When You Kill Ten Million Africans You Aren't Called 'Hitler' (2010) | Hacker News Reader

When You Kill Ten Million Africans You Aren't Called 'Hitler' (2010)

walkingbutterfly.com

24 pointsdsr1223 comments

Learned about Leopold II in high school, Heart Of Darkness was a book we read in class, King Leopold's Ghost is a popular book today.

You could just as easily say that 'No one calls Mao Hitler' as well (though of course many do), as his horrors aren't given the same focus either.

What about Genghis Khan? His exploits killed a significant integer percentage of the entire human race! Yet he's more likely to be revered than compared to Hitler.

The presumption that only black mass murders are skipped over, then, is utter nonsense. Why some are focused on whilst other ignored (or in the case of Genghis, revered) is a mystery. And let us not forget that Genghis even killed white people, just like Hitler!

Yeah, but his victims were not rich jews.

Do you really believe we would still be so interested in the Holocaust if only black people were killed?!

Ps.: Not trying to be anti-semitic. But the fact that Israel and the Jew "community" are powerful players in the world economy does add to the perceived importance of the holocaust.

You are very clearly being anti-semitic. I don't have the power to downvote, but comments like this should always be repudiated. Putting the word "community" in quotes, talking about "rich Jews" as the only victims of the Holocaust, and strongly implying that Jews control the media narrative because of some unified global economic power make you an anti-semite of the worst kind. You can't just say "not trying to be anti-semitic" and think that gives you a pass. You are anti-semitic based on what you are saying. Everything you are saying is unfounded and based on bigoted tropes that have been around for centuries. Own what you say and what you explicitly imply, and defend it if you think it's true.

You are the worst kind of coward.

I put the 'community' in quotes because I really don't know if the jewish culture could be considered a community, as it's bigger than that.

Again, where in my post do I say that the Jews where the only victims of the holocaust?

Do you really have any doubt about the influence of the jewish people?! For me this is just common sense.

Just explain to me what's particular about the holocaust that makes it much more important than any other genocide in our recent history.

I really don't believe there's anything.

Look, this isn't the right forum and I'm not the right person to engage in this. Though I appreciate that your are engaging in a civil manner, I don't think you're being honest with yourself here either, and I recommend you take a deep look at the precise words of your post to understand why.

If you don't want to be perceived as anti-semitic take some time to learn the difference between the words Jew and Jewish as in your gross use of "Jew 'community'"

When you use a phrase like "Jew 'community' and then discuss 'rich jews' as though the victims of the Nazis were solely Jews or were 'rich' it is difficult to take you as anything other than anti-semitic, which in fact, is what I consider you.

If you wish to upgrade to 'just an ignorant jerk with anti-semitic overtones' please do.

So, you are accusing me of anti-semitism because of a bad choice of words?

Where in my post do I say that only rich jews were victims, or even only jews? Please enlighten me.

I am honestly curious, is English your first language, and may I ask where you were born and educated?

If you and I were in a room, and it was apparent you were an American as am I, and educated in the US, and you used phrases like the 'the Jew community', yes, that phrasing is an indicator of anti-semitism as much as either of us tossing around the n word might be an indicator of bigotry against blacks.

And I would say that is probably true for most countries where English is spoken as a first language.

When you write "Yeah, but his victims were not rich jews" you pretty much state his victims were rich Jews and if not for that, we might not hear about the Holocaust.

It is clear the vast majority of the victims of the gas chambers were very far from "rich".

Israel of course has very little to do with why we remember the Holocaust. But if you don't understand why we study WWII and the Holocaust apart from "rich Jews" again I have to wonder, honestly, where were you born and educated?

No, english is not my first language (not even second). Here in Brazil we don't have a strong influence from the jewish culture.

When I say "rich jews" I could be saying "rich whites" or black "community". I really don't see how that could be impolite. Maybe not the best choice of words. But I do apologize if I offended someone.

I know pretty well that jews were not the only victims and surely not all of them were rich. But that was not my point.

I understand the importance of WWII and the holocaust. But the holocaust was not the only genocide of WWII (Hiroshima?), and surely not the only in our recent history.

So why do we focus so much on it?

I honestly think that the influence of the jewish culture is the primary reason. I don't think that's a jewish conspiracy. Just a consequence of history.

But I don't see anything particular about the holocaust that makes it more important than everything else.

For everything Hiroshima was, and it may have been a war crime, but it clearly was not a genocide.

"Rich Jews are in control of media" is a bigoted stereotype that saying "we wouldn't have heard about this except for rich Jews" runs afoul of.

Here are some pages that will let you know of the various anti-semitic tropes you referenced in your post as well as some reasons the Holocaust is unique amongst all the disgusting genocides:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust http://ww2history.com/experts/David_Cesarani/The_Nazi_hatred... http://www.simpletoremember.com/vitals/Why_Do_People_Hate_Th...

Again, you are putting words in my mouth. I've never said Rich Jews controlled media.

I said that rich jews have strong influence in our world. If you don't think that's true maybe we live in different planets.

Every genocide is unique. If you think the systematic mechanical killing of the holocaust is unique you haven't read the post you're commenting on. And surely you don't know much about history.

Again, it's important to lear about the holocaust? Absolutely! Was it one of the greatest acts of cruelty we know of? No doubt about it.

But I just think that there is so much more that we don't learn about (at least they don't teach at the school or make movies about it), that makes the holocaust seem like the pinnacle of human genocide. And that is not true.

We learn more about the holocaust than about slavery. And it was abolished only 125 years ago (in brazil). That's just nonsense for me.

The mechanical efficiency of the the mass killings, for one, is fairly unique. Also, the stories of the Holocaust are more widely heard because many of the people that were alive when it happened are still alive today. Genocide is genocide, but if the victims are alive to tell their stories it gives a particular event more focus. And finally, the fact that we were inundated with propaganda prior to entering in conflict against the Germans solidified the war in out collective conscience as "the US coming in to save the persecuted Jews."

I mean, one could make the same arguments about other genocidal leaders. Why isn't Mao in out textbooks? What about Pol Pot? Well, we didn't have the same level of propaganda regarding those leaders, and there aren't as many survivors that tell their stories in the U.S.

EDIT: added extra reason and examples

That's a good point.

But let me give you an example. Here in Brazil we had our own kind of holocaust. Very mechanical, and very cruel. But it was only last year that I have found out about it. From a documentary made about it's victims (one that is still alive today).

In contrast, I spent a lot of time in school learning about the holocaust. I watched a dozen movies about it. And I have lost count of the books I've read about it.

It was a cruelty beyond belief. But there are more recent genocides that don't get even a fraction of the attention. And why don't we learn about them?

Why the holocaust is treated as the worst human genocide in history when it clearly is not?

Even in our own (Brazilian) history there are genocides made by the empire that are very close to the mechanical cruelty of the holocaust. And we don't even learn about them on school. Why?

-------------------------------------

Note: I'm not arguing about the importance of learning about holocaust. I'm just saying that we should make room to learn about other mistakes that we made in our history. That's the only way we'll keep from making them again.

Why do you think only rich Jewish people were victims? Coming to that conclusion takes some insanely biased history lessons. Edit: reading your comment again, it's clear I gave the benefit of the doubt when I shouldn't have.

That's exactly the problem. I'm not.

I confess I don't know very much about the jewish culture. So that's why I used "Jew 'Community'", I really don't have enough knowledge to even say for sure that that's what they are usually called.

I know that the Jewish people (is it anti-semitic to say Jew?! I really don't know) were not the only victims (not even the majority). And I know for sure that most of them were not rich.

My entire point was: The reason we are always talking about the Holocaust, but not about the Gulags, or Congo, or Hiroshima, ect... Is because of the Jewish community influence.

I'm not saying that this is a bad thing. And surely not saying that this is a conspiracy of sorts. Just stating something that I believe is true.

If you really believe that there was something particular about the holocaust that makes it so more important than every other genocide in our recent history, please share it.

7 million Soviets, Poles and other Slavic people, mostly partisans died in concentration camps too. Of total estimated 11 mil. 6 mil are estimated Jews and rest were Slavs also Romas and others - Germans who opposed regime, homosexuals etc.

60 million losses altogether, around 30 mil. were Soviets only.

It's not very smart to state things before you bother to study at least some basics.

Point to me where I said that jews were the only victims?

It's not very smart to comment on a text you obviously haven't understood.

As much as I agree with the individual points in this article, the idea that this is a conspiracy is somewhat overblown. The fact is that violence on the scale of the Holocaust is scarily common throughout human history. The thing that is most special about it however is its ghastly efficiency, ideology, and modernity. It wasn't the scale of it, 30 million people died on the eastern front, and millions more were raped and terrorized in the territories it covered. It was the character of the Holocaust, its ghastly efficiency and modernity, that makes it so remembered today.

Additionally, in the western wold there is a large population of holocaust survivors keeping the memory alive. There are no currently living Congolese who were alive under King Leopold's reign around today, and their descendants do not have much of a voice in the western world either.

An extreme example of this indifference to things happening far away and long ago is the wars of the ancient world, where the brutality is rarely spoken of today. For instance, the fall of Carthage in the 3rd punic war, wherein the Romans literally destroyed the entire city and killed the vast majority of the entire population, some 445,000 people, a truly massive city in the ancient world.

What are you called when you kill 100,000 Iraqis?

It's probably relatively easy to dismiss 100,000 vs 1 million or 10 million, since in a way it just looks like "statistics". But look at it another way. How did you feel when someone close to you die? Just that one person, not 5 more, or 100x more. Now multiply how you felt by 100,000 times, and think about the damage to human life that was created.

Does it really matter that 1 million is 10x bigger than that, or is 100,000 "enough" to think the damage is immense?

There's a reasonably narrow definition of the term "genocide". Since it started with Lemkin, I recommend starting here: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raphael_Lemkin

It's become a little more complicated since, but intent was pretty much a constant condition, so I doubt this would qualify.

Also wanna add that scale is important to all things society, though I appreciate the humanity of your argument.

Couldn't it just be cultural spotlighting? People in western Europe and the US look at Hitler as the greatest evil because his actions were committed within their zone of influence and left a mark on their culture.

In Congo, I'm sure, the name "Leopold" is a bigger evil then Hitler. In the west, Hitler is the greatest evil because the victims are much closer to them. In Congo, I'm sure, not everyone knows who Hitler was. So, yes, in the west Leopold isn't called "Hitler" as true as in Congo Hitler is not called "Leopold".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congo_Free_State#Humanitarian_d...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com