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Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust From: Keith A of Hertford Date: 16 Sep 18 - 04:49 AM Raedwulf, please drop the personal attacks and abuse. In my post I stated only fact. This article from the British library, "The general German advance started on 18 August; by 28 August, the invasion force had crossed Belgium. The 10 days in between saw the worst violence. The troops, exhausted from the forced marches and often under the influence of alcohol, committed a series of large-scale massacres, pillaged and burned towns and villages, and deported survivors. The hardest-hit places were Aarschot on 19 August and Andenne on 20 August; the small industrial town of Tamines on the Meuse, where 383 inhabitants were killed on 22 August; the city of Dinant, where, on 23 August, the worst massacre of the invasion left 674 people, one out of every 10 inhabitants, dead; and the university town of Louvain (Leuven), where the treasured university library was burned and 248 civilians killed. Further south, hundreds of people were executed in the Belgian Ardennes; on one occasion 122 alleged francs-tireurs were killed in groups of 10; the last ones had to climb on the mound of corpses to be shot." https://www.bl.uk/world-war-one/articles/civilian-atrocities-german-1914 Revisionist historians tried to deny the atrocitities but they happened. The press hyped them but tens of thousands of Belgian refugees brought their eye witness accounts to Britain. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust From: Jim Carroll Date: 16 Sep 18 - 02:29 AM "that your thoughts were controlled, " The stuff ods Science Fiction - the ability to "control" the minds of many millions of people don't even exist in the twenty-first century (otherwise despotic madmen like Trump would have used it long before now. Go read a book for crying out loud Joe and Rag are right, this is no place for this discussion - you want to compare the comparative democracies of China, Russia and your own (which fought a genocidal war against a peasant nation for half century with the use of toxic chemicals and burning petrolium) - go open a thread on it. Joe is also right anbout the ling between the Kaiser and Leopold - I apologise to rag for taking it up as did, but it really is part of this These massacres were part of the expanding of Colonialism - in this case, Belgian and German, but other Empires were just as culpable of similar activities, including Britain whose Colonial history remains largely unwritten but whose effects still influence our everyday lives. Without the bickering, I believe that the obvious (to me) links between incidents like these German and Belgian atrocities - and World War One itself, would be an opportunity to discuss our Colonial legacy At the very least, their similarities make comparing them unavoidable. Rag started this thread and it is really up to him how far he wants to take it as far as I'm concerned. You have my opinion on the issue Jim |
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Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust From: Raedwulf Date: 16 Sep 18 - 02:08 AM I think perhaps, Jim, that Raggy is addressing you partly because you're the one most likely to listen. I'd take that as a compliment, rather than decide you've been patronised. I've also written recently in defence of the Mudcat Meander. A meandering thread is often entertaining & amusing. The sort of hostile to-ing & fro-ing that you are engaging in here (yes, with others) is neither of those, nor illuminating in any useful way. You can, as you say, open your own thread if you really feel the need to continue it... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust From: robomatic Date: 15 Sep 18 - 11:10 PM You have shown no more knowledge of Chima than you have of Russia - both McCarthyite caricatures of the reality Boh countries won their system of government by popular revolutions so the idea that you can enslave a revolutionary people id obviously nonsens Both countries have health services far in advance of most counties - certainly in advance of the united states where they feel for you check-book before they feel your pulse The same with the education systems - free at source and highly developed - you don't educate slaves as The United States taught us before their Civil war. I am no admirer of Mao and I detest what Stalin did to the people's revolution, but in both cases the Parties modernised semi feudal states and made them economic world contenders in amazingly short times - over the same period they totally outstripped most of the ex-colonies. I never got to visit China, thou I would dearly have loved to do so I travelled through Russia twenty years after the war and was staggered at the progress I witnessed in cities like Moscow, Leningrad and Minsk - all devastated by the war - In Leningrad it was rare to see a man aged over forty who hadn't lost a limb or had been maimed in some way during the Siege . Both those countries, USSR and Mao's China had in common, along with Nazi Germany, that your thoughts were controlled, and if you went for freedom of thought, you would get killed. I visited the Soviet Union maybe a little after your period. I noticed that everyone's teeth had been fixed. Mighty impressive, if they didn't have real ivories, they had what looked like stainless steel in there. Even in America we keep ALL the cattle healthy. As for China, I didn't get over there, but I'll never forget a reporter showing a bookstore in China. There was only one book available. Even in Russia you had a broad spectrum of approved books, and they were inexpensive. As for Popular Revolution, I'm wondering if you are as ignorant as you post or are simply simplifying the historical facts in order to make your preexisting world view palatable. Russia had a PAIR of revolutions in 1917, one in February, installing for all intents and purposes a weak democratic government, and one in October (old calendar) which put Lenin in as a dictator of a one-party state. (Kind of parallel to what happened in 1989 to the present reality of one-man control). The public were about as in control of what went on as the fleas on the back of a cur. China is an entirely different country, people, culture, etc. But it sure has not been popularly run. And both countries had internal deaths in the tens of millions, on the way to that wonderful economic progress that means so much to you. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust From: Jim Carroll Date: 15 Sep 18 - 07:05 PM "For F***k's Jim, can you PLEASE to the keep of this thread or start a new one of your own." For F****s sake Rag - I am not the only one involved here I will agree with you totally when you address your anger to all involved Don't patronise me - I'll strt my own threads thanks all the same Jim
Now, quit yer squabbling. The topic of colonialism and related genocide is certainly interesting. The squabbling is not. -Joe Offer- |
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Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust From: Raedwulf Date: 15 Sep 18 - 03:33 PM Anther thread Keithed. It was all going so swimmingly up to now, even though Jim insists on continuing to squabble... Fuck off, Keith. The atrocities attributed to the Germans in WWI (I presume you're referring to WWI rather WWII, but as per fucking usual, you're so damn inaccurate...) were PROPAGANDA. You gullible idiot. Same as the bullshit lies the Germans came out with - "We only invaded Belgium because..." "We only shoot Belgians because..." "You lot used gas first, we only retaliated, honest, guv..." (I have no idea what the German equivalent of 'guv' is...) Do you know or understand anything at all, Keith? Or do your fingers just type of their own accord without reference to whatever passes for your brain? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust From: Keith A of Hertford Date: 15 Sep 18 - 03:06 PM The Kaisers army committed despicable atrocities as they advanced through Belgium which were authorised from the leadership to subjugate the Belgians. It was digust at that behaviour and concern that we would be next if the Belgian ports fell to the Germans that led to Britain entering the war. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust From: Raggytash Date: 15 Sep 18 - 02:56 PM For F***k's Jim, can you PLEASE to the keep of this thread or start a new one of your own. I've started one for you already!!! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust From: Jim Carroll Date: 15 Sep 18 - 02:52 PM "are words of INFAMY. As well as saying the same thing about Stalin's depredations." You have claimed they were all brainwashed - make up your mind You have shown no more knowledge of Chima than you have of Russia - both McCarthyite caricatures of the reality Boh countries won their system of government by popular revolutions so the idea that you can enslave a revolutionary people id obviously nonsens Both countries have health services far in advance of most counties - certainly in advance of the united states where they feel for you check-book before they feel your pulse The same with the education systems - free at source and highly developed - you don't educate slaves as The United States taught us before their Civil war. I am no admirer of Mao and I detest what Stalin did to the people's revolution, but in both cases the Parties modernised semi feudal states and made them economic world contenders in amazingly short times - over the same period they totally outstripped most of the ex-colonies. I never got to visit China, thou I would dearly have loved to do so I travelled through Russia twenty years after the war and was staggered at the progress I witnessed in cities like Moscow, Leningrad and Minsk - all devastated by the war - In Leningrad it was rare to see a man aged over forty who hadn't lost a limb or had been maimed in some way during the Siege You people - especially you Yanks, really make me howl about 'freedom' when you have elected one of the most volatility world leaders who is now putting the entire planet at risk with his fascist behaviour I can never remember feeling mor threatened and more depressed about the future of the planet as I do now You Yanks have turned entire parts of the world into bloodbaths in order to keep your SUVs on the road - as for ecology - go count the storms bening caused by the "non-existent" climate changes according to Chairman Trump (with te help of "now free" Russia Jim Carroll |
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Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust From: Iains Date: 15 Sep 18 - 02:51 PM "I believe Natal was the closest Mark Twain came to the Belgian Congo" MWE have a holocaust denier in out midst" If garbage like the above was deleted, one would not be driven to respond to the outright lie! Then the thread could stay on course, as requested. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust From: Raedwulf Date: 15 Sep 18 - 02:12 PM *sigh* I was halfway through a very lengthy & entirely comprehensive reply and then... to the delight of everyone else it got et! In brief, then (I kid you not!). Jim - you know better; bruce should, but bruce never does. If you want to squabble, children, take it to PMs please & spare everyone else! Genocide is an ill-used word & an over-used one. I can understand Steve's reservations over Holocaust with a capital H, as per the title; holocaust with a small h works as a class noun... Except that it's an unnecessary word because we already have genocide (& many wouldn't recognise a distinction between upper- & lower-case). Both are used where they are not justified because they evoke... The Nazis on the Jews was an attempted genocide. The Hutu on the Tutsi was an attempted genocide. What happened in the break-up of Yugoslavia was an attempt at genocide. What worth in comparing them? Numbers? The Tutsi suffered far more than the Jews. The horror of how they died? Does anyone *really* want to quantify that? I agree that "Whose was worse" is utterly fatuous. The dikker def of genocide amounts to "systematic & deliberate attempt at mass-murder, usually along racial lines". What about the Turks on the Armenians, or America's several Trail of Tears inflictions on the Native? There are those who would argue that these were also genocides. Certainly, they were brutal, callous, careless of human life, inhumane. But, as with the various Japanese "Death Marches" of Allied POW's, I don't believe that any of them were genocides. They were "brutal... ...inhumane", but they weren't "systematic & deliberate..." Thus, after preamble, I arrive at Raggy's original purpose. Colonialism was never benign or, at least, not wholly so. All of Europe was Wherever for a given object of Profit. If you know even a little of European involvement in Africa & Asia up to the earlier part of the 20thC, you will know (rather than just believing) that all of the colonial powers were seeking some sort of a profit (for a given value of 'profit'). However! If you know even a little, you will also know that most colonialism wasn't simply rapacious either. Also consider this. If the Industrial Revolution had occurred in, say, Ulundi or Bombay, how different would the world be? We might have had Hindu priests or those of the ancestral spirits proselytising across Western Europe... My point here is that people are people the world over. The balance of power would be different, globally the centre would different; we might all be using an Indian language, isiZulu, or some other Bantu language as a lingua franca, rather than English. But the repercussions of the balance would probably not be different. Western Europe would have been conquered, the resentments et al would be the same. The German & Belgian versions of colonialism were particularly brutal & unpleasant. But were they genocide? It seems that at least some of the German efforts have been classified by rather higher powers than me as genocide. But someone above (I forget who) used the word "profiteering". It is a common mistake to view history through the prism of our own times (and all too many historians, who ought to know better, are guilty of it). It was Joe, above, who asked How could our ancestors have thought they had the right to do that? The simple answer is, "Because they were them then." And perhaps it sounds trite, but if they had not been them then, we would not be us now. We change & evolve socially as well as physically. Four hundred years ago, everyone accepted that slavery was normal; nowadays, few cultures do, for one very obvious example. Our ancestors, Joe, did not see the world in the same terms that we do, any more that everyone across the world now does. I have been known to remark that the problem with Islam is that their calendar is about five & a half centuries behind ours. I mean no offence by this, but if you look at it that way that all too much of the Muslim world behaves, its level of tolerance & its reaction to aberration is not so very different from the way the One True Church was behaving 1440 CE, which is where their calendar currently is. Plus ca change etc; 'oomans is as 'oomans does, nowt so queer as folk, etc! I can't comment very directly on the Kaiser's holocaust, Raggy. I am well aware that it did happen, but my knowledge is more general than specific. I doubt anyone on the 'cat can do better. If you google, you'll only find what I would look up to check that what I told you had a shred of accuracy! ;-) I will repeat, though, colonialism was never unalloyed anything. It was never inherently inimical, it was never benign. It was for the colonisers benefit, and it's hard to make a profit out of dead people so, in most cases, genocide for the sake of it; as attempted in the examples at the beginning of this post; would make no sense, either now or then. The Belgian & German versions of colonisation were particularly brutal, perhaps partly because they came late to it. The Portuguese, I seem to remember, were bad but nowhere near AS bad. The Spanish, well most of their old empire had gone by the start of the 20thC. The French? They certainly still had colonies then. There were tensions with Britain throughout the 19thC. As late as 1898, we might have gone to war over the Fashoda Incident (google it!). But whilst someone above suggested they were awful in the Congo, in general what I know suggests they were less awful overall. I don't know enough specifics to be able to be more specific. The British, of course, the British... There my knowledge is far greater but it is perhaps also biased. Britain was a slaver. Bristol was the centre of the slave trade; there its prosperity was founded. Britain was the first nation to abolish slavery too. Our colonial history is long. It's also complicated. Up to the Indian Mutiny it was John Company, the EIC, that ran India. How much influence the UK govt had is very much open to argument! After the Mutiny... the Govt took over. There were characters in our colonial history such as Robert Clive & Cecil Rhodes who very definitely WERE rapacious bastards... But there again, they weren't unalloyed bad. There certainly were many, many thousands of people, often over several generations of a family, who went out to various colonies believing that it was their task to improve the natives' lot. Many died trying. And presumably the same can be said of other colonial powers as well if, perhaps, not to the same extent. This isn't very much help, in terms of a direct response to you, Raggy, more of a caution. Remember, whatever period of history takes your interest, that they were them then as we are us now. If everyone reading this now had been born in Edo in 1914, some of us would have been in the Imperial Japanese Army in the 1930s. So one or two of us would have been in Nanking in 37/38, bayoneting babies, raping women, murdering civilians, not because we are evil, but because we are products of our culture. We are fortunate in that we all are products of relatively benign cultures in a relatively benign age. Judge not our ancestors too harshly because they were not so lucky! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust From: Raggytash Date: 15 Sep 18 - 01:23 PM Hey up lads, the history of numerous atrocities over the centuries is vast. We could discuss them for years and thousands of posts. I do understand that, OK. Can we limit this thread to "The Kaiser's Holocaust" PLEASE !!!!! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust From: robomatic Date: 15 Sep 18 - 01:18 PM I think the following: Mao's followers were willing supporters of a popular revolution are words of INFAMY. As well as saying the same thing about Stalin's depradations. It's exactly the same thing as big brother telling little brother to "Stop Hitting Yourself" magnified by a hundred million and going to the extreme of death and torture. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust From: Jim Carroll Date: 15 Sep 18 - 01:14 PM "I believe Natal was the closest Mark Twain came to the Belgian Congo" MWE have a holocaust denier in out midst Jim Carroll |
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Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust From: Raggytash Date: 15 Sep 18 - 12:19 PM Thank you for your link Jim, I shall read it with interest. Once again could I ask people to stick to the subject matter of the thread. I am all too aware to other atrocities that occured in many states perpetrated by many nations on other nations but I would like to learn a little about this particular part of history that until two days ago I knew nothing about. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust From: Iains Date: 15 Sep 18 - 11:44 AM I believe Natal was the closest Mark Twain came to the Belgian Congo. His King "Leopold's Soliloquy" is a work he can be proud of. It is probably the earliest work on modern human rights. BUT. Back in that period with no census and no accurate centralised record keeping any kind of mortality figure has to be treated with scepticism. Using the sentence "Hochshild more or less established that the ten million was correct" may convince you but the first census of the Congolese population was made in 1924, there is a consensus among historians that accurate predictions of the population fall or number of deaths is impossible. There is no denying the figure was in the millions but quotes of 6,10 or 13 million cannot be reliably established. The crime has been established, the death toll was high,in the millions, Just how high simply distracts from the main issue- that it was a crime against humanity. Louis and Stengers state that population figures at the start of Leopold's control are only "wild guesses". Another factor reducing population was disease. Colonialism also played a part in the mortality from sickness.Diseases imported by Arab traders, European colonists and African porters ravaged the Congolese population and "greatly exceeded" the numbers killed by violence. Smallpox, sleeping sickness, amoebic dysentery, venereal diseases (especially syphilis and gonorrhea), and swine influenza were particularly severe. Sleeping sickness, in particular, was "epidemic in large areas" of the Congo and had a high mortality rate. In 1901 alone, it is estimated that as many as 500,000 Congolese died from sleeping sickness. It goes without saying that malaria is endemic in the area including cerebral malaria. Even today it is estimated severe malaria kills approximately one million children in Sub-Saharan Africa alone. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust From: Jim Carroll Date: 15 Sep 18 - 10:41 AM This is probably the most comprehensive account of KAISER'S HOLOCAUST along with its historical implications freely available on the web Jim Carroll |
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Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust From: Jim Carroll Date: 15 Sep 18 - 10:31 AM "he true death toll both from King Leopold " Leopold's death toll is not disputed - the ten Million was established by Mark Twain and has only varied upwards Hochshild more or less established that the ten million was correct - it's all accessible as history One of the facts of history that suggests the figure to be an underestimate is that, on the fall of Leopold's Company his employees spent three days feeding the records into furnaces, so the estimatesd are based on reports, coming largely from missionaries As far as Mao is concerned - the figure claimed included natural disasters, mismanagement by a brand-new political force and a state of permanent warfare in seizing the country by the people Leopold's victims were slaves - Mao's followers were willing supporters of a popular revolution Jim Carroll |
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Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust From: Iains Date: 15 Sep 18 - 09:41 AM The true death toll both from King Leopold and chairman Mao is heavily disputed. Surely the realissue is how they died and why they died and what can we learn from it going forward. Arguing over numbers that can never be accurately established is a pointless exercise. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust From: Jim Carroll Date: 15 Sep 18 - 03:52 AM Sigh!!!! Leave it Dick Jim |
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Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust From: The Sandman Date: 15 Sep 18 - 03:34 AM Jim the worst offender was Mao,it gives me pleasure havint to admit it |
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Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust From: Jim Carroll Date: 15 Sep 18 - 02:49 AM "You don't have any idea, Jimmy boy. " I always know when you people are making things up when you try to talk your opponents down - it seems a trait I get a little tiresdd of te "far left" strope -it allways conmes from people who regard anything more prgressive than Attila the Hun as 'Far Left' so I regard it as a comliments - why not substitute honest argument Bruce? You have me ine, now show me yours as stop wrecking discussions with personal insults - it's not very impressive andf it doesn't contain enough information to persuade anybody If it's all the same to you I prefer a lifetime's interest and reading in European history rather than a bloog by a pop music expert - especially when his figures on the Leopold massacres are at least two million below the historically reasearched ones You might try Adam Hochschild's 'King Leopold's Ghost (quite easy, if uncomfortable reading) Can we please stop this childish name-calling and attempts at talking down - there is far too much of this already - always from people hardly in the position to do so Jim Carroll jim Carroll |
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Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust From: beardedbruce Date: 14 Sep 18 - 05:12 PM " Bruce's anonymous quotes from a right-wing think tank with links to The Manhattan Project and the US security service and military " You don't have any idea, Jimmy boy. But then, the Far Left here doesn't consider Truth, just mandated beliefs. http://www.scaruffi.com/politics/dictat.html OK? Check his site- http://www.scaruffi.com/index.html NOW tell me he is "a right-wing think tank with links to The Manhattan Project and the US security service and military ", you ignorant bigot. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust From: Iains Date: 14 Sep 18 - 03:13 PM It was probably fortunate that the first diamond is Namibia was not discovered until 1908, otherwise the killings would probably have been even more severe. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust From: Raggytash Date: 14 Sep 18 - 02:05 PM Any chance of getting back to the subject matter of the thread of which I know little about. This 'my program was bigger than than your program" doesn't enhance my knowledge of the subject. Ta ........! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust From: Jim Carroll Date: 14 Sep 18 - 01:53 PM "you can prepare for it!" I think Bruce's anonymous quotes from a right-wing think tank with links to The Manhattan Project and the US security service and military have taken it in the direction it is going to go These discussions about mass-murder should never be allowed to reach the - "your atrocity is worse than my atrocity" level, but don't they always? I chose to mention belgium and WW1 because theyare more ot less contemporary to the topic in hand Jim |
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Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust From: Dave the Gnome Date: 14 Sep 18 - 01:45 PM I didn't want to divert it, Jim. Just pointing out what others will say. Now you have mentioned the first world war, heaven knows where it will end. As long as you are aware of where this is going to go, you can prepare for it! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust From: Jim Carroll Date: 14 Sep 18 - 01:37 PM If you are going to divert this into something else you may as well say World War One which was basically a conflict to decide who should rule the planet, as the greatest example Alfonso Bullock, studies Warfare & Warfare at Military Technology (2024) Answered Jun 6, 2018 World War One was one of the deadliest conflicts in the history of the human race, in which over 16 million people died. The total number of both civilian and military casualties is estimated at around 37 million people. The war killed almost 7 million civilians and 10 million military personnel. "Leopold II of Belgium (Congo, 1886-1908) 8,000,000 " Why downgrade one of the main perpetrators - the lowest estimate is 10 million, but due to the lack of real information, and the nature of the terrain and cultures, it is calculated as high as 20 million Jim Carroll |
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Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust From: Jim Carroll Date: 14 Sep 18 - 01:29 PM These weer not deliberate and ruthless attempts at annihilation for profit - whatever they were. Stalin went to war against his party, largely with the backing of the people Mao forced through the modernisation of a totally impoverished semi-feudal country at a pace they could not handle, also with the backing of the people Neither was profiteering which bothe the Kaisers and Leopold's was I don't wish to create a diversion with this, nor do I wish to condone the demands made Jim Carroll |
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Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust From: beardedbruce Date: 14 Sep 18 - 01:24 PM Ze-Dong Mao (China, 1958-61 and 1966-69, Tibet 1949-50) (see note at the bottom of this page) Adolf Hitler (Germany, 1939-1945) 12,000,000 (concentration camps and civilians deliberately killed in WWII plus 3 million Russian POWs left to die) Leopold II of Belgium (Congo, 1886-1908) 8,000,000 Jozef Stalin (USSR, 1932-39) 7,000,000 (the gulags plus the purges plus Ukraine's famine) Hideki Tojo (Japan, 1941-44) 5,000,000 (civilians in WWII) Ismail Enver (Ottoman Turkey, 1915-20) 1,200,000 Armenians (1915) + 350,000 Greek Pontians and 480,000 Anatolian Greeks (1916-22) + 500,000 Assyrians (1915-20) Pol Pot (Cambodia, 1975-79) 1,700,000 Yakubu Gowon (Biafra, 1967-1970) 1,000,000 Leonid Brezhnev (Afghanistan, 1979-1982) 900,000 Jean Kambanda (Rwanda, 1994) 800,000 Saddam Hussein (Iran 1980-1990 and Kurdistan 1987-88) 600,000 Tito (Yugoslavia, 1945-1980) 570,000 Suharto/Soeharto (Indonesian communists 1965-66) 500,000 2.Mao is widely credited in the West with tens of millions of killings (49-78,000,000) but the sources are generally vague and contradictory. It is particularly difficult to pin down the deaths of the Cultural Revolution on him. Even assuming that the numbers are correct (and living witnesses saw very few people die during those years), Mao certainly started it, but after a few months he had lost control over the events, and there is no evidence whatsoever that he ordered or approved the many killings committed in the name of the Cultural Revolution: they were not carried out by the army or the police but by radicals. Crimes committed by the "red guards" cannot be automatically blamed on him. His wife Jiang Qing is widely despised in China and considered to have exerted an evil influence on those events (and was eventually arrested). In 1968 Mao called for "Big Unity" between the radical and conservative factions that were fighting all over China (not for more blood but for less blood). Before dying he appointed Hua Guofeng, a provincial governor, as his successor bypassing all the senior officials who were responsible for the excesses of the Cultural Revolution. The Cultural Revolution indirectly caused starvation, but the number of people who died of that starvation is probably lower than Westerners thought (again, judging from living witnesses) and he can only be considered indirectly responsible for them. A failed policy does not constitute "genocide" (otherwise this list of genociders would be much longer). |
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Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust From: Dave the Gnome Date: 14 Sep 18 - 01:01 PM Before one of our right wing hit men pick up on it, Jim, I should point out that it was not just civilised capitalists that did the damage. Uncle Joe and Chairman Mao had a good line in making people disappear too :-( |
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Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust From: Jim Carroll Date: 14 Sep 18 - 12:34 PM You want to go back that far and you need to calculate in incalculable - how nany died over the three centuries of the Inquisition, the Crusades, the deaths caused while building Empires..... This is about modern society and modern so-called civilised capitalism - not feudal and tribal societies Jim Carroll |
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Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust From: beardedbruce Date: 14 Sep 18 - 12:27 PM Not just Europeans, jc. "In the Middle East, and particularly in Iran, Genghis Khan is almost universally condemned as a destructive and genocidal warlord who caused enormous destruction to the population of these areas.[68] Steven R. Ward wrote that "Overall, the Mongol violence and depredations killed up to three-fourths of the population of the Iranian Plateau, possibly 10 to 15 million people. Some historians have estimated that Iran's population did not again reach its pre-Mongol levels until the mid-20th century."[69] In Afghanistan (along with other non-Turkic Muslim countries), he is generally viewed unfavorably, though some groups display ambivalence as it is believed that the Hazara of Afghanistan are descendants of a large Mongol garrison stationed there.[70][71] The invasions of Merv, Samarkand, Urgench, Nishapur, Bamyan, Balkh and Herat among others caused mass murders, such as when large portions of Khorasan Province were completely destroyed. His descendant Hulagu Khan destroyed much of Iran's north and sacked Baghdad, although his forces were halted by the Mamluks of Egypt. Hulagu's descendant Ghazan Khan once returned to beat the Mamluks and briefly gain the control of Syria, but were eventually defeated. According to the works of the Persian historian Rashid-al-Din Hamadani, the Mongols killed more than 70,000 people in Merv and more than 190,000 in Nishapur. In 1237, Batu Khan, a grandson of Genghis Khan, launched an invasion into Kievan Rus'. Over the course of three years, the Mongols annihilated all of the major cities of Eastern Europe with the exception of Novgorod and Pskov.[72] Giovanni de Plano Carpini, the Pope's envoy to the Mongol Great Khan, travelled through Kiev in February 1246 and wrote: “ They [the Mongols] attacked Russia, where they made great havoc, destroying cities and fortresses and slaughtering men; and they laid siege to Kiev, the capital of Russia; after they had besieged the city for a long time, they took it and put the inhabitants to death. When we were journeying through that land we came across countless skulls and bones of dead men lying about on the ground. Kiev had been a very large and thickly populated town, but now it has been reduced almost to nothing, for there are at the present time scarce two hundred houses there and the inhabitants are kept in complete slavery.[73] " and that was a larger percentage of the world population, by far. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust From: Jim Carroll Date: 14 Sep 18 - 11:18 AM "But it is staggering to learn that large-scale genocide was committed by Europeans on every continent on earth." This feller OUTDID THEM ALL Jim Carroll |
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Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust From: Raggytash Date: 14 Sep 18 - 10:25 AM Nigel, please desist from being so nit-picking, it is unecessary and fruitless. I'm sure everyone knew exactly what I meant. Your pedantry is extremely tiresome. Note I did say please :-) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust From: Joe Offer Date: 13 Sep 18 - 08:46 PM The Guardian article would agree with you, Steve. And so would I. By 1908, as David Olusoga and Casper Erichsen show in this horrifying and graphically told account, only 16,000 Hereros and 10,000 Namas were left alive. And it is tempting to see the whole ghastly saga in the terms that these authors propose – as another Aryan seizure of Lebensraum resulting in the final solution to the Namibian problem. As their title and subtitle indicate, they emphasise the continuity between the kaiser and Hitler and suggest that nazism stemmed from colonial roots of evil, themselves long forgotten. This is highly dubious. In the first place it is nonsense to say that the genocide in south-west Africa is forgotten. Admittedly, it could be better known. Germans did their best to suppress the evidence and to portray their homicidal activities as a triumph of civilisation, and British imperialists, with their own guilt to hide, were sometimes complicit in the obfuscation. But particularly since Horst Drechsler's pioneering study, Let Us Die Fighting (1966), on which the present book draws heavily, academic and popular interest in the subject has been strong. Secondly, it is misleading to represent the Führer as the kaiser's heir. National Socialism had no time for monarchy and its trappings. To be sure Wilhelm was antisemitic: he once advocated employing gas in a pogrom. But His Impulsive Majesty was as erratic in this as in everything else. Damned by Hitler as an "incorrigible fool", he had rich Jewish friends, disliked nazism and said that Kristallnacht made him ashamed to be German. The kaiser, who died in 1941, would hardly have endorsed Hitler's Holocaust. And since this was an event unique in scale and method, the term should probably not be applied to the genocide in Africa. Finally, Hitler's drive to secure living-space from Slav untermenschen owed little or nothing to Germany's imperial endeavours in Africa. Indeed, as the authors briefly concede, he regarded them as an outdated diversion from the Third Reich's destiny on the steppes. None of the kaiser's colonies would compare with his eastern empire, he boasted, and the only bit of the "dark continent" he wanted back was the Cameroons. Hitler's malign philosophy was fertilised by much dung, but it did not grow out of African soil. But it is staggering to learn that large-scale genocide was committed by Europeans on every continent on earth. How could our ancestors have thought they had the right to do that? -Joe- |
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Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust From: Steve Shaw Date: 13 Sep 18 - 08:02 PM I hate to see the word Holocaust used for anything other than for the six million murders perpetrated by the Nazis under Hitler. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust From: Iains Date: 13 Sep 18 - 03:25 PM The book covers some history of German sw africa I was only vaguely aware of, despite spending a period of time in the area, both in the northern cape and namibia. The scenery is breath taking and the spring flowers of Namaqualand have to be seen to be believed. It becomes increasingly arid as you go north becoming true desert and then ameliorating once into southern Angola. For anyone incarcerated near the coast the conditions would be extremely unpleasant. The Benguela current runs north from near the pole and the temperature drops markedly as the coastline is approached. This is further accentuated by the rolling banks of fog that occur throughout the year.(Hence the skeleton coast) Certain of the Germans there can still be extremely unpleasant. I spent Christmas eve in 1974 in a hotel in Walvis bay. There was a repeat of WW1 in the bar that evening. We were thrown out of the hotel and spent the rest of the night on the beach and waited on a chopper that picked us up the following morning. That was my first intro to Africa. It has been a topsy turvy relationship ever since, though many many more ups than downs. There are now very few Nama or San people left in Namibia or Namaqualand. A school of thought suggests the San have lived in the area 30,000 years. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust From: Thompson Date: 13 Sep 18 - 03:01 PM Has anyone calculated the number of Native Americans killed during the invasions of their land? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust From: wysiwyg Date: 13 Sep 18 - 02:39 PM More info: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herero_and_Namaqua_genocide Nemmind the thread title, this Wikipedia entry is what the book SHOULD be called-- centering the victim groups instead of the perpetrator. ~S~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust From: Joe Offer Date: 13 Sep 18 - 02:39 PM Google Books has a helpful summary:
Apparently, the book has been out for a while. This review (click) in the Guardian is dated 2010. Years ago, one would occasionally see references to the cruelty of Germans and other Europeans in Africa, but it was all past history by the time we were born, so nothing was done about it. -Joe- |
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Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust From: keberoxu Date: 13 Sep 18 - 02:36 PM The correct title of the book does indeed feature an asterisk before the 's, so the distinction is singular. One Kaiser. Ian Hancock Ph.D., a self-identified Roma born in the UK whose career has largely been in United States, learned about the "schwarzer Deutscher" while researching the Shoah and its impact on the Roma. In the university class I took with him, Professor Hancock made a point of breaking the silence about the "schwarzer Deutscher." |
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Subject: RE: BS: Kaiser's Holocaust From: wysiwyg Date: 13 Sep 18 - 02:35 PM Thanks!!! https://www.amazon.com/Kaisers-Holocaust-Germanys-Forgotten-Genocide/dp/057123142X ~S~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Kaisers Holocaust From: Nigel Parsons Date: 13 Sep 18 - 01:49 PM "Kaisers Holocaust": The lack of an apostrophe leaves the reader wondering whether this was brought about by one Kaiser, or by several. I realise some people won't understand the distinction. Possibly Raggytash is one such person. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Kaisers Holocaust From: Jack Campin Date: 13 Sep 18 - 01:42 PM No, Rhodes wasn't in the same league of immediate destruction, though again the places he fucked up have never recovered. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Kaisers Holocaust From: Rapparee Date: 13 Sep 18 - 01:35 PM Or Cecil Rhodes. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Kaisers Holocaust From: Jack Campin Date: 13 Sep 18 - 01:03 PM A far larger proportion of the Herero died from the German massacres than Jews in Eastern Europe. And the war in East Africa caused damage the area hS never recovered from and a couple of million deaths. Small potatoes compared with the Belgians and French in the Congo, though. |
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Subject: BS: Kaisers Holocaust From: Raggytash Date: 13 Sep 18 - 10:49 AM I went to a fascinating lecture this morning on the Kaisers Holocaust. The lecture was based on a book by David Olusoga and Casper W Erichsen published by Faber ISBN 978-0-571-23142-3. This is a piece of history I was totally unaware of and now I'm looking forward to reading the book which I purchased this afternoon. One comment the lecturer made had me sitting up "the Kaiser made Adolf Hilter look like a schoolboy" More to follow. |
