Negationism

[xoxoxoBruce]

Negationism and the Muslim Conquests
An interesting article explaining Negationism.

It is important to stop a moment and have a look at what the Belgian scholar Koenraad Elst, has called "negationism in India". In his foreword to the book of the same title, Koenraad explains that negationism, which means in this context "the denial of historical crimes against humanity", is not a new phenomenon. In modern history, the massacre by the Turks of 1,5 millions Armenians, or that of the 6 million Jews by the Nazis, the several millions of Russians by Stalin, or again the 1 million Tibetans by the Chinese communists, are historical facts which have all been denied by their perpetrators... But deny is not the exact word. They have been NEGATED in a thousand ways: gross, clever, outrageous, subtle, so that in the end, the minds of people are so confused and muddled, that nobody knows anymore where the truth is.

Sometimes, it is the numbers that are negated or passed under silence: the Spanish conquest of South America has been one of the bloodiest and most ruthless episodes in history. Elst estimates that out of the population of native Continental South America of 1492, which stood at 90 million, only 32 million survived; terrible figures indeed but who talks about them today?

We've all seen this in action, and it's been touched upon in a couple of threads, of late.
The article describes a rather unique situation in India.

In other parts of Asia and Europe, the conquered nations quickly opted for conversion to Islam rather than death. But in India, because of the staunch resistance of the 4000 year old Hindu faith, the Muslim conquests were for the Hindus a pure struggle between life and death. Entire cities were burnt down and their populations massacred. Each successive campaign brought hundreds of thousands of victims and similar numbers were deported as slaves. Every new invader made often literally his hill of Hindu skulls. Thus the conquest of Afghanistan in the year 1000, was followed by the annihilation of the entire Hindu population there; indeed, the region is still called Hindu Kush, 'Hindu slaughter'. The Bahmani sultans in central India, made it a rule to kill 100.000 Hindus a year. In 1399, Teimur killed 100.000 Hindus IN A SINGLE DAY, and many more on other occasions. Koenraad Elst quotes Professor K.S. Lal's "Growth of Muslim population in India", who writes that according to his calculations, the Hindu population decreased by 8O MILLION between the year 1000 and 1525. INDEED PROBABLY THE BIGGEST HOLOCAUST IN THE WHOLE WORLD HISTORY. (Negat.34)

But the "pagans" were far too numerous to kill them all; and Hinduism too well entrenched in her people's soul, never really gave up, but quietly retreated in the hearts of the pious and was preserved by the Brahmins' amazing oral powers. Thus, realizing that they would never be able to annihilate the entire Indian population and that they could not convert all the people, the Muslims rulers, particularly under the Hanifite law, allowed the pagans to become "zimmis" (protected ones) under 20 humiliating conditions, with the heavy "jizya", the toleration tax, collected from them.

So the Muslims successfully crushed the Hindus and won over the others effectively polarizing the population. But resting on their laurels proved their undoing.

Thereafter, particularly following the crushing of the 1857 rebellion by the British, Indian Muslims fell into a state of depression and increasing backwardness, due to their mollah's refusal of British education (whereas the elite Hindus gradually went for it) and their nostalgia for the "glorious past"'.

But the polarization continues to this day.

Yet, what has happened in India, at the hand of Hindus themselves, is a constant denial and even a perversion of the genocide committed by Muslims in India. Hasn't the "radical humanist" M.N. Roy, written "that Islam has fulfilled a historic mission of equality and abolition of discrimination in India, and that for this, Islam has been welcomed in India by the lower castes". "If AT ALL any violence occurred, he goes on to say, it was a matter of justified class struggle by the progressive forces against the reactionary forces, meaning the feudal Hindu upper classes.."

I'm afraid that negationism, erasing these genocides from history, will assure that history repeats itself.

[Bullitt]

IMHO, no matter what horrors we put each other through and lessons learned afterwards, human history will keep repeating itself until something absolutely catastrophic happens. We can fool ourselves in thinking that we have advanced our ways of thinking and morals or what have you over our ancestors, but really all we have are more efficient ways of dealing with our adversaries.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by Bullitt

snip~ but really all we have are more efficient ways of dealing with our adversaries.

The Internet?

[Bullitt]

The Cellar?

[monster]

No.

[Cloud]

"history book should be rewritten"--well, it's a truism that history is written by the conquerers, and we can see it in action here. Interesting article, Bruce, and I'm afraid I was unaware of this history in India.

I can really only get upset about massacres in the last hundred years or so, though. Everything else is just--history.

[xoxoxoBruce]

It seems in this case history was written by the victims, and they still got it wrong. Maybe history should be written by third parties.

[Aliantha]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

It seems in this case history was written by the victims, and they still got it wrong. Maybe history should be written by third parties.

Perhaps an 'unauthorized biography' is in order...

[Cicero]

I fail to see how any of you are qualified to talk about this subject.

[Bullitt]

And you are?

[Cicero]

No I'm not either- I practice negationism. I also fail to see how you even exist!


I'm just here to negate, wait I'm not here....
(no one gets my jokes)

[monster]

Originally Posted by monster

No.

Originally Posted by Cicero

No I'm not either- I practice negationism. I also fail to see how you even exist!


I'm just here to negate, wait I'm not here....
(no one gets my jokes)

you didn't get it.


:p

[Cicero]

See, I didn't even see that, because that was my first answer.

(monster)

But I would have gotten that. The question still remains...did Bullllittt get that?