this post was submitted on 25 Apr 2025
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Maybe it's also something else, but it is nonetheless deportation too, and the definition she gives is not correct. Words have meanings and you can't just pretend a different one to make a point.
It's also "sponsored flights"
You can twist words however you want. These aren't deportations, it's literally the first stage of ethnic cleansing
The spirit of the thing is what determines what word we use, not the definition of the word
What maybe confuses me is that the word deportation to me already has an intensely negative ring to it. Here in the Netherlands, if we hear the word deportation, I think most people instantly think of the Nazi-regime. Therefor I see no need for any other word to show how it's actually awful. But perhaps the situation in the US is different when it comes to what associations are stuck to these words.
I mean, the Netherlands deports people, everyone does. It certainly has negative connotations, but there's an implication of this being a process. Maybe not a fair process, maybe there's corruption, but you get some kind of chance to argue why you shouldn't be deported
This isn't that. Their taking people, many of them here legally, and rounding them up by proximity and skin color. Even citizens, though so far we have no known cases of citizens being held more than a few days.
They're holding them in inhumane ways that, by international definition, classify as torture. Then, for an indeterminate amount of time, they're shuffled around so no one knows where they are - no access to family, no access to lawyers
Finally, they're shackled, both hands and feet, and strapped into military cargo planes. Hopefully heading back to their home country, or at least somewhere where they speak the language
This isn't deportations. This is not the legal process and physical acts of removing someone from the county... This is something entirely different
Ye but like I said, here in the Netherlands, and I think across Europe people will automatically think of jews being sent to extermination camps like Auschwitz. Look at the dutch wikipedia page on deportation, the second paragraph explains that the term could technically be used to for instance describe migrants who are sent back to their country of origin, but it isn't used to describe that, because the term is so very much associated with the Holocaust, and so a different term (uitzetten) is used to avoid this intensely negative association. So you'll understand my confusion when the term directly linked to the worst crime against humanity is here suggested to have a positive connotation. And I don't think the Jews had much of a chance to argue against their deportations.
Ok, looking at that page I understand now. That is not what it means to us. This is the English page
In the anglosphere (UK included, from what I've seen on tv), deportation doesn't have positive connotations, but it has ambiguous connotations. It's a normal word used on the news everyday, and has been for decades. If anything, it has similar connotations to getting a prison sentence - there's even an implication of some kind of wrongdoing on the deportee
With the context of what you linked, it seems like in the Netherlands the word has appropriate weight. But if you say the Nazis deported Jews, people in the US will interpret that to mean you're downplaying or denying the Holocaust. It's the terminology used by neo-Nazis
The terms we would use are forced migration or ethic cleansing, we don't really have a specific word for it until it evolves into full blown genocide