Ethnocide

Ethnocide (also cultural genocide , English cultural genocide ) describes the deliberate attempt to destroy the cultural identity of a certain ethnic group without killing their members, as would be the case with genocide ( democide or genocide ).

This is achieved by forbidding and / or destroying the respective language, culture, religion , economy and form of rule of the respective ethnic group. Instead of the old by the beneficiaries is a new cultural identity under threats and repression imposed ( imposed ).

The reason for such efforts is mostly a racism- fed feeling of superiority in dominant societies over minorities of different origins . The aim is to accelerate the integration of the minority society into the majority society by abolishing cultural peculiarities.

Delimitations

In contrast to this, transculturation describes the phenomenon of, even uncontrolled, influence of one culture on another. The term acculturation describes the individual growing into their cultural environment through upbringing (see also socialization ). Marginalization is a social process in which groups of the population are deliberately pushed to the margins of society, culturally, legally and economically.

Forced assimilation

Common means of assimilation policy are:

• Linguicidal : The prohibition or massive hindrance of the use of native or minority languages (e.g. in schools) and the compulsory introduction of an official language of the state or the occupying power
• Renaming locations according to the same pattern
• The robbery of children and their temporary internment in schools, monasteries and boarding schools for the duration of school age
• Persistent forced adoptions of babies or children, through the robbery of their parents or after the parents are murdered
• Forced assimilation of minorities

Prohibition of forced adoptions

The forcible transfer of children from one (ethnic) group to another has been a practice that has been outlawed as a criterion for the existence of ethnocide by the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide since 1948 .

Examples of forced adoption

• Lebensborn in Germany, z. B. Robbery of Polish children who were intended to be Germanized by the National Socialists as "worthy of Germanization" and who were interned; similar in occupied Western European countries and in Norway 1940–1945

Examples of forced assimilation

• Assimilation (colonialism) : colonial assimilation policies of France and Portugal
• French assimilation policy in Alsace from 1918
• Politics of Germanization, Magyarization and Russification around 1900
• Italianization : In particular, the term refers to the attempt by the Italian fascist party , which ruled from 1922, to dominate the territories with non-Italian populations that were incorporated in the context of irredentism, linguistically and culturally, and to deprive them of their grown identity
• Roma in the Czech Republic and Slovakia : Empress Maria Theresa planned a rigorous policy of assimilation which, in addition to taking away the children for re-education, also included the Christianization of non-Christian Roma
• Deportation and suppression of the western Ukrainian border people in the course of the Vistula action
• Sami languages : Approximately 1850 to 1960 was the use of their own languages of seeds due to the prevailing policy of assimilation in state schools of all three Scandinavian countries, and the Russian Empire or the Soviet Union banned
• Assimilation policy towards the Kurds in Turkey
• Marginalization of the Tuareg in Mali and Niger
• Canada : Since the 19th century there has been a systematic attempt to alienate children of the indigenous ( First Nations ) in boarding schools ( residential schools ) from their own culture and from their parents
• Alienation From Aboriginal Children In Australia: Stolen Generations
• United States Indian policy , e.g. B. with the Ktunaxa
• Indigenous movement in Chile : At the end of the 1920s, the model of the current assimilation policy in Chile was a disciplined society, in whose eyes the traditional settlement areas of the indigenous people were considered "non-places" and had to be dissolved
• Sinification of Uyghurs and Tibetans in PRC - Xinjiang Re-education Camp
• Ryūkyū Islands : an attempt was made to integrate the residents of the Ryūkyū Islands into the Japanese state through a policy of assimilation
• Christian proselytizing was often accompanied by violence all over the world, it was primarily aimed at children and young people (mission schools) and was based on an alleged cultural superiority of Christianity over the local religions

See also

• Transculturation
• Cultural imperialism
• National Socialist European plans

literature

• Max Hildebert Boehm : Volkstumswechsel and assimilation politics. Festschrift Justus Wilhelm Hedemann for the 60th ed. Roland Freisler , George Anton Löning , Hans Carl Nipperdey , Jena 1938
• Helmut Samer: Consequences of the Assimilation Policy. Only online. About Roma up to the end of the 19th century in Prussia and in Austria
• Arnd Bauerkämper: Assimilation policy and integration dynamics. Displaced persons in the Soviet Zone / GDR from a comparative perspective . In: Marita Krauss , ed .: Integrations. Displaced persons in the German states after 1945. V&R , Göttingen 2008 ISBN 3525367570 pp. 22–47 (available in google books)
• Jutta Aumüller: Assimilation. Controversies about a migration policy concept. Transcript, Bielefeld 2009 ISBN 3837612368 (available in google books )

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} Peter Bolz: Keyword: Ethnocide in Walter Hirschberg (founder), Wolfgang Müller (editor): Dictionary of Ethnology. New edition, 2nd edition, Reimer, Berlin 2005. p. 112.
2. ↑ Gunnar Heinsohn : Lexicon of Genocides . Rowohlt, Reinbek 1999, p. 128
3. ↑ Ludwig E. Bernauer: The statistics as a mirror of the French assimilation policy in Alsace and in German Lorraine. In: Humanitas Ethnica. Human dignity, law and community. Festschrift Theodor Veiter . Wilhelm Braumüller, Vienna 1967, pp. 183–197
4. ↑ Rainer Alsheimer, Alois Moosmüller, Klaus Roth (eds.): Local cultures in a globalizing world - perspectives on intercultural areas of tension . Waxmann, Münster 2000, p. 188.
5. ^ Gerhard Stilz, Rudolf Bader: Landrechte der Aborigenes and Torres Strait-Islanders . In: Same (ed.) Australia between Europe and Asia (= German-Australian Studies - German-Australian Studies . Volume 8). Lang, Bern 1993, ISBN 3906752208 , p. ??.
6. ↑ Justification in the Bible: Lk 14.23  EU
   Example North America: Christian F. Feest : Animated Worlds - The religions of the Indians of North America. In: Small Library of Religions , Vol. 9, Herder, Freiburg / Basel / Vienna 1998, ISBN 3-451-23849-7 . Pp. 185–193, as well as partly 193ff.
   Example South America: Birgitta Huse, Heidi Feldt, Ludgera Klemp, Sabine Speiser, Volker von Bremen: Indigenous peoples in Latin America: Background - facts. Suggestions for teaching. International further training and development InWEnt gGmbH, Düsseldorf -and- German Society for Technical Cooperation (GTZ) GmbH, Eschborn 2005, ISBN 978-3-937235-85-1 . Pp. 20, 79, 85, 100.