Talk:Freedomites

Untitled
I thought something about the children should be added - which reminded me of Japanese internment camps or the eugenic policies of Australia. I tried to diffuse my own point of view, but there is still a lot of room for improvement. Also, on the Russian. I got freedom - свобод - but 'sons of' I don't know how to render not knowing Russian. Is it Свободники? Khirad 01:14, 26 September 2005 (UTC)


 * I believe it is, although Doukhobour Russian is a special subvariety and it may not be spelled that way; but I thijnk I've seen it svobodniki in Roman characters....

Photo request
There's got to be some somewhere, maybe in BC Archives or the newspaper archives...the image needed here is the archetypal sensationalist one of the naked older women and their burning houses, being arrested by police etc. Somewhere there might be a picture of the old tenement camp at Mountain Prison in Kent, too....Skookum1 (talk) 19:59, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

You might be able to find something in http://www.umanitoba.ca/libraries/units/archives/collections/complete_holdings/ead/html/holt.shtml, along with (inflammatory) reference materials to complete the article. That journalist wrote a rather inflammatory book on the Freedomites, however the source materials for her book might be interesting to look at. 96.49.167.78 (talk) 05:32, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Populations
The first paragraph quotes population numbers. I don't see citations for the source of these statistics. I see those numbers as problematic. As far as I know the Sons Of Freedom are not an active group any more, but there is a group of former Sons Of Freedom members called the Reformed Doukhobors. I could accept the number of Sons Of Freedom in that paragraph if the wording was changed somewhat. I also think the number of Doukhobors in Canada needs a bit of qualification.

original Freedomites, also called Svobodniki or Sons of Freedom, first appeared in 1902 in Saskatchewan, Canada, and later in the Kootenay and Boundary districts of British Columbia, as a Doukhobor extremist group. Of the about 20,000 Doukhobor living in Canada today, about 2,500 are Freedomites.

suggested Freedomites, also called Svobodniki or Sons of Freedom, first appeared in 1902 in Saskatchewan, Canada, and later in the Kootenay and Boundary districts of British Columbia, as a Doukhobor extremist group. Of the about 20,000 people of Doukhobor descent living in Canada today, about 2,500 are descended from the Freedomites.

Leon —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.77.212.229 (talk) 02:25, 29 November 2010 (UTC)   — Preceding unsigned comment added by Conovaloff (talk • contribs)

Freedomites are not Doukhobors
The basic problem with this Wikipedia posting on Freedomites (last modified on May 19, 2016) is that there is an assumption that Freedomites are Doukhobors. This is not correct.

1. Practically all of the references are to Freedomites without context. Freedomites are a different group from the Doukhobors. The authors of this article legitimate the Freedomites/Sons of Freedom/zealots by placing them into the wider literary history of the Doukhobors. In effect, this is a hijacking tactic designed to give credence to the Freedomites as the heroes of the Doukhobor movement. There is no reference here to: Tarasoff, Koozma J., 'The "Sons of Freedom" -- a Flashback to 1956'. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OU9iadRrZd37rI8opvBVE22LStPvDvx1ogwtgsFX_88/preview   Conovaloff (talk) 18:14, 3 July 2016 (UTC) Koozmatarasoff (talk) 18:11, 3 July 2016 (UTC)This will give needed context.

2. The given Time Line mixes up Freedomites with Doukhobors, giving the false notion that Doukhobors are an integral part of their history. Freedomite history is separate from Doukhobors. It looks like Doukhobor history is given so as to justify that there is such an entity as 'Freedomite Doukhobors'.

3. The photo of naked people has nothing to do with the Doukhobors.

4. Doukhobor central philosophy of the Spirit of Love/Beauty/God Within is nonkilling, while the central zealot or Sons of Freedom philosophy accepts violence if necessary. Why mix the two histories when they are different?

5. Some factual errors noted:

— 1962: 'town of Krestova'. There is no such entity as 'town' in Krestova. A settlement, yes, but not a town.

— July 31, 1959: 'Parents compelled to swear an oath in court before a magistrate....' In Canada, citizens can either affirm the truth or swear an oath in court, which Freedomites did not know.

— The Freedomite parents of the New Denver children refused to send their children to Public Schools. They had at least one school with their own teacher, but rejected supervision by the Provincial Board of Education. Instead they chose what they interpreted as a heroic act of martyrdom for a cause. In reaction, the resulting discriminatory and heavy-handed government policy was really suggested by sensational writer Simma Holt and carried out and mishandled by the autocratic conservative Social Credit Government in British Columbia. In contrast, in Saskatchewan the government beginning in 1905 allowed local groups such as the Doukhobors (and others: Mennonites, Hutterites, etc.) to participate in the educational committees (as compared to BC where practically everything was dictated centrally from Victoria, BC).

— What is the purpose of placing the following items in the Time Line? All of these dates deal strictly with Doukhobors. Conovaloff (talk) 18:19, 3 July 2016 (UTC)
 * 1964-1984?
 * 1971?
 * 1980?

6. Jim Hamm's film on The Spirit Wrestlers mixes up Doukhobors with Freedomites. This is a source that is quoted for 'further reading' -- but it is sensationally misleading. http://spirit-wrestlers.com/films/#2002b.

7. In the References section, items 8 and 12 refer to Kalyeena Makortoff's stories on the Freedomite apology issue in which she assumes the victims are Doukhobors not Freedomites. http://spirit-wrestlers.blogspot.ca/2012/05/review-of-news-article-about.html.

8. 'Selling Freedomites as Doukhobors is False Advertising'. http://spirit-wrestlers.blogspot.com/2014/06/selling-freedomites-as-doukhobors-is.html

9. List of references https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OU9iadRrZd37rI8opvBVE22LStPvDvx1ogwtgsFX_88/preview#bookmark=id.e071e655a1ed 18:11, 3 July 2016 (UTC)Koozmatarasoff (talk) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Koozmatarasoff (talk • contribs) 16:52, 3 July 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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Split into 2 or 3 pages : Sons of Freedom (Freedomites), New Denver Survivors, Operation Snatch (Sons of Freedom)
The parents of New Denver Survivors were "sovereign people", most popularly called in the press as "Sons of Freedom", who feared public education for their children. Most of their kids were "snatched" by police in the 1950s and confined to a fenced dormitory school at New Denver, BC, to force-educate them despite contrary recommendations by sociologists.

"Operation Snatch" could be a section in "New Denver Survivors".

For historic clarity, the history of Canadian Doukhobor zealots, who declared in 1902 that they were "svobodniki" (sovereign free people) and began a long series of protests, were later called "Freedomites" and "Sons of Freedom". They self-separated from 2 other types of new immigrant Canadian Doukhobors -- (1) community/communal and (2) independent.

For more than 100 years media and scholars have rarely distinguished between these 3 major types, which created a huge amount of unreliable literature. See topic above: Freedomites are not Doukhobors. Conovaloff (talk) 14:21, 30 October 2023 (UTC)