Population cleansing is the deliberate removal of a population with certain undesirable characteristics, such as its ethnicity (

ethnic cleansing Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, or religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making the society ethnically homogeneous. Along with direct removal such as deportation or population transfer, it ...

), its

religion Religion is a range of social system, social-cultural systems, including designated religious behaviour, behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, religious text, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics in religion, ethics, or ...

(

religious cleansing Religious persecution is the systematic oppression of an individual or a group of individuals as a response to their religious beliefs or affiliations or their lack thereof. The tendency of societies or groups within societies to alienate or ...

), its

social group In the social sciences, a social group is defined as two or more people who interact with one another, share similar characteristics, and collectively have a sense of unity. Regardless, social groups come in a myriad of sizes and varieties. F ...

(

social cleansing Social cleansing () is social group-based killing that consists of the elimination of members of society who are considered "undesirable", including, but not limited to, the homeless, criminals, street children, the elderly, the poor, the weak, t ...

), its

social class A social class or social stratum is a grouping of people into a set of Dominance hierarchy, hierarchical social categories, the most common being the working class and the Bourgeoisie, capitalist class. Membership of a social class can for exam ...

, its ideological or political criteria ( political cleansing), etc. from certain territories.Andrew Bell-Fialkoff, ''Ethnic Cleansing'', Macmillan, 1999,
p. 3
/ref>Carrie Booth Walling, "The History and Politics of Ethnic Cleansing", In: Throughout

antiquity Antiquity or Antiquities may refer to: Historical objects or periods Artifacts *Antiquities, objects or artifacts surviving from ancient cultures Eras Any period before the European Middle Ages (5th to 15th centuries) but still within the histo ...

, population cleansing was largely motivated by economic and political factors, although ethnic factors occasionally played a role. Andrew Bell-Fialkoff attributes the earliest known example of cleansing as a state policy to

Assyria Assyria (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , ''māt Aššur'') was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization that existed as a city-state from the 21st century BC to the 14th century BC and eventually expanded into an empire from the 14th century BC t ...

Assurnasirpal II Ashur-nasir-pal II (transliteration: ''Aššur-nāṣir-apli'', meaning " Ashur is guardian of the heir") was the third king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 883 to 859 BC. Ashurnasirpal II succeeded his father, Tukulti-Ninurta II. His son and su ...

and

Assurbanipal Ashurbanipal (, meaning " Ashur is the creator of the heir")—or Osnappar ()—was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 669 BC to his death in 631. He is generally remembered as the last great king of Assyria. Ashurbanipal inherited the th ...

resettled millions of people from the conquered territories in order to crush the resistance. Usually upper classes were resettled, rather than complete populations, because peasant and artisan masses usually lacked leadership to initiate revolts. He further gives a number of other cases in Chapter 1 "Cleansing: A Historical Overview" of his book. While discussing the case of

Ancient Greece Ancient Greece () was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity (), that comprised a loose collection of culturally and linguistically r ...

, Bell-Fialkoff singles out a special type of the elimination of a conquered

polis Polis (: poleis) means 'city' in Ancient Greek. The ancient word ''polis'' had socio-political connotations not possessed by modern usage. For example, Modern Greek πόλη (polē) is located within a (''khôra''), "country", which is a πατ ...

, for which the Greeks had a special term: ''andrapodismos'' (from the word ἀνδράποδον, one taken in war and sold as a slaveHenry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexico
ἀνδράποδον
/ref>). Andrapodismos involved the destruction of a polis, killing all male adults and selling women and children into slavery. Other kinds of the elimination of a polis (with or without its destruction) involved removal of its whole population to another polis, dispersing over villages, or emigration of its population, possibly founding a polis elsewhere. Mogens Herman Hansen, "The Hellenic ''Polis''", In: ''A Comparative Study of Thirty City-state Cultures: An Investigation''
p. 150
/ref> Since ancient times, methods of cleansing varied from killing (

democide Democide refers to "the intentional killing of an unarmed or disarmed person by government agents acting in their authoritative capacity and pursuant to government policy or high command." The term, first coined by Holocaust historian and stat ...

genocide Genocide is violence that targets individuals because of their membership of a group and aims at the destruction of a people. Raphael Lemkin, who first coined the term, defined genocide as "the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group" by ...

) to forced

population transfer Population transfer or resettlement is a type of mass migration that is often imposed by a state policy or international authority. Such mass migrations are most frequently spurred on the basis of ethnicity or religion, but they also occur d ...

, to forced emigration.

References

Military-related euphemisms Forced migration Human rights abuses Persecution Violence {{Humanrights-stub

See also

References