this post was submitted on 19 Nov 2024
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Has there ever been a genocide in history where no one was killed?
Honestly, if we're going to use such standards and definitions that a "nonviolent genocide" is possible, then I'm not sure I understand what makes such a thing wrong. In Japan, the number of people who believe in and practice Shinto is in decline, and more and more people are paying for Western style weddings, so temples are struggling to keep their doors open. Is that an inherently bad thing? Is that genocide? How about in the context of the Allies pressuring the emperor to renounce his claims to divinity, undermining a major aspect of Shinto beliefs? Because it seems to me like that did more good than harm. Does that mean I support the (mostly) "nonviolent genocide" of Imperial Japanese culture?
Or perhaps a better example: After 9/11, there was a wave of hate crimes against Muslims, the US extrajudicially detained people (primarily Muslim) without trial and subjected them to numerous human rights abuses, and there were many people talking about how, "Islam is a religion of violence," and about "Turning the desert to glass," and the country started two wars with Muslim countries in which about a million people were killed. Did that constitute a genocide? Why or why not?
Come on, you can do better than that.
People changing their culture on their own volition is obviously different from people being forced to by those in power.
That's a slightly better point. The main argument for genocide though is, that a whole population is forced to erase their culture. The population of japan could have chosen to ignore the obviously forced statement and continued to believe in their faith. And it seems like they did if shinto is still a thing, even if it is struggling like many other religions are.
Is it? Genocide doesn't necessarily have to be conducted by the state. If a a roving militia or gang of mercenaries went around killing a certain kind of people en masse, then it could still be considered genocide. So if we're allowing for this idea of a bloodless genocide, then I'm not sure it's obvious how non-state actors taking nonviolent actions that cause the decline of a culture don't meet your definition.
"Forced," but not through killing.
There's often a disconnect between first generation immigrants and their kids, who often end up adopting the culture they live in over their home culture through various social pressures. The fact that the US has road signs only in English forces people to learn English, doesn't it? Are those road signs genocide? If public schools fail to make accommodations in terms of language, if they teach history from a different perspective than what their parents grew up with, is that genocide?
It's absurd. What a coincidence that the first "nonviolent genocide" in history happens to come from the US's chief geopolitical rival. It's a dilution of the word for political reasons that attempts to put much less bad things on the same level as the mass extermination of a people. The primary reason that genocide is wrong is the violence accociated with it.
No, they did not. The emperor's divinity was one aspect of Shinto, and a significant one, but Shinto was never like a monotheistic tradition.