MovieChat Forums > Holocaust (1978) Discussion > Genocide

Genocide

posted 14 years ago by zapkvrsc
7 replies | jump to latest

Isn't it to our great shame that the two greatest examples of attempted genocide ever perpertrated by humans on one another have never even been acknowledged by the mass media and still less they should attract the attention this movie did - worthy though it is. The Armenian massacre by the fascist Ataturk took place under the noses of the EuropeanS. The U.S. is also complicit in that they knew of it and did nothing. The second great attempt by a lunatic to wipe out a people sees the U.S. as even more complicit. When Pol Pot was butchering the Cambodian people to oblivion he had very few friends in the U.N. save for the U.S. and Australia. Their attitude was driven entirely by their hatred of the Vietnamese for what was done to them during the undecalred war in Vietnam. At least Australia came to its senses three years earlier than the U.S. who were eventually thrown out. And it is happeneing again in Iraq.

If you are not busy being born, you are busy dying.

[–] kaufmeisterin 14 years ago

[sarcasm]But you cannot compare that with the Holocaust! No! No! No! The Holocaust was of course something completely different and unique!

It is standing alone, so to speak, and it must be [s]celebrated[/s] remembered at all time for ever! These other (of course less important!!) unpleasant acts against some savages somewhere else cannot be looked at in the same way, no no, they can't![/sarcasm]

[–] theluckdog 14 years ago

I always thought that I was psychic .... now I know for sure.

The moment I laid eyes on ONLY the title of this thread, I somehow knew without a doubt it was going to have something to do with how the U.S. was responsible for countless genocides around the world.

SURPRISE!! I prophesized correctly. (Well, actually it wasn't a "surprise", me being psychic & stuff)

It was really neat how you threw in the deal about Iraq. Funny thing is however, if the U.S. WOULD have done something about the Armenian Genocide, like sent in troops, my now-proven psychic sense tells me that you would be contradicting yourself in this very enlightening post. You would be one of the first ones to COMPLAIN about how we actually had the nerve to pick on that little country & keep Ataturk from kiling any more people .... you know, kinda like we did in Iraq, with Hussein.

P.S. I'm doing a report on how many times the U.S. has picked on countries it had no business messing with .... like, oh, say maybe when a dictator was committing mass genocide there. I need a bit more information on a couple of these incidents. I'm sure you can help me out with all the info you have on them.

#1 - Rumour is that Dubya's great, great, great, great, great, grandfather secretly sold bows & arrows to Genghis Khan, when he was killing all of those poor people in central Asia.

#2 - And didn't the U.S. actually send Delta Force over to help Leonidas fight the Persians at Thermopylae. That's widely considered where the first little fledgling Democracies started. And everyone KNOWS how we just love to fight off bad guys, so we can get a Democratic government installed there to help expand our American Empire.

P.S.S. That area of Greece has LOTS of Olive trees too. So it just makes sense that we tried to occupy the place .... or at the very least put in a government that's friendly to us. Why? Well, common sense .... Olive trees make Olive Oil. And EVERYONE knows how the U.S. likes oil!!

[–] 14 years ago

[deleted]

[–] jakob3 12 years ago

The Holocaust never should be set against other genocides.
The publicity & study given to Shoah never should be resented.
Why? Not because Jews are uniquely superior, but because Shoah
is a WINDOW (since we know so much about it) into the other genocides,
and a spur to us, to study them as well.

[–] shoobe01-1 9 years ago

I know it's three years later, but well said.

Now, to the somewhat trollish OP point, there is a minor one people like to miss in what we must admit is a bit of latent semitism:

The perpetrated Holocaust during WW2 was slightly exception in size and in method.

The Congo under King Leopold II killed anywhere up to 10 MM people. But many from disease (essentially accidental due to contact), starvation and over work. Some atrocities such as direct violence against the people, but all or mostly to incite (if stupidly) economic performance. Despite the horrifying results no one today has heard of, the death toll is essentially incidental to their economic goals. Ah, capitalism!

Stalin killed as many as 7 MM in the Ukraine in the 1932/33 season due to sending all the farmers into the wilderness. Some were certainly shot by troops when they rebelled, and some thousands were arrested and shot without trial for the same, but the millions were at best killed by hubris and communist mismanagement this time around.

The Armenian Genocide was largely carried out by starvation and related activities (work camps, forced marches). There were some instances of deliberate massacres but that is thousands, not millions.

Cambodia in the late 1970s killed less that 2 million people, but is one of the few that comes close for me due to the mostly deliberate nature of the deaths. Individuals were selected on orders based on politics, and then executed.

And yet, even Pol Pot only issued "go kill these sorts of people people" orders, without the organized industrial murder that the Nazis carried out. Remember, they let contracts to build centers to kill people on a literally unprecedented scale, and changed the timetable of trains to prioritize the killing over things like feeding their population and winning the war.

That is why.

[–] Finker (185) 6 years ago

"The Armenian massacre" Never happened

[–] Bette (12) 6 years ago

Jewish holocaust