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On the occasion of African Holocaust Memorial Day [Maafa]
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Message 1.Ìý
Posted by Raydon (U15001904) on Wednesday, 12th October 2011
a Portuguese trader carried, among his cargo, ten captive Africans, to Europe. A few years later, Pope Eugene IV accepted a gift of captive Africans whom he sold at a grand profit. The news of this profitable venture encouraged Portuguese traders to include captive Africans among their cargo.
This was the beginning of the iniquitous trade in captive Africans. In time, the numbers grew into the thousands; and with the colonization of the Americas, and the introduction of the plantation system, these numbers grew into millions. These captive Africans were consigned to slavery on the New World plantations; and while slavery of any form is horrendous, plantation slavery was especially horrific.
This horrendous movement of the African people is the greatest continuing human tragedy the world has ever known. It is also the most impacting social event in the history of humanity: not only in terms of scale, but also in terms of legacy and horror. It is the African Holocaust which is constantly denied, mitigated and trivialized.
This Holocaust reduced humans with culture and history to a people invisible from historical contribution, mere labour units, commodities to be traded. From this Holocaust, the modern racial-social hierarchy was born, which continues to govern the lives of every living human where race continues to confer (or obstruct) privilege and opportunity.
Why is there no acknowledgement or commemeration. No article or any report of this day in mainstream media on this issue. Which is a holiday in some countries and observed with various ceremonies.
I guess we have forgotten.Link to this forum: On the occasion of African Holocaust Memorial Day [Maafa]
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Message 2
Posted by islanddawn (U7379884) on Wednesday, 12th October 2011
I guess you've also forgotten to mention that Africans themselves participated in the abhorence that is slavery and gladly sold their captives from neighbouring tribes to Europeans for a few baubles. The slaves didn't get to the coast on their own, and as the African interior was largely unknown to outsiders.......
Why is this unsavoury fact never acknowledged?Link to this forum: On the occasion of African Holocaust Memorial Day [Maafa]
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Message 3
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Wednesday, 12th October 2011
Sorry one + one
Following on from ID's point - Considerations of Holocausts in the era of Modern History when seen as the story of one Humanity need to place the impact of change on the continent of Africa in the context of the impact on the continent of Europe..
These were centuries of uncertain and violent change and the death toll in European Wars reached up to 30% of the population of the German region during the Thirty Years War. Moreover in addition to the trade and territorial wars- which took their toll- almost all countries had systems of legal penal servitude, and labour through imprisonment or transportation.. England came off pretty well because of its island status- though not necessarily the British Isles, and all regions under the British Crown were subject to transportation, debtors imprisonment and mass immigration for example from Ireland.
Of course these conflicts and the turbulence was closely connected with the collapse of the European Medieval Order- and with it the high tide and then progressive collapse of the Islamic Empire.
The emergence of Portugal was part of that rolling back of Islamic power in the West, and the King of the Congo sent his son to Portugal be educated in Western ways soon after the Portuguese explorers had found their way to the mouth of that great river.
Of course the two great new Imperialist Kingdoms of Europe, Portugal and Spain, were forged out of their struggle against Islam: and what seems to have happened in West Africa once the Christian Europeans arrived and opened up the Atlantic as a trade route was a series of treaties between the coastal States and the Europeans which made it possible for the African States to fight wars of liberation against the oppression and slavery that had come down into Africa for thousands of years from the Mediterranean and Middle East.
The great Sub-Saharan Muslim States like Ghana and Mali had been outreaches of Islam and great "entrepots" for the trans-Saharan slave trade- much worse and much longer lasting than the Trans-Atlantic one. During the Eighteenth Century the Islamic States launched "intafadas" in order to try to restore their domination- and, of course, East Africa remained a prey to slave traders and raiders involved in the trade across the Indian Ocean up until late in the Nineteenth Century.
William Wilberforce had his own reasons for trawling the African coast for evidence that African people were- as he said in his great speech- "lower than the Apes"- and did not think them capable of any kind of political and historical action.
With the moral outrage stirred up by the Anti-Slave Trade campaign the external ties of the African States and therewith their capacity to grow as part of the global economic and political entity were stopped with the banning of the trade, as opposed to- for example- the reforming of the transportation system in favour of free emigration to work in the colonies.
In line with Wilberforce's diatribe's against the bestiality and depravity of Africans- [much like his attitude to the "popular" parts of London] Africa became "The Dark Continent" that "white men" needed to keep out of until it had been Christianised and Civilized in accordance with what became Victorian paternalism.
More bla bla bla.
CassLink to this forum: On the occasion of African Holocaust Memorial Day [Maafa]
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Message 4
Posted by somewhatsilly (U14315357) on Wednesday, 12th October 2011
You see Cass, you can stick to the point - and only one 'England'. Well done.
Link to this forum: On the occasion of African Holocaust Memorial Day [Maafa]
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Message 5
Posted by Harpo (U14643022) on Wednesday, 12th October 2011
Is today African Holocaust Memorial Day?
Who designated it such?
Is holocaust the right word?
Is this plagiarism (see Guyana Chronicle Online)?Link to this forum: On the occasion of African Holocaust Memorial Day [Maafa]
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Message 6
Posted by Harpo (U14643022) on Wednesday, 12th October 2011
Is today African Holocaust Memorial Day?
Who designated it such?
Is holocaust the right word?
Is this plagiarism (see Guyana Chronicle Online)?
Ìý I should have given the link to the plagiarised site. Here it is:-
Link to this forum: On the occasion of African Holocaust Memorial Day [Maafa]
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Message 7
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Wednesday, 12th October 2011
The "African Holocaust " seems to be largely put forward by Africans who believe that Africa should be compensated for the slaves that they traded to be transported to the Americas.. They and not the descendants of the slaves that they sold, who were the ones subject to the "Western" plantation system and the racism that became a feature of the Western world, that the OP describes in such lurid terms, need some redress.
According to the documents from e.g. Sierra Leone in c1783 slaves in that State were set to work on the fields, the only difference to plantation work being that in Sierra Leone once they had no more work to do [ because farming is to some extent characterised by irregular work -- important peaks and troughs of business] their masters just killed them..
1783 was important in this respect because the American War of Independence had disrupted trade for seven years and, when the traders were able to return, the authorities and trade partners in Sierra Leone were pleased to have them back because, without the trade they had had no alternative to going back to their old ways- which was as described above.
But not all the slaves had been killed- and when peace returned African states had stockpiles of slaves that drove down the market price and resulted in the worst excesses of overloading on the slave ships- and the famous Zong affair. The insurers of the Zong claimed that the throwing of the slaves overboard was an "insurance scam" due to the collapse of the price in the West Indies. They were worth more dead than alive.
On French radio about ten years ago an interviewer asked a Francophone descendent of an African King if he was ashamed of his ancestors connection with the slave trade. He replied that he was proud of him as an Humanitarian because he found a way of saving the lives of people who would otherwise have been killed.
I think that we need to look way back to pre-European times to understand the difficulties faced by African Societies in the face of the development of great ancient Civilizations that could intrude across the Sahara, up the Nile or inland from the East Coast.
Go back to Shivfan's thread on Nubians in Ancient Egypt. Or read that alleged oral history of the African people as written by Credo Mutwa in "The Confessions of a Zulu Witch Doctor". As Mutwa suggests the widespread use of mutilation - not to mention tribal scars- suggests societies in which there was a frequent risk of people being stole away into slavery.
CassLink to this forum: On the occasion of African Holocaust Memorial Day [Maafa]
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Message 8
Posted by RusEvo (U2126548) on Thursday, 13th October 2011
The OP said "This horrendous movement of the African people is the greatest continuing human tragedy the world has ever known. "
Is it really the worst tragedy?
I mean we (unfortunately) have so many to choose from.Link to this forum: On the occasion of African Holocaust Memorial Day [Maafa]
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Message 9
Posted by Herewordless (U14549396) on Thursday, 13th October 2011
It should be acknowledged, as should ALL 'holocausts', humanitarian or natural disasters, whether distasteful facts and events arise or not, to all involved.
What we call these memorials, and how they are remembered, is another matter.Link to this forum: On the occasion of African Holocaust Memorial Day [Maafa]
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Message 10
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Thursday, 13th October 2011
It is the African Holocaust which is constantly denied ...
This Holocaust reduced humans with culture and history ...
From this Holocaust, the modern racial-social hierarchy was born ...
Ìý
Unless - on top of all their other problems - the poor sods were used as firelighters, then you are employing the wrong euphemism.Link to this forum: On the occasion of African Holocaust Memorial Day [Maafa]
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Message 11
Posted by islanddawn (U7379884) on Thursday, 13th October 2011
Heavens, I didn't even notice that, but you are correct Nordmann.
Definition of holocaust -
1- Great destruction resulting in the extensive loss of life, especially by fire.
2- Genocide of European Jews and others during WWII.
3- A sacraficial offering that is consumed entirely by flames.
None of the definitions can be used as a description for or of the African slave trade.Link to this forum: On the occasion of African Holocaust Memorial Day [Maafa]
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Message 12
Posted by cloudyj (U1773646) on Thursday, 13th October 2011
Definition of holocaust -
1- Great destruction resulting in the extensive loss of life, especially by fire.
2- Genocide of European Jews and others during WWII.
3- A sacraficial offering that is consumed entirely by flames.
None of the definitions can be used as a description for or of the African slave trade.
Ìý
In fairness, the word only acquired definition 2 as a metaphor in exactly the same way as those who talk about the African holocaust use it.
I'm always a little saddened by the competitive aspect of group suffering, the "our holocaust was worse than yours" attitude which the word seems to provoke. An African who died being transported across the Atlantic is no more, nor less dead than a Jew gassed to death or a Cambodian intellectual shot by ther Khmer Rouge. Each is its own tragedy.
But back to thew slave trade. At the point that Eugene IV was accepting that gift of slaves, the Portuguese and Spaniards were also quite happily selling white European slaves too. And, in the early days, slaves weren't the really desirable cargo either, gold and spices were.Link to this forum: On the occasion of African Holocaust Memorial Day [Maafa]
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Message 13
Posted by shivfan (U2435266) on Friday, 14th October 2011
Ah yes, that Nubia thread, I remember it well....
Yes, slavery certainly existed for many centuries before the Europeans became involved in West Africa. But I think the point needs to be made that the Europeans did turn it into a huge business involving millions of people, arguably on a scale never seen before. It could be said that slavery in its previous form was more manageable, but the transAtlantic trade occurred on a level that had serious effects on populations transported, as well as populations depleted.
Cass and I have discussed this many times before on other threads, but here's a synopsis. Yes, some coastal states became rich off the slave trade, i.e. Dahomey and Calabar. But a number of interior tribes were devastated by the constant raiding by the Europeans and their allies, such as Dahomey and Calabar. You could say that Dahomey and Calabar became rich off the slave trade, but the interior tribes of the Ashanti, the Igbo, etc, were constantly ruined and depleted by this persistent raid on their population.
Was it a Holocaust? I don't like to use that word, because the Jews were systematically exterminated by Hitler et al, while the Europeans tried their best to keep their slaves alive long enough to squeeze every ounce of labour from them. So, no, not a Holocaust, but yes, a very terrible event in history....
I'm ambivalent on the subject of apologies and compensation. What do they really accomplish? But I'm not impressed when politicians are selective about their apologies, i.e. Blair apologising to the children who were terribly treated in their forced removal to Australia, but choosing not to apologise for slavery.
I'm of the view that either you don't apologise for anything at all in your history, or you apologise for everything. This half-way house of apologising for one event to win votes, while not apologising for other events, again to win votes, is nothing more than a cynical ploy by the politicians....Link to this forum: On the occasion of African Holocaust Memorial Day [Maafa]
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Message 14
Posted by ambi (U13776277) on Friday, 14th October 2011
Good post
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Message 15
Posted by Caro (U1691443) on Friday, 14th October 2011
I agree that, while African leaders helped with the delivery of slaves and were complicit in the whole business, that doesn't at all excuse the people buying them and using them - and misusing them.
And just because your leaders, or more likely not your own leaders at all, have sold your ancestors doesn't mean you have no rights to be offended or want the events remembered or want compensation if possible. People in my country "sold" their land for rewards they were presumably happy with, but it doesn't mean this isn't something that shouldn't be compensated for (and is, in the many millions of dollars).
As regards apologies, if they are just words for the benefit of making you feel good, or pandering to a home electorate, they are not of much worth, but if they are well thought out and considered, with the support and agreement of those you are apologizing to, then they do seem to heal quite a lot of anger and resentment. And don't necessarily have to come with monetary compensation. Most Maori settlements haven't come with apologies but a recent one did, even though the money was coming anyway. The tribe still valued an apology.
Cheers, Caro.
I think the word 'holocaust' has rather cast off any necessary associations with fire.Link to this forum: On the occasion of African Holocaust Memorial Day [Maafa]
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Message 16
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Friday, 14th October 2011
I think the word 'holocaust' has rather cast off any necessary associations with fire.
Ìý
Except that those associations are still necessary for it to have any meaning. It is not a term synonymous with genocide, and was never applied to the fate of the European Jews during the war years on that basis either. It is unfortunate that a preponderance of people too unfamiliar with their own language to know any different when the phrase was promoted in the late 1970s by a successful TV series of the same name, but while an ignorant majority might affect shifts in semantic application, they still cannot cheat the etymology, in this case for a word which was applied because it fitted the bill perfectly, much better than their garbled version of its meaning.
Concerning shivfan's observation, I agree. The notion of intergenerational guilt is a silly one unless it can be demonstrated that the attitudes and circumstances which gave rise to the occasion for which guilt can be ascribed have also survived over generations. Where it has not done so then any "apology" is not only meaningless but extremely unctuous and hypocritical on the part of whoever issues it.
By the same token those who overly posecute a case for intergenerational guilt should be careful lest the same scrutiny be applied to their own ancestors. History has a way of smacking such smug assumptions for six.
Slavery was a terrible thing. Life in general wasn't too rosy at the time for many other people either. Times have moved on. We still have slavery. Many still have horrendously short and unhappy lives. The reasons for both are contemporary. It is these which need addressing in the matter of establishing guilt, innocence and responsibility. Not those safely buried under the detritus of subsequent events.Link to this forum: On the occasion of African Holocaust Memorial Day [Maafa]
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Message 17
Posted by Caro (U1691443) on Saturday, 15th October 2011
but while an ignorant majority might affect shifts in semantic application, they still cannot cheat the etymology, in this case for a word which was applied because it fitted the bill perfectlyÌý
I’m not sure you aren’t swimming against the tide a bit here, Nordmann, and, while I am sure that doesn’t worry you, as far as language is concerned the tide is very strong, once it’s going in a certain direction. There are many thousands of words where etymology and present meaning are not in synch at all.
The thing that bothers me a bit about this thread is that I suspect most of us talking about are not the descendants of people affected by slavery - probably not from either side, but specially not from the Africans. And it doesn’t quite right to decide how other people should feel or think about an issue that affects them. If it is important enough for them to want a commemorative day, then that must mean it still has strong reverberations for them, and it’s not for me to say these are or are not valid.Link to this forum: On the occasion of African Holocaust Memorial Day [Maafa]
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Message 18
Posted by Harpo (U14643022) on Saturday, 15th October 2011
People are going off on tangents here. We all condemn slavery and can agree that it has had profound effects on the development of world history and on inter-racial relationships.
However, the OP is not about slavery per se – it was about the lack of any commemoration or recognition of African Holocaust Memorial Day. The OP ended with
Why is there no acknowledgement or commemeration. No article or any report of this day in mainstream media on this issue. Which is a holiday in some countries and observed with various ceremonies. I guess we have forgotten. Ìý
I questioned that post on a number of levels …
1. Is today African Holocaust Memorial Day?
2. Who designated it such?
3. Is holocaust the right word?
4. Is this plagiarism (see www.guyanachronicleo... )?
… but the original poster has not responded. Why? Because, outside of Guyana possibly, it was not 'African Holocaust Memorial Day'. I thought it might have been designated such by the UN, or some other world body. And the slave trade certainly was not a holocaust.
Where is the original poster?Link to this forum: On the occasion of African Holocaust Memorial Day [Maafa]
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Message 19
Posted by islanddawn (U7379884) on Saturday, 15th October 2011
I’m not sure you aren’t swimming against the tide a bit here, Nordmann, and, while I am sure that doesn’t worry you, as far as language is concerned the tide is very strong, once it’s going in a certain direction. There are many thousands of words where etymology and present meaning are not in synch at all.Ìý
Caro the word cannot ever mean anything else as the holocaust literally means burnt whole, a quick look in any dictionary will confirm it's meaning. Unless you are suggesting that the dictionaries are wrong?
[Middle English, burnt offering, from Old French holocauste, from Latin holocaustum, from Greek holokauston, from neuter of holokaustos, burnt whole : holo-, holo- + kaustos, burnt (from kaiein, to burn).]Link to this forum: On the occasion of African Holocaust Memorial Day [Maafa]
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Message 20
Posted by somewhatsilly (U14315357) on Saturday, 15th October 2011
Hmmm, the OED gives a secondary meaning as a large scale sacrifice and seems to assert that the word has been used in a less specific sense for a long time.
b. A sacrifice on a large scale.
1497 J. Alcock Mons Perfeccionis (de Worde) C iij a, Very true obedyence is an holocauste of martyrdom made to Cryste.
1648 J. Beaumont Psyche xx. clxxiv. 396 The perfect Holocaust of generous Love.
1688 in London Gaz. No. 2401/1, We‥humbly offer our Lives and Fortunes‥which is that true Holocaust which all true honest-hearted Scotsmen will give to so good‥a Prince.
a1711 T. Ken Anodynes in Wks. (1721) III. 477 While I thy Holocaust remain.
1868 M. Pattison Suggestions Acad. Organisation v. 139 By another grand holocaust of fellowships we might perhaps purchase another respite.Ìý
Although some of us may wish that words retained their meaning, or at least the meaning that we approve of, this is not the way that language works.
Decimate anyone? I seem to remember quite a long discussion about that one.Link to this forum: On the occasion of African Holocaust Memorial Day [Maafa]
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Message 21
Posted by ambi (U13776277) on Saturday, 15th October 2011
'Although some of us may wish that words retained their meaning, or at least the meaning that we approve of, this is not the way that language works.
Decimate anyone?'
Indeed, or crucify, massacre, slaughter etc.Link to this forum: On the occasion of African Holocaust Memorial Day [Maafa]
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Message 22
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Saturday, 15th October 2011
ferval
Your examples are correct only as long as you understand that the "scale" referred to does not imply large numbers of people, but severity (of which in sacrificial terms incineration was considered the epitome).
This might be then concluded to have semantically shifted over the years to mean "multitudes" but in fact it did not, and indeed why should it since so many perfectly apposite terms already exist? I would wager that before 1978 and the sudden exposure of US english-speakers to the term through a programme depicting the fate of the Jews during WWII, then it was this original meaning and only this meaning which applied - and quite correctly given the term's origin and history.
I can only imagine that those who now propose it be accepted to mean genocide or the death of multitudes were ignorant of the term before 1978 (or whatever year that bloody awful mini-series was syndicated to a channel in their neighbourhood). The staunchest defenders of the right to mangle semantics are normally those who are unable to understand that a term might exist which they might conceivably have to learn before they can accurately express their thoughts. The alternative they then propose is a Holocaust of Independetizing Linguistography Usabilityage, to quote an as yet unknown American.Link to this forum: On the occasion of African Holocaust Memorial Day [Maafa]
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Message 23
Posted by somewhatsilly (U14315357) on Saturday, 15th October 2011
Nordmann, I'm not denying the meaning of the word, and there could be an argument that the 'severity' element might be appropriate in the instances discussed, but just that its now wide spread understanding has changed and is unlikely to be recovered. In fact it has gone two ways; one as in the 'death of a multitude' sense but also in the sense of an extensive fire, general destruction etc. An example might be the 1894 book, 'The September Holocaust' about a forest fire or the common description of the destruction of the rainforest as an environmental holocaust.
Rightly or wrongly, I doubt that original meaning is known to other than a very few nowadays and I'm not sure that condemning the others for their ignorance is the way to change that, the word having gained a certain utility in conveying an idea concisely.
However I do agree that apologising for something that could not be the responsibility of the apologiser is simply silly. Regret, sorrow perhaps but to retrospectively apologise on behalf of those who anyway very well might not see any reason to do so is utterly pointless and lacks all integrity.Link to this forum: On the occasion of African Holocaust Memorial Day [Maafa]
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Message 24
Posted by Caro (U1691443) on Saturday, 15th October 2011
Did the Samoan rugby player's comments reach the media here? He compared the scheduling of the Rugby World Cup matches to 'slavery, the holocaust, apartheid'. I suppose he wasn't actually defining it as that, but assuming that any perceived unfairness is of a similar scale. His words weren't condemned as much as they might have been, a combination of them being so over-the-top as to be laughable, a feeling the IRB are a pain in the neck and perhaps a lack of Jewish people in NZ. However his comments saying the ref was biased have brought him a 6-month ban (deferred under a good behaviour bond).
But people are forever complaining that words have changed their meaning for the worse or at least for the inauthentic, but it makes no difference: the changes stick. Otherwise a 'wife' would still mean any woman (and that is the first definition in the recent OED) which it doesn't in general speech, and 'nice' would be a synonym for stupid. And a million other words would have a different meaning or feeling.Link to this forum: On the occasion of African Holocaust Memorial Day [Maafa]
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Message 25
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Saturday, 15th October 2011
There is a difference between words which evolve semantically and those which are just plain misused. I am not aware that "holocaust" has yet to be declared wrong when used as a euphemism for immolative sacrifice, exactly what Wiesel intended when he employed the term for the destruction of the Jews by Nazi Germany and prompted by the then recent and horrendous imagery of the concentration camp ovens.
That a lot of people twenty years later learnt the word first from watching a badly acted, even more badly scripted, largely unhistorical and completely over-sentimentalised representation of the event which Wiesel had earlier struggled to encapsulate in a single euphemism (he failed, by his own admission), simply explains how certain words come to be misused from time to time. Ignorance has as much say in how language develops as knowledge has, and thus has it always been. That people who think they have a command of their language then defend that misuse however can mean only one of two things - they either harbour a contempt for that which they claim to cherish or they are simply as ignorant as the rest and refuse to countenance such an inconvenient fact.
Until "holocaust" actually departs in meaning from that with which it has been invested (at least up to its hijacking by the US TV media) then attempts to employ it as a euphemism for any bad thing happening to a mass of human beings at the same time - as in the attempt above to employ it as a description of the 18th century slavery of Africans - ring false.
There's no smoke without flames (even figurative ones which lead to a complete expunction of the sacrificial object), and therefore no holocaust either.Link to this forum: On the occasion of African Holocaust Memorial Day [Maafa]
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Message 26
Posted by Caro (U1691443) on Saturday, 15th October 2011
I am not aware that "holocaust" has yet to be declared wrong when used as a euphemism for immolative sacrificeÌý
Why would it ever be declared wrong, even if another meaning is used as well? (i don't know that I see it as euphemistic, though perhaps rather short-hand. It's not a word I use much at all. Just as I don't use 9/11 or others like that.)Link to this forum: On the occasion of African Holocaust Memorial Day [Maafa]
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Message 27
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Saturday, 15th October 2011
I am not aware that these things are ever done by declaration, except in that one can with justification declare a misuse of the term by others, as I have done.
If, as you declare however, this particular word can be uniquely allowed to "evolve" through accumulation of misunderstanding and without shedding its past semantic applications (ie. everyone's right, even those who are wrong), then of course it should also be totally admissable to use it in any context in which a lot of people ignorant of English might feel it is appropriate. In this latest case it appears to be the Guyanans. In the previous case it was largely Americans. I stand corrected therefore and look forward to the imminent day when washing detergent informercials shall promise me a Holocaust over anti-biological stains in my wash (in fact we are almost halfway there already).Link to this forum: On the occasion of African Holocaust Memorial Day [Maafa]
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Message 28
Posted by Caro (U1691443) on Saturday, 15th October 2011
this particular word can be uniquely allowed to "evolve" through accumulation of misunderstanding and without shedding its past semantic applications (ie. everyone's right, even those who are wrong)Ìý
What would be unique about it? 'Nice' can mean 'particular' as well as 'pleasant', and people who want the first meaning only would say the latter meaning is wrong etymologically. I would have thought this was a very common way for words to change/add to their meanings.
I knew it would be a mistake for me to come near this thread.
Cheers, Caro.Link to this forum: On the occasion of African Holocaust Memorial Day [Maafa]
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Message 29
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Saturday, 15th October 2011
How "nice" became "pleasant" is used often in teaching semantics to denote a typical example of how abbreviation in speech and the inherent underspecification it entails provides the platform by which a popular concept of the meaning of the term gradually evolves into what it might currently be. If you cannot see the difference between that process and the one under discussion then you are simply saying that all words can change meaning for any reason (even when they haven't) and it's all the same.
A good starting point for understanding why this case is different is to ask three questions. What do you now think it means? When did anyone first ascribe this meaning? If the motivation to change the meaning was provided by an historically attested event then why was there no evidence of underspecification in its application for some decades between that event and when the new application emerged?
This is how one distinguishes between semantic process and simple misapplication. It is way too soon to prophesy that the misapplication will become acceptable in a semantic sense, let alone declare that it has already happened. The Guyanans appear to be proving this.Link to this forum: On the occasion of African Holocaust Memorial Day [Maafa]
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Message 30
Posted by Temperance (U14455940) on Sunday, 16th October 2011
Oh, do give over, Nordmann. Honestly, you sound just like Humpty Dumpty at times, perched up there on your wall.
Not everyone's as clever and/or as educated as you are.
That said, I think you are quite right, and Humpty Dumpty - whose *ideas* if not his manner of addressing people are quite the opposite of yours - is not only wrong, but dangerously wrong. Saying that it's OK to tinker willy-nilly with meaning can lead to the Orwellian nightmare.
That dastardly Egg has much to answer for, because his pernicious teachings have been enormously influential.
Please may I quote?
"There's glory for you!"
"I don't know what you mean by 'glory,' " Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. "Of course you don't - till I tell you. I meant 'there's a nice knock-down argument for you!' "
"But 'glory' doesn't mean 'a nice knock-down argument,' " Alice objected.
"When *I* use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less."
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you *can* make words mean so many different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master - that's all..."
"...Impenetrability! That's what I say!"
"Would you please tell me,"said Alice, "what that means?"
"Now you talk like a reasonable child," said Humpty Dumpty, looking very much pleased. "I mean by 'impenetrability' that we've had enough of that subject, and it would be just as well if you'd mention what you mean to do next, as I suppose you don't mean to stop here all the rest of you life."
"That's a great deal to make one word mean," said Alice in a thoughtful tone.
I shall now scuttle back to the safety of the Liz Woodville thread.
SST.
PS Actually my favourite bit from the HD chapter is: "Let's hear it," said Humpty Dumpty. "I can explain all the poems that ever were invented - and a good many that haven't been invented just yet."
'Link to this forum: On the occasion of African Holocaust Memorial Day [Maafa]
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Message 31
Posted by Vizzer aka U_numbers (U2011621) on Sunday, 16th October 2011
I'm in agreement with Nordmann.
We should indeed challenge incorrect usage within reason. For example in the 1970s the word 'chronic' was widely used by many people to mean 'bad'. This usage was to be heard in London and south-eastern England - but perhaps in other parts too. I'm pleased to note, however, that such usage has now all but died out. Why did it die out? Mainly it seems because other people patiently but repeatedly pointed out that such usage was incorrect and the users then presumably felt somewhat foolish in using it in that way and so stopped.Link to this forum: On the occasion of African Holocaust Memorial Day [Maafa]
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Message 32
Posted by Caro (U1691443) on Sunday, 16th October 2011
I haven't studied semantics or linguistics to any degree (and what degree it was was 40 years ago) so I don't understand underspecification. I do think words (not necessarily all words) can change for any reason, and have. So I don't see why, Nordmann, you think this is a unique example. What makes it different from Vizzer's 'chronic' (which I think was more a fashion/fad word/meaing which come and go)?
And where do new words fit semantically - words like 'doh' or 'ms' or dozens of others like those?
But also I don't understand why you ignore the examples from the OED that ferval gave, which shows this usage goes back a long way, and isn't just from an inaccurate television programme.
As for those questions - I have already said holocaust is not a word I use really. But the only meaning I associate it with is the events of WWII in Germany that brought about the deaths of millions of Jews in concentration camps. The fire bit is secondary to my interpretation of its meaning. (But I was 20 before I even knew about all these Jewish deaths in the holocaust - I don't know now if I knew the word before then or not, but I was very shocked at the time to hear of the numbers involved. My education didn't include modern history and apparently my father's war recollections didn't go into awkward details.) I don't know when this meaning was first ascribed but it couldn't be before 1940.
As for other meanings, watered down meanings - maybe that's not the best phrase - I don't know when they were first used, though it seems around the 15th century. But modern wider use to mean any large-scale killing of humans I can't date. (I think it's only used of humans, not animals, though perhaps I have heard it for the killing of whales.)
And I can't talk about the evidence of underspecification because that is not part of my knowledge.
I don't see how misapplication isn't a form of meaning change that has been part of the England language forever. But I do think it will take time to know if this use is a permanent one. The main thing stopping it, though, is not anything semantic, but Jewish objections to their tragedy being hijacked by others. And thereby lessening theirs.
Cheers, Caro.Link to this forum: On the occasion of African Holocaust Memorial Day [Maafa]
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Message 33
Posted by Temperance (U14455940) on Sunday, 16th October 2011
I haven't studied semantics or linguistics to any degree (and what degree it was was 40 years ago) so I don't understand underspecification. Ìý
Thank Heavens for that. I don't either.Link to this forum: On the occasion of African Holocaust Memorial Day [Maafa]
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Message 34
Posted by somewhatsilly (U14315357) on Sunday, 16th October 2011
And I thought it meant either a car that was really badly equipped or that your optician's prescription wasn't strong enough.
Link to this forum: On the occasion of African Holocaust Memorial Day [Maafa]
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Message 35
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Sunday, 16th October 2011
I most definitely did not ignore ferval's examples, Caro. They are quite illustrative of the concept both of totality and sacrifice that the euphemism was employed to convey, based on its original and specific meaning of a sacrifice burnt to the point of non-existence (not lightly singed around the edges in other words).
What is ironic in all this is that the attempted genocide of the Jews almost merited the use of the term (Wiesel regretted his use of the term in that its hyperbolicism seemed, upon refelection, an insult to those who had evaded becoming sacrificial victims). However he had not meant to equate it with genocide (a word he used more frequently) but with the tenet of the Jewish faith which maintains that their god can demand great and aften incomprehensible sacrifice on their part on occasion.
Underspecification is when a word is used increasingly out of the context in which it originally made sense, at first because the context is deemed unnecessary and later when it is actually forgotten. This tends to impose a gradual change in its meaning over time. "Holocaust" may seem superficially to follow this trend except in that the change of sense to infer "genocide" happened suddenly - not, as many might retrospectively assume in 1945, or even in 1958 when Wiesel applied it to the Jews in a book which had international impact, but when a particularly popular TV mini series in 1978 employed it as its title and many people heard it for the first time in any context. This has indeed led to a semantic shift triggered by a process which, in semantics, is called "fuzziness" plain and simple. The popular media, especially since it became a global media, is reponsible for many of these. Surprisingly few actually survive in their artificially sponsored forms however.
The best one can say about its current status is that it is less evolving new meanings than giving rise to terrible general confusion since its misapplication is based on a popular misunderstanding (a parallel with Vizzer's example, but on an even bigger scale in terms of the number of people confused). Hence the Guyanans thinking it fits the bill when describing the slave trade.
With deference to Temperance's Humpty Dumpty association (am I that fat based on what I write?) I should add that my own maxim in this respect might be more akin to the advice of The Duchess when she advises Alice to "Take care of the sense and the sounds will take care of themselves." It is exceedingly good advice for those (all too many people) who appropriate the sounds that ready-made words provide without apparently first checking either the sense they are employed to purvey or even whether they make sense at all in relation to what they think they themselves are trying to say. The true holocaust victim in this topic is English as a succinct and exact language.Link to this forum: On the occasion of African Holocaust Memorial Day [Maafa]
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Message 36
Posted by Caro (U1691443) on Sunday, 16th October 2011
Thanks for that, Nordmann. I think I understand more now what you are saying. But I really don't think you can expect the world to go backwards in that usage. That seems to me the meaning used very widely, and is more likely to be extended from that to take in a much weaker feeling, rather than going back to its etymological roots. (Surely the holocaust was used regularly for the Jewish burnings long before 1978.) I am pretty sure you are fighting a losing battle, which doesn't necessarily mean it's not worth doing. (And at least millions of people aren't dying for your battle.)
Cheers, Caro.Link to this forum: On the occasion of African Holocaust Memorial Day [Maafa]
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Message 37
Posted by Temperance (U14455940) on Monday, 17th October 2011
With deference to Temperance's Humpty Dumpty association...I should add that my own maxim in this respect might be a bit more akin to the advice of The Duchess when she advises Alice to "Take care of the sense and the sounds will take care of themselves." It is exceedingly good advice for those (all too many people) who appropriate the sounds that ready-made words provide without apparently first checking either the sense they are employed to purvey or even whether they make sense at all in relation to what they think they themselves are trying to say. Ìý
Yep (and you can read that as yelp), Nordmann, the Duchess's advice was sound and your reference to it appropriate. But the following quotation from Jane Austen *is* germane I feel:
"What say you, Mary? For you are a young lady of deep reflection I know, and read great books, and make extracts."
Mary wished to say something sensible, but knew not how. Ìý
Poor Mary. But at least she could plead the ignorance of youth.
My "contribution" yesterday was pretty dumb. I shouldn't have butted in on this thread especially when, as you rightly point out, my thinking (using the word thinking very loosely) was so muddled. I feel a proper prat. Oh well, serves me right for trying to be clever.
I'd better stick to gardening today. In fact I'm going out now to kill a few slugs. Hopefully that will make me feel better.
Apologies for interrupting an interesting discussion with my nonsense (honest).Link to this forum: On the occasion of African Holocaust Memorial Day [Maafa]
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Message 38
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Monday, 17th October 2011
That seems to me the meaning used very widely, and is more likely to be extended from that to take in a much weaker feeling, rather than going back to its etymological roots.
Ìý
The waters may be muddied by many confused usages of the term, however I still disagree with your assessment. When I google the term I find that in edited publications it is rarely used incorrectly, and in publications referencing directly the experience of the Jews between 1938 and 1945 it is used with such exactitude that it is rare to see it written except with the definite article and a capital "H", a device which has been in use ever since 1958 to distinguish that particular event from the white noise of increasingly poor definition elsewhere and thereby preserve through emphasis the sacrificial element of the implied analogy in relation to that dreadful period.
The problem that you seem to have problems negotiating is that you yourself have misunderstood the term and therefore misunderstood it also even when it was correctly applied. You therefore recruit such instances as evidence that your claim is correct (as with the archaic OED citations) when in fact they demonstrate simply that you are persevering in a misconception - and are seemingly not alone in doing so.
If, armed with the knowledge that "holocaust" stresses the quality of total sacrifice over magnitude of injury (and in that sense was almost critical of Jewish compliance in their own fate when it was first popularly applied by Wiesel), then you can better distinguish between apposite usage and more inappriopriate usage in subsequent years. You will find a sudden rise in the latter after 1978 but with no new consensus on one inappropriate usage which could now become commonplace and therefore, in semantic terms, definitive.
Despite what you might believe, the word is in fact holding its own against the assault of ignorance.Link to this forum: On the occasion of African Holocaust Memorial Day [Maafa]
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Message 39
Posted by Jak (U1158529) on Monday, 17th October 2011
Just to add my three-ha'pence worth.
I'm old enough to have seen and been horrified at the end of the War by newsreels of Nazi concentration camps, and of course I couldn't help but read a lot about them after that. But I'm pretty sure I never saw the word "Holocaust" used in this context until I saw that American TV serial in 1978.
I think the opening title "Holocaust!" was over film of a blazing synagogue.
I've always felt uneasy about the word. And, if it refers only to the murder of Jews, what about all the other folk murdered in the same way at the same time?Link to this forum: On the occasion of African Holocaust Memorial Day [Maafa]
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Message 40
Posted by islanddawn (U7379884) on Monday, 17th October 2011
I think the WWII Jewish one is referred to as The Holocaust Jak, whereas other holocausts wouldn't use the capitals?
But you are correct, google holocaust and the Jewish Holocaust is glaringly dominant. Yet surely there are others just as deserving of attention?Link to this forum: On the occasion of African Holocaust Memorial Day [Maafa]
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Message 41
Posted by Caro (U1691443) on Monday, 17th October 2011
I would always use the capital H on the Jewish Holocaust and don't really use the word in any other context (or indeed in that one really, either). Any time Holocaust is used for other events there is an outcry from Israeli people, and I can't see that lessening any time soon. I don't quite see where Nordmann get his confidence from; edited materials are where language change tends to come from, as far as I can tell.
However, I could do without thinking about this at midnight - spent last night going to sleep with thoughts and images of Jewish people herded to their deaths in gas ovens. And then woke up with more of them in the night.
Caro.Link to this forum: On the occasion of African Holocaust Memorial Day [Maafa]
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Message 42
Posted by Vizzer aka U_numbers (U2011621) on Tuesday, 18th October 2011
(Surely the holocaust was used regularly for the Jewish burnings long before 1978.)Ìý
This is the point which Nordmann and Jak are making. It wasn't. Before 1978 the term 'the Shoah' (i.e. 'calamitous destruction' or 'catastrophe' in Hebrew) tended to be used. Even then it wasn't commonly used.
If one were to hear the word 'holocaust' in common usage before 1978 then it would more than likley be in the context of a 'nuclear holocaust'.
Any time Holocaust is used for other events there is an outcry from Israeli peopleÌý
This isn't true. Many Israeli people in fact object to the term 'Holocaust' but prefer instead to use Shoah. And among some Jewish communities the Yiddish-language equivalent 'Hurban' is used.Link to this forum: On the occasion of African Holocaust Memorial Day [Maafa]
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Message 43
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Tuesday, 18th October 2011
Thanks, Vizzer.
Wiesel was he who controversially applied the term to the Nazis' equally inaccurate "Final Solution" (and invented the "capital H" version in the process). That was in 1958 and it led to an argument, even then, as to whether the Jews should "copyright" the term or whether it was an accurate one in any case. Ironically the ensuing debate, which is still ongoing, has only helped to spread the semantic confusion now attached to the term. That stupid mini-series was both a victim of that confusion and an unwitting medium of spreading even more.
And you're right about objections from within Israel to its use. To very religious Jews, for example, the term can be taken as an affront since it implies that the attempted genocide inflicted against them was somehow fulfilling the will of their god, who is traditionally fond of the odd sacrifice or two (but presumably balks at seven million). They prefer euphemisms which avoid suggestions of sacrifice. The capital H version is a sort of compromise designed initially to appease that objection, though it ultimately satisfies no one who actually cares about this issue.
It does indeed fit the idea of nuclear obliteration much more accurately, doesn't it?Link to this forum: On the occasion of African Holocaust Memorial Day [Maafa]
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Message 44
Posted by cloudyj (U1773646) on Tuesday, 18th October 2011
The true holocaust victim in this topic is English as a succinct and exact language.Ìý
Surely the true "holocaust victim" here is the attempt to discuss slavery, sacrificed at the alter of pedantry over the definition of a metaphor?Link to this forum: On the occasion of African Holocaust Memorial Day [Maafa]
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Message 45
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Tuesday, 18th October 2011
Since you also seem to have managed to avoid discussing slavery, cloudy j, it seems that the aforementioned pedantry has therefore brought about less of a "holocaust" and more of a "final solution".
And just to show that the alleged sacrificial victim is alive and well; The OP asked why we don't all commemorate the day a certain Portuguese merchant loaded ten slaves on board and set off to sell them. Personally, I can think of loads of reasons why such an alleged event does not require commemoration. The OP did not provide even one regarding why we should (or even how, for that matter).Link to this forum: On the occasion of African Holocaust Memorial Day [Maafa]
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Message 46
Posted by islanddawn (U7379884) on Tuesday, 18th October 2011
I don't quite see where Nordmann get his confidence from; edited materials are where language change tends to come from, as far as I can tell.Ìý
Nor you in your assertion that the meaning has changed Caro. But thankfully dictionaries are still the deffinitive guide to words, their spellings, meanings and etymologies and not the media. And as the dictionaries still firmly define holocaust in it's correct meaning (and in line with the word's etymology) then anything else is likely to be a misuse.Link to this forum: On the occasion of African Holocaust Memorial Day [Maafa]
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Message 47
Posted by cloudyj (U1773646) on Tuesday, 18th October 2011
Since you also seem to have managed to avoid discussing slavery, cloudy jÌý
Do you mean, except for where I discussed it in post 12?
Why don't we celebrate it? Guilt? Lack of interest? Not enough people for whom it is an issue serious enough to get politicians interested? Perhaps simply because (from a British stance) slavery was consigned to history before we started commemorating bad things? Though I've just discovered that the UK has a slavery memorial day on 23rd August.
Is it because, unlike Guyana, there isn't a large percentage of the population with African roots who see this as an issue. Maybe we simply have other axes to grind.Link to this forum: On the occasion of African Holocaust Memorial Day [Maafa]
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Message 48
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Wednesday, 19th October 2011
I think commemorating the abolition of slavery is a good idea. Emancipation Day is celebrated in quite a few countries on different dates. Commemorating the actual foundation of the "industry" as described in the OP is a little strange, and also a little unfair on the Portuguese.
Link to this forum: On the occasion of African Holocaust Memorial Day [Maafa]
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