MyWikiBiz

Directory:Nationalistic Editing on Wikipedia

Revision as of 10:58, 25 April 2011 by Peter Z. (talk | contribs) (→‎External links)

Nationalistic Editing on Wikipedia is very much part of Wikipedia. Wikipedia itself has over the years become a gathering place for individuals with extreme views when it comes to topics dealing with Nationalism. There is no other place this is more visible than in the Croatian articles on Wikipedia.

For many, Wikipedia has become the first port of call for information about anything and everything. With this in mind a crafty group of clever individuals can very easily manipulate historic information for their own Nationalistic agendas! Judging by the last year of edits on the articles about Croatia, they are pretty much written from a dated point of view of the former Communist Yugoslavia. Communist Yugoslav nationalistic history is all but forgotten in the West. It was the regimes policy to create a uniform state rather than a collective of peoples. The policy was one of the great historic failures of recent times. In essence Yugoslavia was a contradiction, on one hand it had the slogan Brotherhood and Unity [1][2] and on the other hand it executed Stalinist policies from the 1940s to the 1960s. Other Nationalistic conflicts within Wikipedia that are related to the Croatian region are based on ethnicity (i.e. Croatian, Serbian and Italian).

Now thanks to the Internet, this pseudo historical perspective that once was known only to Tito's Yugoslavia, has gone World Wide. This is truly disturbing because the former communist Yugoslavia encompassed peoples descendant of the Roman Empire, Republic of Venice, Republic of Ragusa (Dubrovnik), Croatia, Slovenia, Serbia, Bosnia and others.

Concerning the former Yugoslavia and it's interpretation of History, one could say what would you expect from a Totalitarian political system? It needs to undertake historical re-writes. Part of its existence is based on falsehoods. It's the nature of the beast. Now I'm not saying it's all pseudo historical but sections of it would have to be. It is based on the Great Union of Southern Slavs combined with Communism's grand plan for its people to evolve into a superior society (and a superior man) as a whole. The regime had to justify its existence. It's all derived from 19-century thinking, i.e., Marxism combined with extreme Nationalism (combined with Darwinism as interpreted by extremists i.e. German Nazism, Fascism, Communism).

It is based on a philosophy that an individual human life is without value and the culture of a society is expendable.

Note: Communist Yugoslavia executed Historian - Kerubin Segvic. He was executed mainly for proposing a different historic model than that of Yugoslav regime state policies of Croatians arriving in the Western Balkans.[3]

Concerns over Dalmatian Articles (other Croatian articles too) and Wikipedia

It appears that Wikipedia has problems interpreting the multicultural and multiethnic history of the Dalmatian region. There is a strong culture of editing bias that seems to prevail. This results in articles that reflect points of view rather being encyclopaedic.

As events are unfolding, the bias tips mainly towards the propaganda of the former Communist Yugoslavia. The articles reflect Nationalistic views of a Totalitarian Communist system.

Fausto Veranzio & Francesco Patrizi

The case of Fausto Veranzio (or Faust Vrančić) and Francesco Patrizi, the Venetian philosopher, is an illustration of the nationalistic warfare that is part of Wikipedia and the inaccuracy, falsehood and bias that follows as a result.

Quote by Ocham-London, United Kingdom:

“ The problem becomes particularly acute in a place like Wikipedia, where the only intellectual interest - that is to say, no intellectual interest at all - lies simply in a nationalistic dispute, in this case between Italians and Croatians. ”

Venetian Albania

Another article to mention is Venetian Albania [4] (it is also related to the Republic of Venice.) Here is an editor's response to some very simple basic historic facts concerning the Republic of Venice and Venetian Albania:

“ This is without even going into the controversial nature of the very biased and unbalanced depiction of history ”

This is typical standard Wikipedian rhetoric spin. The language can be also interpreted as a facade for other editors who are not educated in the topic at hand. Also the statement is there to create a problem where in fact there isn't an issue here at all other than that of Nationalistic extremism.

  • A Wikipedian Editor's observation on Yugoslav Nationalistic editing and Wikipedia Admin:
“ It is painful that two simple edits (actually, 1 edit in 2 articles) required 2 days, 1 report and hundreds of sentences of discussion when they are a clear disruption by one editor who is perfectly aware of what he is doing. I´m sorry to say it Fainites, but your still "I think" make me think that as an admin involved in this, you are being too nice and soft towards that editor, and you should have been much more effective in deciding something as simple as this because this way, a disruptive editor that constantly edit-wars made fun of all of us for 2 days and made a number of dedicated editors loose a lot of time completely unnecessarily. By FkpCascais on the 1 March 2011 [5] ”

House of Bona

The best example of this is the article House of Bona.[6][7] The House of Bona was a noble family from the former state of the Republic of Ragusa (with its famous city called Dubrovnik), which was part of the historic region of Dalmatia. [8]

According to some Wikipedia Editors, it was the House of Bunić. The Bunic name is a Slavic translation and is hardly used even in today’s Croatia. There was an edited war over the whole matter and eventually with the strength of references it was changed.

After World War Two the Slavicisation of the of Dalmatia (today part of Croatia) was continued as government policy under the Communist Party of Yugoslavia. All cities, towns, villages, family and peoples surnames that are not of Slavic origin were being translated.[9] The policy was firstly implemented on a large scale with the creation of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1918.

Dalmatia is a region of Europe with a very multicultural and multiethnic history. The population of that region is predominately Croatian but there is a strong Latin historic tradition dating back to Roman times. The forceful translation of their cultural and even at times rewriting of history is what could be termed cultural genocide. Wikipedia with its current group of editors is participating in that process.

Family Member Statement on Wikipedia

“ As a Croatian member of the de Bona family, I would like to remind everybody of the following:

The Bona name already appears in a document dated from the 10th century - this document can be seen in Dubrovnik. All Croatian identity documents show de BONA (even during Yugoslavia) All family records show the name BONA, never Bunic Tombstones show Bona, never Bunic. Bunic predominantly appears in books written by Yugoslav authors or those using "Yugoslav" sources. Paintings in the Dubrovnik Museum show the name "de Bona" on all the paintings - description tags usually say Bunic and now also Bona in most cases (since Croatia's independence -- under Yugoslavia, nearly exclusively Bunic).

In Dubrovnik the family is known as Bona, not Bunic. The aristocracy wanted to distinguish themselves from the rest of the population and did not Slavicize their names (except two families of Slavic origin)...in some cases some people who wrote in Croatian or a form of it also used a Slavic version of the name...Additional proof needed for the Bona name. So far none seen. In MHO, this page should be known as House of Bona (aka Bunic) and all the names in the Slavic version should appear in parentheses next to the Bona name. As far as I know, there are no historical records with these Slavic names. All family records, always show the name Bona even when the rest of the text is written in Croatian.

A small clique is controlling all the info that goes into the Croatian pages. This is a fact. They are very determined that only info they accept can enter in Wikipedia. Otherwise, they do everything to make sure it's deleted -- often with no explanation --. If they don't like a user they will do everything to ban him.

In MHO, Bunic is only used to say it's "Croatian" versus "Italian"... I don't recognise myself in the Bunic name. It doesn't mean anything to me...but Croatian people, who don't know anything about the family, are telling everybody it's the name...with no proof to back it up. You make up your mind what the name of the House is..."

by Debona.michel 28 January 2010

”

The Dalmatian Italians Article

He is other example of cultural genocide on Wikipedia the free encyclopaedia. The historic information below was deleted because it did not reflect the dated point of view of the former Communist Yugoslavia. According to Wikipedia in the Dalmatian Italians article (21/11/2010), history of the region started in 997 A.D. We somehow lost the history of the Roman Empire and the early Byzantine Empire. See below:

“

Characteristics

After the 1840s the ethnic group suffered from an apparently constant trend of decreasing presence and now numbers only around 1,000 people. Throughout history, however, this group (though small in numbers in the last centuries) exerted a disproportionally significant influence on the region.

They are currently represented in Croatia and Montenegro by the Italian National Community (Italian: Comunita Nazionale Italiana) (CNI). The Italo-Croatian minorities treaty recognises the Italian Union (Unione Italiana) as the political party officially representing the CNI in Croatia. The number of Dalmatian Italians in Croatia has fallen to 300, and the Italian Union concentrates on the Istrian region and the city of Rijeka (Fiume), which are home to the vast majority of the Italian minority in Croatia (numbering around 30,000 citizens).

In Dalmatia the most important centers of the CNI are in Split (Spalato), Zadar (Zara), and Kotor (Cattaro). They have their own newspapers

History

Roman Dalmatia and the Middle ages

Roman Dalmatia was fully latinized by 476 AD when the Western Roman Empire disappeared, according to scholar Theodor Mommsen in his book "The Provinces of the Roman Empire".

During the Barbarian Invasions Avars allied with certain Slavic tribes, invaded and plundered Byzantine Illyria. This eventually led to the settlement of different Slavic tribes in the Balkans. The original Roman population endured within the coastal cities and in the inhospitable Dinaric Alps (the latter were later known as "Morlachs" or Vlachs).

The Dalmatian cities retained their Romanic culture and language in cities such as Jadera (Zadar, Zara), Spalatum (Split, Spalato) and Ragusa (Dubrovnik). Their own vulgar Latin, developed in the Dalmatian language, a now extinct Romance language.
These coastal cities (politically part of the Byzantine Empire) maintained political, cultural and economic links with Italy, through the Adriatic sea. On the other side communications with the mainland were difficult because of the Dinaric Alps. Due to the sharp orography of Dalmatia, even communications between the different Dalmatian cities, occurred mainly trough the sea. This helped Dalmatian cities to develop a unique Romance culture, despite the mostly Slavicized mainland. [10]

 ”

Update: The article's Roman Dalmatia section link has been returned (26/12/2010) by editor 65.9.76.25. This type of Wiki-editing is very common.

More Info on the Yugoslav Regime

Post Berlin Wall and the collapse of Yugoslavia

After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of Yugoslavia, factual evidence has emerged that Dictator Josip Broz Tito and his regime (former Yugoslavia) were responsible for executing mass murders, arrests and torture.[11][12][13][14][15] The worst of these events are the Way of the Cross,[16] Bleiburg [17][18][19] and Foibe massacres.[20][21][22][23][24]

  • Encyclopaedia Britannica on events post World War Two in Yugoslavia:
“ British commanders refused to accept their surrender and handed them over to the Partisans, who took a merciless revenge. Tens of thousands, including many civilians, were subsequently slaughtered on forced marches and in death camps. [25] ”
“ After the armistice the British repatriated more than 10,000 Slovene collaborators who had attempted to retreat with the Germans, and Tito had most of them massacred at the infamous Pits of Kocevje. [26] ”

Vladimir Geiger of the Croatian Institute for History:

“ The list of German victims includes 26,000 women and 5,800 children who died in Yugoslav Camps- Geiger said. link ”

Additionally there is the ethnic cleansing of Germans and Italians of the former Yugoslavia.[27][28][29] One only has to mention Goli Otok, a notorious prison on the Croatian coast (former Yugoslavia’s Evil Island-Gulag). [30][31][32][33][34] The terror campaign lasted for about twenty years until the regime introduced reforms in the 1960's.

According to the recent European Public Hearing on “Crimes Committed by Totalitarian Regimes"[35] the former Communist Yugoslavia after World War Two was a Stalinist State (in its first 20 years of rule). It has a history of executing a rule of terror and political repression on a grand scale.[36][37] The former Yugoslavia was a totalitarian dictatorship single-party state.

  • For more information please read Titoism and Totalitarianism - Link here.

See also

External links

Israel National News:

“ Wikipedia has become the new battleground for Israel's PR image. The Yisrael Sheli (My Israel) movement and the Yesha Council, which represents Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, have joined together for a new public relations initiative. Together they will soon offer a special course for volunteers who wish to write and edit English entries on Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia. ”

References

  1. ^ Identity Politics in the Age of Genocide: The Holocaust and Historical Representation by David Bruce MacDonald (p169)
  2. ^ Brotherhood and Unity was originally a policy of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia
  3. ^ Becoming Slav, Becoming Croat: Identity Transformations in Post-Roman and Early Medieval Dalmatia by Danijel Dzino (p20)
  4. ^ <templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>"Venetian Albania, 2011.Tue. 22 Feb. 2011" Check |url= value (help). 2011. Retrieved 2011-02-22. Check date values in: |date= (help)
  5. ^ <templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>"Wikipedia:Talk Ustase- Invasion of SFR Yugoslavia in 1941 (???), 2011.Wed. 2 Mar. 2011". 2011. Retrieved 2011-03-2. Check date values in: |accessdate= and |date= (help)
  6. ^ Age, Marriage, and Politics in Fifteenth Century Ragusa by David Rheubottom. Book overview: This book combines the insights of history and anthropology with innovative techniques such as computer simulation to investigate the relationships between politics, kinship, and marriage in the late-medieval city-state of Ragusa (present-day Dubrovnik). At its heart is a reconsideration of `office' and the ways in which ties of kinship and marriage were mobilised to build electoral success.
  7. ^ Our Kingdom Come The Counter-Reformation, the Republic of Dubrovnik by Zdenko Zlatar
  8. ^ John Everett-Healu.Dalmatia Concise Dictionary of World Place-Names. Oxford University Press. 2005. Encyclopedia.com
  9. ^ Balkan Babel: The Disintegration of Yugoslavia from the Death of Tito to the Fall of Milosevic by Sabrina P. Ramet. Note: Croatisation is a form of Slavicisation.
  10. ^ <templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>"Dalmatian Italians" Check |url= value (help). 2010. Retrieved 2010-11-21. Check date values in: |date= (help)
  11. ^ <templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>""Slovenia." Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica, 2011. Tue. 25 Jan. 2011". 2011. Retrieved 2011-01-25. Check date values in: |date= (help)
  12. ^ <templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>""Partisan." Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica, 2011. Tue. 25 Jan. 2011". 2011. Retrieved 2011-01-25. Check date values in: |date= (help)
  13. ^ BBC-History Partisans: War in the Balkans 1941-1945. Dr Stephen A Hart is senior lecturer in war studies at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. He is the author of The Road to Falaise: Operations "Totalize" & "Tractable" (Alan Sutton, 2004), "Montgomery " and "Colossal Cracks": The 21st Army Group in Northwest Europe, 1944-45 (Praeger, 2000).
    • "Murder, rape and mass executions were all too common in Yugoslavia during World War Two - carried out by Partisan fighters as well as by Chetnik rebels and German troops."
  14. ^ Slovenia 1945: Memories of Death and Survival after World War II by John Corsellis & Marcus Ferrar. (p87, p204 & p250).
  15. ^ Titoism in Action: The Reforms in Yugoslavia After 1948 by Fred Warner Neal. Second chapter (p214)
    • "In a totalitarian state, personal freedom and human rights invariably most at the hands of unrestrianed police activity. That Yugoslavia was no exception was admitted by Aleksandar Rankovic, himself head of secret police or State Security Administration. This organization is known in Yugoslavia as UDBA."
  16. ^ Hrcak Portal of Scientific Journals of Croatia by Zdravko Dizdar. Scientific Journal:
    • An Addition to the Research of the Problem of Bleiburg & Way of the Cross. This paper dedicated to the 60th anniversary of these tragic events represents a small step towards the elaboration of known data and brings a list of yet unknown and unpublished original documents, mostly belonging to the Yugoslavian Military and Political Government 1945-1947. Amongst those documents are those mostly relating to Croatian territory although a majority of concentration camps and execution sites were outside of Croatia, in other parts of Yugoslavia. The author hopes that the readers will receive a complete picture about events related to Bleiburg and the Way of The Cross and the suffering of numerous Croats, which is confirmed directly in many documents and is related to the execution of a person or a whole group of people and sometimes non-stop for days.
  17. ^ Webster's Quotations, Facts and Phrases by Inc Icon Group International
  18. ^ Identity Politics in the Age of Genocide: The Holocaust and Historical by David B. MacDonald. Page 168.
    • "The Partisans also carried out massacres, best known being at Bleiburg (Austria), where retreating Croatian and Slovenian forces and their families were massacred."
  19. ^ Bleiburg Massacre:
    • "Among the Croats were real or alleged members or collaborators of the fascist regime. The Croats were members or collaborators of the fascist regime, although there were many frightened innocent people, however, these two were inextricably mixed and the pursuing Partisans appear to have unfortunately labelled them all as traitors since they were fleeing with the fascist units that were attempting to surrender to British forces in Austria. Apart from Croats, present in the fleeing military columns were remaining units of the Serbian Chetniks and the Slovenian Bela Garda, the vast majority of both were killed as well. The British forces refused to accept the Ustasa's surrender as per the Allied agreement and they were prevented from entering the British occupied areas."
  20. ^ The Frontiers of Europe by Malcolm Anderson & Eberhard Bort (p77)
  21. ^ History in Exile: Memory and Identity at the Borders of the Balkans by Pamela Ballinger (p155)
  22. ^ Refugees in the Age of Total War by Anna Bramwell (p136, read Zara-p137)
  23. ^ A Tragedy Revealed The Story of the Italian Population of Istria & Dalmatia by Arrigo Petacco. (p12 & page 81 Zadar/Zara)
  24. ^ Where the Balkans Begin (The Slovenes in Triest-The Foiba Story) by Bernard Meares:
    • "During the early Communist occupation in Trieste, Gorizia and the Littoral, and the 40 days of Communist rule in Trieste city, some 6000 arrests were made and the prisoners carried off to Communist-controlled areas. When the Allies finally imposed their rule they found out about the Yugoslav execution squads. The more objective Italian historians and statisticians such as Galliano Fogar and Raoul Pupo point to between 1000 and 1800 Italians and Slovene victims. The Red Cross estimates that 2,250 failed to return , in rough agreement with Bogdan Novak who said in 1971 that 4200 Italians returned out of 6000 arrested."
  25. ^ <templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>"Croatia." Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica, 2011. Tue. 25 Jan. 2011". 2011. Retrieved 2011-01-25. Check date values in: |date= (help)
  26. ^ <templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>""Slovenia." Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica, 2011. Tue. 25 Jan. 2011". 2011. Retrieved 2011-01-25. Check date values in: |date= (help)
  27. ^ www.enotes.com "Yugoslavia." Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity. Ed. Dinah L. Shelton. Gale Cengage, 2005. eNotes.com. 2006. 26 Jun, 2010 Yugoslavia: Genocide & Crimes Against Humanity-Mark Thompson.
    • The killing continued after the war, as Tito's victorious forces took revenge on their real and perceived enemies. British forces in Austria turned back tens of thousands of fleeing Yugoslavs. Estimates range from 30,000 to 55,000 killed between spring and autumn 1945.
    • "Native German and Hungarian communities, seen as complicit with wartime occupation, were brutally treated; tantamount in some cases to ethnic cleansing. The Volksdeutsch settlements of Vojvodina and Slavonia largely disappeared. Perhaps 100,000 people—half the ethnic German population in Yugoslavia—fled in 1945, and many who remained were compelled to do forced Labour, murdered, or later ransomed by West Germany. Some 20,000 Hungarians of Vojvodina were killed in reprisals. Albanian rebellions in Kosovo were suppressed, with prisoners sent on death marches towards the coast. An estimated 170,000 ethnic Italians fled to Italy in the late 1940s and 1950s. (All of these figures are highly approximate.)"
  28. ^ Ethnic Conflict: Causes, Consequences, and Responses by Karl Cordell & Stefan Wolff (p181)
  29. ^ The Frontiers of Europe by Malcolm Anderson & Eberhard Bort (p77)
  30. ^ The Three Yugoslavias: State-building and Legitimation, 1918-2005 by Sabrina P. Ramet. (p377).
  31. ^ Discontents: Postmodern and Postcommunist by Paul Hollander. (p397)
  32. ^ Goli Otok: Yugoslavia’s Evil Island Gulag Josip Zoretic-Political prisoner of the former Yugoslavia's most notorious prison. Goli Otok: Hell in the Adriatic (book) by Josip Zoretic
  33. ^ Vera Winter– Croatian Economist. Political prisoner of the former Yugoslavia's prison, Goli Otok. Interview: BBC 4/Tito's Ghosts
  34. ^ Alfred Pal- Croatian Artist. Political prisoner of the former Yugoslavia's prison, Goli Otok. Interview: BBC 4/Tito's Ghosts
  35. ^ European Public Hearing on "Crimes Committed by Totalitarian Regimes” Slovenian Presidency of the Council of the European Union (January–June 2008) and the European Commission
  36. ^ Crimes Committed by Totalitarian Regimes- Reports and proceedings of the 8 April European public hearing on “Crimes committed by totalitarian regimes”, organised by the Slovenian Presidency of the Council of the European Union (January–June 2008) and the European Commission. Page 197. Joze Dezman: COMMUNIST REPRESSION AND TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE IN SLOVENIA Chapter: COMMUNIST REPRESSION Of “INTERIOR ENEMIES” IN SLOVENIA
    • In the greater part of this paper, the author deals with individual repressive measures that Communist rule imposed in Slovenia in the period from the end of the war in 1945 until the beginning of the 1950s. In this period, the Communist authorities in Slovenia implemented all the forms of repression that were typical of states with Stalinist regimes. In Slovenia, it was a time of mass killings without court trials, and of concentration and labour camps.
    • Property was confiscated, inhabitants were expelled from Slovenia/Yugoslavia and their residences, political and show trials were carried out, religion was repressed and the Catholic Church and its clergy were persecuted. At the beginning of the 1950s, Communist rule in Slovenia abandoned these forms of repression but was ready to reapply them if it felt threatened.
    • Thus the regime set up political and show trials against certain more visible opponents later. In the case of an “emergency situation”, even the establishment of concentration camps was planned in Slovenia in 1968, where around 1,000 persons, of whom 10 % were women, would be interned for political reasons. Page 161
  37. ^ www.jutarnji.hr U 581 Grobnici je 100.000 žrtava. English version-The Jutarnji newspaper reported on the 01/10/2009 commissions find, in all it is estimated that there are 100 000 victims in 581 mass graves





Share this page

<sharethis />


Retrieved from "https://mywikibiz.com/index.php?title=Directory:Nationalistic_Editing_on_Wikipedia&oldid=135736"