Talk:Moro Crater massacre

quote
Most of this article is a quotation from Mark Twain. The text of the quotation should not be altered to meet some current POV or for any other reason. Hmains 07:39, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

unsectioned material
President Teddy Roosevelt had already declared the Spanish American War over when the Army detachment group attacked villages.

in style and content, this article has been very poorly written. It should be re-done from the ground-up with the utmost attention paid to a bias-free account.


 * First off, the Spanish-American War was over, so Roosevelt's proclamation was, IIRC, actually about the Philippine Insurrection. Secondly, (again, IIRC - trust but verify), Roosevelt's "Mission Accomplished" didn't apply to Mindanao and Jolo. In other words, this battle/massacre was part of the later Moro Rebellion, not the Spanish-American War or the Philippine Insurrection (which was largely conducted by Christianized Filipinos - the Moros were largely neutral in that conflict).


 * I agree about the rewrite, though. crazyeddie 15:54, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Mark Twain
This article is not an article on Wikipedia - it is simply a long quote of Samuel Clemens' account of it. it should be renamed, and a real article about the actual event put in, or maybe just added as a sub account of the Philippine page.


 * As such, it's a breach of Don't include copies of primary sources. The Twain text is available here at Project Gutenberg. 86.139.229.178 18:51, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

For an actual account of this event titled, The Battle of Bud Dajo, see http://www.bakbakan.com/swishk/swk3-19.html


 * Well, the good news is we have a source in addition to Swish of the Kris (which is where that link goes). And Mark Twain is writting from an opposing, anti-war POV. crazyeddie 15:54, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Don't delete this article.
If the superior source material is moved to Wikisource, the remaining text serves as a satisfactory stub, by itself. It's not wikipedian, but I liked this article from the first, and this subject deserves treatment, especially in view of the current unrest in the Philipines, and especially in view of the 100 year anniversary of this event which is less than one month away. Moving this entire article to Wikisource at this exact moment would appear as a POV issue (coverup), even if the intention is other. BusterD 12:59, 25 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree that only the source material should be moved, and the surrounding description should be kept here. – Quadell (talk) (bounties) 14:33, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Aw, couldn't we start a POV war? It might be nice to have a bunch of obsessive Moro Rebellion buffs do my research for me... (just kidding) crazyeddie 15:54, 14 March 2006 (UTC)


 * What larger work is the source text taken from? Wikisource doesn't host excerpts, but rather complete source documents.  I am also concerned about copyright, as I am unsure where this material comes from.-- Birgitte§β  ʈ  Talk  21:54, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Aside from the introductory material, the article is mainly an excerpt from Mark Twain's autobiography. The excerpt starts from the heading "Part 1: Monday, March 12, 1906". Somebody gave a link up above. Doing an in-text search for "Jolo" will bring the excerpted section up, a little over half way down. Since it's Mark Twain, copyvio not an issue. Haven't worked with WikiSource enough to know what they will and won't take, but since the entire source document is already available at Gutenberg, I don't think it's a biggie.

On another note, like Buster D pointed out, this massacre/battle seems to be indentical with the Battle of Bud Dajo. They do need to be merged. I'd recommend redirecting Moro Crater massacre to Battle of Bud Dajo - the phrase "Moro Crater massacre" gets more google hits than "Battle of Bud Dajo", but Battle of Bud Dajo sounds better to me. (It's still kind of weird to see my talk page posts turn up on google...) If nobody objects, I'll guess I'll put up the merge notices soonish.

Regardless of the merge, both the Moro Crater massacre and Battle of Bud Dajo articles are in serious need of a rewrite. In fact, pretty much all of the Moro Rebellion articles are. For an American military history class, I'm doing a term paper on a battle of my choice. I've already decided to do it on one of the battles of the Moro Rebellion - probably Bud Dajo, but I'm not for sure yet. I'm currently going through sources (mainly biographies of John J. Pershing and Leonard Wood, plus Swish of the Kris), taking notes. I plan on doing something with the Moro Rebellion articles Real Soon Now, after I get done with the initial research and possibly the actual writting of the paper. Month, two months tops, maybe? Might be a good idea to hold off on the merge until I can bang something out, since I'll be in the neighborhood. crazyeddie 07:15, 16 March 2006 (UTC) This incident bum upon the world last Friday in an official cablegram from the commander of our forces in the Philippines to our Government at Washington. The substance of it was, A tribe of Moros, dark-skinned savages, had fortified themselves in the bowl of an extinct crater not many miles from Jolo; and as they were hostiles, and bitter against us because we have been trying for eight years to take their liberties away from them, It was found that the Moros numbered six hundred, counting women and children; that their crater bowl was in the summit of a peak or mountain twenty-two hundred feet above sea level, and very difficult of access for Christian troops and artillery. The battle began it is officially called by that name our forces firing down into the crater with their artillery and their deadly small arms of precision; the savages furiously returning the fire, probably with brickbats though this is merely a surmise of mine, as the weapons used by the savages are not nominated in the cablegram. Heretofore the Moros have used knives and clubs mainly; also ineffectual trade-muskets when they had any. The official report stated that the battle was fought with prodigious energy on both sides during a day and a half, and that it ended with a complete victory for the American arms. The completeness of the victory is established by this fact: that of the six hundred Moros not one was left alive. The brilliancy of the victory is established by this other fact, to wit: that of our six hundred heroes only fifteen lost their lives. General Wood was present and looking on. His order had been, "Kill or capture those savages." Apparently our little army considered that the "or" left them authorized to kill or capture according to taste, and that their taste had remained what it has been for eight years, in our army out there the taste of Christian butchers. They were mere naked savages, and yet there is a sort of pathos about it when that word children falls under your eye, for it always brings before us our perfectest symbol of innocence and helplessness; and by help of its deathless eloquence color, creed and nationality vanish away and we see only that they are children—merely children. And if they are frightened and crying and in trouble, our pity goes out to them by natural impulse. We see a picture. We see the small forms. We see the terrified faces. We see the tears. We see the small hands clinging in supplication to the mother; but we do not see those children that we are speaking about. We see in their places the little creatures whom we know and love. Footnotes — Preceding unsigned comment added by 112.210.162.208 (talk) 01:15, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

It appears this article is a duplicate of Battle of Bud Dajo
I'll verify this before any changes, then I'll be moving much of this over there, then this should be a redirect. BusterD 23:30, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

The two battles do look disturbingly similar... crazyeddie 15:54, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

I propose we keep this article, and allow it to refer to the last phase of conflict
I suggest that this article be truncated, and focus on the public perception of the First Battle of Bud Dajo, since the name Moro Crater massacre arose out of that perception and public reaction. BusterD 02:01, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

integrity
To ensure the integrity of this article, I suggest it be placed in block quotes after the accuracy of the quote is re-checked to ensure no editors have modified the Twain quotation. Hmains 06:11, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Receiving no comment, I added block quotes around what appear to be the words of Twain. Please check. Hmains 07:13, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Infobox
Can we get rid of the infobox? It repeats the data given in the infobox for the First Battle of Bud Dajo. If "Moro Crater Massacre" is just another name for the First Battle of Bud Dajo, then it should be a redirect, not a separate article. If "Moro Crater Massacre" is a name for the indiscriminate killing of women and children by US troops at the end of the battle of Bud Dajo, it's sickeningly offensive to describe that event (as the infobox does) as a "US victory." 206.208.105.129 (talk) 15:25, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Religion a reason for massacre
The US general who led the campaign, Leonard Wood, gave as a motivation for the attack the "fanaticism" of Filipino Muslims. Though violence against Filipinos was widespread, impacting both Muslims and Christians, this particular event seems to have been motivated primarily by anti-Islamic attitudes of the US military. Hence why I tried to include entry in the "anti-Islam" category. BilalSaleh (talk) 15:29, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I would have no problem with the introduction of an "anti-fanaticism" category. That the fanatics were Muslim was a mere coincidence. It could be argued that at the time the Americans (and Europeans for that matter) were busy slaughtering natives wherever they found them. They were equal opportunity oppressors. Reliable sources need to be produced which portray the combat action as "Anti-Islam" before such a category is reintroduced. BusterD (talk) 17:31, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
 * The "anti-fanaticism" category violates the NPOV principle. It assumes that the Americans responsible for the slaughter of innocents were correct in their demeaning assessment of their victims. Humiliating stereotyping by colonizers and conquerors against the conquered, are not rare in history, but that doesn't mean they are correct. More often than not, they are part of self-serving narratives composed by the colonizers to justify their subjugation of the natives. I myself would say that the American leaders responsible for the campaign were more fanatic than their victims, if one accepts that it is a form of fanaticism to be willing to kill innocents in the hundreds only because of their distinct culture, religion or values. And even though, as I myself pointed out, American violence hit both Christians and Muslims, this one event in particular singled out Moro Muslims, and because of their religion. The "Anti-Islam" category therefore applies. BilalSaleh (talk) 00:02, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I think we both agree in the opinion the incident at Bud Dajo constitutes an atrocity in United States Army history. Field commanders present ultimately acted brutally and incorrectly, but with no evidence of anti-religious fervor. There's ample evidence the Moros were singled out for their obstinacy, but not for their faith. Mark Twain's linked journal entry is scathing and sarcastic in his assessment of the incident, but never mentions the religion of the victims. The army was anti-insurgent, anti-tribal, anti-primitive, but not anti-Islam. If I'm incorrect, please present a source which disagrees with me.


 * I disagree radically with your initial assessment above, however. Sources and classification often have a non-neutral point of view. Lots of subject matters provoke non-neutral responses by historians. Our responsibility as wikipedians is to present the material in a neutral way, not to limit ourselves to neutral material or classification. Sand Creek massacre is not categorized as anti-Native American, for example (but the categories there are usefully illustrative of what could be done here). Juramentado, to take another example, isn't categorized as "anti-Christian." Nazi Germany, Nazi Party or Bergen-Belsen concentration camp are not classified as "anti-Semitic," "anti-Polish" or "anti-Gypsy." We wouldn't normally categorize an incident or an institution in such a broad way. Your use of the anti-Islam category is likewise inappropriate at 2012 Rakhine State riots and the other massacres you've recently categorized. The correct category would be the subcat Category:Persecution of Muslims, not the broader anti-Islam. (And why not "anti-Buddhist?") Besides, what you and I think correct is of small importance, since we can't base an article on our own opinions. I still haven't heard any mention of reliable sources using the same characterization you have used. Please present a source which agrees with your perspective, that the massacre occurred because of a hatred of Muslims or their ideology. BusterD (talk) 05:36, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
 * The anti-Islam dimension of the massacre was stated by perpetrators themselves. Joseph Massad, an Arab Christian, pointed out - and this is also readily available on other sources - that the reason given by US general Leonard Wood for the massacre was Filipino Muslims' "fanaticism" — not their "tribalism", not "primitivism", not "obstinacy", nor pronness to mutiny; but their religiousness. None of what you said above addresses this fact. All you do is ignore Wood's words to highlight other possible motivations. And while I agree with one part of your argument — that institutions such as states cannot be categorized with simplistic labels like "anti-Islam" or "anti-Christian" — I don't see how you can conclude, from this, that such argument also applies to incidents. That is an illogical leap. Incidents certainly can be categorized as anti-Islam. They also can be seen as anti-Christian, anti-American and so forth. Who can doubt that the 9/11 event was an instance of anti-US terrorism? Civilians were targeted because they were American or US residents, and the attack was perpetrated so as to provoke the US government into war. The attack thus qualifies as anti-American. The Crater massacre victims, all of whom were Muslim, were likewise targeted on account of their religion. The massacre therefore fits the "anti-Islam" description.
 * And by the way, about the Rakhine riots, the reason it fits into the anti-Islam category, but not the anti-Buddhist, is that the Muslim part of the conflict is revolting — not because of the religion of their rivals — but because of their oppression (appalling, as said even by the UN) at the hands of both the state and their Buddhist neighbors. By contrast, Buddhist Burmese discrimination, governmental and social, against Rohingyas is due to their religion; it is informed by religious bigotry. And the Rohingyas are not alone. The Karen and the Chin ethnicities, both Christian, are also persecuted in Myanmar; it seems all non-Buddhist groups are. The religious (anti-non-Buddhist) dimension of Myanmar's persecution of minorities is clear and confirmed by many different developments. Same is true about the massacres that I added to the anti-Islam page. And mind you, I see more arbitrary inclusions into other Category pages about anti-religious attitudes: The Anti-Buddhism page, for example, includes the entry for the southern Thailand insurgency, even though the Muslim separatists are moved primarily, not by raw bigotry, but by ethnic nationalism against the Thai central government's disrespect against their distinct culture. This incident of violence on Buddhists in Bangladesh, likewise, was motivated, not by the Buddhist affiliation of the victims per se, but by the fact that a member of the victim community was accused of insulting Islam by posting pictures of desecration of the Qur'an. Unless insulting Muslims is a fundamental Buddhist obligation, I don't see why such incident should be seen as anti-Buddhist per se; anti-blasphemy is more like it.
 * One can make much better cases that, for example, the Karantina massacre — and, for that matter, also its 1982 replicate — was moved by anti-Islam prejudice, than for the "anti-Buddhist" motivation of the southern Thailand insurgency. BilalSaleh (talk) 22:09, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
 * You make your case well. The Massad article is really good, and I'll stand corrected by a reliable source. Feel free to insert your previous statement with Massad cited. Welcome to Wikipedia and thanks for your contributions. Sorry if I came across as obstinate myself. Presented with such sources, I bow to your assertion. If I can be of any service, feel free to call on me. BusterD (talk) 23:21, 10 November 2012 (UTC)