Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Apartheid outside of South Africa

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was garbage. Just closed. No consensus, nor was there ever possibly going to be. This whole ungodly mess needs to go to arbitration mediation forthwith, where some kind of calm, common sense solution can be applied that everyone is happy with (and just after this, we shall all dance and sing for joy, as a beautiful unity envelopes all of Wikipedia, and those flying pigs wave a wonderful rainbow banner of love). Proto||type 09:05, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Apartheid outside of South Africa

Page duplicates (word for word for the most part) material in racial segregation. This is because it was merged with that article in February[1] and then redirected to segregation. It was orphaned (ie nothing linked to it). I deleted it because of that a few weeks ago. It has just been recreated today and a merge tag put on it calling for it to be merged with Israeli apartheid in an attempt to bury that article[2]. Delete or, failing that,merge/redirect with racial segregation which should be easy enough to do since the article's a duplicate. Homey 21:58, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

• Keep. Racial segregation and Apartheid are not identical concepts; Homey has no problem with creating (and defending) articles on Israeli apartheid, Sexual Apartheid, Gender Apartheid, and even Apartheid (disambiguation), and strongly objects to any of them being merged anywhere, but when it comes to this article he suddenly (and rather inconsistently) needs to have it deleted. He has actually deleted this article once already, using the rather bizarre claim that "orphaned re-directs should be deleted", when, in fact, the opposite is true - ideally all re-directs should be "orphaned", to avoid straining the servers. Now he is simply trying to avoid having Israeli apartheid merged into this article. Jayjg ^(talk) 22:16, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

so Jay, why did you support the dismemberment of this article way back in November 2005[3], a dismembersment that came to fruition last February? Why did you only recreate this article the day after the Israeli apartheid AFD failed?Homey 22:24, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, if articles on pejorative POV political terms are going to exist on Wikipedia, then they really should be presented in an WP:NPOV way and context, don't you think? Jayjg ^(talk) 22:30, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

You didn't answer the question Jay. Why did you support and help facilitate the dismemberment of the article last November to February?Homey 22:38, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

I didn't dismember the article, I NPOVd it, removing a bunch of nonsense unrelated to Apartheid. And your question has been answered; if you have any more comments, please put them on the Talk: page. Jayjg ^(talk) 22:40, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

You called for the article to be merged to other articles and left as a redirect. You didn't remove a bunch of nonsense unrelated to apartheid, you helped remove the entire article, particularly any reference in it to Israel. Why do you suddenly want to put Israel back into the article now when you supported removing it just a few months ago?Homey 22:44, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

I really wish you would read the previous comments; as I said above if Wikipedia *must* have articles on pejorative POV political epithets (which, of course, it really shouldn't), then they at least should be presented in an WP:NPOV way and context. Tendentious asking of questions which have been answered doesn't help Homey; please, at least, restrict it to the Talk: page - I won't be answering here again. Jayjg ^(talk) 22:50, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

That's because you are answering a question I didn't ask and not answering the question I did ask. Israeli apartheid can be an NPOV article. There's no reason to recreate an article that's already been merged with racial segregation for the sole purpose of subsuming Israeli apartheid into it. What you haven't answered is why you suddenly want to recreate Apartheid outside of South Africa the day after the Israeli apartheid AFD failed? Homey 22:55, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

• Keep Homey's reasons for this afd are extremely suspect, especially considering his crusade to keep the Israeli apartheid article. In fact Homey created half a dozen ridiculous articles ending in "apartheid" all of which were about terms that didn't actually exist, just so that he could make a pov disambigiation page. Now he wants to delete the only article that really makes sense to keep. This demonstrates a level of hypocrisy that I thought was actually fatal.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 22:31, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Moshe, you supported the dismemberment of this article last February. Here's [your edit removing Israel. Why would you possibly support the article now when you helped destroy it last February?Homey 22:36, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Your really really reaching if you have to find an edit I made 5 months ago to have something to argue about.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 22:43, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

I just want you to explain why you suddenly want to keep an article that, only a few months ago, you wanted to merge with another article and turn into a redirect.Homey 22:45, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

"Why I suddenly want to change my mind"? Are you joking? It was 5 months ago, I edited the article that one time and didn't touch it again until today. I think you are really going to have to find another angle to argue from because this one isn't working too well.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 22:48, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

• Keep - perfectly encyclopedic subject. The nominator's excessive and aggressive political activism is duly noted. Wikipedia is not a battleground and not a soapbox. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 22:42, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Vote change. I support Guy Montag's idea of merging relevant content into article titled Apartheid (political epithet). We need to describe its usage in propaganda and the article Racial segregation does not cover such namecalling. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 21:19, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Delete with prejudice - Take a look at the recent history of this article. [4] Basically, it had been a redirect since February until two administrators decided to have some fun with it. With all due respect to the nominator, this article and all of the other related articles smell like a WP:POINT. Please, find something else to do other than to create POV-pushing articles and please put these things out of their misery. BigDT 22:59, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
• Merge to Racial segregation. The focus of this article seems to be "apartheid sytems of racial segragation in countries other than South Africa." It seems to be a dup of racial segregation. If specific countries have notable histories they can be made separate articles under the most appropriate titles. --Ben Houston 23:18, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Meta-Comment this article creation/recreation and AfD, along with a bunch of other similar articles and AfD (i.e. [5], [6], [7], [8]) is part of a long running multi-article edit war and strategic AfDs and merge proposals around the equating of Israel's policies vis-a-vis the Palestinians with Apartheid. The comparison has inflammed passions (to put it mildly.) The prime individuals involved are most of the people that have voted on this AfD page so far and a few others: User:Homeontherange (admin), User talk:Humus sapiens (admin), User:Zeq (banned recently for vote stacking of a recent AfD [9]), User:Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg, User:Heptor, User:Pecher, User:Jayjg (admin), and me? - I am sure I am missing some others. Both sides accuse the other of violating WP:POINT. I am of the opinion that both sides are not engaging in model Wikipedian behavior and are mostly engaged in pointless wasting the time and energy of everyone involved. --Ben Houston 00:10, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Recommendation: ArbCom - I think things have progressed so far that maybe this whole set of related articles, AfD, merge proposals and moves be taken to Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration and be settled properly. --Ben Houston 00:18, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Comment - as an outsider who has never edited, that I can recall, an article having to do with Israel, I agree. This is silly. Being an administrator is not a license to edit war. BigDT 01:06, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

• Delete Nothing but a soapbox for people to shout "racism"! A disgraceful article. michael ^talk 00:58, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
• Keep Per Jayjg and Humus. Zeq 03:56, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
• Merge to Racial segregation or just plain redirect. As for Jayjg's if Wikipedia *must* have articles on pejorative POV political epithets (which, of course, it really shouldn't), wrong wrong wrong. --Calton | Talk 05:09, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
• Keep Objections to delete this article from a creator of Israeli apartheid(epithet), Global apartheid, Sexual apartheid, and Gender apartheid do not sound substantiated. Pecher ^Talk 07:42, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Vote change: Merge into Apartheid (political epithet) per Guy Montag below. Pecher ^Talk 21:16, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
• Delete or redirect or merge all these apartheids but don't keep under a very POV topic. APartheid is a policy of the RSA government of past eras, and the things noted in this article are not an official part of racial discrimination policy, so to label as such is POV.Blnguyen | Have your say!!! 07:44, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
• Take it to Arb. The Palestinians and Israelis simply can't play nice. Anywhere. -- GWO
• Delete as bullshit.--cj | talk 09:32, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
• Merge or redirect to Racial segregation --Coroebus 13:15, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
• Delete the title speaks for itself. Should there be articles like Apartheid outside of X for every country X?  Grue  14:51, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
• Keep, didn't the nom just push to keep Apartheid in Israel? Why this selective labeling? It's inconsistent and POV. --MPerel ^{( talk | contrib)} 16:21, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
  • There is a difference between "X in Y" and "X outside of Y".  Grue  16:43, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
    • Comment - I think the point of the nomination is that this article was previously merged into Racial segregation and replaced with a redirect. The article Israeli apartheid (phrase) (now Israeli apartheid (epithet) has just survived AFD and this article was recreated in the mean time [10] and a suggestion made to merge it with Israeli apartheid (epithet)). So the motivation behind the AFD would seem to be as stated, that the article is a duplication of another one, and that merging with Israeli apartheid (epithet) isn't appropriate. On the other hand, retitling it to be about the use of apartheid as an epithet, and sourcing it properly so it is about that, and not about racial segregation in general, could make sense. But it doesn't really matter what the most sensible thing to do would be, this is war! --Coroebus 17:01, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
• Strong delete - there is no such thing as "Apartheid" outside of South African history, except metaphorically. This is all part of the "Israel apartheid" thing, naturally. Why not Israeli Jim Crow laws, the Israeli Jim Crow Wall, etc., thus, "Jim Crow outside of the American South." Enough of this madness. Delete.Timothy Usher 00:33, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

RENAME OR DELETE It seems more sensible to name this article Apartheid(political epithet) and place a disambiguation page in apartheid. Then every bombastic statement used to malign different cultures, countries, religions Serengetti tribes etc. can be placed in this article. The entire idea of apartheid outside South Africa sounds ridiculous. What other country inscribes the legal seperation of one ethnicity from another based on genetics and ties those people not fit, (based on some arbitrary norm of purity) to legally work as manorial servants? Unless South Africa Jr. suddenly rises up, labelling other countries as having apartheid systems is a form of slander or political epithet, and this article or its name has no reason to exist for that reason. Guy Montag 20:01, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

See Talk:Apartheid_outside_of_South_Africa#Global_renaming.2Fmerger_proposal as well --Coroebus 21:41, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

• Keep per Jayjg, Moshe, Humus and others, but under the title "Apartheid (political epithet)," an existing article that is very similar -- similar to what Guy Montag proposes and also similar to what others above are calling a "merge." The "Israeli apartheid" article should then be merged into the surviving article. As an alternative to "Apartheid (political epithet)" the title could be something like "Allegations of apartheid outside South Africa." 6SJ7 23:58, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

• • using "epithet" or "political epithet" in the title is POV[11]: S: (n) name, epithet (a defamatory or abusive word or phrase) (primary definition, the secondary definition is "descriptive"). Homey 00:09, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

So there's no problem with "epithet", because outside of the South African context, the word "apartheid" is being used in a defamatory and abusive manner. Do you think the people who talk about "Israeli apartheid" are trying to praise Israel? Are the people who talk about "sexual apartheid" trying to praise those who believe gay people should be kept apart and discriminated against? "Apartheid" as used in this way is a term of abuse, so "epithet" is correct and non-POV. 6SJ7 00:18, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

That's your POV. There are some who refer to Israel as an "apartheid state" or as being in danger of becoming an "apartheid state" as part of an analytical comparision between Israel and apartheid South Africa. They may be incorrect in their analysis but its not for us to impugn their motives. I doubt most people would think Desmond Tutu applied the term apartheid to Israel because he intended to be abusive.Homey 00:25, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Actually Homey, I agree with your last sentence. In one of the "Israeli Apartheid" articles attributed to Archbishop Tutu, his tone is compassionate and constructive. If one reads the article carefully, the first parallel he draws is between the *struggle against* South African apartheid and the *struggle against* the Israeli occupation. In the fourth paragraph he starts to compare the suffering of Palestinians to that experienced by South African Blacks. My reading of it is that his analogy between apartheid and the occupation has as much to do with his faith in the techniques for ending it as it does with criticizing Israel's practices (which, no doubt, he does criticize!).

And BTW, I'm not entirely convinced that Desmond Tutu would approve of "Israeli Aparatheid" used as the title of an article on Wikipedia. First, the people who write articles are not usually the ones who write the headlines, so he might not even have used the term. He does compare Israeli practices to apartheid, using the term "apartheid," but (please correct me if I'm wrong) he does not call Israel an "apartheid state." Second, newspaper article titles tend to be written to grab attention so they can compete with the "Jen & Vince keep 'em guessing!" headlines. Wikipedia articles have almost comically utilitarian names like "Trade and Usage of Saffron." What's par for the course in a newspaper headline could be inappropriate in a different context. Like Wikipedia. Su-laine.yeo 05:58, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Well obviously I can't speak for Tutu's views on wikipedia ;-) but he did write another article in the nation [12] entitled 'Against Israeli Apartheid'. I'm not convinced that the Nation or the Guardian tend to have Jen and Vince headlines (you know I actually had to look up to see who they were, how sad am I?), and certainly not on opinion pieces. --Coroebus 09:48, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Coroebus, I think your comments about sensationalism in headlines are fair, although I still don't think "Israeli apartheid" is an appropriate encyclopedia title. By the way, the article you just linked to and the article I just linked to are the same article, which appeared in several publications. Su-laine.yeo 15:15, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Neither motive nor their characterization, or analysis have anything to do with the fact that it is an epithet. The term apartheid is political and abusive because the term has powerful negative connotations associated with a past system of injustice that everyone is familiar with. When you label someone a "Nazi" it is to demonize that individual by drawing upon the negative connotations of Nazism.

Catagorizing a state or system as an "apartheid state", without it actually being lawfully entrenched apartheid as recognized by international law, gains an audience because of the inflammatory nature of the word. But then offering colloquial or anecdotal evidence is not objective research and wholly manipulative.

It is abusive, it manipulates and maligns by drawing upon an imagined system in one place and stealing the momentum of a successful organized movement that was once against apartheid and hijacking it to the political agendas of those who oppose another state or society. Using vague associations between their target states, these individuals attempt to gain the same legitimacy as the anti apartheid movement, by coopting their agenda through sophistry into what was an existing successful one. It is easier to organize a movement when the groundwork has already been laid down and the inferstructure is there, but the goal has been achieved or is obsolete. Hence, its a propaganda tool to malign and forward a political agenda through negative past association.

Guy Montag 01:20, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree with what Guy said, and written very well I might add. Or, in my own words (written before I saw Guy's) the term "apartheid" in the modern day is used as a pejorative, in a derogatory, defamatory, abusive way (even if, in a particular case, I might think the users of the term are correct), in virtually all cases. The only people I know of who ever used "Apartheid" in a positive sense were the Apartheid-era governments of South Africa (and maybe Rhodesia, or maybe it was called something else there), who decided to call their racial policy "apartheid," and the supporters of that policy of South Africa. Today it is understood to be a bad thing, hence "epithet" is a correct description and non-POV. 6SJ7 02:39, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Keep Until either a mediator or the arbitration committee can get this mess straightened out. As others have pointed out, this AfD is part of a much larger disagreement involving several articles.

1. I think that allegations of "apartheid" applied to any country other than South Africa should be discussed only in the context of broader, neutrally-titled articles about that country.
2. However, I feel even more strongly that if the community accepts having an article specifically about allegations of apartheid in country X (other than South Africa), then it should allow the same for all other countries.

We are trying to deal with issues #1 and #2 in no particular order, and one AfD at a time. It's not working. It feels like playing chess with the board broken up and the pieces in different rooms.

There are about a dozen long pages of Talk and AfD discussions for the various related articles, some of which are alleged to have been tampered with. There is a long trail of page renames and redirects, and allegations of all kinds of seriously bad wiki-behaviour. We have multi-day page protections with no end in sight, bans, blocks, and AfD discussions that end in no consensus. Desmond Tutu's name has being brought into the fray; thank God nobody's brought up Mother Teresa yet. Understanding all of this would require stretching out a very long piece of paper on the floor and drawing a detailed timeline. Mere mortals like myself don't have the combination of time and wikiwisdom to do that. Su-laine.yeo 01:50, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Su-laine's comment is a perfect description of how I feel about this as well. It is so confusing. I love this line, it is so true: "It feels like playing chess with the board broken up and the pieces in different rooms." That is perfect. Using (or abusing) the same analogy, I feel like I keep making moves but they don't get me anywhere because after each move, suddenly it's a different game at a different table and nobody can see what happened before. (Though, sadly, it almost always turns out that the same person is sitting across the table.) 6SJ7 02:39, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks :) I love your extension of the analogy. It's nice to know someone else is having the same week I am. Su-laine.yeo 06:06, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Wazzup ma slim m8!! I don't believe for a second that you're a mere mortal; if you think a timeline would be useful it's your duty as a conscientious Wikipedian to get to work on that long piece of paper. In regard to your second point "then it should allow the same for all other countries", I think that's fair and balanced (as long as WP:V, WP:NOR, and WP:RS are adhered to). Article20 12:00, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Working on the paper: thanks but no thanks. Maybe someone else will take it up as a sociology research project. We might all one day be part of someone's Master's thesis on the dynamics of controversial topics at Wikipedia. Re: second point, I agree, mate.Su-laine.yeo 05:40, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

• Keep per Su-laine.yeo - Tewfik^Talk 02:17, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Merge into Apartheid (political epithet) per Guy Montag. Tewfik^Talk 16:24, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

• Keep per Sui-laine.yeo. This issue needs arbitration (or a similar interention) not a litany of AfD's. Eluchil404 06:15, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

• Merge relevant content into Apartheid (political epithet), per Humus. -- Ynhockey ^(Talk) 03:34, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

• Delete or redirect to racial segregation. This article was re-established for the sole (or primary) purpose of subsuming Israeli apartheid, which deserves to be a separate piece. This is probably a violation of WP:POINT, or close to it. CJCurrie 03:56, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

• Move to apartheid, a page to discuss the term. "Apartheid (political epithet)" isn't acceptable because there isn't another article called "Apartheid" to disambiguate such a page with, and parentheses are only used for disambiguation. -Silence 15:34, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

• Move all non-SA apartheid articles to Apartheid (epithet). -- tasc ^talk_deeds 08:07, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
  • even the one on international law? How can an item of international law be an epithet, tasc? And what source do you have for calling apartheid an epithet? The title you propose is OR. Homey 16:44, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
    • Indeed. The only appropriate name for a general article on apartheid is Apartheid; "Apartheid outside of South Africa" is unnecessarily clumsy and convoluted, and "Apartheid (political epithet)" or "Apartheid (epithet)" violate Wikipedia's naming conventions. It's either Apartheid, or deletion, and clearly the term apartheid is noteworthy enough for its own article, even its its usage oustide of a South African historical context is illegitimate. -Silence 16:49, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

"even its its usage oustide of a South African historical context is illegitimate"? I would direct you to the crime of apartheid article that describes its history in criminal international law. --Ben Houston 22:44, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

what international law exactly do you mean? -- tasc ^talk_deeds 22:46, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

If you are talking to me about the article crime of apartheid I was referring to the ICC Rome Statute. See that article. --Ben Houston 22:49, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, I was actually refering to the Homey's remarque about even the one on international law? How can an item of international law be an epithet, tasc? And what source do you have for calling apartheid an epithet? -- tasc ^talk_deeds 23:14, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.