CopperLine wrote:Get Real,
I'm afraid that you've just leapt to an unwarranted and prejudiced conclusion. On the assumption that these population figures are broadly correct - which in the absence of reliable census data until the twentieth century is a big assumption - there are many perfectly plausable explanations for either static popoulation levels or even substantial population decline which are NOT a function of genocide or mass killing.
That Cyprus as an island that was a primarily agricultural economy, with some external commercial exchange, beyond the marches of regular warfare is good reason to expect a relatively stable demographic pattern. Indeed the very absence of warfare, including mass killings, is typically associated with slow population growth rates.
For example, that the net rate of native Italian population increase has been zero or even negative over the last twenty years does not point to an explanation couched in terms of genocide of Italians !
I'm not dismissing the possibility that the low growth rate may be accounted for by mass killings, but there are much more likely explanations - and whichever explanation is offered they should be measured against the historical record. There is no serious evidence of what you call genocide in the period you refer to.
I ask you to consider the structure of the Ottoman empire and the taxation system. The welfare of tributary taxation system typical of the Ottoman empire, and including Ottoman Cyprus, was dependent on simple production, accumulation and taxation in which - crudely put 0- the greater the number of taxable producers the greater was the potential taxable product. Killing direct producers is a sure-fire way of reducing (permanently) the taxable population. In whose interests would such a policy be ? Not in the interests of either Ottoman rulers or of local Cypriot overseers or tax-farmers.
The Ottoman empire, like other empires of its kind, had to play a delicate balancing game : squeeze as much taxation out of the subject population but not so much that open rebellion was incited (rebellions which were expensive to suppress and costly in terms of loss of taxable heads).
But this, in the end, is a historical question which requires hard evidence. When and where were the genocides you refer to and what was their demographic effect ? Evidence please.
Never mind. GR is clutching at straws again. Not one of his better posts. He just obsessed with 'congress' data.
It would be tantamount to 'killing the goose which lay the golden egg'.
