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The Forum > Article Comments > The meaning of genocide > Comments

The meaning of genocide : Comments

By Dirk Moses, published 18/4/2008

Rather than waging history wars about the honour of the victors, perhaps we ought to try to understand the experience of those who were conquered and suffered.

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Well..Tony Ryan has said it all.

Thanx cobber.. if ever we needed a first hand account with balance..you have provided it.

Nothing more to say really.
cheers all
Posted by BOAZ_David, Sunday, 20 April 2008 3:57:51 PM
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Dirk Moses

I have to smile at your timid reference to "totalitarian regimes of Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot." No Mao? Dirk the word is not "totalitarian." The word you are searching for is "socialist." You see, all 20th centuries mass killings and genocide have only one thing in common. Not any of this rubbish about "cult of antiquity" "fetish for agriculture." That common thread is SOCIALISM.

It is no surprise that all the genocide porn merchants are socialists and communists. What they are doing is trying to revitalise Marxism; except this time they are far more savvy and do it using the patois of mid-twentieth century Parisienne posseurs, So rather than "class conflict between the proletariat and bourgeois" we get "the Other" "orientalism" "subaltern" "discursive creations," "epistemolgical violence," and now "genocide."

If you people had any integrity you would be scouring the world looking for evidence of recrudescence of SOCIALISM because that is the surest predictor of genocide. You people should be jumping up and down about events in Nepal for example.

Oh and on Australian historians not equating The Holocaust with Australia, you once more lie. You know you are lying and have been caught out before. Why do you continue to misinform Australians in popular forums like these? Shall we start dragging out quotes from you and your pals?

Keith

Oh don't worry, comrade Moses and his genocide porn merchant pals spend 24/7 hissing and fuming the usual socialist hate of Israel. In fact when you read their less public articles it is quite clear that part of their agenda is to "Palestinianise" Australia's aborigines.But imagine them fuming and running to the UN nover the central document in Palestinian government; the Hamas Charter

Don't hold your breath! ;)
Posted by John Greenfield, Sunday, 20 April 2008 4:06:10 PM
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CHALLENGE TO DIRK MOSES.

John G.. glad you mentioned the HAMAS charter mate..its a favorite of mine too.

DIRK.. will you publically denounce the HAMAS charter, specially Part III article elevel which is

a) A confession of former violent conquest and theft of land by Muslims
b) A justification of that.
c) A virtual call for total ethnic cleansing and/or genocide in terms of the meaning of the UN document.

SO... will you?

<<the land of Palestine has been an Islamic Waqf throughout the generations and until the Day of Resurrection, no one can renounce it or part of it, or abandon it or part of it. No Arab country nor the aggregate of all Arab countries, and no Arab King or President nor all of them in the aggregate, have that right, nor has that right any organization or the aggregate of all organizations, be they Palestinian or Arab, because Palestine is an Islamic Waqf throughout all generations and to the Day of Resurrection. Who can presume to speak for all Islamic Generations to the Day of Resurrection? This is the status [of the land] in Islamic Shari’a, and it is similar to all lands conquered by Islam by force, and made thereby Waqf lands upon their conquest, for all generations of Muslims until the Day of Resurrection. This [norm] has prevailed since the commanders of the Muslim armies completed the conquest of Syria and Iraq,>>
Posted by BOAZ_David, Monday, 21 April 2008 5:25:54 AM
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Do my eyes mislead me?

Did I just read that Hamas is on the list of genocidal regimes?

And why is not the US included on this list, considering its calculated torture and killing of tens of thousands of civilians in Panama, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Nicaragua and Iraq. And since when is the US a socialist regime?

And why the references to Israel? The mahatma Mohandas Gandhi refused to recognise Israel for very good reason; reasons that are even more applicable today. Less than 3% of Israelis are Semites; that is, Judeans by ancestry. The rest are Europeans, Russians and Ashkenazim whose only connection to Judeans is religion, which their forebears adopted for one reason or another. As Gandhi pointed out, no one has the right to invade and occupy the land of another people for religious purposes.

In fact, the Israeli military and earlier terrorists have killed some 10,000 innocent civilians; which I am sure both the pacifist Gandhi, and myself, would regard as pure genocide, also with published intent.

I have clearly stumbled into Wackyville here. And just as wacky are Israelis and their hegemonic supporters, who accuse their critics of being antisemetic, when most Jews are not Semites at all; merely religious fanatics. And if we want to find a common link in genocide, I know of two: centralised power and religion. In my book both are mankind's worst enemies.
Posted by Tony Ryan oziz4oz, Monday, 21 April 2008 8:59:05 AM
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Dear Tony

"This was the epic clash of very disparate cultures; the story of humanity in almost every part of the world, and it continues today. Learn from the past and manage the future. This will not happen if people futiley impose contemporary values on history."

These are wise words indeed. Actually I would be a little stronger and say that imposing contemporary values on history is an act of arrogance.

It is also worth noting that at the same time that the indigenous people of other continents were being captured and sent away from their homelands as slaves the 18th century British government had sent not a slave trader but Governor Phillip to the continent of Australia. Governor Phillip's attitude to the native inhabitants was quite different from the slave traders because according to his diary he was determined to ‘bring even the native inhabitants of New South Wales into a voluntary subjection; or at least to establish with them a strict amity and alliance. Induced also by motives of humanity, it was his determination from his first landing, to treat them with the utmost kindness: and he was firmly resolved, that, whatever differences might arise, nothing less than the most absolute necessity should ever compel him to fire upon them. In this resolution, by good fortune, and by his own great address, he has happily been enabled to persevere. But notwithstanding this, his intentions of establishing a friendly intercourse have hitherto been frustrated. M. De la Peyrouse,* while he remained in Botany Bay, had some quarrel with the inhabitants, which unfortunately obliged him to use his fire-arms against them: this affair, joined to the ill behaviour of some of the convicts, who in spite of all prohibitions, and at the risque of all consequences, have wandered out among them, has produced a shyness on their parts which it has not yet been possible to remove, though the properest means have been taken to regain their confidence.’

(M. De la Peyrouse was in charge of the French ships on a voyage of discovery in the area.)
Posted by Heduanna, Monday, 21 April 2008 9:12:02 AM
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Dr. Moses waves his bossy finger at us, sermonising "The definition is very precise and focuses on the “biological” fate of groups." Yet, if it is "so precise" why is there so much disagreement over it? He continues, ""The UN definition is not some arcane matter of academic debate. It is the law." So why has there never been even a whiff of any international legal tribunal showing even the slightest interest in Australia? Could it be because the convention is - as Dr. Moses insists "so precise" - in excluding events prior to the Convention? Could it also be because to associate the concept of 'genocide' with Australia is obscene? I suggest both.

Also, what "biological group" was threatned by the removal of part-aboriginal children? Recall, even more part-aboriginal children are being removed TODAY. In te 1930s, those children were at least as much Irish anyway, and as full-bloods were not removed how was any "biological group" threatened?

And whom does Dr. Moses rely on for his understanding of "international law?" And which jurist sage does Dr. Moses opt for? Why Robert Manne, who has neither training as a lawyer nor as an Historian, nor indeed a Ph.D of any sort. There is nothing wrong with this of course as some of the finest historians who have ever lived did not have formal training as an historian.

But Dr. Moses snorts at Gerard Henderson a mere "commentator." Never mind that Henderson actually has a Ph.D in History and Australian History at that!

Elsewhere Dr. Moses invokes the authority of a Mr. Ward Churchill, a disgraced former Socialist Race-Baiter and university teacher of "Ethnic Studies" fired for "academic misconduct, specifically plagiarism, fabrication, and falsification." Again no formal academic training.

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

Dr. Moses would do well to learn that a very good source for the status of international laws are the actual judgements of the relevant deliberative bodies.

Once more we see here a persuasive argument for a return to respect for objective empirical historiography, rather than half-baked Marxist polemic tarted up with Frech pomo.
Posted by John Greenfield, Monday, 21 April 2008 5:26:14 PM
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