Talk:Ethnic cleansing

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Original research

This article is rife with original research. Too may editors are assuming that because people were deported, expelled killed or whatever that the events must be ethnic cleansing. It is not the job of Wikipedia editors to draw those conclusions. For there to be an entry here the terms needs to be attributed in the text to an authority. Take for example the two entries in Ethnic cleansing#Early modern history and compare them with the first entry for the 20th century:

Armenian genocide-ethnic cleansings of armenian population of Ottoman Turkey is said to be the first genocide of 20th century, starting from Hamidian massacres in the end of 19-th century till 1923 in Cilicia and has reached its peak in 1915.

Now clearly that was an example of ethnic cleansing on a massive scale. But while I can and other editors can express an opinion on the talk page. It is not up to us to do so. What we should do is find reliable sources as has been done for the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland and in the article attribute to historians and other experts their expert opinion on events that they consider to be ethnic cleansing as is done for the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland. The more obvious the ethic cleansing the easier it should be to find sources. If there is significant opinion that an episode was not ethnic cleansing, then that too should be included and give due weight against those who think it was. I had hoped that others would clean up the 20th century but as they have not done so I am going to give it a shot. -- PBS (talk) 00:29, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

So the first need is to find a reliable source to construct a better entry for the Armenian genocide. Google Google ah yes here is one:

• Birch, Nichola (15 December 2008). "Turkish academics in apology to Armenians". The Independent.

I can now write an basic entry for this event:

In December 2008 200 Turkish intellectuals and academics issued an apology for the ethnic cleansing of Armenians during World War I, an event that most Western historians view as amounting to a genocide. (citing Nichola Birch).

Others may wish to expand on that, and add in the Turkish official position and other details and points of view by other people. But it now expresses the views of "200 Turkish intellectuals and academics" rather than that of Wikipedia editors in the passive narrative of the article. -- PBS (talk) 00:49, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

18 October 2010

In the section "Early modern history" I removed the bullet point for the the Trail of Tears because there is no in text attribution of an expert for the entry. It was reinstated by user:Seb az86556 with with "right..."

The current entry reads:

• On May 26, 1830, president Andrew Jackson of the United States signed the Indian Removal Act which resulted in the Trail of Tears.

In Congress and the emergence of sectionalism: from the Missouri Compromise to ... by Paul Finkelman, Donald R. Kennon the cited page is 254 but page 141 is probably better, and to balance the POV pagee 15 probably needs to be mentioned.

The other two books are not accessible via Google books at my location. Please quote what they say, or we could replace them with page 15 in American encounters: natives and newcomers from European contact to Indian ... by Peter C. Mancall, James Hart Merrell because it has the huge advantage that it sums up the issue by attribution the points in the text to other sources (so they pick the experts for us) and is close to what is needed here. It also helps that the Finkelman source and the Mancall say much the same thing as this helps write summaries without plagiarism. -- PBS (talk) 21:30, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Fully accepted, I don't care what specific ref is used; actually, if I remember correctly, I quick-and-dirty reffed it a while back after someone tried to take it out multiple times. I'm sure there are more sources available. Good job on backchecking here.

In general, the criticism-bit would apply to anything that took place before the "official definition". Maybe putting it into an intro to the whole examples-list is worth considering. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 22:13, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

19 October 2010

The Genocides in history article says "In nearly every case where accusations of genocide ethnic cleansing have circulated, partisans of various sides have fiercely disputed the interpretation and details of the event, often to the point of promoting wildly different versions of the facts. An accusation of genocide ethnic cleansing is certainly not taken lightly and will almost always be controversial." As you can see I have modified it for this article.

On 19 October 2010, user:Дунгане, you added these entries:

• During the Boxer Rebellion ...
• The Kuomintang Chinese Muslim ...
• In 1925, a Tibetan rebellion broke ...
• However, that was not the last Labrang saw of General Ma ...
• The Republic of China government supported
• In 1936 when Sheng Shicai expelled

You very kindly left the searches you used which gooole books in the links to the google book pages for example http://books.google.com/books?id=DbkfQATHikQC&pg=PA72&dq=ma+bufang+ethnic+cleansing+tibetans&hl=en&ei=NBUhTKnpOcH7lwfr64l-&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDIQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=ma%20bufang%20ethnic%20cleansing%20tibetans&f=false which links to a page written by David S. G. Goodman "[In the 1930 and 1940s] Ma Buang established ... a separate Islamic state-within-a-state ... and undertook a campaign of ethnic cleansing amongst the Tibetans in north-eastern ..." please could you modify the entry so that it gives a brief description of the events and mentions in the text of the article that David Goodman has stated that this was a campaign of ethnic cleansing. If you have other sources that make the claim then so much the better (as we can say something along the lines of "[best source]] and others have stated".

We should not be making the claim in the passive narrative voice of the article and if you do not have a source that we can specifically attribute for the claim of ethnic cleansing for some of your other entries, then they should be removed because even if it is obvious to every editor that it was ethnic cleansing joining up the dots like that is WP:OR.

For example in the the first entry you added was "the During the Boxer Rebellion, the Russian Cossacks committed genocide and ethnic cleansing on Manchus." but the source for that entry while describing the events does not state it was ethnic cleansing, so it is not possible to attribute the text to that source. Do you have another that state that this was genocide and ethnic cleansing? If not then the entry should be deleted because it is OR. -- PBS (talk) 20:46, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

fixed. I removed several entries and changed others to note that the genocide and ethnic cleanse label was expressed by the author.Дунгане (talk) 21:47, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

It looks much better.

Phrases like "The actions of these Generals have been called Genocidal by some authors." should not be used because they are weasel words and invite the obvious "which authors" how many etc etc. I am not sure what that bullet point is mean to be about and it carries no sources. The bullet point "However, that was not ..." which although sourced seems to be about genocide not ethnic cleansing. I know that the two are on a continuum, but rightly or wrongly this is a article about ethnic cleansing and not about genocide (see genocides in history). This is meant to be a list of brief entries as sentence or two on what when and who says with links to main articles. If there is enough information for several paragraphs then please look around for a more suitable article into which the information could be placed, or create one and then introduce the subject here in a sentence or two. As far as I can tell Goodman only accuses Ma Buang of ethic cleansing of Tibetans in certain regions in the province he controlled and does not directly link it to "seven extermination expeditions into Golog". -- PBS (talk) 22:21, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Uradyn Erden Bulag called it genocidal, i listed their names, and the actions, respectively genocide and ethnic cleansing in the order of the authors who made the claims.Дунгане (talk) 03:41, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

COI reversion

I have reverted the most recent edits because the editor who added them is also the author of the works cited. I have reminded him again of Wikipedia's COI rules on his talkpage.--Kintetsubuffalo (talk) 13:54, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Why is ethnic cleansing categorized within euphemisms?

Why is ethnic cleansing included in the list of euphemisms?--Antidiskriminator (talk) 10:00, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Because it's a euphemism for mass-murder. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 10:12, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Can someone provide RS for this claim within reasonable period of time, i.e. one week?--Antidiskriminator (talk) 10:52, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

The first sentence/definition has a ref. That's completely sufficient. There is nothing "clean" about the so-called "cleansing." Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 11:07, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Please provide inline citation for the claim about euphemism.--Antidiskriminator (talk) 11:24, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Not needed. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 11:26, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

This article is replete with implicit anti-Serbian sentiment

In a tradition well established in the English speaking world since the days of Yugoslav wars, a crime committed by Serbs is by rule called a "Serbian crime", whereas a crime committed by Croats, Albanians or Bosniaks is called simply "crime". The abbreviation "NDH" is used to avoid the mention of the Croatian fascist state during WWII, while no such abbreviations ("JNA", "SRJ") are ever used to avoid identification of those who committed crimes with the entire Serbian people.

This perpetuates negative stereotypes and therefore I have changed it; the days of propaganda ended many years ago and, at least we in the Balkans, see no relation between crime and ethnicity. There is no "Serbian ethnic cleansing".

The deletion of my changes, on the other hand, shows just how deliberate and deeply rooted this anti-Serbism is. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.20.104.30 (talk) 03:41, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

I have altered the wording slightly. I would say that a bigger concern than this would be the account of Operation Storm, which I have just changed. Anyone who reads on this will find that the idea that all the Serbs left Croatia voluntarily is a war-time lie, which parallels the enduring myth that most of the Arabs left Palestine voluntarily after the 1948 war. I suggest that we keep an eye on the Balkans section and ensure that it is balanced and not hijacked by partisans of either side. Epa101 (talk) 11:47, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Pre-20th Century Examples are Ridiculous

Many of the pre-20th century examples are about Jewish events. I have two problems with this. One is that the term Ethnic Cleansing is really a 20th century term/phenomenon (but still ongoing). Ethnicity, Race, and even how we understand Religion is quite different then it was in the pre-modern world and so the term can't be applied to pre-20th century events in general. It wasn't like Ethnic Cleansing was always an Idea which humanity finally discovered in the 20th century. This isn't physics or math. It is an Idea that came from the sociological development of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Second, especially with the Jew examples. You can't ethnically cleanse people who are not apart of the land or have no right to it. If anything the Torah clearly records very brutal ethnic cleansing in the thousands and tens of thousands(for that time period an entire ethnic group or civilization) by the Jews. It also includes acts of genocide by the Jews. So if you are going to relate the so called "ethnic cleansing" of a few HUNDRED Jews in 13th century England then please list all the acts of "ethnic cleansing" by the Jews themselves.GegenIsrael (talk) 09:26, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

There are only two of these examples that relate to the Jews and both have references from sources that use the phrase "ethnic cleansing", so they should be maintained. You can dispute that any of the examples in the article were "ethnic cleansing", but the criterion for their inclusion is their reference in a respectable source. As regards the Torah, it does describe ethnic cleansing and genocide, but many people would regard this is as myth rather than history. Do you really think that Joshua killed all those people? I think that such Biblical events are only included if there is secular evidence to support the claims in the religious texts. Epa101 (talk) 20:19, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Couple things here. First I disagree still with their inclusion. But I am willing to debate it some more and perhaps find counter sources or find errors in the sources. Frankly, I don't think you addressed the issue which is that the term is a modern one which is improperly applied to the past. But more seriously, these "myths" you describe are held to be "real" events by billions of people. I am not one of them, but I would not quite so easily dismiss this. That is, I don't believe in their literal truth in the modern sense. Third, the example you use is to be polite, a little silly. It is historic fact that Israel during its migratory phase out of Egypt into the "promised" land did eliminate other ethic tribes and communities. The literal description in the Torah is most likely off by modern standards in terms of numbers but it attests to the 'event' which is the issue here. So for instance, I would include the massacres by the early Israelites but of course I would leave out a precise number of people massacred or give a general range which history can attest. But to talk about a few hundred Jews in England being Ethnically Cleansed in the 13th century is a joke and frankly is propaganda. If the 13th century England example is a proper example there are literally thousands of pages of examples that can be made by every ethnic group based on that number. Its inclusion if if acceptable overly stresses this group at the expense of others.GegenIsrael (talk) 23:46, 15 May 2011 (UTC)