People that suffered in OTL that you don't want to suffer in your TL's

I think I might be able to help the Jews in my timeline, there is no Alexander the Great so no Seleucids and continued Persian control, Persia is much nicer to the Jews and they remain so until the destruction of Persia.
 
Sounds exactly like the fate of most places under colonial rule (underlined). I'd certainly not be any more eager to be starved by Churchill as an Indian in WWII than an intellectual in Maoist China.

And I'd like to see the basis for those statistics - not because I think those numbers are off (I don't know enough to argue figures over the entire course of their rule), but I'd like to see what they're referring to - it would be appropriate to compare it to the past regimes if we're taking the tact that colonialism just continued what previously existed where as this was new evil.

With most of the population not left to "get on with things as they were before". Not in Latin America, not in Africa, not in Asia.

The Congos are certainly more brutal than average, but I strongly suggest reading Churchill's Secret War and such before telling me that colonialism was less bad than communism.

I'm not going to try to defend Mao, and only in the sense that tsarist Russia has nothing to boast of when it comes to Stalin - but colonialism has a longer history of extreme ugliness.

Sure, the cultural revolution was unspeakably vile. And what do you call the cultural destruction by the conquisadors and the like?

I approve this message. Though for everyone on whatever side of the debate, let's not turn this thread into too much of the oppressed olympics.
 
I don't really want anyone to suffer.


But at the same time... suffering is OH so much fun to write.

EDIT: Native Americans
 
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All the conquerors and warlords in history have caused millions of common people to suffer. All empires were established on mounts of corpses and cemented with blood. Hence you can count the common peoples of all countries and all nations among those who have suffered historically.
But there are some who have suffered more than others. The native people of both the Americas, the black natives of Africa etc. come to the picture first. The native people of Asia and Oceania who came under colonial rule also suffered to a lesser extent.
The victims of conquerors like Alexander, Jhengis Khan, Timur and many lesser warlords and the victims of Nazi genocide have all suffered. If you count religious groups,the Jews are in the forefront of minorities who suffered.The Zoroastrians have also suffered when Persia came under Islam. The spread of Christianity and Islam has caused the suffering of the followers of ancient religions in many countries. Thus listing of victims in history is very difficult.
Now to answer the second part, it is even more difficult. Hence I leave it for the time being. But I feel sorry that some ancient empires and civilizations have fallen. The Indus Valley Civilization and the ancient Egyptian Civilization are the two ancient civilizations I would like to point out. The Zoroastrian dominated Persian Empire, The Mauryan Empire, The Chola Empire, The Vijayanagar Empire, The Khmer Empire, The Srivijaya and Majapahit Empires, The Inca Empire and The Aztec Empire are some of the ancient empires I would have liked to last longer.
 
I second this.

Specifically, I'd say African Americans. I keep trying to work on a timeline dealing with a POD that would improve the situation of African Americans, but it's monumentally hard. Would need a score of POD's really.

If I may ask, why African Americans in particular? Not that they haven't been through a lot of hardships since their arrival, but I'd argue that black people in the Caribbean have generally had it worse.

Caribbean slavery was the most sadistic of all. Whereas in the United States there are four seasons and thus crops have a fixed growing season, giving agricultural workers some degree of downtime during the winter, in the Caribbean it's hot all year. There, the process of planting and harvesting never ends - and harvesting sugar cane is physically difficult (basically, it involves hacking away at the cane stalks with a knife). It was not uncommon for Caribbean slaves to be literally worked to death. They had much shorter lifespans than African-American slaves did, to the point where deaths generally outnumbered births and new slaves had to constantly be imported to keep the population up.

And since the end of slavery, black Caribbeans have generally had fewer economic opportunities than African Americans, and large numbers have turned to emigration. Living in inner-city Detroit, Baltimore, etc. can be tough, but places like Port-au-Prince experience a whole different level of hardship.
 
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