I find it ironic that when it comes to Native Americans, some guy decided we needed a new word to describe these deaths.
It seems so terribly easy and convenient to forget what was done, here, under the guise of
QUOTE
God had removed the natives as part of His divine plan in order to make way for a new Christian civilization.
Semitic, anti-semitic my butt.
From wiki:
Semitic
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Semites)
Jump to: navigation, search
In linguistics and ethnology, Semitic (from the Biblical name "Shem") was first used to refer to a language family of largely Middle Eastern origin, now called the Semitic languages. This family includes the ancient and modern forms of Amharic, Arabic, Aramaic, Assyrian, Akkadian, Hebrew, Maltese, Syriac, Tigrinya, etc.
......
Geography
Semitic peoples and their languages in modern and ancient historic times have covered a broad area bridging Africa, Western Asia and the Arabian Peninsula. The earliest historic (written) evidences of them are found in the Fertile Crescent, an area encompassing the Babylonian and Assyrian civilizations along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, extending northwest into southern Asia Minor (modern Turkey) and the Levant along the eastern Mediterranean.
-----------------
Religion
In a religious context, the term Semitic can refer to the religions associated with the speakers of these languages: thus Judaism, Christianity and Islam are often described as "Semitic religions," though the term Abrahamic religions is more commonly used today. A truly comprehensive account of "Semitic" religions would include the polytheistic religions (such as the religions of Adad, Hadad) that flourished in the Middle East before the Abrahamic religions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_genocide
....The 500th anniversary of Columbus' famous voyage, in 1992, drew renewed attention to claims that indigenous peoples of the Americas had been the victims of genocide.
Population overview
........in the 20th century scholarly estimates ranged from a low of 8.4 million to a high of 112.5 million persons.
...........This population debate has often had ideological underpinnings. Low estimates were sometimes reflective of European notions of their own cultural and racial superiority, as historian Francis Jennings has argued: "Scholarly wisdom long held that Indians were so inferior in mind and works that they could not possibly have created or sustained large populations."
..........Depopulation from disease
The earliest European immigrants offered two principal explanations for the population decline of the American natives. The first was the brutal practices of the Spanish conquistadores, as recorded by the Spanish themselves, most notably by the Dominican friar Bartolomé de Las Casas, whose writings vividly depict atrocities committed on the natives by the Spanish. The second explanation was religious: God had removed the natives as part of His divine plan in order to make way for a new Christian civilization.
.........Disease began to kill immense numbers of indigenous Americans soon after Europeans and Africans began to arrive in the New World, bringing with them the infectious diseases of the Old World.
The scope of the epidemics over the years was enormous, killing millions of people—in excess of 90% of the population in the hardest hit areas—and creating "the greatest human catastrophe in history, far exceeding even the disaster of the Black Death of medieval Europe."[6]
Other causes of depopulation
[edit]
War and violence
While epidemic disease was by far the leading cause of the population decline of the American indigenous peoples after 1492, there were other contributing factors, all of them related to European contact and colonization. One of these factors was warfare.
.......Over the long run, Europeans proved to be consistently successful in achieving domination when engaged in warfare with indigenous Americans, for a variety of reasons that have long been debated. Massive death from disease certainly played a role in the European conquest, but also decisive was the European approach to war, which was less ritualistic than in native America and more focused on achieving decisive victory. European colonization also contributed to an increased number of wars between displaced native groups.[13]
........Displacement and disruption
Even more consequential than warfare or mistreatment on indigenous populations was the geographic displacement and the disruption of lifeways that resulted from the European colonization of the Americas. As more and more people arrived from the Old World, native peoples were increasingly compelled to relocate and alter their traditional ways of life. These changes often resulted in decreased birth rates, which steadily lowered populations over time. In the United States, for example, the relocations of Native Americans resulting from the policies of Indian Removal and the reservation system created a disruption which resulted in fewer births and thus population decline. Harmful social side effects of this ethnic cleansing policy, such as malnourishment, alcoholism and internicine stuggles, further contributed to a progressive decline.[15]
The genocide debate
The most controversial question relating to the population history of American indigenous peoples is whether or not the natives of the Americas were the victims of genocide. After the Nazi-perpetrated Holocaust during World War II, genocide was defined (in part) as a crime "committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such." Does genocide apply to the experience of the indigenous peoples of the New World?
Some scholars believe that it does. Historian David Stannard, for example, has argued that "The destruction of the Indians of the Americas was, far and away, the most massive act of genocide in the history of the world." Stannard believes that the natives of the Americas were deliberately and systematically exterminated over the course of several centuries, and that the process continues to the present day. Stannard estimates that almost 100 million American indigenous people have been killed what he calls the American Holocaust.[16]
While no mainstream historian denies that death and suffering were unjustly inflicted by a number of Europeans upon a great many American natives, many argue that genocide, which is a crime of intent, was not the intent of European colonization. Historian Stafford Poole wrote: "There are other terms to describe what happened in the Western Hemisphere, but genocide is not one of them. It is a good propaganda term in an age where slogans and shouting have replaced reflection and learning, but to use it in this context is to cheapen both the word itself and the appalling experiences of the Jews and Armenians, to mention but two of the major victims of this century."[18]
Therefore, most mainstream scholars tend not to use the term "genocide" to describe the overall depopulation of American natives.
.........In response to Stannard's figure, political scientist R. J. Rummel has instead estimated that over the centuries of European colonization about 2 million to 15 million American indigenous people were the victims of what he calls democide.
Definition
Democide
Democide is a term created by political scientist R. J. Rummel in order to create a broader concept than the legal definition of genocide. Democide is defined as "The murder of any person or people by a government, including genocide, politicide, and mass murder"
Jump to: navigation, search
Genocides and Politicides from 1955 to 2001 From No Lessons Learned from the Holocaust?, Barbara Harff, 2003, [1]. Note that most estimates for mass murder are more or less disputed. Sudan 10/56-3/72 400,000-600,000
South Vietnam 1/65-4/75 400,000-500,000
China 3/59-12/59 65,000
Iraq 6/63-3/75 30,000-60,000
Algeria 7/62-12/62 9,000-30,000
Rwanda 12/63-6/64 12,000-20,000
Conogo-K 2/64-1/65 1,000-10,000
Burundi 10/65-12/73 140,000
Indonesia 11/65-7/66 500,000-1,000,000
China 5/66-3/75 400,000-850,000
Guatemala 7/78-12/96 60,000-200,000
Pakistan 3/71-12/71 1,000,000-3,000,000
Uganda 2/72-4/79 50,000-400,000
Philippines 9/72-6/76 60,000
Pakistan 2/73-7/77 5,000-10,000
Chile 9/73-12/76 5,000-10,000
Angola 11/75-2001 500,000
Cambodia 4/75-1/79 1,900,000-3,500,000
Indonesia 12/75-7/92 100,000-200,000
Argentina 3/76-12/80 9,000-20,000
Ethiopia 7/76-12/79 10,000
Congo-K 3/77-12/79 3,000-4,000
Afghanistan 4/78-4/92 1,800,000
Burma 1/78-12/78 5,000
El Salvador 1/80-12/89 40,000-60,000
Uganda 12/80-1/86 200,000-500,000
Syria 4/81-2/82 5,000-30,000
Iran 6/81-12/92 10,000-20,000
Sudan 9/83-2003 2,000,000
Iraq 3/88-6/91 180,000
Somalia 5/88-1/91 15,000-50,000
Burundi 1988 5,000-20,000
Sri Lanka 9/89-1/90 13,000-30,000
Bosnia 5/92-11/95 225,000
Burundi 10/93-5/94 50,000
Rwanda 4/94-7/94 500,000-1,000,000
Serbia 12/98-7/99 10,000
20th century democides causing more than one million deaths. From Death by Government, Rummel, 1987 [2]. Several estimates have been revised after this date [3] [4] [5]. Note that Rummel's estimates for mass murder do not necessarily have broad academic acceptance. Cambodia 1975-1979 2,035,000
China (KMT) 1928-1949 10,075,000
China (PRC) 1949-1987 77,277,000
China (Mao Soviets) 1923-1949 3,465,000
Colonialism 1900-Independence 50,000,000
Congo Free State 1885-1908 est C20th 3,480,000
total of 10,000,000
Germany 1933-1945 20,946,000
Japan 1936-1945 5,964,000
Pakistan 1958-1987 1,503,000
Poland 1945-1948 1,585,000
Mexico 1900-1920 1,417,000
North Korea 1948-1987 1,563,000
Russia 1900-1917 1,066,000
Turkey 1909-1918 1,883,000
Vietnam 1945-1987 1,670,000
Yugoslavia (Tito) 1944-1987 1,072,000
U.S.S.R 1917-1987 61,911,000
Selected pre-20th century democides. From Death by Government, Rummel, 1987 [6]. Christian Crusades 1095-1272 1,000,000
Albigensian Crusade 1208-1249 200,000
By Mongols 14th-15th Century 29,927,000
By Aztecs Centuries >1,000,000
Thirty Years' War 1618-1648 5,750,000
Witch Hunt 15th-17th Century 100,000
Spanish Inquisition 16th-18th Century 350,000
In China 221 BC-19th Century 33,519,000
In Iran 5th-19th Century >2,000,000
In Russia 10th-19th Century >1,007,000
In Ottoman Empire 12th-19th Century >2,000,000
In India 13th-19th Century >4,511,000
Slavery of Africans 1451-1870 17,267,000
In Japan 1570-19th Century >1,500,000
Of American-Indians 16th-19th Century 13,778,000
French Revolution 1793-1794 263,000
Bloodiest dictators for the millennium.Rummel, [7][8][9]. Note that Rummel's estimates for mass murder do not necessarily have broad academic acceptance. Qing Dynasty,
mainly Empress Dowager Cixi 1859-64,
Tai Ping Rebellion 12,000,000
Genghis Khan 1215-1233 4,000,000
Adolf Hitler 1933-1945 21,000,000
Chiang Kai-shek 1921-1948 10,000,000
Khubilai Khan 1252-1279 19,000,000
Vladimir Lenin 1917-1924 4,000,000
Leopold II of Belgium 1885-1908 10,000,000
Pol Pot 1968-1987 2,000,000
Joseph Stalin 1929-1953 43,000,000
Hideki Tojo 1941-1945 4,000,000
Mao Tse-tung 1923-1976 77,000,000
