Which genocide is more important to you?

[(Q)]

Are we making a distinction between genocide by disease and genocide by any other means? What about starvation? Precision bombing? cluster bombs?

Which method of killing qualifies as genocide?

Ah yes, your agenda spills through.

Always turning a blind eye, eh Sam?

 

[S.A.M.]

Feel free to answer the question/

What method of killing people qualifies as genocide?

According to the general definition in wiki:

"Genocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group.

While precise definition varies among genocide scholars, a legal definition is found in the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG). Article 2 of this convention defines genocide as "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."[1]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide

 

[(Q)]

Feel free to answer the question/

What method of killing people qualifies as genocide?

Pointless, meaningless question, feeling freely.

 

[fedr808]

Common American: Which one has more people dying?

American politician: which one has more oil?

 

[madanthonywayne]

I'm given to believe it was substantially less than a generation, at least in North America (the tropics are an entirely different story, what with most of Amazonia being only nominally "colonized" in the first place). That is, the Eurasian diseases introduced by the initial transatlantic contacts spread far in advance of any organized colonization. By the time any European explored (let alone, colonized) the Mississippi river valley the vast majority of the indigenous population had already died, and the associated civilization collapsed. So in that sense the author of the genocide is some combination of biology, history, geography and climate. Having lived in close quarters with diverse livestock for thousands of years, Eurasians could not help but annihilate Americans. Their very genes and foodstocks - when brought into contact with long-separated populations - were the most potent, uncontrollable means of human destruction in history. The results would have been largely the same if, say, Chinese explorers had "discovered" America from the west.

Or so Jared Diamond would have us believe.

Anyway, my vote for most important genocide is early man against the other hominids. It could have been them that populated the Eurasian land mass and so dominated this planet, but instead here we are. Of course, evidence for that one is thin, and it's really mere speculation, but there you go...

Not that you'll be glad to hear it, but excellent post. Agree 100%.

Most of those are not genocides.

Exactly. People tend towards hyperbole these days. Every war is a genocide. Every leader we dislike is Hitler.

 

[madanthonywayne]

To put it simply, the story of the Nez Perce ought to be enough to explain the cruelty of that one. Not only did we use biological warfare against tribes as we moved westward, but it was about more than just land. The Nez Perce sought to flee to Canada. That should have been enough for the Americans, but it wasn't. If it was just about the land, there was no reason to not let the tribe run to Canada. Instead, we pursued them through what constitutes three states today, stopping them in Montana, and hauling them back to the reservation. It wasn't enough to just steal the land. We wanted to make them miserable.

And all because God said we should hold this land from sea to shining sea.

I don't think that's it at all.

Nez Perce country in the Northwest included the territory where Washington, Oregon, and Idaho join together. When the Treaty of 1863 decreased their lands to one-tenth its original size, some of the Nez Perce bands refused to agree and became known as “non-treaty” Nez Perce. Among them were Joseph and his band, located in the Wallowa Valley in Oregon. In 1877, a number of young warriors from Joseph’s band attacked settlements of people who had earlier killed members of their family. When the U.S. Army was sent to make a show of force, the Nez Perce drove them back, and the Nez Perce War of 1877 began.

Fearing retaliation, the non-treaty Nez Perce fled their homelands. They walked or rode and just kept moving in any way they could in order to reach safety. They initially hoped the Crow Indians, their hunting partners on the Plains, would give them shelter once they crossed the Rocky Mountains. When the Crows instead attacked them and stole horses, the last chance for the Nez Perce was flight into Canada where they might live with Sitting Bull’s Sioux.​

So, perhaps with some justification, the Nez Perce attacked settlements and then defeated the first army sent out to restore order. Now the second army is sent out and wants vengence for the defeat of the first army and for the attacks on the settlements. When the Nez Perce hit the settlements, they fled knowing that the white men would seek retribution. That's what chasing them was about. It was about punishing the Indians for attacking the settlements and vengeance for defeating the first army. It wasn't about manifest destiny, at least not directly.

Interestingly, it was this pursuit and ultimate defeat (the last great battle between an Indian nation and the US) of the Nez Perce that led Chief Joseph to utter those immortal words,

"Hear me, my chiefs, I am tired. My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever."​

 

[Orleander]

are there any cultures that did a self genocide? Such as the Mayans? Aztecs? Anasazi? (does my question make sense?)

 

[nietzschefan]

Hebrew Uprising failed in 66 AD I think...

Their leaders asked thousands of the last remnants of the uprising to kill themselves rather than be slaves. THey did, their Leader did not and became a roman official.

 

[Orleander]

thanks nietz. Was this the whole Masada thing?

 

[nietzschefan]

ya I didn't know about the leader double crossing them until recently. Disgusting.

 

[Orleander]

ya I didn't know about the leader double crossing them until recently. Disgusting.

Only thing I know about it is the TV mini-series version.
Thanks for the new info on the leader flipping sides.

 

[Musichascolors]

ya I didn't know about the leader double crossing them until recently. Disgusting.

Do you have a link for that? Are you talking about Eliezer ben Yair? I haven't seen anything about that and don't see anything now.

 

[nietzschefan]

Ops. I kinda got the sieges wrong. I blame History channel for putting both in one vignette.

Josephus's life is beset with ambiguity. For his critics, he never satisfactorily explained his actions during the Jewish war — why he failed to commit suicide in Galilee in 67 with some of his compatriots, and why, after his capture, he accepted patronage from the Romans.

Historian E. Mary Smallwood wrote:

(Josephus) was conceited, not only about his own learning but also about the opinions held of him as commander both by the Galileans and by the Romans; he was guilty of shocking duplicity at Jotapata, saving himself by sacrifice of his companions; he was too naive to see how he stood condemned out of his own mouth for his conduct, and yet no words were too harsh when he was blackening his opponents; and after landing, however involuntarily, in the Roman camp, he turned his captivity to his own advantage, and benefitted for the rest of his days from his change of side.[10]

However, all those who do not forgive Josephus for not committing suicide, fail to provide a reasonable explanation as to why the two leaders of the Jewish zealots, namely, John of Giscala and Simon Bar Giora, preferred Roman captivity, and quietly rejected taking their own life. Did they approve of Josephus' choice?

Josephus' credibility as a historian is questionable — his works are usually dismissed as Roman propaganda or as a personal or Jewish apologetic, aimed at rehabilitating his reputation in history. More recently, commentators[who?] have reassessed previously-held views of Josephus. As P.J. O'Rourke quipped:

Reason dictates we should hate this man. But it's hard to get angry at Josephus. What, after all, did he do? A few soldiers were tricked into suicide. Some demoralizing claptrap was shouted at a beleaguered army. A wife was distressed... all of which pale by comparison to what the good men did. For it was the loyal, the idealistic and the brave who did the real damage. The devout and patriotic leaders of Jerusalem sacrificed tens of thousands of lives to the cause of freedom. Vespasian and Titus sacrificed tens of thousands or more to the cause of civil order. Even Agrippa II, the Roman client king of Judea who did all he could to prevent the war, ended by supervising the destruction of half a dozen of his cities and the sale of their inhabitants into slavery. How much better for everyone if all the principal figures of the region had been slithering filth like Josephus.[11]

 

[draqon]

so did the Masad leader double cross them or not?

 

[nietzschefan]

No it was Josephus, betraying the mass suicide at Galilee. ( By living and switching sides to the Romans, and writing badly about the other leaders.)

 

[Orleander]

ah, so the TV mini-series didn't lie to me.

 

[draqon]

watch the movie Masad, its amazing

 

[Mrs.Lucysnow]

People tend towards hyperbole these days. Every war is a genocide. Every leader we dislike is Hitler.

Maddening isn't it? Even when its the same people killing the same people as in Cambodia its not considered a failed revolution but a 'genocide'. At the museum here they use the term 'auto-genocide' which I find a more appropriate term, at least it acknowledges that the whole mess was more than targeting simply one group of people. The word 'genocide' will soon lose all of its potency from being used willy nilly.

 

[fedr808]

thanks nietz. Was this the whole Masada thing?

Its an interesting story.

The hebrew law of the day treated suicide as one of the worst sins. So basically they got in groups of two, flipped a coin, if you got lets say heads, your friend would kill oyu, and you repeat. At the time they were that religious. The idea being that they werent committing suicide, they were being killed so they do not have to die with the sin on their hands.

Not too many people know exactly what happened to the last guy, most people believe he committed suicide, and than the other school of thought is he didn't because he didnt want to die with the sin.

 

[CheskiChips]

Ops. I kinda got the sieges wrong. I blame History channel for putting both in one vignette.

I'm admittedly not great at history. But...

Didn't Yosef ben Matityahu (Josephus) devise of a system to do this? Each would pull a straw and kill each other until only one straw was left who would be captured. That person left was Josephus.

There's even a math problem named after it.
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/JosephusProblem.html