Why do Liberals consider the Holodomor as a “Genocide” but not the 1990s Russian Federation famine; at the same time they consider the Uyghur Issues as a “Genocide” but not the European Minorities (Scots, Welsh, Irish, Bretton, Catalonians, Basques, Sami etc) as several genocides?
I don’t think I need to elaborate any more here, except that I simply can’t understand why the whole “genocide denial” thing always apply to Ukrainians and Uyghurs but never to 1990s Russians and or to Scots, Welsh, Irish, Bretton, Catalonians, Basques, Sami, Venetians, Occitanians, Galicians, Cornish and the like. And even about the Indigenous peoples of the Americas and of Africa and Oceania too. And also, if Liberals are too obsessed with Holodomor, why don’t they talk about 1990s Russian Federation famine and about all the post-1990 famines all around the world on capitalist countries? Or even about historical capitalist famines like the Irish Potato Famine and all the famines on the British Raj? At this point liberals are even more genocide deniers than any tankie ever.
Personally, I’m half-Italian (half-Venetian) by blood, and there are literally very few content about the genocide / ethnic cleasing / cultural genocide Venetians have suffered over centuries under Austrian and Italian occupation… Brazilian Venetians have some things in common with pre-Italy Veneto than post-Italian Unification Veneto. Without mention it is also possible to talk about the genocide of Catalonians, Basques, Brettons, Occitanians, the Cornish, the Scots, the Welsh, the Irish, the Sami, and so over Europe, without mention all of the genocides that happened on the Americas against Natives as well.
“Genocide” is a political/social category. There are people who want you to believe that civil rights are genocide, there are people who want you to believe what is happening in Gaza to the Palestinians isn’t genocide.
Genocide was defined by the UN in like 1950-51. Before then nothing was really called genocide because the term didn’t really exist. It had to be redefined by the UN in order for the term to be ratified because historically colonialist countries like France, GB, the US, realized that their history could be defined as genocidal. While it was being ratified, the US was decimating North Korea with bombs and caused over a million deaths, the “Korean War” was a genocide. But now most people don’t know anything about it.
Because it is political, that means that what gets called a genocide is determined by struggle over time. The term (rightly) elicits an extremely negative reaction from most people, the definition has power both psychologically and legally. But it doesn’t have an essential quality, it isn’t beholden to undeniable natural laws (especially considering that even natural consequences are also deniable and therefore political.) So we fight to have legitimate genocides be recognized as such, while our enemies fight to use the term to slander the history of socialism and justify military action against countries attempting policies like land reform and nationalization of resources.
Yeah, you’re right about that.
I don’t have anything to criticize on your comment, you were very complete on that.
I would also add that terms like “Democracy”, “Authoritarianism”, “Totalitarianism”, “Extremism”, “Radicalism” and the like are also political/social categories. Like, Liberals want we all to believe that a political system where you can only participate by voting periodically and where you can barely choose your candidates because the candidate appointed by the Capital-Market almost always wins is “democracy” but a political system where you can actively participate of politics and even directly help your community without the risk of your community project be crackdown by a privatization and or prohibited by a parliament and or a supreme cort is “dictatorship”. Same way Liberals legit want us to think that we must tolerate everyone under a Council/Proletariat/People’s/Worker’s Democracy, including racism, xenophobia, fascism, ableism, homophobia etc because it is all “opinions” and “freedom of speech” while liberals are fine with Liberal “Democracies” brutally suppress Leftists and Pro-Palestinian people because it is “the law”. Same way liberals legit think that the mere fact of we socialists/communists make opposition to a political group like the right-wing and or new atheists (Reddit/RationalWiki-style Atheists - Neopositivists, Scientificists and the like) and or religious fundamentalists (like Christian Nationalists, Zionists etc) is “wanting to genocide everyone you disagree with” yet liberals/radlibs wanting the mass arrest/prison of Socialists/Communists/Leftists is “fine” because “it is law enforcement”.
I would even say that the law and justice are political/social categories and are just like the terms previously mentioned here, I mean, treating about political/social themes, of course. Yet, that is fun how much Liberals think that ppl can’t criticize “democracy” because “It is the will of majority” and they will just go like this: https://hexbear.net/post/1739941
Depending on how we perceive things, I agree, just about everything is, or can be made to be, political. I think probably one of the biggest exceptions here is democratic, of all things. We learn that Democracy is a political system, when really its a political process and has very little to do with the actual politics.
The part of democracy that, to me, seems the most political and urgent is the way it is defined. The ruling class defines it as a parliamentary democracy where, as you mentioned, the masses have very little direct political power and basically anything that isn’t this specific form, is called authoritarianism, dictatorship or whatever. Socialists struggle to expand this definition or implement new forms of more direct democracy where political power stays with the people where it originates.