Dictionary of Genocide - D Ank Unlimited

COLONIAL GENOCIDE
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stratum of the village” (U.S. Commission on the Ukraine Famine, 1988, p. 230). During
the 1932–1933 Soviet man-made famine in Ukraine, the term kulak, however, was used to
refer to anyone, no matter how poor, that the Soviet officials wished to disenfranchise. In
fact, if the “‘class enemy’ marked for ‘liquidation’ was too poor for the term kulak to be
used, he would be disenfranchised as a subkulak” (U.S. Commission on the Ukraine
Famine, 1988, p. 230).
Colonial Genocide. The process of colonization of a territory or nation by another,
especially involving incursions of European states into the Americas, Asia, Africa, and
Australasia, has often been characterized by violent confrontation, deliberate massacre,
wholesale annihilation, and, in several instances, genocide. Many indigenous peoples in
these continents have been completely, or almost completely, wiped out since the expansion
of Europe began in the sixteenth century—among such, for example, were the Yuki
of California, the Beothuk of Newfoundland, the Pallawah (indigenous peoples) of
Tasmania, and the Hereros of Namibia. Most countries throughout the world today have
been involved with or impacted by colonialism in way or another, either as Western imperialists
or as First World or Third World actors who were the object of the imperialists’
incursions. It is vitally important, therefore, that care is taken when employing the term
genocide relative to colonial expansion: each and every claim must be assessed individually
and on its merits. In some instances, genocide might be unequivocal; in others,
despite a sudden or enormous population collapse, an intent on the part of the colonizers
for this to happen might not have been present. Often, populations declined as a result of
diseases that arrived with the colonizers, but the deaths that occurred were not anticipated.
Elsewhere, lethal diseases were deliberately introduced for the purpose of wiping
out a population. In most cases, if we were to generalize (not an easy task over five centuries
and spanning most of the globe), it could be said that colonial expansion saw
attempts at clearing the land of indigenous populations (which could result in genocidal
episodes); of forcibly assimilating the indigenous populations for racial, religious, or ethnic
reasons; or of intimidating indigenous populations such that they would seek to retreat
before the advance of the colonizers. It is through the need for terminological precision
that many aggrieved former colonial populations today are dissatisfied with existing definitions
of genocide and reject the term as a Western construct that excludes their national
subjugation and attendant suffering.
Colonialism. A form of political control by one state over another, frequently characterized
by the establishment of settler communities that can result in the displacement, absorption,
or destruction of preexisting indigenous communities. Colonialism was largely
responsible for reshaping the demographic composition of vast areas of the world’s surface from
the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries, particularly in North and South America, southern
Africa, and Australasia. On these continents, huge numbers of settlers from European states
left their homelands to start new outgrowth communities or to reinforce those of their kin
already there. In so doing, they took over the land (sometimes quite brutally) already occupied
by indigenous populations. Genocidal massacres of the latter were not infrequent, and
ongoing oppression or neglect has, in numerous cases, persisted up to the present day.
Colonialism, as it impacts upon indigenous populations, has also led to the suppression
of local languages, religions, and folkways, as the settlers look for ways to consolidate their
rule and ward off perceived threats to the physical expansion of their territory in the new
land. Colonialism is different from imperialism (with which it is often confused), prima-