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Tag: Genocide

Native Americans Have ‘Always Known’: Science Proves Genetic Inheritance Of Trauma

Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News

Many have suspected through the years that extreme stress and trauma leave their mark not just on their victims, but on their descendants as well. Now science is catching up to these beliefs through the developing field of epigenetics.

Epigenetics is the study of how environmental factors can change the expression of a person’s DNA, often in ways which are inheritable by the next generation. This science looks at not just which genes are in a person’s DNA — the genetic “instruction manual” — but also how cells choose to read and interpret that instruction manual throughout a lifetime of development.

Earlier this month, Biological Psychiatry published a new study called “Holocaust exposure induced intergenerational effects on FKBP5 methylation,” in which the authors studied 32 Holocaust survivors and their adult children. All of the older generation of subjects had either been interned in concentration camps or otherwise intimately witnessed the torture and horror of Nazi genocide.

4 Million Muslims Killed In Western Wars: Should We Call It Genocide?

Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News

It may never be possible to know the true death toll of the modern Western wars on the Middle East, but that figure could be 4 million or higher. Since the vast majority of those killed were of Arab descent, and mostly Muslim, when would it be fair to accuse the United States and its allies of genocide?

A March report by Physicians for Social Responsibility calculates the body count of the Iraq War at around 1.3 million, and possibly as many as 2 million. However, the numbers of those killed in Middle Eastern wars could be much higher. In April, investigative journalist Nafeez Ahmed argued that the actual death toll could reach as high as 4 million if one includes not just those killed in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also the victims of the sanctions against Iraq, which left about 1.7 million more dead, half of them children, according to figures from the United Nations.

‘We Charge Genocide’: Systematic Murder & Oppression Of Blacks Continues In US

Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News

Genocide is a word which may bring to mind images of large-scale ethnic cleansing and mass graves like those created by German Nazis or Bosnian Serbs. Some acts of genocide, however, are slower, more subtle, and a good deal more insidious, like the acts the United States continues to carry out against its black- and brown-skinned population.

The word “genocide” was defined in the 1940s, as the world struggled to deal with the massive body count from Nazi Germany, whose supporters killed some 6 million Jews and another 5 million from other groups like Roma Gypsies, LGBTQ people, and citizens of Russia and Poland. The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, ratified in 1951, defines genocide as “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” This includes not just killing and bodily harm, but also any deliberate acts which make survival difficult or impossible, like the removal of children from their families. While the Nazis were explicit about their policies of racial extermination, the convention admits that in most cases, genocide “must be inferred from a systematic pattern of coordinated acts.”

The Forgotten 5 Million Non-Jewish Victims Of The Holocaust

Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News

According to most figures, about 6 million Jews died at the hands of the Nazis and their supporters in the Holocaust, one of the most disturbing examples of genocide in human history. But the Nazis took around 11 million lives, leaving another 5 million dead that are all too often overlooked or forgotten when in discussions of this grim period of history.

Terese Pencak Schwartz is a Polish-American Jew, born of two Holocaust survivors who were not Jewish. Because she identified strongly with her family history, Schwartz realized there was a crucial piece missing from the history of that time period. “The impression I got was that people were not aware of any other Holocaust victims except Jews,” she wrote on Remember.org in 1997. “This concerned me greatly.”

Schwartz acknowledged that the Nazis sought the total destruction of the Jews, “a significant fact that I do not repudiate, nor want to diminish in any way,” then continued:

World Ignores Genocide In Central African Republic Because It’s Not ISIS & There’s No Oil

Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News

When the Seleka, a group of mostly Muslim rebels, led a successful coup in the Central African Republic in March 2013, one of the world’s poorest countries was plunged into turmoil as Christian militias targeted the nation’s minority Muslim population in what amounts to genocide.

The Seleka were ousted from power in January 2014, and the country has since been embroiled in a civil war between the Seleka and an armed coalition called the Anti-Balaka.

While the entire civilian population has suffered enormously throughout the conflicts in the Central African Republic, perhaps no group has suffered more than the country’s Muslim minority.