Ethnic cleansing: Difference between revisions

== Etymology ==

[[File:Refugees at the Taurus Pass.jpg|thumb|Refugees at Taurus Pass during the [[Armenian genocide]]. The [[Young Turk triumvirate]] aimed to reduce the number of Armenians to below 5–10% of the population in any part of the [[Ottoman empire]], which resulted in the elimination of a million Armenians.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Akçam |first1=Taner |author1-link=Taner Akcam |title=[[The Young Turks' Crime Against Humanity: The Armenian Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing in the Ottoman Empire]] |date=2011 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-0-691-15333-9 |language=en |chapter=Demographic Policy and the Annihilation of the Armenians|quote=The thesis being proposed here is that the Armenian Genocide was not implemented solely as demographic engineering, but also as destruction and annihilation, and that the 5 to 10 percent principle was decisive in achieving this goal. Care was taken so that the number of Armenians deported to Syria, and those who remained behind, would not exceed 5 to 10 percent of the population of the places in which they were found. Such a result could be achieved only through annihilation... According to official Ottoman statistics, it was necessary to reduce the prewar population of 1.3 million Armenians to approximately 200,000.}}</ref>]]

 

An antecedent to the term is the Greek word {{lang|grc-Latn|andrapodismos}} ({{lang|grc|ἀνδραποδισμός}}; lit. "enslavement"), which was used in ancient texts. e.g., to describe atrocities that accompanied [[Alexander the Great]]'s [[Battle of Thebes|conquest of Thebes]] in 335 [[Common Era|BCE]].<ref name="Booth">{{cite book|year=2012|title=The Kosovo Tragedy: The Human Rights Dimensions|editor-last=Booth|editor-first=Ken |first=Carrie |last=Booth Walling |contribution=The History and Politics of Ethnic Cleansing|publisher=Routledge|location=London|isbn=978-1-13633-476-4|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=e4MsBgAAQBAJ|page=48}}</ref> The [[expulsion of the Moriscos]] from Spain between 1609 and 1614 is considered by some authors to be one of the first episodes of state-sponsored ethnic cleansing in the modern western world.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Saldanha |first1=Arun |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4bRvAAAAQBAJ&q=ethnic+cleansing&pg=PA51 |title=Deleuze and Race |date=2012 |publisher=Edinburgh University Press |isbn=978-0-7486-6961-5 |pages=51, 70 |language=en}}</ref> [[Raphael Lemkin]], who coined the term "genocide", considered the [[Native American genocide in the United States|displacement of Native Americans]] by American settlers as a historical example of genocide.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=McDonnell |first1=M. A. |last2=Moses |first2=A. D. |author2-link=A. Dirk Moses |date=2005 |title=Raphael Lemkin as historian of genocide in the Americas |journal=[[Journal of Genocide Research]] |volume=7 |pages=501–529 |doi=10.1080/14623520500349951 |s2cid=72663247 |number=4}}</ref> Others, like historian Gary Anderson, contend that genocide does not accurately characterize any aspect of American history, suggesting instead that ethnic cleansing is a more appropriate term.<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal |last=Sousa |first=Ashley |date=2016 |title=Ethnic Cleansing and the Indian: The Crime That Should Haunt America by Gary Clayton Anderson |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/soh.2016.0023 |journal=Journal of Southern History |volume=82 |issue=1 |pages=135–136 |doi=10.1353/soh.2016.0023 |s2cid=159731284 |issn=2325-6893}}</ref> Circassian genocide, also known as "[[Tsitsekun]]", is often regarded by various historians as the first large-scale ethnic cleansing campaign launched by a state during the 19th century [[industrial era]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Richmond |first=Walter |title=The Circassian Genocide |publisher=Rutgers University Press |year=2013 |isbn=978-0-8135-6068-7 |location=New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA |pages=66|chapter=3: From War to Genocide}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Levene |first=Mark |author-link=Mark Levene |isbn= 1-84511-057-9 | title=Genocide in the Age of the Nation-State Volume II: The Rise of the West and the Coming of Genocide |year=2005|pages=298–302|chapter=6: Declining Powers |publisher=175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010}}</ref> [[Imperial Russian]] general [[Nikolay Yevdokimov|Nikolay Yevdakimov]], who supervised the operations of [[Circassian genocide]] during 1860s, dehumanised Muslim Circassians as "a pestilence" to be expelled from their native lands. Russian objective was the annexation of land; and the Russian military operations that forcibly deported Circassians were designated by Yevdakimov as “''ochishchenie''” (cleansing).<ref name="Richmond 2013 96, 97"/>