Have European/Near Eastern people ever faced oppression, persecution or genocide in history?
- Thread starter Caravels of Portugal
- Start date
- Status
White. They captured and sold pagans too (or bought them from other vendors, Jewish, Christian or pagan. Lots of slaves were also sold by their own people or even their own families). And heterodox believers of all kinds got treated similarly. How they'd be classified once they reached the markets would depend on the looks, not the religion. It's pretty straightforward stuff.
The only complication that might give the opposite idea is that children born to people converting to Islam would now be Muslims and couldn't be outright traded like cargo anymore, because of the distinction between the Islamic world and Dar al-Harb and how the laws applied within them. But there were plenty of people who were first-generation converts who remained legally enslaved within various social institutions of the early modern era.
Last edited:
Pretty much every culture and ethnic group ever has faced some variant of persecution and oppression. The vast majority have also faced genocide or attempted genocide. History is not clean or pretty. Even if you take who have arguably been the most dominant ethnic group of the last few centuries- the English- you can find examples of this without looking too had. The Harrowing of the North comes to mind, or their treatment of English Catholics, or the treatment of many English minorities in other countries when England can't support them.
Crimes like the Holocaust stand out and rightfully so as exceptional, but periods of oppression, slavery, genocide, and discriminate liter human history.
Crimes like the Holocaust stand out and rightfully so as exceptional, but periods of oppression, slavery, genocide, and discriminate liter human history.
Yep, you're reading it right. It started with the intention of discussing and finding examples of white people (Anyone from Europe/Near East or ancestry ultimately from Europe/Near East) facing genocide, enslavement, persecution, prejudice and oppresion. Instead, the thread became a heated historical debate for 'whiteness' and strayed from the original intention. Make sure the thread is rerailed properly.
But, what's the purpose of that. I mean what's to be gained from such discussion?
This thread was meant for educational purposes. What we're discussing here isn't about race or any other contentious topic, instead it was about history of oppression and discrimination in people from Europe/Near East or ancestry ultimately from the Europe/Near East.
In that case, I'm surprised that no one's brought up Generalplan Ost and the Nazis general goals in Eastern Europe. Their plan was to do to Eastern Europe what the Americans did to North America. And in general, there was the idea that the Russians and other Easter Europeans were a "barbaric and backwards" people, who were a great deal more inferior to Western Europeans. Even today, such a sentiment can be found. There's also the cases of Russians oppressing Ukrainians and make them be assimilated. Although, I can't think of too many cases in which an ethnic group was specifically persecuted for being European or white.
Are you looking for an example of a non-white group terrorizing a white group specifically? Well Dessalines in 1804 in Haiti ordered all white people to be killed except for some groups. White Haitians were summarily massacred afterwards.
During the Sepoy Rebellion of 1857, some Indian rebels harmed and massacred white men, women, and children.
Uh the Boxer Rebellion? Many white people were harmed during that.
During the Sepoy Rebellion of 1857, some Indian rebels harmed and massacred white men, women, and children.
Uh the Boxer Rebellion? Many white people were harmed during that.
Last edited:
People keep bringing up Barbary Slave trade, Ottomans and Arabs not recognizing North Africans and Middle Eastern peoples have recorded hundreds of times their own white identity.
Europeans werentw necessarily targeted because they were white. They were targeted because they were Christian.
The question does not seem to be about white people oppressing white people. Neither is it talking about white people oppressing genetically similar but not socially considered white people.
Rather it's asking about people being targeted due to their whiteness.
Haitians during and after the revolutuon did not target whites, they targeted French and openly welcomed Poles and later Germans, Italians, lebanese, syrians, etc.... Even then the near white mixed race elite who took on whiteness socially themselves did not despise whiteness but rather the limitations put on them by France.
There are few instances I know of intentional oppression of a societal scale by non-white people on white people off the top of my head I can name one:
- the Serer anti-bidan social policies (translated to "Whites" in Mauritania though commonly just called Arabs in English accounts.)
Europeans werentw necessarily targeted because they were white. They were targeted because they were Christian.
The question does not seem to be about white people oppressing white people. Neither is it talking about white people oppressing genetically similar but not socially considered white people.
Rather it's asking about people being targeted due to their whiteness.
Haitians during and after the revolutuon did not target whites, they targeted French and openly welcomed Poles and later Germans, Italians, lebanese, syrians, etc.... Even then the near white mixed race elite who took on whiteness socially themselves did not despise whiteness but rather the limitations put on them by France.
There are few instances I know of intentional oppression of a societal scale by non-white people on white people off the top of my head I can name one:
- the Serer anti-bidan social policies (translated to "Whites" in Mauritania though commonly just called Arabs in English accounts.)
It was not about white people, it was about colonizing forces both in Haiti and China.
Last edited:
Irrelevant when talking about the notion from a modern western viewpoint. The Zulus could consider themselves white doesn't make them white in the eyes of West.
Except I take that into account and am talking about historically bound understandings of mutual whiteness.
Tuaregs of the noble castes for example were considered white by the definitions of French Soudan given military conscription and labour exemptions. They also say Europeans as whites albeit a different sort.
I am not considering the Peul, Arma, Eurafricans and other groups of more mixed race people who referred to themselves as White or Red but were not considered such by Europeans. Neither do I consider proto-Hova of Madagascar or Japanese ho were early on described as a white tace but did not use such terms themselves to describe anything but skin shade.
Ironically enough, although people just love to mention Barbary Pirates and white slavery they never want to talk about the Pirates and peoples of Barbary after the 15th century often being ethnically and racially European who were merely expulsed from Iberia due to faith.
We also have in the post-reconquista era clear records stating the whiteness, blackness and mixedness of North African slaves from the trade post of Arguin in 1445.
I don't see that anywhere in your post
Link and not to mention my statement still stands as I am talking about modern western notions of race.
kholieken
Banned
.
" For Educational Purposes" didn't actually answer the question though. There no reason limiting on "whites". Why would collecting list of oppression suffered by people who on modern age considered " whites" have any educational purposes ?
I whittled it down before I posted as I was already eliminating other options.
Modern as up into the 20th century? Yes, France considered noble Tuareg white even slightly mixed ones.
Literally read any book on Saharan Colonialism
I was thinking more 2000s or 2010s.
Doesn't say that at all but rather used Saharan notions of race to do divide and conquer
Literally says the French recognized the pre-existing racial identities of the region.
Regardless of the reasoning behind it 1. They existed as white people 2. Other white people accepted their identity and refered to them as such.
You're shifting goalposts because the question of OP and the statements I have made was not reasoning of whiteness because the very conversation of white, black, brown, etc... is always a subject of power and consideration
From civil servants talking about the health decline of white Toureg mothers in reports in Gourma Rharous (the administrative centre of the cercle) to the papers being written on them in the 1950's speaking on a myriad of theories about their origin from the time period.
The earliest European references all the way into the Post WWII era described them as white and they themselves described themselves as White.
- Status