obama racists.I also think there are only a few examples in history that can actually be defined as genocide...the Armenians, Jews, and Tutsis of Rwanda are the first that come to mind
I have said my piece about what I think of the term. It may have once been useful but any usefulness of that term is long gone through abuse of the term itself. Anymore the term is used much like accusations of racism or discrimination, to shut down debate. After all, if it is genocide how can there be any debate so those who wish to debate it better just shut up and toe the party line. The term genocide is now just one more weapon in the semantic/semiotic war to control peoples thoughts and modes of expression. It is no more than another side of the BC/BCE debate or any other argument about political correctness and approved modes of expression. I refuse to go along with such linguistic thuggery and so get attacked, so be it I am a big boy and will not be intimidated.
