[Wikipedia-l] Sensitive subjects on some Wikipedias

daniwo59 at aol.com daniwo59 at aol.com
Sat Jul 14 14:06:22 UTC 2007


 
Actually, this is incorrect and anachronistic. Despite Werfel's "Musa Dagh"  
or the contemporary report by US Ambassador Morgenthau about massacres, the  
events in Turkey were never described specifically as "genocide" until  after 
World War II. In fact, the term "genocide" was only coined in 1943 (by  Rafael 
Lemkin) and only gained popular currency during the Nuremberg Trials. Of  
course, this is no attempt to denigrate the tragedy of the Armenian people, but  
it was not described as genocide at the time, simply because the term did not  
exist.
 
As for being the earliest instance of genocide in the 20th century, that is  
also incorrect. That title should probably go to the massacre of the Herero 
and  Nama in German Southwest Africa in 1904. Some 50-90 percent of the 
population  was killed. And why is the 20th century a starting point? If we are going 
to use  the term in its broader sense, it could probably be applied to the 
massacre of  the Albigensians in 1209 (“Kill them all. God will recognise His 
own."), or the  1763 killing of Native Americans by Jeffrey Amherst by giving 
them gifts of  blankets infected with smallpox (see [[Pontiac's Rebellion]] for 
details).
 
The point is that "genocide" is a very loaded term. Use it carefully.
 
Danny
 
In a message dated 7/14/2007 9:06:35 AM Eastern Daylight Time,  
oscarvandillen at wikimedia.org writes:

On  7/14/07, Ronald Chmara <ron at opus1.com> wrote:
>
>
> On  Jul 13, 2007, at 8:15 PM, Steven Walling wrote:
>
> > Actually  Bop, I'm not sure if all wiki articles reflect this, but the
> >  Armenian Genocide was aboslutely the first event described as a
> >  genocide.
>
> [citation needed]
>
> :)


i  know the several emmy awards winning BBC documentary WORLD WAR I  produced
by carl byker claims it in exactly these words.
it has been  published on dvd in  2006
http://afbeeldingen.apriana.nl/DVD/AfbeeldingenW/World02.JPG

oscar

--  
*edito ergo sum*







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