I note with interest your use of Mirabeau Lamar as an example of one perpetrating genocide. Lamar did indeed forcibly expel the Cherokee from Texas and urge wars of extermination against the Comanche and other Indian nations. Interestingly, as a schoolboy, the future Texas president wrote an essay addressing the question, "Were the Europeans justified in their conquest of North America?" The teenage Lamar believed strongly that they were not. As an adult, however, Lamar viewed Indians as less than human. He offered only expulsion or death to his nation's native inhabitants. Those interested can read more at this link:
http://blog.jeffreyskerr.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=6:deja-vu-all-over-again&catid=1:jeff&Itemid=3

wobbles I would not completely disagree with you but would offer that Genocide is a Special Case within Mass Murder.

"The reality is that ANY totalitarian ideology contains the seeds of MASS MURDER. That applies equally to Nazism, Communism, extreme Nationalism and fundamentalist Islam." - With that modification, I would agree with the statement.

Some of the posters and the author seem to use one term for the other and mostly denote some mass muder as Genocide when it is not - genocide is the deliberate wiping out of a "specific group or sub-group of people" is it not? Just murdering a lot of people is not necessarliy Genocide.

I think genocide is used when you want Mass Murder to seem even worse than it is. The term has become cheapened by the media applying it to all mass murder, or supposed mass murder - e.g. the giving of blankets infested with small pox to South American Indians, was not so much deliberate as accidental. The Europeans were used to and somewhat immune to a lot of the diseases they passed on to the new world's people.

Genocide when used by a people who are clearly alive and well, seems redundant - or have I misunderstood what it means, or its new common usage?

Odo

Up to a point I agree with you. Not every mass murder should be labelled a "genocide".

However the meaning of words changes through usage. For better or worse the word "genocide" has come to mean a mass murder of exceptional scale.

In fact in some cases there need not even be a "mass murder" before the word "genocide" is used. Israel has been accused of committing "genocide" against the Palestinians. See for example:

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3359209,00.html

and

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article6374.shtml

It is also not exactly clear where to draw the line. Few mass murderers are honest about their intentions. The Sudanese government would never admit that it wants to kill all Darfuris or Christian / Animist South Sudanese; but, to most observers, that appears to be exactly what Abdullah Omar's regime is / was attempting.

On a more practical level I doubt it makes much difference to the victims whether they are slaughtered in a "genocide" or a "mere" mass murder.

The article raises another interesting point.

AT WHAT POINT SHOULD WE TAKE EXPRESSIONS OF HATRED BASED ON RACE, ETHNICITY OR RELIGION SERIOUSLY?

At least some of the five men Melbourne men arrested for allegedly plotting an attack on Holsworthy army barracks appear to have a hatred towards non-Muslims. See:

http://www.theage.com.au/national/melbourne-terror-suspect-hates-australians-20090825-exe9.html

Quote:

"One of five men charged over an alleged suicide terror plot to kill soldiers at a Sydney army barracks hates Australians and anyone who does not follow Islam, a court has been told."

Should we fear a future attempt at genocide from at least some strains of Islam?

It is sad that in this article on genocide there was no mention of the colonisation of Australia.

Genocide, by all the definitions, was enacted in Australia against the Indigenous peoples.

Aka it's sad that some try to be deliberately inflamatory in this forum.

The Brits did not come to this country to wipe out the inhabitants, indeed they considered it "terra nullus". Do you believe the Brits had a plan to do that, of course they didn't they tried very hard to get along, it is well recorded in the first fleet's records.

Typical of the bleeding heart industry and its supporters ot try to hijack a debate like this.

Notice most folks instantly left the forum, tired of the same old same old whine and emotive cry.

Australians don't believe there was "genocide" of the aboriginals, that's an emotive tool that gained favour in the Howard years, before the "apology".

There are still aboriginal Australians? Then there was not a genocide, by several definitions. There may have been mass murder on occassions, or even lots of singular murders, but that does not mean there was a policy or plan to rid the country of people.

Do you know what a "troll" is Aka, in the internet forum sense, it's someone who deliberatley tries to be controversial and offensive so as to provoke emotional responses.

Although there are efforts to dilute the meaning of 'genocide' by inappropriate use or by equating it with mass murder, I think that the discussion would benefit from some definitional precision. The UN definition of genocide 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." >>

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

Under this definition, the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide would be included, as would be deliberate efforts to exterminate the Cherokees and other Native American nations, and indeed Australian Aborigines.

Despite the enormity of Stalin's crimes, I think that most of his victims wouldn't fit the UN definition - while the historical situation in Australia would.

So odo, you're talking through your hat - aka has identified as an Indigenous academic and her comment about Aborigines was spot on, whether you agree or not.

It is hardly trolling to point out that Ben Kiernan's analysis doesn't mention (nor account for) the Australian example - which is undoubtedly the main reason he doesn't mention the deliberate efforts by Australian settlers and their governments to exterminate and expropriate Aboriginal people in Australia.

Incidentally stevenlmeyer, Kiernan hails from Yale University, not the University of Queensland.