I suggest that atheists aren’t really a “group” in the same way that racial groups are. There is no affirmative characteristic that ties them together: they are an outgroup, not an ingroup, despite sometimes being treated as such.
One interesting group, rarely mentioned, is the Buraku in Japan. They are a “caste” minority pretty much indistinguishable from regular Japanese by outsiders, but whom are almost universally impoverished and harshly discriminated against as a matter of practice.
There is, indeed, a point. Personally, I don’t think the answer to this question can be absolute, or even quantifiable in any useful terms.
By asking the question, I wanted to get a bit of a feel for other people’s perceptions and/or which situations they are most aware of. I’d venture a guess the majority of Dopers are American, and mainstream news sources, not to mention historical education in the public school system, are pretty skewed in favor of portraying the suffering of certain groups, while completely ignoring others.
Example: in Illinois primary and secondary schools, there is a required history unit every year on the Holocaust. (FTR, I’m Jewish, and certainly have no objection to having kids learn about the Holocaust.) However, I never heard a word throughout my entire education about the Palestinians, the Tibetans, the Armenians, Aborigines, Tainos, or Baha’is, and there was about a paragraph on the Cherokee Trail of Tears, and 1 sentence about the Japanese internments during WWII (and that only because I took AP US History; it wasn’t taught in regular, or even honors history classes). Heck, there was no mention of an Eastern Front in WWII; I had absolutely no idea until I studied in Russia after college what the hell had happened anywhere east of Germany during the war. And the Chechens have been relegated to a line on p. 37 of the NY Times, if they’re mentioned at all.
I was just curious what level of exposure the rest of y’all had to man’s inhumanity to man, and what your thoughts on it were. Also, I’ve gotten the impression while reading various Middle East-related threads (or That General Neck of the Woods, as I called it recently) that the only people who stick up for the Arabs are those who have spent extensive periods of time or had some other type of direct exposure to life there.
I do think that those who don’t know their history and current events are more likely to participate in repeating their worst aspects, or stand idly by while others do. Just trying to gauge how likely it is that the U.S. will get embroiled in the Afghan situation over the long term rather than learning from the Russian experience, among other things.
Your thoughts? Please continue; this is most educational.
As my parents were big on reading and big on history, I’ve had a lot of exposure to the knowledge of persecution and atrocities.
In the words of REM, “Everybody cries.” What horrifies and sickens me is that, over and over and over, one persecuted group promptly turns around and persecutes another!
A good point. What generalizations can you possibly make about a group that includes me and Joseph Stalin? (Apart from “they don’t believe in God”, that is. Well, and me and Joe are both Georgians.)
I know that you have suffered much
But in this you are not so unique
—Bob Dylan, “Dear Landlord”
Top contenders, in no particular order:
Native Tasmanians, hunted for sport by the Euro invaders and completely wiped out.
South African San/Khoi peoples, driven to the fringes of the continent by blacks for over 1000 years, and then brutally abused with the coming of whites. Again, hunted for sport, surviving but totally marginalized.
Ethiopian Jews, subject to anti Jewish persecution in quasi Medieval, Christian and Muslim Ethiopia. Upon immigration to Israel, subject to the usual anti-black prejudice. Out of the fire, but into the frying pan.
Jews, and Armenians, for reasons already mentioned. And let’s not forget the (Catholic) Irish. Invaded, conquered, slaughtered and starved en masse, thousands sold into slavery by the British.
In the limited context of English speaking N.A., black Americans.
Having actually visited the PRC several times, I can tell you that’s pure bupkis.
I was simply making the point that atheists get a bad rap for no reason whatsoever. In the U.S., it runs the gamut from those who believe that atheists should be forced to participate in government-sponsored prayer, to those who consider atheists to be downright evil, or even in George Bush Sr.'s case, that they shouldn’t be allowed to be citizens - even though most of us would be hard-pressed to come up with any examples of any atheists in the U.S. ever doing anything evil.
I admit that it’s a silly distinction - that of determining the most unjust screwedness. But hey, I didn’t write the thread title. I also made the point that oppression is never justified, yet chula still had to get in that little “scary idea” crack. And ya know, folks - I even tried to make the point that I wasn’t trying to compare the treatment of atheists with that of the Jews under Hitler or anything like that. I guess I wasn’t clear enough, since several people didn’t seem to get it. I know I’m not the greatest writer, but at least try to get most of the way through my post.
So, if this will help end a pissing contest as to who got the worst treatment in history, here goes:
I hereby declare that there are other ethnic/religious groups who at some point in history have been treated worse than atheists.
Are we all happy now?
Munch:
It’s just from statistics of those who are incarcerated.
http://www.felicity.com.au/personal_extra.htm
If atheists were out there committing crimes all the time, you would expect to have a higher percentage of atheists in prison than in the general population. But in fact, the opposite is true.
I never said they were, yet people keep asking me this:confused:
[ post content removed at poster’s request ]
Forgive my half-understandable-insane-rant (trademarked). I was fuming and in the middle of my keyboard punching I accidentally submitted this poorly spelled and anger fueled rant. Maybe someone can make it out? However, if it’s not done ‘right’, I want it removed. Mods, A little help? Please.
In the so-called “first world countries”, French-Canadians outside Quebec have had it pretty rough for years - even moreso in the last 70 years or so. Recently, it got even worse. Now, things are improving.
Franco-Ontarians, to be precise. They have to fight for the right to receive services in their own language, which is technically owed them through the constitution. They have to fight for their schools - there was a time when the provincial govt. decided that French could no longer be taught in schools, and that all francophones had to be “assimilated”. Recently, they had to fight to preserve their ONLY french-language hospital, which happened to be the ONLY french-language TEACHING hospital as well.
They have had to take this to freakin’ COURT, twice, and finally won. The Harris Government finally backed down.
They face discrimination every day. They constantly have to fight, argue, and complain in order to get services in french. Usually, they are told “But you guys are perfectly bilingual! Deal!” And yet, the anglos in Montreal scream bloody murder when it is suggested that they deal with reduced services in english in the province of Quebec.
They’re still considered the “lesser society” in Ontario. The farmers. The “uneducated ones”. With all the cuts, and all the abuse, the illiteracy rate for this slice of Ontario society is nearly 50%. Nearly 50% percent, functionally illiterate. Think about it. In a freakin’ country that keeps telling us all equality and education come first. Give 'em a break, people.
Elly
efrem:
I can make out most of it, but I’m having a devil of a time figuring out what “Economy: Imporsied” means.
(Although I like the idea of “fucking literacy.” Especially in a thread about being “screwed.” 
)
eve,
Hmmm. So you think that if few people name, say, supression of the Chelmites, that that means that their education was deficient, not that it doesn’t rank?
The big three:
Indigenous Americans (North and South). Cultures and a way of life destroyed. Millions dead. More by small pox introduction than genocide, but still.
Those of African origin. Cultures vitually destroyed. Millions dead. Many others sold into slavery and shipped out of their own lands. To this day living with the consequences of those offenses.
The Jewish people. Culture destroyed by the Romans with half the population killed and a large part of the rest sold into slavery. Systematically oppressed since to various degrees in different lands (Crusades/dhimmis/pograms/etc) with six million killed in very recent times. Wins for the length of oppression but the culture survives, which can be said only to a lesser degree for the other two. On the other hand the only one for whom the goal of an action was the destruction of an entire people and its gene pool, rather than that being a side effect of no particular consequence to the oppressor.
Too close to call between them, IMHO.
If there are comparable atrocities of similar magnitude in Asian history, then I apologize for my ignorance. (I know of massacres but not of such a scale or of such efficacy)
To equate the treatment of atheists, the Chechens, or of Palestinians (even if one bought the Palestinian version of the history without question), with this kind of inhumanity would be a bit goofy, to say the least.
Is all education biased? Duh. Does this thread illustrate that point? I fail to see how.
So the PRC is NOT officially atheist, despite numerous sources saying otherwise?
I can’t believe that no one has brought this up yet…
How about the Armenians? They were the first victims of systematic genocide in the hands of the Ottoman Turks.
Hitler was correct. “After all, no one remembers the Armenians.” – on the Final Solution.
The PRC is officially atheist in the same way the United States does not advocate or favor any one particular religion – e.g., it’s written down that way, but the actual practice is something else. Unless we’ve had a few more non-Protestant Presidents when I wasn’t looking…
Technically, not quite total. The estimated 7,000 Tasmanian aborigines in 1804 were in driven from the mainland and moved to Flinders Island (1833-1847).
However, other Tasmanian aboriginals found their way to other Bass Strait islands. Whilst their status is “under review”, their descendents claim to be the Cape Barren Islanders
The Neanderthals.
That wasn’t what I was trying to get across and/or find out. This is a most decidely unscientific survey. I just wanted to see if a not-so-random group of people, most of whom were educated in the U.S. (opinions welcome from others, of course, BTW) and most of whom are self-selected for their interest in learning new things, would mention any of the instances of mass persecution that are a) not commonly taught in the U.S. primary and secondary curriculum, and/or b) are not in our faces every day in the mainstream media.
It was also not mean to to be a competition; I hadn’t planned on tallying up the votes at the end, although come to think of it, that might be interesting.
I agree with you about the atheists, as few people have been murdered for their atheism. The Palestinian case is argued on this board on a near-daily basis, so I’ll leave that aside for the moment.
The Chechens are another story. How many Americans are aware that the Chechens, along with the Karachai, Balkars, Crimean Tatars, Ingush, and Kalmyks, were deported by Stalin in May 1944 to Siberia and Kazakhstan, in the course of which possibly half of them died? (Estimates range anywhere from 25-50%.) This was because they had ostensibly cooperated with the Germans, although there is no historical evidence to suggest that more than a handful of them did anything of the sort. They were not allowed to return to their ancestral homelands for decades after the war (and when they got there, found that Stalin had resettled other ethnic groups in their homes), and during their period of exile were forbidden to leave the camps where they had been resettled and were deprived of all opportunity to learn their native language, be gainfully employed in most cases, and otherwise live a normal life. (See Aleksandr Nekrich, ** The Punished Peoples: The Deportation and Tragic Fate of Soviet Minorities at the End of the Second World War**, W.W. Norton & Co., nc., NY, 1978).
A sample statistic from Nekrich (p. 138):
extrapolation from Soviet census data from the 1926 and 1939 censuses would have predicted 38% growth in the Chechen population between the 1939 and 1959 censuses. However, this is what the Soviet Chechen census figures show:
1926: 319,000
1939: 408,000
1959: 419,000
1970: 613,000
Plus, these figures don’t even tell you where the Chechens were living: there were hardly any Chechens outside the North Caucasus before the war, and essentially none in Siberia or Kazakhstan.
So you can see that there was a HUGE demographic shift in a very short period of time among the Chechens, as the end result of a few days in May 1944. The results have been dogging the Chechens (and the Russians, for that matter) ever since: I would argue that the Russian government’s treatment of the Chechens over the past 10 years as well as the Chechens’ reaction to that treatment has resulted in two extremely bloody wars and many thousands of noncombatant deaths. (See Anne Nivat, ** Chienne de Guerre: A Woman Reporter Behind the Lines of the War in Chechnya**, PublicAffairs, New York 2001; the “reader from Chicago” who reviewed it on Amazon.com is me.)
Grozny, the Russian-founded capital of Chechnya, is now essentially rubble, along with many smaller villages, and probably half the Chechen population has been displaced from their homes. They are portrayed as terrorists by the Russian mainstream news media, and are almost entirely ignored by the Western press. The Chechens, who are specifically guaranteed a complete education in their native language by the Russian Constitution, have 2 years of instruction in the 1st and 2nd grades which is essentially aimed at mainstreaming kids into Russian-language education; if anyone wants more extensive reading suggestions onSoviet/Russian treatment of ethnic minorities, I’m happy to e-mail a copy of my master’s thesis, along with its 5-page bibliography, or post a link to it in my Yahoo! Briefcase.
What is my point with the above? Am I trying to prove that all education is biased? As you so succintly put it, “Duh.” Of course it is, and I wouldn’t have expected otherwise (although one can always hope). I was just curious about what the result of biased education might be, and what some ways might be to raise the average consciousness level in the U.S. about just how lucky we are compared to most of the rest of the world, and that what one reads in the paper and learns in school are not the entirety of human history. I shudder to think what Russian kids learn in school about Chechnya, and what this will mean for future prospects for peace in the region. The only reason there hasn’t been much more violence on the part of indigenous peoples in the U.S. is that we (in the sense of “white Americans;” my ancestors were still running from pogroms at that time) did a much more efficient job of wiping them out.
Does that answer your questions?
Yes. Somewhat.
Several comments.
I would hazard a guess that the abuses of the Stalinist era get short coverage in general (both in Western education and in Russia) … a generic “Stalin killed many people and sent many more to camps. He punished anyone that he felt might threaten his power, including the best minds of his day.” rather than a detailed group by group analysis of his extensive abuses against his own peoples. Certainly it is a deficiency in my own education (although obviously not yours! ;))
The direct way to discuss your concern may be best:
How to raise the awareness of the average citizen to issues beyond the textbooks shoved in front of them in school?
I’ll broaden it. How to raise critical thinkers who can be skeptical without becoming overly cynical? How to raise a population that sees their official education as an appetizer, recognizing that the real good stuff is what they’ll have to dig for and evaluate the reliability of without the spoonfeeding of a teacher?
And BTW, as awful as that episode of Chechnen history is (and I had no knowledge of most of those claims prior to your post), I can’t say that it ranks with the big three. (To continue to play your game.)
A seperate, but related, issue - many on these boards are motivated by terrorist acts to learn more about the cause of the terror. To “understand” the motivations. Honestly, I am more likely to turn off from understanding once terror tactics are used. The justness of the cause becomes irrelevant. I’d be more empathic to the plight of the Chechens if they were not blowing up buildings in Russian cities. If terrorism results in world sympathy of their cause then terrorism is being rewarded. (But that has been other threads …)