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With such a large percentage of the population of not just the country in question in the article, but also the entire world, I'm not sure they can be seen to b

With such a large percentage of the population of not just the country in question in the article, but also the entire world, I'm not sure they can be seen to be "the other" to the same degree as the Jews were, given how common they are. In 1933, there were an estimated 15 million Jews worldwide[1], 9 million or so in Europe. In Germany, with the largest Jewish population, they accounted for less than 1% of the populace. In India today, Muslims account for close to 15% of the population. According to wikipedia, they're very close to 25% of the entire world population. There may be some vilification going on, but when the other group is as large as that, I doubt you can expect a similar outcome or as much of a one sided narrative in the places where it's attempted. 1: https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/jewish-population-of-europe-in-1933-population-data-by-country https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/jewish-pop...

bobthepanda 7y ago
Jews weren't a small population of some European countries' population: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Poland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Poland > One-fifth of the Polish population perished during World War II; the 3,000,000 Polish Jews murdered in The Holocaust, who constituted 90% of Polish Jewry, made up half of all Poles killed during the war.[15][16] Given that Germany at the time had an official policy of expanding into its neighboring countries, some with very high Jewish populations, your statement is at best misleading.
- kbenson 7y ago
  > Jews weren't a small population of some European countries' population Yes, but those weren't the countries that had successful info campaigns against that sub-population, to my knowledge. It took Poland's defeat by Germany before Germany could enforce their own policies (developed in a nation with a much lower Jewish population). Indeed, your own source notes that in the pre-war period while there was increases anti-semitism, and some increased violence, there was nothing like what happened in Germany. > Given that Germany at the time had an official policy of expanding into its neighboring countries, some with very high Jewish populations, your statement is at best misleading. I don't think so, but I can see how you might think so. I believe I misinterpreted what the top level comment was trying to express, and as such my comment isn't really addressing that. I think because of this you're also inferring that my comment is meant to convey something it's not. So, to clarify, yes, I believe Fascism is on the rise and targeted at Muslims this time. I don't think it's the same as what happened in Germany for the reasons I noted, which wasn't what was stated so it's a bit of a non-sequitur on my part, but it is where my mind went when I was reading it.
  - bzbarsky 7y ago
    > Yes, but those weren't the countries that had successful info campaigns against that sub-population, to my knowledge. Yes, the Poles were not trying to kill all the Jews in Poland. But "othering" Jews in Poland was _very_ par for the course, as was violence directed at them, discrimination against them, etc.
Despegar 7y ago
Some things happening to Muslims in the world today (in addition to India) off the top of my head: -Genocide of Rohingya in Myanmar -Ethnic cleansing of Uyghurs in China Then there's just garden variety xenophobic polices like travel bans from predominately Muslim countries in the US to the electoral gains of various far right parties in Europe because of the refugee crisis. Pretty wide spread there, but clearly fascism is on the rise.
- kbenson 7y ago
  I didn't want to imply fascism wasn't on the rise, just some differences I saw. That said, as I covered in a cousin comment, I believe I was misinterpreting what you were trying to express to some degree.
- SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
  > Then there's just garden variety xenophobic polices like travel bans from predominately Muslim countries in the US Yes, I did not agree when Obama selected those countries.
- artificial 7y ago
  Communists gonna communist and slaughter just like in the past? How many people died to that ideology in the past century compared to Fascism? Multiples, yet it isn't viewed by the West with similar distain (see Che shirts). Historically the biggest threat to Muslims are other Muslims, they're not a giant uniform block, the sects have been warring with one another for close to 1500 years and aren't slowing down.
- Retric 7y ago
  Rohingga are split Muslims and Hinduism. So it’s not about a specific religion, but rather an ethnic group. Similarly Jewish is an ethnic group with many Christians and atheists being killed in the holocaust.
- newfriend 7y ago
  > xenophobic polices like travel bans from predominately Muslim countries Countries included in the travel ban: * Iran * Libya * North Korea * Somalia * Syria * Venezuela * Yemen What do these countries have in common? Hint: it's not Muslims.
nashashmi 7y ago
They are other with respect to status as minorities in certain populations. They are also other with respect to minority influence or substandard representation in national and international affairs.
bzbarsky 7y ago
> In Germany, with the largest Jewish population Uh... you mean if you ignore Poland, Romania, and the USSR? > they accounted for less than 1% of the populace From the same article you cited, it was 9.5% in Poland, 3.4% in the USSR (which had a larger population than Germany), 4% in Romania, 4.9% in Latvia, 7.6% in Lithuania, 5% in Hungary. The fraction of Jews in Poland, or the other countries I menioned, did nothing to prevent them being seen as "the other" there, if you read some contemporary accounts.
- kbenson 7y ago
  > From the same article you cited, it was 9.5% in Poland, 3.4% in the USSR (which had a larger population than Germany), 4% in Romania, 4.9% in Latvia, 7.6% in Lithuania, 5% in Hungary. Yes, I was mistakenly going from numbers presented for Western Europe. > The fraction of Jews in Poland, or the other countries I menioned, did nothing to prevent them being seen as "the other" there, if you read some contemporary accounts. As I covered elsewhere, I was (because of my own misinterpretation) approaching this more from a Nazi Germany standpoint, and trying to highlight differences from that. I think there's a reason why Jews were able to be scapegoated to the degree they were in Germany, and why it wasn't as bad elsewhere, and I think a lot of that is to do with relative population sizes. At ~1%, you can force your will on a people. At 15-25%, that's a civil war if you try, and there's enough people of that population that it's very hard to not have exposure to a degree that deflates some of that "the other" rhetoric. It's like if the same were applied to latino and hispanic people in the United States, which account for just over 16% of the population in the 2010 census. Not illegal aliens, but all people of that race. That's a really hard sell, because almost everyone knows someone personally that falls into that category that helps go against that narrative just by existing and having contact. I'm willing to bet it's easier in some areas of the world with similar percentages because the influx of Muslims is more recent and less established, but I'm not immediately convinced it's enough to get to what we saw in Germany. If you want to restrict the discussion to a very vague "the other" that's less extreme, then I'm not really in disagreement. I do believe there are attempts to use Muslims as convenient scapegoats. I'm just not sure to what degree it works in a lot of places, given how many Muslims there are there (and to the degree it works, I think the number of Muslims means there will be a very different response from them if some group attempts to ramp it up).

bobthepanda 7y ago

Jews weren't a small population of some European countries' population: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Poland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Poland > One-fifth of the Polish population perished during World War II; the 3,000,000 Polish Jews murdered in The Holocaust, who constituted 90% of Polish Jewry, made up half of all Poles killed during the war.[15][16] Given that Germany at the time had an official policy of expanding into its neighboring countries, some with very high Jewish populations, your statement is at best misleading.

kbenson 7y ago
> Jews weren't a small population of some European countries' population Yes, but those weren't the countries that had successful info campaigns against that sub-population, to my knowledge. It took Poland's defeat by Germany before Germany could enforce their own policies (developed in a nation with a much lower Jewish population). Indeed, your own source notes that in the pre-war period while there was increases anti-semitism, and some increased violence, there was nothing like what happened in Germany. > Given that Germany at the time had an official policy of expanding into its neighboring countries, some with very high Jewish populations, your statement is at best misleading. I don't think so, but I can see how you might think so. I believe I misinterpreted what the top level comment was trying to express, and as such my comment isn't really addressing that. I think because of this you're also inferring that my comment is meant to convey something it's not. So, to clarify, yes, I believe Fascism is on the rise and targeted at Muslims this time. I don't think it's the same as what happened in Germany for the reasons I noted, which wasn't what was stated so it's a bit of a non-sequitur on my part, but it is where my mind went when I was reading it.
- bzbarsky 7y ago
  > Yes, but those weren't the countries that had successful info campaigns against that sub-population, to my knowledge. Yes, the Poles were not trying to kill all the Jews in Poland. But "othering" Jews in Poland was _very_ par for the course, as was violence directed at them, discrimination against them, etc.

Despegar 7y ago

Some things happening to Muslims in the world today (in addition to India) off the top of my head: -Genocide of Rohingya in Myanmar -Ethnic cleansing of Uyghurs in China Then there's just garden variety xenophobic polices like travel bans from predominately Muslim countries in the US to the electoral gains of various far right parties in Europe because of the refugee crisis. Pretty wide spread there, but clearly fascism is on the rise.

kbenson 7y ago
I didn't want to imply fascism wasn't on the rise, just some differences I saw. That said, as I covered in a cousin comment, I believe I was misinterpreting what you were trying to express to some degree.
SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
> Then there's just garden variety xenophobic polices like travel bans from predominately Muslim countries in the US Yes, I did not agree when Obama selected those countries.
artificial 7y ago
Communists gonna communist and slaughter just like in the past? How many people died to that ideology in the past century compared to Fascism? Multiples, yet it isn't viewed by the West with similar distain (see Che shirts). Historically the biggest threat to Muslims are other Muslims, they're not a giant uniform block, the sects have been warring with one another for close to 1500 years and aren't slowing down.
Retric 7y ago
Rohingga are split Muslims and Hinduism. So it’s not about a specific religion, but rather an ethnic group. Similarly Jewish is an ethnic group with many Christians and atheists being killed in the holocaust.
newfriend 7y ago
> xenophobic polices like travel bans from predominately Muslim countries Countries included in the travel ban: * Iran * Libya * North Korea * Somalia * Syria * Venezuela * Yemen What do these countries have in common? Hint: it's not Muslims.

nashashmi 7y ago

They are other with respect to status as minorities in certain populations. They are also other with respect to minority influence or substandard representation in national and international affairs.

bzbarsky 7y ago

> In Germany, with the largest Jewish population Uh... you mean if you ignore Poland, Romania, and the USSR? > they accounted for less than 1% of the populace From the same article you cited, it was 9.5% in Poland, 3.4% in the USSR (which had a larger population than Germany), 4% in Romania, 4.9% in Latvia, 7.6% in Lithuania, 5% in Hungary. The fraction of Jews in Poland, or the other countries I menioned, did nothing to prevent them being seen as "the other" there, if you read some contemporary accounts.

kbenson 7y ago
> From the same article you cited, it was 9.5% in Poland, 3.4% in the USSR (which had a larger population than Germany), 4% in Romania, 4.9% in Latvia, 7.6% in Lithuania, 5% in Hungary. Yes, I was mistakenly going from numbers presented for Western Europe. > The fraction of Jews in Poland, or the other countries I menioned, did nothing to prevent them being seen as "the other" there, if you read some contemporary accounts. As I covered elsewhere, I was (because of my own misinterpretation) approaching this more from a Nazi Germany standpoint, and trying to highlight differences from that. I think there's a reason why Jews were able to be scapegoated to the degree they were in Germany, and why it wasn't as bad elsewhere, and I think a lot of that is to do with relative population sizes. At ~1%, you can force your will on a people. At 15-25%, that's a civil war if you try, and there's enough people of that population that it's very hard to not have exposure to a degree that deflates some of that "the other" rhetoric. It's like if the same were applied to latino and hispanic people in the United States, which account for just over 16% of the population in the 2010 census. Not illegal aliens, but all people of that race. That's a really hard sell, because almost everyone knows someone personally that falls into that category that helps go against that narrative just by existing and having contact. I'm willing to bet it's easier in some areas of the world with similar percentages because the influx of Muslims is more recent and less established, but I'm not immediately convinced it's enough to get to what we saw in Germany. If you want to restrict the discussion to a very vague "the other" that's less extreme, then I'm not really in disagreement. I do believe there are attempts to use Muslims as convenient scapegoats. I'm just not sure to what degree it works in a lot of places, given how many Muslims there are there (and to the degree it works, I think the number of Muslims means there will be a very different response from them if some group attempts to ramp it up).