The Nazi Holocaust: The Other Victims

 History, Politics  No Responses »
May 032010
 

Most of us know that Hitler’s Nazi’s exterminated approximately 6 million Jews in what became known as the Holocaust (or sometimes preferred amongst the Jews, Shoah). However the total killed by the Nazis in methods and reasons similar to the Jews total around 11-17 million. Let us take that lower figure of 11 million. If you remove the total of Jews from it, you are still left with a total of 5 million men, women, and children which enough to deserve the word “holocaust” no matter who the victims are.

Some argue that the Jews are special because they were the only ethnic group to be targeted by the Nazis. I am not sure why being part of a particular ethnic group makes state murder any worse than being murdered for some other reason, but it’s also wrong. In addition to the Jews, the Nazis also targeted the Romani population, and Slavs. Nazis finally decided that the Romani be placed “on the same level as Jews and placed in concentration camps.”.

The Nazi attitude towards the Slavic population of the countries they invaded was more or less “we’ll deal with them later” although many hundred of thousands were killed.

Although we are concentrating on the genocide where the Nazi’s attempted the complete “ethnic cleansing” of populations, the other victims need remembering – the mentally ill, the disabled, the homosexuals, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and the Left. Plus of course any others the Nazi regime might find “inconvenient”.

The Porajmos (the Romani “shoah”) killed somewhere between 200,000 and 700,000. Doesn’t sounds so many in comparison does it ? Perhaps not, but a single victim of government killing is one too many. And when you start to look at the effect on the ethnic population as a whole something different begins to emerge.

Country Jewish Casualties (%) Romani Casualties (%)
Poland 90 26
Croatia – 98
Germany & Austria 90 75 (Germany), 58 (Austria)
Estonia – 100
Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania 90 100
Luxembourg 20 100

It is perhaps easy to get carried away by statistics – especially when talking about genocide. The numbers are incomprehensible, and the percentages just as incomprehensible. It is worth noting that despite the enthusiasm with which Nazi’s undertook the “Final Solution”, nowhere did they fully succeed in exterminating Jews; whereas they accomplished a “successful” genocide of the Romani in 5 separate countries.

As to why we hear so much about the Jewish Shoah – and quite rightly as this blog entry is not about attacking those commemorating the Jewish victims of the holocaust – and so little about the other victims, I really do not know. In the case of the Romani, part of the reason is that in the countries where they survived, they were still subject to official repression including forced sterilisation.

And of course there is a secrecy tradition amongst the Romani that stops them from telling their story made worse by many of the things that happened to them being taboo. But is that any reason for us to forget them ?

Perhaps it is simply film that is the answer. I have seen numerous films and documentaries covering the Holocaust and most simply ignore the “other” victims or at best mention them almost as an aside. We need to redress this balance and cover all of the victims of the holocaust.

Universal Suffrage In The UK

 History, Politics  No Responses »
Apr 132010
 

It is a curious fact of history that the UK’s Representation of the People Act 1918 is remembered for being giving universal suffrage to women. What is less known is that it also gave universal suffrage to men! Before 1918, and what is known as the fourth reform act, men were only entitled to vote if they had some form of property entitlement – either a freehold of sufficient value or a leasehold of sufficient value. This meant that around 40% of men had no vote at all, although the suspicion is that for various other reasons many of the 60% could not in fact vote.

This in effect meant that only rich women were disenfranchised – poor women were disenfranchised for being poor in the same way that poor men were.

Whilst the 1918 did not make the right to vote equal between the sexes, the real answer to the question “how long did it take for women to get the vote after men did” is somewhere between 0 and 10 years for the UK. Women aged 21-29 had to wait until 1928 to get the vote.

Even more curiously, before the much needed Reform Act of 1832 (which amongst other things abolished rotten boroughs with ridiculously small numbers of voters), there was actually no legal impediment to women voting. It was probably exceptionally rare that any women did vote except possibly in towns where the electorate was restricted to the membership of certain guilds (women could and sometimes were members of mediæval guilds), but in theory it could happen. The Reform Act of 1832 was the first act which explicitly restricted the right to vote, to male property owners.

So in effect it was only for less than a 100 years that women were denied the vote in this country; before 1832 the overwhelming majority were denied the vote for being poor.

Added: It turns out that there were some women who could vote before 1832. See http://www.historyofwomen.org/suffrage.html

Added2: It appears that an anti-feminist blog entry is pointing at this site as evidence. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion of course, but this blog post was not intended to be anti-feminist. It was intended to make two points :-

  1. The time difference between universal suffrage for men and universal suffrage for women in the UK was a lot less than is commonly believed.
  2. And that before 1832, it was possible that women could (and according to the first amendment to this post, did) vote although it was probably very rare.

Through The Doorway

Marriage – That Great Church/State Institution ?

 General, History, Politics  1 Response »
Mar 142010
 

Today when we consider marriage we think of it as an official ceremony performed by a representative of church or state; without their sanction, no “marriage” can be called such. It wasn’t always quite like that. Given the pressure to legalise marriage between two people of the same sex (apparently a “civil partnership” isn’t quite enough), it may come as a surprise that it is entirely possible that there have been single sex marriages in the past.

The idea of marriage being a ceremony conducted by an official (a priest or state official) is actually relatively modern. It was not until the Council of Trent in the 16th century, that the church insisted that marriage could only be performed by a priest. Whilst the church had laws governing marriage, the ceremony itself was a private one between two individuals. This would often be followed by the priest blessing the marriage, but that was a separate ceremony.

If you look at genuine early English churches (many of those old looking churches in sleepy villages are in fact 19th century), you will notice that many have quite large porches. There are various reasons for this, but principally it was a convenient place for conducting business that either didn’t require the whole church, or did not have any business in the church. And marriages were often conducted in this porch before the wedding party would enter the church for the priest to bless the marriage.

Now in almost all circumstances, the marriage would be conducted in this way; in public with a notice published on the door of the church some time in advance for people to object to the marriage if there were suitable grounds. But there was nothing to stop anyone from having a private (and probably illegal) marriage in their own way. It was even accepted by the church that merely saying the phrase “I marry you” was enough to constitute a marriage – effectively a common law marriage which was abolished in 1753. Such a marriage may not have been accepted by secular law, but would as far as the church was concerned been a marriage.

This would seem to indicate that marriage was originally a personal commitment between two people with nobody in authority sanctioning it. And only concerns over property rights and the urge that all authorities have to regulate everything changed that. Property? Of course to the rich, the effect of marriage on property ownership was exceptionally important – enough that many marriages were arranged principally to ensure that property ownership was preserved in some way.

So we know that many marriages in the past were arranged marriages conducted for merging property holdings ? Well there is plenty of evidence that the rich conducted marriage in such a way, but there is little to say that the vast majority who were poor also did so. Why arrange a marriage for property when neither partner owns any land ?

Of course there was also a tendency to pick a future partner for possible future earning power rather than for love. However we simply do not know enough about marriages in the past to say that love marriages did not exist.

But enough of the past. What about the present ? Is it not time to tell governments everywhere to keep out of our private business and take back ownership of marriage ? It is no business of government or any other authority to tell individuals whom they can or cannot marry. Sure, there are plenty of reasons why marriage should be registered with the government, but why do they insist the ceremony must take place in front of an appropriate official ?

The instant you allow private marriages, you solve so many problems that it is plainly (to me) an obvious thing to do :-

  • No nutters with an axe to grind can stop single-sex couples getting married, or impose any form of lesser marriage.
  • Private marriages mean you can get married anywhere – if I were to get married, my choice of spot would be on a hill north of Arundel overlooking Amberley mount. Not the kind of place that would normally be allowed by the government but why should they have a say on where I get married ?
  • It allows for marriages to be much cheaper. According to a quick search the average cost of getting married in the UK in 2006 (so it’ll have gone up since) is £25,000 – which is plainly ridiculous. Anyone can understand wanting an unforgettable day for a marriage, but surely it can be done for cheaper than this ? At this cost, many people put off getting married either because they just can’t afford it, or because they have better things to spend the money on – like putting down a deposit on a house!

The English Theocracy

 History  2 Responses »
Nov 152009
 

I was surprised a number of years ago when having a pleasant argument with someone online when he claimed that the English/British government was a theocracy. It had never occurred to me that the English government could be called a theocracy, but with the monarch being both head of state and head of the state religion there is a grain of truth to it.

Before going on, I will explain that although I am going to use “English” all the way through this, in later periods of history it should perhaps be “British”. But for convenience and because much of the points become well before the British union, I will use “English”. That’s not to say the Welsh and Scottish are irrelevant; just that bringing consideration of them in, will confuse the whole issue

As mentioned before the English monarch is both the head of state and the head of the Church of England. So a theocracy then. Well, no. Anyone who argues such is ignorant of the way in which titles of nobility work – whilst a single person may hold multiple titles, they are distinct and separate. For instance, the current Queen is correctly known as the “Lord of Mann” on the Isle of Mann, and the “Duke of Normandy” in the Channel islands. Neither are part of or will ever be part of the English monarchy. It is theoretically within the power of the holder of a title to gift that title to someone else – for instance it would in theory be perfectly possible for the Queen to lose the title “Lord of Mann” in a drunken poker game.

And yes such things have been known to happen, although if it were to occur in modern times it is likely to cause an outbreak of republicanism.

Another possible source of the idea that England is a theocracy are the “Lords Spiritual” who are 26 bishops and archbishops of the Church of England (or previous to Henry VIII’s reorganisation of government the “Church in England”) who sit in the House of Lords. And indeed if there were just 26 members of the House of Lords, and the House of Lords actually comprised the government, England would be a theocracy. In fact there are 724 members which means England is no more than 4% of the way to being a theocracy.

And of course the House of Lords comprises the government no more than I do. We often think of the House of Lords having more power than it in reality has had for centuries. On a very simplistic level, the House of Lords has been little more than the humorous sidekick in the struggle for power between the Monarch and the House of Commons.

Finally there is the argument that the power of the state is exercised at the local level by Church authorities (the “parish council” still has some residual authority even today in rural parishes). This dates from well before Henry VIII created the Church of England, and is an example of pragmatic government. This could be said to be an example of how theocratic the English government is, but neglects the fact that the authority was not delegated to Church authorities but to the parish officials.

Of course there is a little bit of hypocrisy in such a statement, but at no point was the authority delegated to the priest himself. It was delegated to the parish authorities who were already in place to perform such duties as the Church itself would not do – such as ensure that the maintenance of the community’s portion of the church was carried out (the Church itself looked to the maintenance of only the priest’s half of the church).

Initially local authority was delegated to the manor and the lord of the manor but this was found to be less than totally effective. This was due to the fact powerful aristocrats could come to be in charge of many manors and not all received effective authority. The parish authorities were on site and could be counted on to perform such duties as the King required.

Imagine a King pulling up his horse after journeying over a particularly poor road; tired, cold, wet, and angry. He would pop into the largest house in the village looking for accommodation and nourishment, and ask the most obviously in charge person to see to the maintenance of the road. He would not care a bit that the person he charged with such a duty was part of the Church hierarchy or not; he would just want one of his subjects to perform a necessary service.

The English government does have the Church intertwined throughout it as a historical artefact. But whilst the Church is there, it rarely interferes – for instance the Church “Lords Spiritual” very rarely actually vote on normal government matters. This is partially because the English government has never been properly dismantled and put together again without historical oddities, but the Church does not come anywhere near enough authority for the English form of government to be called a theocracy.

Alan Turing Gets An Apology At Last!

 Computing, General, History  No Responses »
Sep 112009
 

Alan Turing was a computer scientist and a homosexual at the very dawn of electronic computing, and contributed enormously to the winning of World War II by being one of those behind the code breaking efforts at Bletchley Park. When you consider his contributions to the war effort and his contributions to the new field of computer science, his sexual orientation was the least important part of him. Yet because of his sexuality, he was prosecuted, lost his security clearance (which was particularly devastating because of the lack of other places he could make his contributions), and harassed by the British security services.

Eventually he committed suicide; almost certainly because of his harassment by society that couldn’t see past his sexuality and see his vast contributions and potential.

There are those who say he shouldn’t be forgiven because he was a homosexual and that is forbidden by god. That position is contemptible and not worth commenting on.

There are those who say he shouldn’t be forgiven because he broke the law of the time. Well the law was immoral and wrong. In many ways we are obligated to break laws that are immoral.

There are those who say he shouldn’t be forgiven because there were many other men persecuted because of their sexual orientation. Perhaps 100,000 men, or even more (oddly enough homosexual women were not persecuted to quite the same extent (although I’d welcome pointers to prove me wrong … well sort of)). There is a point to that objection, but forgiving a particularly shining example of such harassment is the first step on the path of getting all those persecuted men pardoned.

And Alan Turing is a good start to that process because even those who do not like homosexuality can be brought around to believing that Alan at least deserves to be forgiven because of his immense contributions.

But most of all he should be pardoned because he didn’t really do anything wrong, and honoured because of his contributions.

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