French lawmakers pass genocide law on Armenians

[Razgovory]

I would say Catholicism.  Closing up the Churches and executing the priests and nuns does give that impression.

Catholicism's not a people.  Assuming you mean Catholics in the Vendee, did they succeed?

Nope, they gave up I think.  I'm not sure you have to eliminate everyone to count as genocide.  For instance forcing everyone to convert or die could be a form of genocide since you are destroying a population.  You are changing a population from one religion to another (or no religion), rather then changing the a population into compost and ashes, but the effect is the same.  The previous population isn't there anymore.

[Capetan Mihali]

I would say Catholicism.  Closing up the Churches and executing the priests and nuns does give that impression.

Catholicism's not a people.  Assuming you mean Catholics in the Vendee, did they succeed?

Nope, they gave up I think.  I'm not sure you have to eliminate everyone to count as genocide.  For instance forcing everyone to convert or die could be a form of genocide since you are destroying a population.  You are changing a population from one religion to another (or no religion), rather then changing the a population into compost and ashes, but the effect is the same.  The previous population isn't there anymore.

Was the Spanish Inquisition a genocide?

[Neil]

Putting the Japanese in camps during WWII is "Doing something really, really shitty to people".  I rather think that the Vendee goes a bit beyond that.

You would be wrong.

When did you start siding with regicides?

I didn't.  That said, what happened in the Vendee would qualify as 'something shitty'.  You're overplaying your hand.

[Sheilbh]

Nope, they gave up I think.  I'm not sure you have to eliminate everyone to count as genocide. 

The goal of a genocide is to eliminate a people.  The French Republic won but didn't eliminate Vendeean Catholics.  That's becaue their goal was never to commit a genocide, but to put down an uprising.  Once that goal had been achieved they stopped - in contrast with what we could expect of other genocidal regimes through history.

There's no doubt war crimes were committed - by both sides - but I'd characterise the Vendee as a very brutal, predominately class based civil war not an attempted genocide.

[Razgovory]

Was the Spanish Inquisition a genocide?

Well, not as such, but I think the expulsions and forced conversions that surrounded it would qualify.  The Spanish Inquisition was a search for relapsed Jews and Muslims.  It only had authority over Christians and worked on a much smaller scale then it sometimes surmised.

[Razgovory]

I'll wager there are more Armenians then Catholics in the Vendee today.     But the French government conflated disloyalty with Catholicism.  That is a common characteristic of genocide.  They did change policy after they stopped making these types of mistakes, but if they hadn't they would have ended up like the Don Cossacks.  Lenin himself referred to the Don Cossacks as their own version of the Vendee.

[dps]

Excuse me, but some of us do support capital punishment. 

I haven't heard anyone here "tout" it, though.  Look the word up.  It's the word Marti used.

I've stated that I think that the death penalty should be the standard punishment for murder.  I think that can be contrused as promoting it.  Granted, I don't generally bring it up unless crime and punishment are already the topic under discussion.

[Ideologue]

and in fact Turkey actually penalizes people who claim the Armenian genocide happened).

God knows Europe should be eager to follow the Turkish model of civil rights.

Dude, I told you, lay off that crap. Yoare in the same camp as China, Saudi Arabia and Belarus for using death penalty. You really have no room to criticise Europe for civil rights record.

  Or what?  You gonna make me?

I am not talking in my capacity as a representative for the US.  Not sure when you became French or were appointed The Voice Of Europe, but congrats. 

Aiming the death penalty comment at me is particularly amusing.

Maybe he got me and you confused.

You prison-loving monster.

[Razgovory]

I've been confusing you two, because of your new avatar Ide.

[Ideologue]

Yeah, me, Mihali, Sheilbh, even you.  It's like black-and-white is the new thing on the Languish Left.  We just need Jacob to switch to monochrome and we're good.

Afaik, I'm the only one of the Dems/whatever they have in Airstrip One, Labor I guess who supports extension of the death penalty though.  On the other hand, I'm the only one who's ever actually been inside a jail.  So there's that.

[Maximus]

Yeah, me, Mihali, Sheilbh, even you.  It's like black-and-white is the new thing on the Languish Left.  We just need Jacob to switch to monochrome and we're good.

I keep thinking your posts are coming from Martinus

[Ideologue]

Yeah, me, Mihali, Sheilbh, even you.  It's like black-and-white is the new thing on the Languish Left.  We just need Jacob to switch to monochrome and we're good.

I keep thinking your posts are coming from Martinus

And then you realize they're well-reasoned and apposite?  I'm sure that's what you meant to add.

[Capetan Mihali]

On the other hand, I'm the only one who's ever actually been inside a jail.  So there's that.

Been incarcerated inside a jail.    I've spent plenty of time inside of jails and prisons, but so far I've been able to leave every night, thank Christ.

[Eddie Teach]

Yeah, me, Mihali, Sheilbh, even you.  It's like black-and-white is the new thing on the Languish Left.

You left out Martinus and Grumbler.

[Sheilbh]

But the French government conflated disloyalty with Catholicism.  That is a common characteristic of genocide.  They did change policy after they stopped making these types of mistakes, but if they hadn't they would have ended up like the Don Cossacks.  Lenin himself referred to the Don Cossacks as their own version of the Vendee.

I don't think Lenin's view matters.  From a Marxist perspective the French Revolution was a massive lesson for the revolutionaries in Russia, so it's hardly surprising that they'll interpret their actions through the prism of the French revolution.

I think you over-estimate the impact of the Catholicism and ideology in the Vendee.  It is, from my reading, the only part of the French Revolution I'd consider to be predominately about class and religion was an important part of that.  Basically the Vendee splits into two areas.

You've got a hill and mountain area that's overwhelmingly peasant and generally speaking tenant farmers for nobility.  They have, even before the revolution, a sort-of communitarian (almost Medieval) Catholicism that focused on devotion to certain relics, pilgrimages, very localised saints' days and so on.  That sort of religion produces a very strong communal identity.

In the plains you have a different sort of peasantry.  There are large towns and the peasants to a large extent are tenants of sort-of gentry figures or do a lot of trade with the bourgeoisie.  There's more education and more development.  The old style of Catholicism was very weak, the austere Cure had arrived in this region.  Their Church was far more influenced by 18th century rationalist Jansenism.  That was a weaker association, less of a communitarian identity and there was more sympathy with the Republic and a 'national' set of values.

To an extent certain Catholicisms were, therefore, a signifier to the Republic of a rebellious area. 

But the class aspect is, I think, core.

It's also worth remembering that the history of the Vendee is very contentious.  A large number of the stories of atrocities are now generally disbelieved.  They were early 19th century Bourbon propaganda.  More recent research (by which I just mean 20th century) also note the brutality of the revolt - in one village alone 500 National Guardsmen and sympathisers were tied into groups of four and shot into mass graves.  Both sides were engaged in an extremely brutal civil war.  The only difference really was that the Republic's brutality was successfully sustained and ultimately victorious.

So arguing it's a genocide seems to muddy the water in my view, both of the history of the Vendee and of genocide in general.  If this is genocide, it's difficult to see what civil war or political violence isn't.  I think the word would become so watered as to be almost meaningless.