#ethnocide

15th March 2025: People from Northern Catalonia protest in Perpinyà (Northern Catalonia's capital city) for the right to have schools in the Catalan language. They chant "l'escola en català, avui i demà" ("school in Catalan, today and tomorrow"). The signs say "a living Bressola [school], a living language" and "institutional support now!".

The French Government only allows public schools to teach in French, marginalizing the local indigenous languages. The local peoples have had to organize among themselves and create their own networks of cooperative private schools to be able to give education in their lands' language. Basque people were pioneers in this, and quickly followed by Bretons, Catalans, Occitans and Corsicans.

These schools are very important in fighting back against the centuries of French supremacist propaganda that says our languages are unfit for the modern world or for the development of a child's brain. French schools used corporal punishment and humiliation on children heard speaking the local language (Catalan, Basque, Occitan, Breton, Corsican, etc) instead of French until the 1970s (more info in this post and this post). As a result, most people in Northern Catalonia don't know how to write Catalan. Nowadays, studies show that 70% of the population of Northern Catalonia wants their children to go to a school where they can learn Catalan, but only 8% of them have been able to. We would like to be able to include them all, but we don't have enough resources, and as a result we lose speakers of the language who will be monolingual French speakers instead.

La Bressola, founded in 1976, is the network of cooperative Catalan-language schools. They have 7 primary schools and 2 high schools, adding up to 1,100 students and 110 staff members. They have excellent modern methodology and affordable prices, because this is not an elite school, it's what we wish could be the public school, so everyone regardless of wealth should be able to access it. For this reason, the price each family has to pay depends on their income (ranging from 36€ to 140€ per month) and the schools refuse to raise prices, they always take an anti-elitist stand, but it's difficult to keep them economically viable. They managed with donations and the few economical aid given by the regional government, but things changed drastically in 2021, when the far right wing parties won the regional elections. Among the new government's first measures were taking away all support to Catalan language and identity, forcing only French language and identity instead (removing public signs of the Catalan soul of places, legally persecuting elected representatives who speak Catalan in town hall meetings...). But the far right wing government not only stopped giving them some (it was already not that much) money, but also has raised the taxes that Bressola schools specifically have to pay. At the same time, inflation made the costs rise.

Yesterday, Northern Catalans protested to ask for the regional government's funds to be reinstalled, aiming at the government's aid being 5% of the school's budget. Without this, the schools will have to reduce the number of students they can take in because they can't pay the staff.

The National People’s Congress (NPC) is slated to consider a new law intended to promote “ethnic unity and progress” — a euphemism for tightening repression of the country’s 56 officially recognized ethnic minorities by attempting to eliminate their educational and language rights.

Along with emphasizing Mandarin, rather than regional dialects, in educational settings and official communications, the law would force minorities to live in “mixed communities” with a substantial Han population, as well as prosecuting parents for “imparting detrimental views” to their children regarding Beijing’s current policy of “ethnic harmony.” The law also promotes the development of “new social customs,” including intermarriage. To that end, it bans minority families from preventing marriages based on identity grounds — a tactic intended to dissolve ethnic communities into the Han majority.

The irony of nominating monsters for peace prizes, especially those who have never shown any interest in peace…

Okay, @sihatn wishes to be so hung up on the particular war crime the Israeli government is using to excessively slaughter innocent Palestinian civilians, so let’s explain the difference between Genocide, Ethnocide, and Ethnic Cleansing:

Genocide: the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group

Examples: The Armenian Genocide (where the term actually originates), the Shoah/Holocaust, Taíno Genocide, and Rwandan Genocide to name a few.

I have seen some Zionists on this platform and on Instagram argue that Israel cannot be committing Genocide because it is a “very specific instance in history that only includes the Holocaust”. That fact is ardently incorrect. For one, the first event to be called a Genocide and where the term was coined was the Armenian Genocide and countless events have been labeled a Genocide since 1943/1944 when the term was initially coined (including events coined after the fact that had already happened like the aforementioned Taíno Genocide).

Ethnocide: the deliberate and systematic destruction of the culture of an ethnic group or nation without deliberately killing large numbers of people within that ethnic group or nation

Think “kill the Indian, save the man”, the American and Canadian policy against American Indian tribes and First Nations that sought to forcibly assimilate them into W.A.S.P. culture. A similar policy occurred in Hawaii during the “Republic of Hawaii” and “Territory of Hawaii” days, and even the destruction of Yiddish Culture by Zionists in Israel who feared it for being “too Middle Eastern”. Most Re-Education camps fall in this category too.

Ethic Cleansing: the mass expulsion or killing of members of an unwanted ethnic or religious group in a society

This term is relatively new and was coined in the aftermath of the collapse of Yugoslavia and Serbia’s treatment of Croats, Bosnians, and other ethnic minorities, as well as the Stalinist movement of ethnic minorities to different SSRs.

Mass Homicide: the deliberate killing of a large number of people

The only distinction here is the people are not being killed because of their ethnicity or nation, but for ✨ other reasons ✨

Now here’s the kicker, most Zionists would say they are committing Ethnic Cleansing. They might not say it out right, because the term has a nasty connotation, but they will say they’re doing the definition of ethnic cleansing.

Some propaganda reblogging Zionists might claim that they’re just committing Mass Homicide but here’s the thing, almost every example of mass homicide being committed by one nation to another nation has been an example of one of the first three categories. The only real examples of Mass Homicide actually being Mass Homicide occur within a state (see Mao famines, Pol Pot’s mass killings, or the countless purging of communists or anti communists during the Cold War).

Some (wrong) historians may claim the Bengal Famine and Irish Potato Famine were examples of mass Homicide but here’s the thing, in both cases aid from other nations and governments were barred from entering the effected places because the UK forbid it. Food exports were forced to continue to come from Ireland and Bengal because the UK forced it. The reasons these famines were so severe was because the UK had a eugenics inspired belief that the Irish and Bengalis were “sub human animals” and “less deserving of food than the Brits”.

The Irish Potato Famine and Bengali Famine were Genocides, with famine being the preferred method of killing.

Was it intentional at first? Maybe not. Did it become intentional after the fact? Yes.

But this takes us to the most important point. The difference between Genocide, Ethnocide, and Ethnic Cleansing AND Mass Homicide is the intent.

But the intent isn’t truly known until after the fact, when internal government documents are released and the facts of the situation are holistically known.

The Jews/Poles/Romani/etc knew they were going through a Genocide (or well, they didn’t know the word, but they knew what was happening) but most of the outside world didn’t because the N@zis were secretive about it. Yes some activists and Jewish/Polish/Romani/etc diaspora groups warned other governments, but these other governments (US, UK, USSR, China, France, Brazil, Mexico, Canada, Italy even) were skeptical.

We don’t full know intent now, but given Herzl and Jabotinsky’s rhetoric which essentially established modern day Zionism and the Israeli state, and the establishment of Area C for Israeli settlement after conflict in the West Bank, the fact that Israel has threatened a Second Nakba, an event internationally acknowledged as ethnic cleansing, the fact that there are oil reserves underneath Gaza and the forcing of 2 million people into an airport sized camp would allow Israel to open up drilling where the ruins of Gaza city lay, or the fact that Israel is an Ethnonationalist country that relies on the superiority of Israelis over Palestinians and other neighbouring countries in order to exist makes the intent known to those of us familiar with the history of this conflict.

Ok ok ok ok ok here’s where I M. Night Shyamalan this whole thing: Genocide, Ethnocide, and Ethnic Cleansing are all the same crime according to multinational organizations like the United Nations. They are all Genocide.

All Ethnocides are Genocides, but not all Genocides are Ethnocides.

All Ethnic Cleansings are Genocides, but not all Genocides are Ethnic Cleansings.

The Nakba was an Ethnic Cleansing, therefore the Nakba was a Genocide.

The Netanyahu administration claims that their on going attack on Gaza is a “new Nakba”.

Nakba = Ethnic Cleansing = Genocide

The Netanyahu administration claims that their on going attack on Gaza is a “new Genocide”.

Genocide carries with it negative connotations. If the term was as widely used in 1944 as it is today, Hitler would deny genocide allegations, just as the Turkish continue to deny genocide allegations from the Armenian Genocide, why the Japanese continue to deny Genocide Allegations during their rule of Korea, Taiwan, parts of Micronesia, Manchuria, and Nanjing. Why the British refuse to acknowledge the Irish Potato Famine or Bengal Famine as Genocides. Why the conservative right want to ban the teaching of American genocides against countless groups (namely Native Americans, African Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Chicanos). And why Zionists get so offended when you refer to the actions of Israel as a Genocide.

Those who commit Genocide will never acknowledge that they are committing genocide. The fact that the current mainstream Zionist reaction, like @sihatn, is to deny that the ongoing genocide exists just proves that one is happening… if the horrific videos didn’t prove it enough (this one is from an American pro Israel source, but it doesn’t not take long to find ones from individuals in Gaza)

In conclusion, Israel is committing a genocide, and if you say otherwise, you are blinded by Ethnonationalism just like the Germans were in the 30s/40s, the Turks were during the 10s/20s and onward, the Brits were for (well forever), and the American right wing is.

August 3rd, 2014: ISIL (also known as ISIS, Da'esh, or the Islamic State) begins a genocide of the Yazidi people in Iraq.

It is actually more like 200,00 dead you see... The ability to register and/or document a death of someone requires a hospital ( all hospitals in Gaza are being destroyed) or registry base set up by a Humanitarian organization ( all targets by Israeli military)

Next, the body must be recognizable and in pieces that are large enough to identify.

There are families in Gaza who's loved ones are taken from them by bombings where they cannot find their body parts literally can not have their murder documented.

Also, the " Gaza Health ministry " Is constantly being trivialized and under despicable delegitimization in mainstream news in attempts to associate everything Palestinian representation does or says with terrorism. Regardless, The death toll numbers accordingly do not reflect true numbers of deaths.