Wars and ConflictsΒ permalink
armenia
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Message 1.Β
Posted by vera1950 (U9920163) on Friday, 2nd October 2009
has anyone got and good info on the Armenian masacre in ww1.
Why 's and how's -
Message 2
Posted by Stepney Boy (U1760040) on Friday, 2nd October 2009
Hi,
Try this site
Regards
Spike -
Message 3
Posted by MB (U177470) on Friday, 2nd October 2009
Be careful, you might find the Turks wanting to extradite you as they are doing with Sarah Ferguson! :=)
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Message 4
Posted by vera1950 (U9920163) on Saturday, 3rd October 2009
thanks for that ,very informative.
I found it very distressing and apalling that the Turkish people of today will not admit to it.
I am not in favour of people of today apololgising for historic events such as these but I do think it encumbent on that state to admit to it. -
Message 5
Posted by OUNUPA (U2078829) on Saturday, 3rd October 2009
In 1918 Dashnaks (the Armenian SDs ) promised to build a new Armenian Empire (?? ) stretching from the Black sea to the Caspian...and occupied eastern Anatolia ...and carried out a series of revenge massacres against bthe Turkish population.
It was a FOOLISH PROVOCATION -Kemal's nationalists were bound to fihjt back-and one only can conclude that the Dashnaks either greatly underestimated Turkish strength or were temporarily deprived of their senses.Perhaps both.
A war between Turkey and Armenia was just what...the Russia needed. -
Message 6
Posted by MB (U177470) on Saturday, 3rd October 2009
Many years ago (whilst at school I think) I read a book on the Turkish atrocities against the Armenians and have had a very poor opinion of that country every since. Their refusal to admit to their guilt has only reinforced those beliefs.
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Message 7
Posted by shivfan (U2435266) on Monday, 5th October 2009
I wouldn't hold the refusal of the Turks to admit that the Armenian massacres were actually massacres against them too much....
Many nations are defensive about their history. For example, Tony Blair refused to apologise for what slavery did to West Africa and the Caribbean. So what?
As long as we, as historians, can continue to look at the truth of what happened to the Armenians during WWI, that is what really matters.... -
Message 8
Posted by hotmousemat (U2388917) on Monday, 5th October 2009
Isn't this just the downside of such noble ideals as 'democracy' and 'self determination'?
Once those ideas become current, nations could no longer tolerate minorities who might have their own aspirations. It wasn't just Turkey - all over Europe at that time and for the next generation we had 'ethnic cleansing' with various degrees of brutality.
And we are still sorting out various 'anomalies' today. -
Message 9
Posted by MB (U177470) on Monday, 5th October 2009
But I don't think Tony Bliar denied that Britain was involved in the slave trade or imprisoned people who said otherwise?
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Message 10
Posted by cloudyj (U1773646) on Monday, 5th October 2009
As long as we, as historians, can continue to look at the truth of what happened to the Armenians during WWI, that is what really matters....Β
That's part of the problem in Turkey. Various laws against insulting the state prevent an honest and open discussion.
Whereas in the UK we're more willing to confront our past. -
Message 11
Posted by hotmousemat (U2388917) on Monday, 5th October 2009
That's part of the problem in Turkey. Various laws against insulting the state prevent an honest and open discussion.
Whereas in the UK we're more willing to confront our past.Β
I think that is a rather rosy view.
In the 1930s Germans could get into trouble if they denied that history consisted of a Jewish conspiracy. In the 1930s they were more than willing to 'confront' the supposed Jewish menace. But today there a laws to stop them expressing such views. Today, it is their Nazi past they are expected to confront.
I think that what constitutes an 'honest and open discussion' is in the eye of the beholder.
For another example, I am a refugee from other boards, full of BNP types hostile to the Muslim presence in the UK (and other immigrants). They would argue that our willingness to confront 'colonialism' and slavery is not open-ness but part of a deliberate political agenda in favour of multi-culturalism. When it comes to those who are out of sympathy with that agenda then, just like Turkey, Britain has laws that suppress an honest and open discussion of their views.
Just to be clear, I am making an arguement about whether any society is really open to a free discussion about sensitive subjects (and I am neither a Nazi, nor a BNP supporter or have anything against Armenians!) -
Message 12
Posted by cloudyj (U1773646) on Monday, 5th October 2009
I think that what constitutes an 'honest and open discussion' is in the eye of the beholder. Β
Really? I'd have said that in Britain you can generally find beholders spouting forth from opposite extremes without being locked up. When someone thinks his views are being banned it usually says more about him than the law in my opinion.
For another example, I am a refugee from other boards, full of BNP types hostile to the Muslim presence in the UK (and other immigrants). They would argue that our willingness to confront 'colonialism' and slavery is not open-ness but part of a deliberate political agenda in favour of multi-culturalism.Β
Ah, the "good old" 5 live message board. I'll go out on a limb and claim that there certainly has been some criticism of the UK based on an extreme left wing aim of destorying national conciousness in order to build a class solidarity. Though such critics are now few and far between and of minimal influence, but those BNP types see them everywhere.
When it comes to those who are out of sympathy with that agenda then, just like Turkey, Britain has laws that suppress an honest and open discussion of their views.Β
I may have misunderstood this. Do you think there are laws which prevent us from discussing Britain's role in slavery? Or are you saying the BNP think they're the victims of a government plot (which they do)?
(and I am neither a Nazi, nor a BNP supporter or have anything against Armenians!)Β
Don't worry, I've seen you posts elsewhere and certainly wouldn't suspect you of that!
Though, individuals aside, I do think that British society allows amazing freedom to express some pretty strange things. And even where people are prosecuted, it's very unusual to be convicted without direct incitement to violence - even Nick Griffen was acquitted.
I'm quite confident that we don't lock up academics for writing about the slave trade.
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Message 13
Posted by cloudyj (U1773646) on Monday, 5th October 2009
"Whereas in the UK we're more willing to confront our past."
I think that is a rather rosy view.Β
That was a lazy comment on my behalf. Should have added I was talking more about our willingness to let people write/speak about any aspect of our past rather than any willingness to read/listen to those views.
But it still beats being locked up for insulting the memory of Churchill! -
Message 14
Posted by hotmousemat (U2388917) on Monday, 5th October 2009
cloudyj
I agree we are pretty liberal in what the law allows us to say, however I'm not sure that is always what matters.
For example, if I attempt to post something racist on these boards and someone complains, then the post would be pulled and, if I persisted, I would get banned.
I am not exactly breaking any law, but if the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ let me have my say they would be, as they have a duty to 'promote good race relations'. I would suggest that similar rules would apply for most of the mass media - or even the hire of a Church Hall - meaning that I may have the right to say what I want but I can effectively be prevented from being heard.
It isn't exactly a plot; nobody has masterminded a cunning plan to do this...anymore than a cabal of villainous bankers plotted the Credit Crunch or a group of English landlords plotted the Irish Potato Famine.
I suspect the same is true of most historic events, however dramatic the consequences. So, to return to the subject of the thread, I wonder if this was also true of what happened to the Armenians - whether labelling it a crime: 'genocide' suggests a calculated intention that may never have been there. And to ask 'who was responsible' is to make an assumption about how and why things happen that may not be valid. -
Message 15
Posted by islanddawn (U7379884) on Monday, 5th October 2009
"I wonder if this was also true of what happened to the Armenians - whether labelling it a crime: 'genocide' suggests a calculated intention that may never have been there. And to ask 'who was responsible' is to make an assumption about how and why things happen that may not be valid."
Well said hothousemat.
As Jack says in msg 5 the Armenians do not come out of this smelling like roses either and imo if the Turks are to confront and admit to the past the Armenians should also do likewise. -
Message 16
Posted by MB (U177470) on Monday, 5th October 2009
Trying to blame the genocide on the Armenians seems a bit like trying to blame the Poles for provoking the Germans and so being responsible for WWII.
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Message 17
Posted by hotmousemat (U2388917) on Monday, 5th October 2009
Trying to blame the genocide on the Armenians seems a bit like trying to blame the Poles for provoking the Germans and so being responsible for WWII.Β
What I was trying to suggest is that there is no such thing as 'the Germans' - only a lot of individual Germans (and also people in other nations) who all took small decisions about various matters that rolled together had the cumulative effect of WW2.
Similarly, was the Armenian genocide the fault of President Wilson for putting the idea of 'self determination' into the heads of the Armenians? Or the fault of some Turkish corporal who found themselves in control of a column of Armenian refugees they did not have the resources to feed? Or the many, many others similarly involved in some way, through actions or failure to act?
It would be absurd to blame either Armenians or Poles collectively for what happened to them; but isn't it equally absurd to collectively blame 'Turks' or 'Germans'? -
Message 18
Posted by islanddawn (U7379884) on Monday, 5th October 2009
"Trying to blame the genocide on the Armenians seems a bit like trying to blame the Poles for provoking the Germans and so being responsible for WWII."
No-one has made such a silly suggestion JMB, nor tried to place the "blame" on either Turk or Armenian.
Imo, ignoring one half of an event in favour of the other is not really history, is it? Well not if one wants an accurate and unbiased understanding anyway. -
Message 19
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Wednesday, 14th October 2009
Having known ONOUPAs extremely negative views of the Russians I would not expect anything else than accuse Armenians of their own genocide... as if they did it to attract his behated Russians there... He is a Ukrainian he should therefore respect more his own country's past, how the Ottoman slavecommerce had emptied Ukraine, how the country had reached the lowest level and how Ukrainians (Ukrainians, not the Polish that were in the west) called in Russians for help.
Back then, luckily there were the Russians to intervene on behalf of Ukraine. Armenians did not have any of that luck and had to live all that misery...
Armenians (like Greeks) are a civilised culture. They are not Turkish, they are not Germans or British to commit mass genocide. They had an uprising to a local level against what was the most horrible occupation ever imposed on any part of the world (that was the Ottoman Empire). Turkish dead of that uprising were minimal as Armenians 1) were not professional killers 2) did not have the means even if they would wish to do so. The whatever deaths of Ottoman people were minimal and on most cases it was mostly local muslim militias that down to the basics deserved punishment for all the enduring crimes - for those who know... (take it as it is... those who know how muslims in Minor Asia live till 1920s... know very well what I am talking about...).
Also, noone of you ever cared to know that this Armenian uprising followed a huge slaughter tha took place in late 19th century where 200,000 Armenians were slaughtered... these are of course a case apart the 1,5 million slaughtered in 1915.
Similarly for Greeks the biggest lie is that Turks simply took revenge for the British imposed (as-if)Greek campaign in Minor Asia and the as-if wrong-doings (ridiculously minimal given the circumstances - and like in the case of Armenians who knows knows...).... at the end of the day what "wrong-doing" can anyone speak of when Greeks left Smyrna, the most defended Greek city leaving behind the local muslim community intact in numbers and in a "good mood", ready to start slaughters... when the Turks went in, there was left nothing... for Turks, a nation that thrived only in looting, there needed not be any excuse to start slaughters.
Sorry has anyone any other view on that (no really, has anyone the nerve to say anything on that)?
You do not need to search a lot. Numbers speak themselves
In 1910:
10 million muslims
7 million christinas (main communities 3m-Greeks, 3m-Armenians, 1m-Assyrochaldeans)
After 1922:
12 million muslims
Christians that got out of Minor Asia:
800,000 Greeks to Greece and other 700,000 directly spread as immigrants to other countries (Russia, France, USA, Argentina, Brazil etc.)...
1,000,000 Armenians to Russia, France (a lot of them there), USA etc.
Note that out of 1 million Assyrochaldeans really very few got out of that hell...
People tried even to call it "exchange of populations" to hide the hideous truth... funny thing that this "exchange" happened only after the genocides had been completed... christians in Minor Asia were annihilated. Muslims in Europe were protected and left on trains and ships even with their mobile belongings for Turkey...
But what can you say here to peopel whose nations (most western nations apart USA, including Britain, France, Italy, USSR) not only orchestrated but some of them also celebrated these genocides (Britain, France and Italy)... you only need to refer to Kemal to any western european and they will tell you "great leader"... of course, he gave them present the Middle East (that is why he was brought to power afterall... clear off the "dangerous Greeks and Armenians" and give present to Europeans the Middle East)...
Guys... I have read far too many documents on that and know my story. It is much more complicated and there are not only Turks there, there is a collective responsibility for the deaths of all those millions. And yes finally Hitler was 100% right saying "who ever cared about the millions of dead Armenians? Next day, nobody will remember...". -
Message 20
Posted by OUNUPA (U2078829) on Thursday, 15th October 2009
Nick, I was not going to accuse anybody. I just say that the war between Turkey and Armenia was just what the Russian Bolsheviks needed.
1 . Their own organization in Armenia was minuscle -at the 1st party conference in Yerevan only a dozen people turned up-so a Red invasion was not feasible and in May 1920, shortly after the 11th army had occupied ( to 'help' Azeris -'brothers'-muslims) Baku , the Russian Bolsheviks in Kars, staged a coup in the hope of sparking a pro-Bolshevik's invasion which was aimed...yes, Nick...to 'help the revolutionary masses', but this was easily suppressed and Lenin instructed SELF-APPOINTED 'HELPERS' to hold off. -
Message 21
Posted by OUNUPA (U2078829) on Thursday, 15th October 2009
2. But 6 months later ...in November 1920, with the Armenians ON THE BRINK OF A HUMILIATING DEFEAT AT THE HANDS OF TURKS, Lenin ordered the 'helpers'...TO MARCH ON YEREVAN .!
As they did so , the Russian diplomatic mission in the Armenian capital presented the Dashnak gvt. with an U-L-T-I-M-A-T-U-M to surrender power to 'bolsheviks' (i.e. The Russians)., which was following the Red troops ...from Azerbaijan...
All for Dashnaks was over. The outcome of the massacres against the Turkish population in the eastern Anatolia. -
Message 22
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Thursday, 15th October 2009
I did not get the last sentence... what masssacres against Turkish exactly? Are we speaking of the order of 200,000 Armenians slaughtered in 1890s? Or of 1,5 millions slaughtered in 1915?... Please explain cos I feel already dizzy....
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Message 23
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Thursday, 15th October 2009
In anyway, Armenians never hoped to become communists or something but in that hell the first devil that would promise to get yout out would be welcome. Bolsheviks only wanted to expand. But lets not forget that it was Bolsheviks that armed Kemal the slayer to continue perpetrating the genocides that the Turks were on for the last 20 years... so Armenians were not exactly helped by Bolsheviks, they just fell under their expansionism.
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Message 24
Posted by baz (U14168465) on Friday, 16th October 2009
It seems the Armenian genocide, which is an almost taboo subject today in Turkey, came about as the result of the collapse of the ramshackle Ottoman empire - which depended on terror to survive( the Bashi Bazouks,Turkish thugs,committed hideous atrocities in 19th century Europe).
The only good thing to say about the Ottomans is that they are gone for good! -
Message 25
Posted by Poldertijger (U11154078) on Friday, 16th October 2009
Hello Nik,
You say:
But lets not forget that it was Bolsheviks that armed Kemal the slayer to continue perpetrating the genocides that the Turks were on for the last 20 yearsΒ
What are you referring to?
Regards,
Poldertijger -
Message 26
Posted by shivfan (U2435266) on Monday, 19th October 2009
That's a bit harsh, kev....
There was a time when it could be argued that the Ottomans were more enlightened than the pre-Renaissance Europeans. For example, when there were disputes between the iconoclasts and the iconophiles (?) in the Byzantine empire, there were Christian and Jewish groups who preferred to live under the rule of the Muslims than under the Greeks.
Also, at a time when Jews were persecuted in western Europe, they seemed to have less persecution in the Ottoman empire....
<quote> The only good thing to say about the Ottomans is that they are gone for good! -
Message 27
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Monday, 19th October 2009
Poldertijker I was referring to the fact that by 1920 Kemal was, among others, playing with the Bolsheviks who gave substantial financial and material support in his war agains the "British tele-controlled" Greek army. Of course, this was by no means a Britain against Bolsheviks case as British themselves wanted Greeks to get destroyed and secretly supported Kemal by means of kneeling Greeks to their will and driving them in the depths of Minor Asia for no reason - only to be far from their native western coast so as to avoid a permanent establishment there. The whole idea was to complete the clearing of the christian populations of Minor Asia which stood the biggest hurdle to the control of the middle east (you have to read how rich these populations were and how most late 19th century western european investments in the Ottoman Empire had been trashed by them, something natural since they were playing "home").
But that is a big story, we are talking about "deeper history" and not just anyone can understand that. Just keep in mind that Kemal seemed to be always in position to have not only what he asked for but even 10 things on the top of it while he was not in position, so that should make you think that it was not at all him (himself just an agent), but it was the others that wanted it so. There was a whole plan and it was designed 3 decades before that (with the young turks of which very few had been muslims and even less of them Turks... - it is the equivalent of trying to find a term for a Spanish man trying to spread... Gothic nationalism in Sweden? You did not get it? You find it irrelevant? Well that was all the young turks' relevance to turks and muslim... trust me in that).
And I am coming to what shivfan said... : it is not harsh in the sense that Ottomans were good. It is harsh because exactly it is the blatant opposite:
It was not Ottomans but Young Turks and Kemalism, the very same Nazi regime (perhaps the only pure Nazi regime existing in the world currently) that carried out the genocides. It was the young turks that started the genocide of Armenians in the late 19th century. It was the young turks that started the genocide of Greeks in Macedonia under the pretext of the false revolution of Iliden organised by Bulgarians (of course whose fault would be if not the Greeks?ha!). It was the young turks that fanatised the people telling them it was the bad christians' fault if the Empire was going badly (and not their illiterate rates of 98% and their good-old backwardness...). It was the young turks that claimed it was the bad Greeks and Armenians behind all military failures.
Prior to the movement of the young turks, Ottomans had been always violent, they were no large scale slaughters, albeir they were rarely on massive genocide as they would never dare kill the hands that fed them, they knew that without the christians they were finished as a society. Young turks simply gave the alternative: with some foreign aid and simply by living off the total looting of the christian people after their complete extermination to buy time till some more proper development (that would need several decades) they gave for the first time another christian free alternative to a muslim society that practically knew absolutely nothing (I repeat 98% illiteracy, extremely backwards society, more poor than their own supposed "slaves" - and that was because they only knew how to live on loot, if there was no loot they were simply left with nothing). Therefore by force-feeding the idea of a christian free Turkey they forced the 3 genocides, the most successful massive plan of extermination of populations ever carried out in the 20th century (in the sense that Jews live today in Germany, Poland or Russia while Greeks and Armenians do not in Turkey while numbering together with Assyrochaldeans 7 million out of a 17 million population in 1910 - we are talking about the 40% of the population!!!
The comparison with the Byzantine Empire is simply unsuccessful. Seljuk Turks invaded easily Minor Asia because a part of the Byzantines in Konstantinople (a circle around the Comneno-doukes families) wanted it so, shown by the fact that the Comneni even when they had an army capable of clearing they area they preferred to go down and test their luck in Egypt (a big discussion in those Byzantines that made immense fortunes out of passing almost tax-free commerce via Seljuk controlled lands and then transfer it to the Empire and the the west completely tax-free on Italian Byzantine-invested ships... but that is a huge discussion...). Naturally seeing such things the heavily taxed people of Minor Asia, especially those in the center, tired of wars and political games they turned to Seljuks to test their lot as leadrship. However mentioning iconoclasm has nothing to do with our case here, in anyway the Iconoclasm in reality has been nothing close to what we read by iconophile writers, it was a much more mild clash mainly on the political level with the occasional violent outbreaks that frankly had little to do with religion but with other reasons mostly bound with regional politics and even hidden ethnic differences (Greeks were at 90% iconophiles, Armenians and other eastern Minor Asians at a majority iconoclasts, not accidental that the Leontian dynasty was Armenian). At the end of the day, sects were tolerated in the Empire if they kept a low profile and were dealt only if they were inflated endangering the Imperial power (afterall the primary reason of existence of sects in the Empire was political and not at all religious as shown by their origins and type of spreading, eg. Pavlikians, Nestorians etc. - not accidental that no sect ever declared faithful to the Empire but all preached opposition even before the state started opposing them). In any way such paradigms cannot be forwarded for calling Byzantium less tolerant than the Ottoman Empire. It is a well known fact, why Ottomans "left" the orthodox church (simply they could not do otherwise, it was their only chance of guarding their supremacy), and it is an even more well knon fact why they seemed to be tolerant to Jewish (they were the only "safer" alternative from employing Greeks or Armenians - all the rest were illiterate just like them!). There was nothing humanistic about that, nor any notion of justice, just pure calculations. Down to the basics, nobody escaped their oppresion, not even their favourite Jewish.
How good were the Ottomans, you only need to read at what level they were in 1800 to imagine at what level they had been in 1700 or in 1600 or 1500. It is not that they were the only bad guys, in those times pretty much everyone did so, however Ottomans distinguished themselves in making the slaughter of the populations an art and in taking extreme pleasure out of it. Yet Ottomans were a society that had some odd things like manning higher positions with their supposed untrustworthy opponents or creating a society were the most rich parts of the population would be either the governors (local pashas) or the local christian and jewish main families but no such things within muslim populations that remained poor, illiterate and backwards.
It is not me saying all that, you have just to read about the foreigners accounts if you are so cold as to discart the writings of people that lived under it.
Keep in mind however that if the Ottoman Empire was bad between 1400 and 1800 but not any substantially worse than anyone else around, it became the worst nightmare under the transition to the kemalist state. And that is the continuous tragedy that people nowadays they do not realise that for the millions of christians of Minor Asia it was not the Ottoman Empire the problem but the Kemalist Turkey and its Nazi ideals of complete extermination. -
Message 28
Posted by Poldertijger (U11154078) on Tuesday, 20th October 2009
Re: message 27.
Hello Nik,
The Turks have undoubtedly committed warcrimes and genocide in the wars from 1912 till 1923. It is important, though, to distinguish the acts of the three pashas from those of Kemal.
The free pashas had broken Turkish laws and had to βfleeβ the country; Ataturkβs record was relatively clean until the atrocities in Izmir for which he bears the responsibility, but as these events happened a few days after the Turks had won their war of independence, he would not be prosecuted by his countrymen.
You seem to forget that Turkey had suffered from Greek and Armenian revolts. On top of that, the Greek occupied the South-West of Anatolia in the aftermath of The Great War. This act gave Kemal the opportunity to rise as the leader of Turkish independence and to execute the Turkification of Turkey that was the agenda of the Young Turks. Thus keep in mind that if it were not for the Greek aggression, Kemal wouldnβt have become Ataturk!
Regards,
Poldertijger -
Message 29
Posted by vera1950 (U9920163) on Saturday, 7th November 2009
thank you everyone I've certainly had lots of info from all perspectives.
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Message 30
Posted by Colquhoun (U3935535) on Monday, 9th November 2009
The Armenian Genocide proper started in 1915 - before Wilson started promoting self determination.
Though the Turks had been slaughtering Armenians long before then for example Islamic fundamentalists murdered c30,000 in the 1909 Adana massacre. -
Message 31
Posted by hotmousemat (U2388917) on Tuesday, 10th November 2009
Colquhoun
The Armenian Genocide proper started in 1915 - before Wilson started promoting self determination.Β
I thought that the whole point of my post was to make it clear that I didn't think Wilson personally - or any other individual - could be blamed for the massacres. That that isn't the way history works.
Self-determination was promoted as an ideal in US policy well before Wilson - since 1776 in fact! And European powers used it in the 19th century against the Ottomans (when it suited them; and while forgetting to apply it within their own vast empires). The Ottoman empire had a century of seeing its territory lost to 'national liberation' movements. I do not believe that the peoples in the remaining rump had any doubt the way things were going.
The problem is a basic one - if you have a democracy then it is important to decide on boundaries - which people are 'in' the political entity and who is 'out'. The resulting genocidal nature of conflicts are a downside to the spread of democracy that still continues; as Churchill put it: 'Democracy is more vindictive than Cabinets. The wars of peoples will be more terrible than the wars of Kings.' -
Message 32
Posted by Colquhoun (U3935535) on Wednesday, 11th November 2009
Just reading Tom Holland's Persian fire. Self determination and democracy go back a lot further than 1776.
It was not a democracy that committed the Genocide rather a monarchy that was being transformed into a dictatorship The Young Turks were if anything akin to fascists. -
Message 33
Posted by hotmousemat (U2388917) on Thursday, 12th November 2009
Colquhoun
Just reading Tom Holland's Persian fire. Self determination and democracy go back a lot further than 1776.Β
I have. I think the phrase 'full of anachronistic detail' sums it up.
And I do not think any of the powers of that time were self-determining democracies in the modern sense. Suppose they really had been? Suppose those where there was already a sort of democracy had been told that next year the right to vote - and therefore state power - would be extended to everyone; even slaves? I suspect it would have been very bad news for the slaves.
It was not a democracy that committed the Genocide rather a monarchy that was being transformed into a dictatorship The Young Turks were if anything akin to fascists. Β
No, it was not democracy. It was the threats that democracy would bring. Democracy only works as long as everyone broadly shares the same aims. If they don't, then they will not accept it - you can insult such groups as 'fascist', but only until they have won! Then they become transformed into the stable, cohesive, democratic states we tend to admire. Europe is now full of liberal democracies - but only after massive and murderous population transfers.
And in our own country, there is tension between those who feel Muslims have an agenda that can fit in with British society as a whole - and those that believe they are incompatible. Both sides will describe the other as 'fascists'. And it gets us nowhere. -
Message 34
Posted by Colquhoun (U3935535) on Thursday, 12th November 2009
While not having universal sufferage (e.g. women and slaves couldn't vote) the Athenians were certainly democratic - they afterall invented the term to describe themselves.
The Athenians extended the right to vote from the rich to all citizens without any backlash from the wealthy. Following your reasoning we should all live under a government similar to that of Darius's.
The use of the term Fascist to describe the Young Turks was not an insult, rather it is a fair description of their beliefs.
The Young Turks were extreme Turkish nationalists; they believed in centralised government and devalued the worth of the individual. And obviously they were extreme racists - committing a genocide is the most racist thing anyone can do. In short their beliefs were akin to fascism. Calling the Young Turks facists is no different than calling the Nazis National Socialists. -
Message 35
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Thursday, 19th November 2009
Being a Greek - and thanx to my fire-like texts here I give the impression that I am ready to accuse Turks of all the evil on the earth and that despite I have explained repeatedly that in the case of the genocides, it was not only the Turks. When I underline that the Young-Turks were of no relation to the turkish population but mostly coming from the Donmes community, that is not something to take aside as a detail. It is the heart of the problem.
We have again and again to take things coldly (and I wish there was a Turk here to have also the other side speaking).
Modern Turks are the offspring of Ottomans, largely diriving from the muslimified (under pressure or bribery) populations while their connection to the real turkish tribes in Asia is only linguistic. Ottoman Turks hardly ever had any rememberence they came from deep Asia despite they had came recently and suffered no defeat but only saw continuous expansion (thus no-one else imposed his propaganda on them to forget such a thing!). Ottomans had been not a nation but a system. A system based on religion and the turkish language. Anyone could be "Turkish", anyone that became muslim (and the turkish language was not even imposed, e.g. we all know the Turkoalbanians, the vast majority of the Ottoman army in the west and the Turkokurds, the vast majority of the Ottoman army in the east).
The Ottoman system worked on the existence of the "others", the "infidels". Some perceive it as toleranance at a time when eg. catholics would not tolerate non-catholics in their countries. However, one has to note that this is like saying British administration of South Africa was very tolerant because it did not exterminate all the local African populations! Therefore, the Ottoman system tolerated and even wished the existence of others in order to live on their work. Ottomans never developed themselves a viable economy. They based their whole existence on others. Their "great" time revolves around the 200 years of their expansion in Minor Asia and Europe (the 1400-1600) period. Just like catholics, they stole whatever they could steal, but unlike catholics they did not go on to built anything more from that point.
It is not that Ottomans had been the most violent. They were extremely violent but then afterall, just everyone was violent back then. The biggest problem of Ottomans had been that they were very regressive. There was no will to move on. Normally at some point, after the initial conquests and wars and slaughters, they should have consolidated their Empire, bring some order, built their economic system, built ships, travel around the world making links, commerce, colonies : they had S. Arabia but it was little Holland that was half-circumnavigating the world to reach fellow-muslim Indonesia and colonise it, not them (I cannot find a more fitting example of what I mean!!!).
Therefore Ottomans prefered to continue on the same initial model of the type "we rule, they work, we eat". Their whole system was based on the decentralised administration according to which regions were ruled by semi-independent Pashas owning their own personal militias and having only 2 reponsibilities: provide support to the Sultan and pay some nominal tax. This system of course did not manage even to have any full control over the areas (some 20% of the areas, of course the mountainous, isolated ones, were hardly ever rulled by Ottomans who remained only there were they could "tax" effectively). This loose contol however was something positive for them as they had so often the chance to justify new raids, do some local slaughter and loot the locals, that was also a means of payment for the militias (as said usually Albanians in the west, Kurds in the east but there were many more of course including many christians too).
One thing that this Ottoman system would never do is to obliterrate the existence of the "others", thus when they did massacres they would do it most often on a local level. Had they tried to do a full genocide to christian people that would impose muslims to self-organise... i.e. to start doing some real work themselves - and they knew very well that with 2% literacy levels and total lack of knowledge of sciences or the art of economy, they would not be able to compete on this 1 on 1 level with Europeans or others. Hence, they clung till the bitter end to their system, a thing permitted only with the ample aid of British, French and Austrians in front of an ever expanding Russia and of course the good-old fear of the re-rise of the Greeks again in the area.
With the Ottoman Empire being near-dead by the end of the 19th century, muslim people seemed to follow passively the natural evolution as they remained in their regressive ways while christian communities within the Ottoman Empire would rapidly develop, namely the Greeks and the Armenians the main communities of Minor Asia.
In this one has to take again into account that only 100 years back, the reality was vastly different to what is presented today: there were around 17 million people in Minor Asia. 10 million were muslims... 7 million christians!!!! It means that christians could not even be considered as minority, they were simply the near half and most certainly the most important populations of Minor Asia.
Thus the whole European politics on the falling Ottoman Empire was not exactly of how to deal with the muslims (these were the easy ones!) but how to deal with the rising christians. The natural evolution would be Greeks expanding to the east - whatever the borders, creating a hellenic space controlling all the Aegean, the passage to the Black sea, as well as the passage from Europe to middle East while Armenians would have a significantly strong state ranging from southern Caucasus down to the Mediteranean corner with muslims controlling central MInor Asia and the southern coastline above Cyprus). And that would be catastrophic to European interests in the middle east taking for granted that they already knew that:
1) there was a lot of oil in Middle East (the key British/French/Italian/German policy was to clear off any christian populations from the greater area of Minor Asia, to give rise to powerless regressive states in Middle East and to install a new, fully controlled, turkish governship that could turn Minor Asia from a bridge to Middle East to an impenetrable wall)
2) there was a lot of oil in the Aegean (the key British (and now American) policy of today is to keep Greeks and Turks as constant enemies)
The repercussions that would be had Europeans not decided to implicitly (and often explicitly aid) cause the genocides in Minor Asia would be the birth of a new block of regional power that could lead to state formations, probably not as strong as a superpower but easily as strong as a country like France of today. And such a possibility was to be eradicated from the beginning.
That is the bitter truth. In the Ottoman Empire there arrive European investors and become editors linking thelselves to the Donmes community, a community of ex-Jewish turned muslims to do their businesses more easily but always keeping distance from Turks. To move away any 2nd thought, the local Jewish communities, even the predominantly philo-Ottoman Ladino community downright hated the Donmess and would never consider having any relation to them! However the Donmes were selling themselves as crypto-jewish, something of a great appeal to europeans since these could easily become their ideal agents in the region. And that is the main reason that out of all main young-turks, the vast majority are Donmes people while their community was less than the 0,5% of the muslim Ottoman population, a fact that cannot be taken lightly!!!
Therefore under the guidance of the young-turks, commencing since the late 19th century, there is applied a whole art of propaganda - effectively of the same order as the Bolshevik or Nazi propaganda in terms of development, which makes it actually the first modern propaganda! According to this propaganda, there is only 1 ideal and that is being "Turk", replacing the older "be fidel and be the rulling class, or saty infidel and be the working class" with the "be Turk or stay not Turk and perish". As you see that was not any racial propaganda since it actually asked from all people of all origins to declare Turks and become - no matter if nominally - muslims to save their heads or perish.
Young-turk preachings will lead to further clashes between communities, they will lead to massacres and they will start the first extermination procedures. It is a myth that the genocides started because of wars, the revolution of Armenians or the Greek campaign in Minor Asia.
In fact, the genocide of Armenians started in the late 19th century with the unprovoked extermination of 200,000 Armenians in a span of a few years (and that is how Armenians took arms for the first time!) while young-turks had started pre-emptively attacking Greek communities too. Whole towns were raised to the ground in Minor Asia as early as 1912 (right at beginning of the Balcan wars) pre-emptively. It was easy for the young-turks to push local muslim populations to do so even independetly of the Ottoman policies since muslims were always very happy to participate in these massacres as it was yet another chance to loot their own neighbours). In 1915 they find the chance to exterminate all Armenians and yet, even if they are not at war anymore with Greeks, they call-up 120,000 Greek men and throw them in concentration camps in the east and exterminate them, while they massacre other 350,000 Greeks in the Black sea - that consists of the 2nd phase of the Greek genocide in Minor Asia. With Armenians already exterminated and a considerable part of Greeks too, they simply exploit the British-organised Greek expedition in Minor Asia to finish-off what they had started in 1922.
And the sad thing is that this genocide has been celebrated by the likes of British and French and Italians and that is why the "west" is still refusing to openly talk about these events and prefers to praise the Kemalist state, heir to the young-turkish movement. And why not? Afterall it is them their agents in the area, the ones that handed over the control of the middle east and the ones that contributed the most at keeping the Eastern Mediterranean one of the regressive parts of the world. -
Message 36
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Thursday, 19th November 2009
It is also downright correct to say that the kemalist system not only did not "save" the "turkish nation" but actually it caused more harm. Turks used to rule over much of Middle east. That means that today Turks could easily had ended up in a common greater turkish-arab muslim state for the very simple reason that there had never existed anything else other than that for the last 1000 years! Meaning that - if Greeks controlles the Aegean and with Armenians being mediators on the part to the Middle East, the Turks would be actually controllers of the Middle East itself and all its oil!!!!). And if Greeks extracted oil from the Aegean (forbidden today under threat of total war!) and sold it to western Europe, Turks could exploit the Middle Eastern oil and sell it to Europe as well as East Asia... you understand the repercussions of such an evolution. It would practically mean the rebirth of the good-old "silk/pepper trade routes" reducing the importance of Suez by proposing a second very attractive alternative as ships could simply sail up to the corner of the Persian Gulf then byu train to Palestine and from there on to the markets in the west and the opposite from west to the east...
If you think that the above are in the sphere of fantasy, you have to review again of the meaning of the word "geopolitics". All politics are always subject to geopolitics. Always. -
Message 37
Posted by Poldertijger (U11154078) on Friday, 20th November 2009
Re: messages 35 and 36.
Hello Nik,
Your messages make clear one thing only: the takeover of Turkish government by Kemal Pasha has been a blessing for the Turks as well as the world. I feel that we should all be glad that today's Turkey doesn't resemble the Turkey at the end of the 19th or the beginning of the 20th century for a bit.
Regards,
Poldertijger -
Message 38
Posted by alecalgo (U13782581) on Saturday, 21st November 2009
Hi all,
There has been a lot of waffle on here about this subject (Nicolaos for one, with a piece (msg 19) of 702 words; another (msg 27) of 1350, and another (msg 35/36) 1772 + 243 words.
Course, it would all have been well ok ... if only I could have understood what he was on about ... ?
---
To start the ball rolling why was the good lady not referred to a web page or three ? - there are plenty of them. THEN the thing could have been discussed within the background of a few more third-party facts doing the rounds ...no ?
---
< Timeline armenia including the genocide
< history including the genocide
< for linking events post the genocide
regards,
Alec,
's advocate. -
Message 39
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Tuesday, 24th November 2009
Yes Polder, a blessing to Turks that from muslims in one night they became... mongols, something they have not yet really digested and that is why they need a fascist state to implent it, still 80 years after. Afterall why the Turks needed to draw their oil and sell it to Europe? That would make them rich? But they are above financial issues, they do not need money, it would be afterall an ecological disaster. Better make the people believe that in Kurkuk (juxt next to the turkish border) there is huge quantity of oil but on the Turkish side there is nothing). Two very important contributions of kemalism.
For western Europe and (of course quite indirectly USA), the young-turks and kemalism has been a blessing cos they installed a puppet state to contol the east-west passages but also a reminder that next time just ANY nation is not only morally intitled but actually has the MORAL DUTY to exterminate physically its enemy in the most fast and massive way so as to achieve its plans. -
Message 40
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Tuesday, 24th November 2009
Alecalgo... nice effort to refer to ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ articels, they can provide some basic info but are far from providing the essence of the story. ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ is essentially a british channel, and though it struggles to maintain some level, it is essentially "wet" of all that British world-vieiwing: officially British refuse the existence of Armenian and Greek and Assyrian genocides and describe Kemal and the young-turks as over-patriots fighting for their national cause.
You just have to stick to the numbers. In 1900 there were 17 million people in Minor Asia. 10 muslim 7 christian. Out of the 7 million, 3 were Armenians. Along with the rest 4, the 3 million Armenians were exterminated, half of them massacred on place and during those death marches. The Armenian genocide made more impact because unlike the Greek one it was done more rapidly and did not include any official presence of Armenian armies (apart sporadic guerilla ones) to be used as a pretext.
The rest is just details. There is nothing else to say. I have spoken to Turkish acquaintances and during "civilised discussions" on politics and such I was telling them:
"...anyway... in case there is a new war among us, I hope Turkish enterring in Greek territories will treat Greeks as Greeks treated Turks in the recent wars and that Greeks enterring in Turkish territories treat Turks as Turks treated Greeks in the recent wars"....
...
...
...
and guess what... there was always a long long silence and many faces in shock and in horro... not really knowing how to react, what to say...
there is nothing more blatant than that!!!
Cos they know very well the level of crimes perpetrated by their grandfathers (and secretly really many of them take enormous joy in these, it is just that internatioonally tbey will not openly speak but try to cover them).
Any effort to say more or explain or justify is equal to nazi-philes revisionists, there is absolutely no difference in that. -
Message 41
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Tuesday, 24th November 2009
Note also that the above strong language (as in my other text) are not aimed so much at Turks, themselves issued from a violent culture anyway, they had not learned any other way than to react by extreme violence on the basis of a constant looting orientation, but mainly at the blatant hypocricy of both modern westerners as well as muslims who selectively chose what genocide to remember and what genocide to forget.
Turks have not been the only violent in the 20th century. Communists by far surpass them, Germans too, and what about the Japanese whose conduct in China has been an outragegeous disgrace for mankind: Japanese also had not even the "superficial justification" that they fought for what they considered as their lands. What about British who wanted to sell more expensive the rice and so maybe up to 20 million Indians died of hunger - that does not pass as a genocide, either planned or indirect?
What is though impressive in the case of Minor Asian genocide is that it is one of the very few 100% succesful in the sense of obliterrating permanenetly even the slightest presence of the unwanted cultures. -
Message 42
Posted by alecalgo (U13782581) on Thursday, 26th November 2009
Wikipedia, the sixth most popular website in the world, is in the news this morning for all the wrong reasons. The site lost more than 49,000 of it's volunteer editors, last year, so it is claimed.
A main reason given being the infighting over just what should go on a site and what should not be allowed. The recent tightening up of the rules with regard to the editing process has, so they say, hindered rather than helped ... 'they' being the disenchanted ones, who say they are now "burned up by the squabbling with the established editors over their contributions" ... with some going on to say that the site as a whole, as well as the individual sites, is run by an impenetrable inner circle, a Cabal, that controls all content.
Mind you, none of this would have caught media attention but for the fact that many of the squabbles centre on celebrity profiles - always some berk with nothing better to do than trying to get onto the sites to edit their profiles in a piss-taking way.
====
Which brings me, finally
to my non-pisstaking point. How 'genuine' will Wikipedia's history sites be ? More than most, these sites will be edited by folks with axes to grind; folks who deeply care about their country's prestige etc with regard to it's 'doings' in times past. Or people who nurse deep and enduring grievances with regard to ... well, perhaps 'genocides'; perceived or otherwise. Just recently I asked friend Nikolaos to supply more source material and less ranting with regard to the Armenian atrocities etc ... (having initially given him the Wiki <
as an example - I asked him to peruse it for faults, and, as he is prone to quote us 'lies lies ... nothing but lies and more lies' etc Anyway, he has never got back with his 'total destruction' of the site ...
---
Now I am left wondering though, if it is reasonable to quote Wikipedia to people as a reasonable source for basic unbiased historical facts. After all, we are a devious lot at the best of times and it now seems as if we are all fighting to change WPed to how WE think the version of events should be portrayed ... if that really IS the case then WP's not a lot of use is it ?
===
What do you reckon then to the genocide website given above ? is it a fair account ? can it be fair ? ... will there have been a fight to get editorship of it ? ... by the look of the contents who do you think has won ? ... do you think it will change dramatically if another 'editor-gang' fights their way in ? Who do you think has a major stake in it being biased and one sided ? Will Turks, concerned about their image, as they most surely are, will they have tried to monopolise content ? Answers on the backside of a postage stamp please
Just a few thoughts there for you to be getting on with ...
cheers
alec's advocate -
Message 43
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Thursday, 26th November 2009
Perceived genocide could be even be considered that of WWII since out of the 5,000,000 Jews there are some still in Germany today (and there are other millions around Europe). The 1910 - 1922 is certainly not a perceived, it is the only complete genocide of the 20th century. In 1900 the same Ottomans measured 7 million christians among a total of 17 million population. How many you find today? I wonder on what distorted basis you go on to talk like this. What did the slaughtered Greeks, Armenians and Assyrochaldeans did to you and you have so much hatred against them?
-
Message 44
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Thursday, 26th November 2009
Bug beyond that, my main view is this: "In case you ever had some more interest (and you are not expected to have one of course, no more than any other region's history on the planet), go on and read the details yourself". Do not ask for "sources" you can still use the very same "mainstream" sources. It is in the little details where you can comprehend the full story. But you have to cease to be a passive receiver of the others' point of view. You have to make one of your own, but if you do so you must be able to base it to some fact.
You say - in the other thread - that Turkey went to the side of the Germans agains the Allies. I say that the Allies even so were always pro-Turkish and they they were in favour of Turkey and deeply against Russia, theoretically their ally. You will say I exaggerate... well I do not know if I eaggerate but in Kalipolli the British send only ANZAC (the "meat") and waited outside 1 month before doing the landing when Turks had brought to their defense lines even their backgammons to play cos they were bored waiting. It suffices to say that they could not beat the army that 2 little countries (2 of which were not even countries and had made an army for the first time!!!!) had beaten quite easily.
Leave the rest. 1 month. 1 month waiting even in 800 B.C. would be fatal, guess how much in WWI. It goes without saying that there is simply no case of bad organisation or wrong calculations. Even if it was a case of underestimating the enemy then they would simply had attacked since the first day of their arrival on place, not 1 month later. Thus was a preplanned defeat. It gave rise to Kemal. And Kemal, this non-muslim, non-turkish western-lover Donmes, next thing he went to Middle East and gave it all as a present to his friends British and French. Amazing isn't it, for a general that send to death 300,000 soldiers in Kalipolli that he did not want to fight a bunch of camel riders in the world's most oil rich area (and they knew very well what was there otherwise nobody would be there in the first place).
Start paying attention to the details and using your logic behind. You will be mathematically driven to reconsider much of what you believed so far. -
Message 45
Posted by Poldertijger (U11154078) on Friday, 27th November 2009
Re: message 39
Hello Nik,
Your remark about the Turks is not becoming for a gentleman.
Regards,
Poldertijger
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