Genocide in Afghanistan?

[El_Machinae]

Do you think that women in Afghanistan were not being killed by the Americans and by other Afghans working with the Americans?

There is a lot to unpack here. I don't think it's whataboutism, per se, but I think it's a nod towards 'cost'. In the other thread, the fact that the interventions were mostly cost-effective (with caveats) was an important point. Interfering here had costs to the cohort that was going to be damaged if the interfering stopped: I think we then weight that cost in instinctive ways where our own inflicted harms are 'more valuable' than the harms that happen while gone.

I alluded to it earlier, but I am not just including the military adventures when I said "abandoned". But, I'll grant, that's way too difficult to discuss without it being entirely opinion.

I think there's a case to be made that the Taliban is the way it is partially because of exogenous pressures, which makes the math tough. We're not just comparing the total abuse while people are intervening to the total abuses while they're not. There's also the counter-factual if the outsiders never intervened. But that didn't happen.

The comparing of American women to Afghanistan women should be done carefully, I think. More than once, people have bit an analogy because the intensity of the scales are so different. There is also a risk of diluting the word 'genocidal' too much.

 

[Lexicus]

Did I deny this?

No, but I asked the question to draw your thinking out a bit more.

 

[Lexicus]

As for Afghanistan, the 10 year long special military operation by NATO there produced a number of papers on how to exploit sympathy for the plight of women to keep up support for the SMO. Does one need to say more?

I don't think that, ontologically, the determination of whether a genocide is happening depends on whether it would be beneficial to NATO for propaganda purposes.

In any event it's perfectly possible to believe that there is genocide going on in Afghanistan and also believe that foreign military intervention there would only make things worse.

 

[Henri Christophe]

Why should we want to change the title? Are you really that afraid of a word?

I think Genocide is a too strong word, but since i don't know what is happening there I don't if is a genocide or not.

Enslavement might be a better word than Genocide. Actually, Total Cultural/Social Genocide+Enslavement might be best.

Enselavement is also a hard word.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

No, but I asked the question to draw your thinking out a bit more.

Sorry, but most of my political thinking these days is taken up with provincial stuff perpetrated by the pack of sociopaths currently running Alberta and their supporters who are eagerly spreading misinformation and BS as fast as they can.

 

[Sommerswerd]

In the other thread

Which thread/posts? I'd like to look at the background conversation for this thread if I haven't already been participating in the discussion.

 

[sophie]

@Sommerswerd the discussion emerged a) from the trans genocide thread, and b) from a subsequent convo lexi and I had on discord. I think the whole thread is worth reading, but these are the posts which I would consider most germane/relevant to the topic that has since emerged.

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/trans-genocide.678490/post-16319974

Per article II of the Genocide convention:

DEFINITION OF GENOCIDE IN THE CONVENTION: The current definition of Genocide is set out in Article II of the Genocide Convention: Genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group

the State of Florida restricting access to medication to a population, i) with the explicit intention of restricting their ability to exist as members of the group, and ii) knowing that doing so will dramatically increase the rate of deaths within the population, at a very literal level run afoul of (b) and (c), and (e). So yes. Literally. Genocide.

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/trans-genocide.678490/post-16320007

I guess if we're pivoting into definitions.

a national, ethnical, racial or religious group

If we were going to ram a square peg into a round hole, which of these is closest to 'trans'?

The risk to health is interesting, because it's also a suppression of culture. Obviously you can genocide a culture without actually killing the people. Heck, very technically you can genocide a culture without actually hurting the people, with the understanding that some cultures are better than others. But then we're figuring out how to not laden the term, when it's specifically an evocative term

Yes, these are both extremely commonly noted limitations to the UN Genocide convention. In the first part because it was ratified in 1951, before the broad acknowledgement and acceptance of LGBTQ+ populations, so notably omits them, although many efforts have been made over the past decades to revise the treaty to include such groups. And in the second part because it very conveniently defines genocide so as to exclude cultural genocide, (which was a central part of Lemkin's original definition of the term, who viewed colonialism as an inherently genocidal practice), as such a definition would, obviously, implicate literally every member of the security council.

But if we're taking the spirit of the term: "the intentional destruction of an identifiable people, in whole or in part," then obviously this is genocide. Quibbling around the edges about whether trans people or queer people more broadly fall into "national, ethnical, racial or religious group" to me smacks of "it can't be racist because Muslim is not a race." Like what are we doing here at that point?

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/trans-genocide.678490/post-16320477

I think what changes a lot of the conversation is that in the Florida case it is the state removing supports from the citizenry, a series of supports that are going to be vital to the well-being of a reasonable portion of the population under discussion. In all of our heads, sanctions are a different thing from removing supports, despite the victim not really being able to tell the difference.

We touch upon some of the pushback that the idea that it is genocide when we talk about suicide being "voluntary". What will have trouble piercing people's minds is (to them) the idea that the therapy itself seems to be "voluntary", a treatment designed to make their life easier rather than life-saving. We all have trouble separating 'lifestyle choices' from 'personal necessity', depending on context and so what might be happening here is people are subconsciously mistaking one for the other. People can't figure out that 'needs' are being denied, not 'wants'.

Obviously, there will be a spread of efficacy for these treatments. As the number of visibly trans people increase, we will all know people who benefited or didn't seem to benefit from the interventions. And then, cognitive bias in personal storytelling will kick in. And the science is terrifically young, and underfunded, so the discussions will be brutal.

If people could, I would like to test how we're using the word genocide here. Would we say that the Taliban are currently similarly genociding Afghanistan women?

The term doesn't require that we focus on due to biological factors, also remember, we've decided that you can genocide a religion.

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/trans-genocide.678490/post-16321405

is that really true though? there are clear differences in agency, individual freedom, and motive. in one case, the state is punishing people because x. in the other, the state is not compelling other people to pay for something. these are fundamentally different. enough that i don't by that such is beyond the ability for anybody, even those affected, to grasp.

Yes, it's true, from the perspective of the victim.
Roughly when discussing 'genocide' we look at two/three things (once we've determined that there is an at-risk cohort) when weighting it.
- Is it a government sanction or a removal of support? They're 'obviously' different things, but from the perspective of the victim, it doesn't really make a difference if their lives are made worse.
- Is the observed 'intent' to help or hurt? We will argue and argue and argue about this, but the intent matters to all of us outside people.
- Finally, is it something government agents are doing or is it merely loosing citizens to do things? This can be brought into the first point, as a removal of protections.

You keep wanting to make it an economic analysis, which gets complicated quickly because the analysis really should include cost off-setting as 'profit'. Getting all transactions performed at the private/free-market level is not guaranteed to be the most effective or most efficient solution. With these treatments, the majority of the 'profit' is not in the form of increased output but by a reduction in other costs. But it's still a no-brainer, just like an early filling is better than a later root canal. No paper-profits, but definitely paper savings.
Now, obviously a culture can only afford so much health services, and Florida does have trouble. But in any fair world, we use some type of cost-benefit analysis. If treatments meet the threshold, then we try to include them. Some treatments are out of reach, and El_Machinae includes his usual (zero-impact) mantra of "you have to fund the research!". I haven't delved into the statistics, and it is definitely hard to do so (because the science is hella political), but you'll find that there's a tendency to 'be logical' and exclude savings from the calculation in Conservative analysis. That will but up against people who actually like efficiency AND helping people. But when the targeted removal is this targeted, you know it's not about 'resources'. Or, at least, to look for other biases very aggressively

There will be a time when a treatment needs to be titrated, and that is when it's suddenly over-subscribed rendering previous calculations non-viable. We removed doctor's ability to prescribe Ivermectin because we lost confidence in a doctor's ability to make their own best-judgements during a crisis. We also see this with metformin literally being useful all over the place. Sometimes medical interventions are in the early stages of discovery, when p-hacking is causing all types of non-real results.

.....

When the thread was still discussing 'genocide', I asked if the Taliban was currently genociding Afghanistan women. I do notice that NATO decidedly removed supports for Afghan women. We didn't like the cost (we often decide other people aren't worth it) but we didn't have the 'intent' to loose monsters on them. But we knew that it would happen. My question will mean more to Canadians than to Americans, I'll grant, because Canada consistently underperforms on our foreign aid and NATO commitments.

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/trans-genocide.678490/post-16321427

"Generally speaking, genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by mass killings of all members of a nation. It is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves. The objectives of such a plan would be disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of the personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and even the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups. Genocide is directed against the national group as an entity, and the actions involved are directed against individuals, not in their individual capacity, but as members of the national group."

Raphael Lemkin (the guy who coined the term "genocide") in 1942.

As I said before, genocide, from its inception, has never been "merely" about mass-murder. Identity suppression and the eradication of social and cultural institutions of the target group to make expression of the group identity nonviable was a major part of genocide as Lemkin conceived it. We just don't often remark on that component, or else view it as a lesser form of "soft genocide," because, again, to acknowledge that it's all one genocide would be to acknowledge that the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and the USSR were actively engaging in genocides at the time when the definition was agreed upon by the UN. It would also require acknowledging that the US, Canada, China, the UK, France, Russia, Israel, India, Australia, etc. are actively engaging in genocides at this moment.

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/trans-genocide.678490/post-16321449

I guess I don't comprehend the point and that's on me. A group of people born with an intrinsic feature, of which nationality or culture isn't, really, will not stop existing such as they are even if silenced. They will continue on in pain. Even if they're called by a different identity?

The objective in genocide is to kill "a people" not to kill people. This is why so much of the activity in genocide revolves around disruption: separating people from their homeland, separating children from parents, suppressing or actively discouraging the use of an associated language, prohibiting the use of traditional names or name formats, regularizing familial structure, criminalizing certain kinds of dress or cultural practices, etc. The goal is to cease expression of or identification with "the people" (and generally to replace it with either the dominant identity or a dependent subordinate identity). The suffering of the people you are genociding is immaterial, as, as Lemkin notes, the object is the group, even if the specific targets are individuals. You'll realize that this implicates basically all of colonialist practice as well as all historical examples of primitive accumulation under capitalism. That is not a coincidence.

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/trans-genocide.678490/post-16321451

This literally only works if you presuppose victimhood. however, i hold that the source of creating victims is necessarily different between the two, and that the distinction is extremely important if you want to criticize government policies.

Let us move up a step. And I definitely agree that a pro-active policy of hurting is not going to be weighted the same as a pro-active policy of 'refusing to help'.

Suppose the government said "we will stop enforcing any criminal laws (or allowing torts) in which trans people are complainants. [mumble, mumble about them being too expensive]".

This would be a denial of government services. If the result was an increase in death among that cohort, an increasing in violence against them, and a hiding of trans identity ... what would be the next necessary step for you to say "yeah, that's part of a genocidal effort".

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/trans-genocide.678490/post-16321477

So, genocide, as the term is used here, is not a harm against persons, it is more akin to... revoking a corporate charter? The people don't stop being <targeted quality> , they just aren't visibly and outwardly on "the same team" as such. Not being glib, I just know I don't use the same language "we all" here do on CFC, time to time.

More like a hostile takeover. We are removing all evidence of the previous, independent entity, and replacing it either a) wholesale with our own branding, culture, structures, etc.; or b) reconstituting the entity as a docile, pliant subsidiary.

In colonialist enterprises the project is to a) destroy the previous, self-sufficient culture and means of existence, and b) replace it with one wholly revolving around extracting resources and value and transferring them to the metropole. Remember the first concentration camps were implemented by colonial powers (the US, Spain in Cuba, Germany in Namibia) over their colonized subjects in an effort to restrict or destroy cultural and ethnic identities which they directly associated with disruptive insurrectionary activity. Nazi Germany drew direct inspiration from those projects. They said as much explicitly.

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/trans-genocide.678490/post-16321510

So this is two parts. What people are, and how they outwardly posture, for lack of a better term. This genocide as discussed in our exchange is about posture, but the issues being discussed on part of government intervention and support are frequently about supporting the intrinsic person, not the posture. Medical treatments are about persons. Medical diagnoses are about persons. Media and state compelled speech in form of education are posture.

It seems like the existence of people who are trans, a diagnosable way of being with medical treatments, cannot be erased with the same tools as one would erase a religion, or nationality? Even if they don't know what they are, because it is suppressed, they still are?

One might say, for instance, precisely the same sort of thing about being Jewish. You can change "posture" by banning the wearing of yamelkas, banning the speaking of Yiddish or Hebrew, prohibiting the giving of time off on Friday evening or Saturday and closing down or destroying synagogues, but none of that necessarily means you are "destroying" the Jewish beliefs or identity inside. Of course the intent is to make the outward practice or posture of being Jewish so onerous that the people will stop feeling it on the inside, or else not transmit its belief, identity, and practices to the next generation, but whether or not that is really the hope within the mind of the genocidaire is rather immaterial. The genocidaire wants "Jewish" to cease to exist as a category, and will use the means at their disposal to make that so.

The stated objective is the same here. The state of Florida is seeking to suppress the "posture" of being trans by restricting access to drugs, by prohibiting teens from presenting or being acknowledged as trans at school, and by restricting the diffusion of knowledge about being trans or the trans identity. If we take the Republicans at their word, the stated logic is that if you prevent people from "posturing" as trans, their transness will pass away and they will resume being cis. But whether this is truly what they believe or not is immaterial: whether the belief is that doing so will make us ontologically cis or will simply compel us to no longer openly express our being trans, the objective in both cases is to make "trans" cease to exist as a category, and to use what means are at their disposal to effect that outcome.

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/trans-genocide.678490/post-16321511

For utility.

It is clear that there is intent in this legislation to marginalize trans people, specifically.

It should not be difficult for the public to arrive at consensus that this is out of order.

However, you throw the word genocide in, now you have debate, discord. Said debate reduces effective support against the measure. It allows those who support such legislation to say to the undecided audience, “hey, it ain’t genocide, look at these hysterics”

If you have a word that represents marginalization of the ability to transition specifically, there would be no muddying of the waters. This legislation is clearly that; should such a word exist, there would be no 10 page debate.

Edit: I would wager that if such a word were to exist, this legislation would not have passed. It’s the obfuscation that makes it politically pliable; remove that, attach an -ism where one rightfully needs to be, consensus forms against the legislation, and it does not pass. Non starter.

Well, this legislation is not the only of its kind. It is one piece of a larger movement. The people arguing against the term are the same people who support the legislation or at least couldn't care less about it.

The word genocide isn't being "thrown in." The "undecided audience" has had ample time to pick a side. Being undecided is a side. The uncaring moderate is as destructive as the intentional conservative when it comes to legislation and socially accepted erasure.

Making up a word that specifically describes "marginalization of the ability to transition" is nonsense. There is more happening. It does not stop there. Playing madlibs for every milestone of the genocide handbook is to no one's benefit except the people wreaking the havoc.

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/trans-genocide.678490/post-16321522

I think you're also dismissing the utility in using the term genocide to actually engage with what is happening. The issue at play for me is that Americans have really made genocide synonymous in their minds with the Holocaust, and more specifically the Holocaust as strictly and exclusively the death camps. But the death camps did not pop into existence, fully formed, straight from the mind of Adolf Hitler and Reinhard Himmler in 1942-43. Genocide is a historical process, one that begins long before, and incorporates throughout, means far exceeding just the camps and death squads. And if you aren't prepared to engage with that analysis, then we are truly stuck in the "genocide can only be applied retrospectively" mode of social analysis. And god help us all if that's the case.

Here, I think you underestimate the amount of people who are not much involved with anything outside of their direct experience. Most people, the vast majority, have no experience being trans. They don’t even know any trans people. They are totally undecided as to anything regarding anything trans.

Case in point. What on earth do you think happened during the Holocaust? Do you think every German (or even every Nazi) personally despised Jewish people and actively wished for and celebrated their detention?

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/trans-genocide.678490/post-16321678

Your view is more optimistic than mine, I must say.

They told me that life was different than high school. Nonsense. Some people never move beyond simplicity.

I don’t expect the majority to be able to rise to a level of understanding that they look at the Holocaust and understand its processes. Some of that is due to intellectual limitations of individuals, yes. Some of it is also because people who work, who except to perform manual labor from a young age, simply don’t have time for it.

But that’s neither here nor there, really. I hope you’re right, but I expect you’re wrong.An argument towards simplistic language makes more sense with my experiences.

The only other term offered as a serious alternative and praised by another poster is "attempted social erasure." Genocide is simpler than that

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/trans-genocide.678490/post-16321820

The only other term offered as a serious alternative and praised by another poster is "attempted social erasure." Genocide is simpler than that

Fwiw I would just call it social erasure. (If we were to use it.) Not attempted. Like with genocide, it's actually more attempt and intent that matters than the outcome. I've eg seen the example in another contexr that an officer of the US at one point gave Native Americans infected carpets to warm themselves in, hoping they would die. regardless of how many people died there, it doesn't really matter as to whether it worked, the argument is that it's still genocide. If we were to call this policy social erasure, there's absolutely no reason to make the distinction it's attempted. If I deliberately poison the water reserves of a population, it doesn't really matter if I "did it badly", eg used a poison that was too weak by accident.

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/trans-genocide.678490/post-16321924

They're different concepts, even if it's very easy to cross them over in a Venn Diagram. In a genocidal program, you'd use both techniques, so I am not sure that the difference really matters, since it's the holistic effort that matters. Removing protections is the same thing as removing supports. Time with a doctor is the same governmental service as time with a police investigator, even though we tend to sort "vs hostile people" as a different category as "vs a hostile environment". The environment can hurt you just as much as people can hurt you, but we think of them differently.

They aren't different, and we ought push back against the impulse to think of them differently though, as I keep noting. The government is adopting policy designed to restrict our ability to be because they wish us not to exist. That is genocide. It is just that simple. People shy away from the direct language which describes accurately what is happening because it is painful to think about a Western liberal democracy doing such a thing, but they have and they are. Adopting weak language to spare yourself the pain of having to think about the depths of the depravity is deeply disturbing to me. As George Carlin noted, the purpose of weak language is to euphemize away our suffering so you can go about your day foot loose and fancy free as we continue to get our faces stomped into the pavement. Please do not forget about us. We are still here. The government is still trying to wipe us out.

Are trans people existing actually a social movement though? Yes, that's the genocide argument, the seeking to kill a social people, but are trans people actually created by a social construct? Like a culture, or a religion, or an education. I'm going to find the arguments I have offline much more difficult if the movement creates the people, rather than liberates the people who have already always been there*. That's just my observation from the problem population. Or whatever we are by birth over in that yonder CRT thread.

*But it'd be good to know if that's the currently accepted lens.

We're both. My transness is of course an innate component of who I am; I knew I was a girl long before I had any idea what transgender was. However, because of the nature of society, we are pushed out of "us" and constituted as a coherent body defined by its otherness. We are made into a social people because cis society defined us as such, and because our otherness drives us to seek one another for safety and companionship when nobody else would give us the time of day. And finally, because a social body, so constituted, is a more effective tool for political recognition and advocacy than as disconnected individuals.

In this sense we are no different than any other "social people." There is nothing intrinsically, essentially, unifying in gay, lesbian, bi, trans, intersex, asexual, pan, or poly people. And yet the ontologies of our patriarchal society classify our otherness as one queer people, which we in turn make our own. In much the same way that there is nothing inherently, physiologically, or even genetically, "one" in the various strands of the Jewish diaspora, and yet they are constituted by their otherness into a coherent people, a national identity. Or how Wampanoag, Cherokee, Seminole, Tlingit, Apache, and Ohlone are disparate peoples separated by language, geography, culture, and history, and yet are constituted by European society, and in turn constitute themselves as one single nation of nations, united in common struggle. Same with Pan-Africanism. Same with feminism. etc.

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/trans-genocide.678490/post-16321958

"Choices of the victimes" isn't really part of it, since you can have a culture genocided or a genocide conducted on purely physical features. Insofar as being a member of a religion is voluntary, we package 'religion' into the definition.
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/trans-genocide.678490/post-16321405

They aren't different, and we ought push back against the impulse to think of them differently though [...] The government is adopting policy designed to restrict our ability to be because they wish us not to exist.

I have asked about the withdrawal of supports for Afghan women a few times (a much more invisible cohort on CFC than trans Americans).
But your second statement there is about 'intent', which I will grant in the Florida case.

I think there are four quadrants in this discussion: withdrawing supports vs active harms / mal-intent vs. neutral intent.

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/trans-genocide.678490/post-16321961

Fwiw I would just call it social erasure. (If we were to use it.) Not attempted. Like with genocide, it's actually more attempt and intent that matters than the outcome. I've eg seen the example in another contexr that an officer of the US at one point gave Native Americans infected carpets to warm themselves in, hoping they would die. regardless of how many people died there, it doesn't really matter as to whether it worked, the argument is that it's still genocide. If we were to call this policy social erasure, there's absolutely no reason to make the distinction it's attempted. If I deliberately poison the water reserves of a population, it doesn't really matter if I "did it badly", eg used a poison that was too weak by accident.

Well, the secret sauce here is that social erasure is an explicit step in the genocide handbook. If one supports social erasure but not genocide, then they are inadvertently admitting they're just too uncomfortable with the idea that they are participating in a society that is genocidal. (This point was also brought up earlier by Sophie, with comparisons to colonialism.)

The Ten Stages of a Genocide - Montreal Holocaust Museum​

Genocide is a human phenomenon that can be analysed and understood. It is is a process that develops in ten stages, described here.
museeholocauste.ca

Read those stages and you will find that more of them fit what's happening than stages that don't, and that's even with a focus on the Holocaust, which is everyone's favourite pet genocide in the "this is not a genocide" argument. Genocide is not a term that can only be applied in hindsight. It is an active process that takes time to enact. We have enough history and context to be able to see what's happening, and it will take acknowledging that reality in order for us to properly counteract it. Minimizing the intensity of the language is truly of no help to victims or those who are allies to "the cause." It simply allows the perpetrators to hide in the crime.

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/trans-genocide.678490/post-16321974

Religion is not a choice. That's a straight faced statement? You'd sell that?

So, are we arguing that we are currently treating religion like did the state of Israel and the Third Riech?

Sometimes adults choose to join religious communities, but I would argue that is the exception rather than the rule. Most people who are members of a religion were brought up as children in that religion. I would say that an adult conversion into a religion is necessary for it to be considered a true choice; children and babies do not have a meaningful choice (but I am not saying that's necessarily a bad thing, if that's what you're thinking).

If we're talking specifically about Judaism, which is both a religion and an ethnicity, the element of choice recedes further. Very few adults convert into Judaism. Outside of a few sects that still practice shunning, when someone is born into the Jewish community they are considered in Jewish law to be Jewish regardless of what future choices they might make. And, as I noted in the previous post, in the context of the actual genocide against the Jews of Europe, the perpetrators of the genocide defined the Jewish population in racial rather than confessional terms.

I have no idea what the second line here means or where it is going.

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/trans-genocide.678490/post-16321997
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/trans-genocide.678490/post-16322002

Probably because the US occupation and puppet regime were themselves inflicting genocidal conditions on the countryside

[El_Mac]Ah, abandoned for their own good.

[Lex again]This really isn't the thread to beat your White Man's Burden drum. If you want to start another thread about how the enlightened West has a duty to civilize the dusky races, please do that.

 

[Zardnaar]

There's several things going in for my objections.

1. It's not actually genocide.
2. Undermines victims of actual genocide.
3. Confuses people who lean towards to more classical definition of genocide vs UN definition.

 

[Rg339]

@Sommerswerd the discussion emerged a) from the trans genocide thread, and b) from a subsequent convo lexi and I had on discord. I think the whole thread is worth reading, but these are the posts which I would consider most germane/relevant to the topic that has since emerged.

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/trans-genocide.678490/post-16319974


https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/trans-genocide.678490/post-16320007


https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/trans-genocide.678490/post-16320477


https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/trans-genocide.678490/post-16321405


https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/trans-genocide.678490/post-16321427


https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/trans-genocide.678490/post-16321449


https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/trans-genocide.678490/post-16321451


https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/trans-genocide.678490/post-16321477


https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/trans-genocide.678490/post-16321510


https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/trans-genocide.678490/post-16321511


https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/trans-genocide.678490/post-16321522


https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/trans-genocide.678490/post-16321678


https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/trans-genocide.678490/post-16321820


https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/trans-genocide.678490/post-16321924


https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/trans-genocide.678490/post-16321958


https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/trans-genocide.678490/post-16321961


https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/trans-genocide.678490/post-16321974


https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/trans-genocide.678490/post-16321997
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/trans-genocide.678490/post-16322002

You rang, but it’s unclear what you’re asking for. Are you asking for my opinion as to whether current Taliban policies constitute genocide against women, whether the US bears some culpability for this result due to withdrawal from Afghanistan, or what?

Edit: ah, I see, you’re providing clarification to a question another poster asked within this thread. My fault. Got too hasty there.

 

[sophie]

There's several things going in for my objections.

1. It's not actually genocide.

This is begging the question.

2. Undermines victims of actual genocide.

I would argue the opposite: strictly defining genocide as mass murder minimizes the crime by dehistoricizing the victims from the crime, while at the same time limiting our ability to understand genocide as a historical process or recognize it as it emerges in our own time.

3. Confuses people who lean towards to more classical definition of genocide vs UN definition.

The UN definition is derived directly from the classical definition, which was coined by Raphael Lemkin in the early-40s. If anything, the UN definition is actually stricter than Lemkin's, who viewed the social and cultural destruction as core to the genocidal project. This cultural component was omitted from the convention, which limited genocide only to direct bodily and mental harm to individuals as members of a group, much to Lemkin's great disappointment.

 

[Lexicus]

Sorry, but most of my political thinking these days is taken up with provincial stuff perpetrated by the pack of sociopaths currently running Alberta and their supporters who are eagerly spreading misinformation and BS as fast as they can.

Broke: humanitarian intervention in Afghanistan
Woke: humanitarian intervention in Alberta

 

[Zardnaar]

This is begging the question.



I would argue the opposite: strictly defining genocide as mass murder minimizes the crime by dehistoricizing the victims from the crime, while at the same time limiting our ability to understand genocide as a historical process or recognize it as it emerges in our own time.



The UN definition is derived directly from the classical definition, which was coined by Raphael Lemkin in the early-40s. If anything, the UN definition is actually stricter than Lemkin's, who viewed the social and cultural destruction as core to the genocidal project. This cultural component was omitted from the convention, which limited genocide only to direct bodily and mental harm to individuals as members of a group, much to Lemkin's great disappointment.

I'm talking about genocide for average mook not UN definition.

Think holocaust or deliberate attempt to exterminate an ethnic group.

 

[Angst]

@Sommerswerd the discussion emerged a) from the trans genocide thread, and b) from a subsequent convo lexi and I had on discord. I think the whole thread is worth reading, but these are the posts which I would consider most germane/relevant to the topic that has since emerged.

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/trans-genocide.678490/post-16319974


https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/trans-genocide.678490/post-16320007


https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/trans-genocide.678490/post-16320477


https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/trans-genocide.678490/post-16321405


https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/trans-genocide.678490/post-16321427


https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/trans-genocide.678490/post-16321449


https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/trans-genocide.678490/post-16321451


https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/trans-genocide.678490/post-16321477


https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/trans-genocide.678490/post-16321510


https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/trans-genocide.678490/post-16321511


https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/trans-genocide.678490/post-16321522


https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/trans-genocide.678490/post-16321678


https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/trans-genocide.678490/post-16321820


https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/trans-genocide.678490/post-16321924


https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/trans-genocide.678490/post-16321958


https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/trans-genocide.678490/post-16321961


https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/trans-genocide.678490/post-16321974


https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/trans-genocide.678490/post-16321997
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/trans-genocide.678490/post-16322002

Just wanted to say that due to the thread's closure, I never got to really +1 Synobun's reply to my post. Because I agreed with it. My post solely was the argument that if we were to call it "attempted social erasure", the "attempted" part was not relevant. I believe the case of the matter was objectively genocide (comparing to other historical events that are called genocide), but if we were to call it something different, eg "social erasure", "attempted" shouldn't be part of it, or not really relevant as to whether the politicians in question should be... criticized, at least, for it. Using some soft language, which I don't believe they deserve. As long as it's explicitly done by a social entity, and the intent of erasure/genocide is present, attempted isn't relevant. Again, as I noted in the post, when an officer of the US tried to distribute infected carpets among native americans to deliberately kill that group, it was genocide. Whether the social erasure intended by Florida succeeds or not, it's not really that relevant. The actors should be removed from power.

If I were to bring a gun and shoot someone innocent, but being an awful marksman, I still attempted to shoot someone. Now, there's degrees as to the outcome of what I'm trying to do with the gun, and accordingly degrees of punishment, but I still tried to shoot someone. It's a shooting, whether I'm good at it nor not. Similarly... It doesn't really matter if I use the wrong poison to poison a water supply with the intent of killing a population. I guess the poison was too weak, or didn't mix well with water... I still have the explicit intent of removing a population.

So I was giving the "social erasure" phrasing the benefit of the doubt and stated that even there, "attempted" isn't that relevant as to whether it's social erasure. It has some nuances in consequence of punishment, but it follows still that it's social erasure.

Similarly, genocide has certain outcomes in punishment depending on the degree (sadly), but it's still genocide.

 

[danjuno]

Broke: humanitarian intervention in Afghanistan
Woke: humanitarian intervention in Alberta

Stop! I can already hear Exxon executives hyperventilating with dollar signs in their eyes at the prospect!

 

[sophie]

Think holocaust or deliberate attempt to exterminate an ethnic group.

So, the UN definition.

 

[Zardnaar]

So, the UN definition.

Sort of but people are reading a bit to much into the in part wording.

If in part means killing a few people almost anything war related counts as genocide.

For me it's more about intent. Civilians die in war most of the time it's not genocide. Deliberate attempt to exterminate an ethnic group yeah sure.

Applying the word to situations like that let alone domestic political type stuff doesn't help imho.

 

[Angst]

Sort of but people are reading a bit to much into the in part wording.

If in part means killing a few people almost anything war related counts as genocide.

For me it's more about intent. Civilians die in war most of the time it's not genocide. Deliberate attempt to exterminate an ethnic group yeah sure.

Applying the word to situations like that let alone domestic political type stuff doesn't help imho.

I don't quite understand what you're getting at here. The in part... part has the point that you still commit genocide if your genocide happens to not remove all of the people.

Say that one people, the Zongords, lives on two islands, one belonging to one state and one to another. If the former state then kills all of the Zongords on the first island, that's genocide. This extends into domestic affairs.

Genocide doesn't have to be widespread, either, or succesful. If I police a village in a state of 60+ million people and round up all Zongords and kill them, it falls under the definition.

Like, you're on point with the intent. What's the "part" thing that the UN has a worse understanding of? Because in the case of the two islands, the UN definitely recognizes that it's genocide, and regular people do too.

EDIT and yea might be missing the point because I haven't followed the posts you're answering to, that's why I'm asking you to elaborate. I don't see much of a division between UN definition and popular mook definition.

 

[Zardnaar]

I don't quite understand what you're getting at here. The in part... part has the point that you still commit genocide if your genocide happens to not remove all of the people.

Say that one people, the Zongords, lives on two islands, one belonging to one state and one to another. If the former state then kills all of the Zongords on the first island, that's genocide. This extends into domestic affairs.

Genocide doesn't have to be widespread, either, or succesful. If I police a village in a state of 60+ million people and round up all Zongords and kill them, it falls under the definition.

Like, you're on point with the intent. What's the "part" thing that the UN has a worse understanding of? Because in the case of the two islands, the UN definitely recognizes that it's genocide, and regular people do too.

EDIT and yea might be missing the point because I haven't followed the posts you're answering to, that's why I'm asking you to elaborate. I don't see much of a division between UN definition and popular mook definition.

People are applying the UN definition to situations where genocide doesn't apply imho. Trans and women rights.

 

[Angst]

People are applying the UN definition to situations where genocide doesn't apply imho. Trans and women rights.

I would follow this up but seeing the other thread was closed, I'm not sure it's appropriate here.

 

[Zardnaar]

I would follow this up but seeing the other thread was closed, I'm not sure it's appropriate here.

Well OP here mentions women's rights in Afghanistan.

They're not an ethnic group and even if they were the Taliban aren't trying to exterminate them en masse.