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 slave[Henry 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.[
]
See also
* Demographic engineering
* Blockbusting
Blockbusting was a business practice in the United States in which real estate agents and building developers convinced residents in a particular area to sell their property at below-market prices. This was achieved by fearmongering the homeowne ...
* Circassian genocide
The Circassian genocide, or Tsitsekun, was the systematic mass killing, ethnic cleansing, and forced displacement of between 95% and 97% of the Circassian people during the final stages of the Russian invasion of Circassia in the 19th centur ...
* Classicide
Classicide is a concept proposed by sociologist Michael Mann to describe the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of a social class through persecution and violence. Although it was first used by physician and anti-commun ...
* Communal violence
Communal violence is a form of violence that is perpetrated across ethnic or communal lines, where the violent parties feel solidarity for their respective groups and victims are chosen based upon group membership. The term includes conflicts, ri ...
* Cultural conflict
Cultural conflict is a type of conflict (process), conflict that occurs when different culture, cultural Value (personal and cultural), values and beliefs clash. Broad and narrow definitions exist for the concept, both of which have been used to ...
* Cultural genocide
Cultural genocide or culturicide is a concept first described by Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin in 1944, in the same book that coined the term ''genocide''. The destruction of culture was a central component in Lemkin's formulation of genocide ...
* Cultural rights
Cultural rights are rights related to themes such as language; cultural and artistic production; participation in cultural life; cultural heritage; intellectual property rights; author's rights; minorities and access to culture, among others. ...
* Crimes against humanity
Crimes against humanity are certain serious crimes committed as part of a large-scale attack against civilians. Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity can be committed during both peace and war and against a state's own nationals as well as ...
* Dahiya doctrine
The Dahiya doctrine, or Dahya doctrine, is an Israeli military strategy involving the large-scale destruction of civilian infrastructure, or domicide, to pressure hostile governments. The doctrine was outlined by former Israel Defense Forces (ID ...
* 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 ...
* Domicide
Domicide (from Latin ''domus'', meaning home or abode, and ''caedo'', meaning deliberate killing, though used here metaphorically) is the deliberate destruction of housing by humans in pursuit of specified goals. It includes the widespread destruc ...
* 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 ...
* Ethnic conflict
An ethnic conflict is a conflict between two or more ethnic groups. While the source of the conflict may be political, social, economic or religious, the individuals in conflict must expressly fight for their ethnic group's position within so ...
* Ethnic hatred
Ethnic hatred, inter-ethnic hatred, racial hatred, or ethnic tension refers to notions and acts of prejudice and hostility towards an ethnic group to varying degrees.
It is a form of racial prejudice, based on ethnic origin or region of origin ...
* Ethnic nationalism
Ethnic nationalism, also known as ethnonationalism, is a form of nationalism wherein the nation and nationality are defined in terms of ethnicity, with emphasis on an ethnocentric (and in some cases an ethnostate/ethnocratic) approach to variou ...
* Ethnic violence
An ethnic conflict is a conflict between two or more ethnic groups. While the source of the conflict may be political, social, economic or religious, the individuals in conflict must expressly fight for their ethnic group's position within so ...
* Ethnocide
Ethnocide is the extermination or destruction of ethnic identities. Bartolomé Clavero differentiates ethnocide from genocide by stating that "Genocide kills people while ethnocide kills social cultures through the killing of individual souls". ...
* Extrajudicial killing
An extrajudicial killing (also known as an extrajudicial execution or an extralegal killing) is the deliberate killing of a person without the lawful authority granted by a judicial proceeding. It typically refers to government authorities, ...
* Extrajudicial punishment
Extrajudicial punishment is a punishment for an alleged crime or offense which is carried out without legal process or supervision by a court or tribunal through a legal proceeding.
Politically motivated
Extrajudicial punishment is often a fe ...
* Forced displacement
Forced displacement (also forced migration or forced relocation) is an involuntary or coerced movement of a person or people away from their home or home region. The UNHCR defines 'forced displacement' as follows: displaced "as a result of perse ...
* 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 ...
* Genocidal massacre
The term ''genocidal massacre'' was introduced by Leo Kuper (1908–1994) to describe incidents which have a genocidal component but are committed on a smaller scale when they are compared to genocides such as the Rwandan genocide. Others such as ...
* Hate crime
Hate crime (also known as bias crime) in criminal law involves a standard offence (such as an assault, murder) with an added element of bias against a victim (individual or group of individuals) because of their physical appearance or perceived ...
* Hate group
A hate group is a social group that advocates and practices hatred, hostility, or violence towards members of a race, ethnicity, nation, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, or any other designated sector of society.
Acc ...
* List of ethnic cleansing campaigns
* Lynching
Lynching is an extrajudicial killing by a group. It is most often used to characterize informal public executions by a mob in order to punish an alleged or convicted transgressor or to intimidate others. It can also be an extreme form of i ...
* Monoethnicity
Monoethnicity is the existence of a single ethnic group in a given region or country. It is the opposite of polyethnicity.
An example of a largely monoethnic country is Japan. It is a common belief in Japan that the entire country is monoethnic ...
* Nakba
The Nakba () is the ethnic cleansing; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; of Palestinian Arabs through their violent displacement and dispossession of land, property, and belongings, along with the destruction of their s ...
* Pogrom
A pogrom is a violent riot incited with the aim of Massacre, massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe late 19th- and early 20th-century Anti-Jewis ...
* Political cleansing of population
Political cleansing of a population is the elimination of categories of people in specific areas for political reasons. The means may vary and include forced migration, ethnic cleansing and population transfers.
Genocide Convention
Under the ...
* Political violence
Political violence is violence which is perpetrated in order to achieve political goals. It can include violence which is used by a State (polity), state against other states (war), violence which is used by a state against civilians and non-st ...
* Politicide
Political cleansing of a population is the elimination of categories of people in specific areas for political reasons. The means may vary and include forced migration, ethnic cleansing and population transfers.
Genocide Convention
Under the G ...
* 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 ...
* Sectarian violence
Sectarian violence or sectarian strife is a form of communal violence which is inspired by sectarianism, that is, discrimination, hatred or prejudice between different sects of a particular mode of an ideology or different sects of a religion wi ...
* 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 ...
* Redlining
Redlining is a Discrimination, discriminatory practice in which financial services are withheld from neighborhoods that have significant numbers of Race (human categorization), racial and Ethnic group, ethnic minorities. Redlining has been mos ...
* 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 ...
* Religious violence
Religious violence covers phenomena in which religion is either the target or perpetrator of violent behavior. All the religions of the world contain narratives, symbols, and metaphors of violence and war and also nonviolence and peacemaking. ...
* Terrorism
Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of violence against non-combatants to achieve political or ideological aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violence during peacetime or in the context of war aga ...
* The Holocaust
The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...
* Vigilantism
Vigilantism () is the act of preventing, investigating, and punishing perceived offenses and crimes without legal authority.
A vigilante is a person who practices or partakes in vigilantism, or undertakes public safety and retributive justice ...
* War crime
A war crime is a violation of the laws of war that gives rise to individual criminal responsibility for actions by combatants in action, such as intentionally killing civilians or intentionally killing prisoners of war, torture, taking hostage ...
References
Military-related euphemisms
Forced migration
Human rights abuses
Persecution
Violence
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