Talk:Sétif and Guelma massacre

Refs added

References added, but I imagine it would help if somebody hit this with scholarly sources someday too...

Dvyost 14:30, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I heard that the french army massacre was in retaliation to the death of 100 europeans (quite the opposite of the article.) What are the sources?

The sources are the two external links at the bottom. I agree that they're not as scholarly as I would like (see comment directly above yours); if you have better information, please feel free to plug it in yourself, citing the new sources. Thanks! --Dvyost 15:34, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

That is quite true. But these 100 European killings occurred after deadly shooting by the French authorities against local demonstrators. Nnemo (talk) 02:17, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

This article is absolutely terrible. The fact that the article keeps repeating that the french soldiers that carried out the massacre were "80% african" makes it read like it was writte by an apologist that is trying to whitewash the entire thing. Other examples of this tendency include the fact that it talks about the number of Algerian dead without ever indicating where they were civilian or not, but then when it talks about the 104 dead french civilians, it specifically says that over half were women and children. In addition, the article says nothing about what the massacre did to the Algerian national psyche, how it contributed to the formation of the Algerian resistance movement, etc. This article needs to be completely overhauled, although I am not the person to do it. Thanks. 1 November 2005.

Wikipedia:Be bold! If you don't care to change obvious biased content, you can always put "citation tags" after dubious assertions (see Wikipedia:Reliable sources. Tazmaniacs 15:43, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Is it just me or...

...are some of the links listed at the end of the articel very questionable looking? I'm not feeling quite bold enough to remove some of them, so am asking here... 68.39.174.238 03:07, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Precisions

The number of protesters in the city of Sétif is evaluated to 2000 to 5000 in the latest study on the subject. Vicq 15:54, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Massacre or Genocide

• Genocide: "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group"

Muslim Algerians are killed systemically, although there was no war in 1945. The French military units included Muslim tirailleurs and goumiers too, but they came from the French forces of WWII. French forces may contain Muslims or not, French forces killed a religious group systemically with order and not in a war.

• Massacre: "A massacre is the general and unnecessary slaughter of members of one group by one or more members of another more powerful group. A massacre may be indiscriminate or highly methodical in application."

Sétif incident is not done "unnecessarily", nor "indiscriminate" Just Muslim Algerians are killed by French forces for a reason systemically without war.

This incident is more than a massacre, it's a genocide. Dr.tolga (talk) 01:59, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

I appreciate the sincerity of Dr.tolga's views and certainly have no wish to defend the brutal excesses of French colonialism (I am neither French nor Algerian). However I think that we need to be very careful indeed about the use of the word "genocide" in the context of the Setif events of June 1945. The details of the cycle of killing and counter-killing in and around this town are given in the article and there is no attempt there to excuse the scale and ferocity of the French army and pied-noir reprisals. However there is also no suggestion that these were intended to eliminate or even disperse the entire Muslim population. Accordingly, of the two definitions given above that of "massacre" seems to me to be by far the most appropriate. It is certainly the word used in both English and French language histories of the period. It should be noted that a recent statement by the Turkish Prime Minister accusing the French of genocide in Algeria during the Algerian War of 1954-62, is in response to pending French legislation criminalising denial of the Armenian killings (whether massacres or genocide) of 1915. In short a tit for tat scoring of political points as part of a current dispute between the two NATO allies and not grounds for rewriting history. Buistr (talk) 04:22, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your expressing your opinions. The definition of "genocide" includes: "systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group". Genocide definition doesn't include "intended to eliminate or even disperse the entire Muslim population". If it is "intended to eliminate the whole population" or not, we have to evaluate the international common definition and fix academically and logically the wrong parts of widespread information of history. Recent political discussions are not Wikipedia's subject of interest. Also a widespread information may be wrong too. As i said, Wikipedia users have to discuss and even correct wrong titles and namings about history, widespread or not. Also the definition of Massacre in Wikipedia includes: "A Massacre is a single event, though it may occur during the course of an extended campaign or war." Setif incidents are not a single event. They started in 1945 before and apart the Algerian War. Also i found an independent source of International Center for Watching Violation of Rights, 2010 World Report on Violation of Rights. According to this report, at least 2 million Muslims are killed between 1945-1962. Also this incident is called as "Genocide" according to this independent source. I think we have to use the term "genocide" for this incident because of definitions, indepentent sources and objective numbers. Dr.tolga (talk) 01:14, 25 December 2011 (UTC)