were the Japanese worse than the Nazis?

IndianSummer wrote:

you will notice that the 4 greatest criminal peoples in the world are (in no particular order)

germanic man,
mongolian (as in from mongolia, i dont mean mongoloid),
arab-turkic
hispanic (latin american genocide and all).

pretty much all the greatest genocides in the world, barring the self inflicted commie carnages (like soviets on soviets or cambodians on cambodia), had these types on one or both sides of the war.

I think you will find that people are people all over the place. The main difference lying in resources and means. As if you Indians didnt war on eachother since the dawn of time as well... The european people have caused a lot of carnage, but not necessarily because we're demons, but because we could. We were the first to modernize, and hence the first to be enabled to atrocities on a modern genocidal scale.

I find it completely unconstructive to split humanity into "races" and attributing some with being more evil than others. (which is what you basically did here now) But if you want to feel all smug being Indian, go ahead. But you're no different in this respect.

Peace
Dan

A Surprise Left wrote:

The main difference is the Germans today are ashamed of what they did and fully admit in their education system the wrongs of the Nazi error. The Japanese meanwhile try to pretend they weren't so bad.

that main difference comes because of the lack of "war films" and books about the japanese attrocities by the chinese, phillipinos and all others at the receiving end of the japs.

Byrnzie wrote:

Could be a similar situation to the U.S.S.R whereby those in power prevented the true figures re: casualties from being released. It has since transpired that Soviet losses amounted to between 30 and 40 million between 1941 and 1945. When you compare that to the 300,000 British killed it kind of puts things into perspective.

Constructed memory is a problem in many countries, not just the ones who were the cause of the world wars.
In Australia we celebrate ANZAC Day, a day which most aussies remember war veterans who proudly fought in Gallipoli, but we lost the battle significantly. I bet half of us Australians wouldnt even know we lost that particular battle

UpHereInMyTree500 wrote:

Indian people are not out of being violent altogether either

Partition....one of the most gruesome 'wars' in history

thats just bollocks !!!!

india has been on the receiving end of the biggest and most continued mass murder (in the nads of muslims) for over 1000 years. and then we were reduced from being one of the richest countries to the poorest in the planet thanks to colonisation. add to that the dozen odd engineered famines, taking millions of lives each (you could read about Dr. Amarthya Sen's nobel prize winning work on that). And then that country was split and people had to cross from one side to another with whatever belongings they could take. during that exodus, pretty much the bottled up anger of all that history came out and millions died.

so even that "war" was engineered - its not for muslims to come and hack away in india for 1000 years. its not for poms to come and divide a country thats not theirs. we didnt kill/attack millions of englishmen. nor ever invaded a muslim country.

half the deaths during partition were due to starvation and diseases in any case (just like the deaths in today's african strife-torn countries).

IndianSummer wrote:

waging war and causing genocides are not the same thing. alexander and hitler are two different animals.

if its war you are talking about, then yes, pretty much everyone. if its deliberate hacking of people in village after village you are talking about, then i stand by my point.

War is the central element here. Modern scale genocide is a result of modern warfare and weapons. So I dont want to put a too big of a distinction between the two.

well it certainly wasnt all the european peoples. it was mainly the 6 colonial countries and then the would-be colonial, germany.

But we would, and had the drive to do so in our day. Why do you think norway own so many deserted islands in the arctic and antarctic? We knew we couldn't compete, but we wanted to expand as well. We also had a tiny slave colony back in the day.

if you mean rome, yes the first to mordenise. if you mean entire europe, then i have to differ.
of the 4 peoples i mentioned the ones to cause the first widespread mass murder were the mongols.

Mongols slaughtered, to be sure, but that would be "war" as you would have it. Modern genocide is something else entirely, both in quality and scale. And europe was the first to modernize (17-1800s) so we were the first to get access to the tools necessary for doing it. Mass murder and genocide isn't necessarily the same either. For a read about it, I recommend Bauman's "Modernity and Holocaust" for the machinations and underlying processes.

i find it very useful. at least that way we know that all of humanity wasnt to blame but only certain pockets. thats why i different from you said "european peoples" caused a lot of damage - cos that makes it seem like all of europe was colonial and/or nazi. when it was about 7-8 countries out of 40 odd.

And then miss the entire point that should be "and beware you dont do it yourself, because you too are very much capable of it". All of europe was colonial, if they were in a position to be. If nothing else, some islands in the pacific or caribbean would do. Drawing that distinction puts it at a safe distance where you can put it out of your mind, while the focus should be on the very human ability to do such things, and that ability is not exclusive to certain peoples...

i would feel just as smug had i been vietnamese, scandinavian, or from bolivia. these arnt the countries who did the attacking or mass killing.

But is that because we are so morally superior, or because we never were in a position to? Large difference there. I dont feel smug being norwegian, although according to you, I could. I have read enough history, world and norwegian to know we're no different at all. But we have never had power. Other than over our native people in the north which we sterilized, outlawed and oppressed for houndreds of years, thinking them no better than animals.

I know we're no better, and that the problem is general with humans. Just which group of humans get the power to be able to do such things vary, but do not think it's an intrinsic thing about certain coutnries and people, that your or my people are exempt from. There-in lies danger...

Peace
Dan

IndianSummer wrote:

you have your brain in your arse.

the mughals are people from turkmenistan who cvame and ruled india after killing as many hindus as they could. pretty much the way today's australins rule australia after wiping out - in this case entirely - the natives.

the marathas were indians to the core for all known history and they offered tremendous challenge to the mughals and the other muslims (who were with no exception from arabia or afghanistan or turkmenistan or iran or uzbegistan etc. ie. all invaders). if you are saying that challenging an invader/oppressor is a crime then you are insane.

but you are right in your first paraghapgh tho - wiping out an entire religion is indeed an attempt to genocide and thats what the muslim rulers from various invading countries tried to do. it wasnt attempted during partition - it was attempted from the 7th century AD when the first arabs came to india - and continued till partition - when all the bottled up animosity of both sides (hindus for having received all that stick for 100 years and having to leave behind a land that was always theirs - and muslims for having failed to establish "dar-ul-islam' in india) spilled out.

get your facts right.

and read this page - i could supply 100s, including history books from all top american colleges - but for now only this -

http://koenraadelst.bharatvani.org/articles/irin/genocide.html

and maybe these books -

http://www.voiceofdharma.com/books/hhrmi/

http://www.voiceofdharma.com/books/htemples1/

http://www.voiceofdharma.com/books/htemples2/

http://www.voiceofdharma.com/books/mla/

http://www.voiceofdharma.com/books/tlmr/

http://www.voiceofdharma.com/books/mssmi/

http://www.voiceofdharma.com/books/siii/



question - why are the "hindu kush" mountains called so and what do they mean??

well if youre saying the indians are not the mughals...which they obviously did not originate in Indian, then who are the indians? The Indus Valley Civilisation was taken over by Arians from the Iranian Plateau. This would mean that the Indians have an Arian background wouldnt it? It is possible though that the Indus Valley inhabitants did migrate east but it is yet to be proven