Armenian genocide

[Ancyrean]

Originally posted by paiktis22


I don't think so. If some Armenians do that is because Turkey has not recognized the genocide. Should Greeks, French, British, Russians and people of Jewish religion walk away in anger when meeting a German? They don't, generally, because post war Germany did recognize what happened. Or was made to, in any case the victim has been to an extend justified.

Well that's a good way to make a full circle on what I was trying to say.

Turkey does recognise that tremendous suffering happened and up to three hundred thousand Armenians were killed during the time period in question. What it does not recognise is the classification of that killing as genocide, as a delibarete and preplanned act, as there does not exist any evidence of a comprehensive plan nor any orders of any sort to eradicate Armenians. The order to relocate Armenians came after a prolonged series of attacks by them on government institutions and Turks, at a time of life-or-death war conditions. It was a desperate response in a desperate time. The governors en route of relocation was explicitly instructed to provide for the relocees. Where they failed they were prosecuted, even hanged.

It is outrageously wrong to compare this with Hitler's "endlosung", or label it accordingly as genocide.

Hence the remark about Armenians being raised on a one sided perspective of the tragedy, and hence the pity of Armenians reacting hatefully without remembering their own actions back then.

[Ancyrean]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris
What's this framework you're talking about? Had the Ottomans simply resorted to crushing the rebellion, I doubt 1+m would have died.

The army and the security forces were extremely hard pressed in the Eastern Front to engage in a prolonged guerilla warfare with a numerous and well armed insurgent force. That is exactly what I mean by saying the order of relocation was a desperate means in a desperate times.

My point about tens if not hundreds of thousands of Turks were killed by Armenians is still overlooked here.

[Ancyrean]

Originally posted by Lazarus and the Gimp

Then again, you have to bear two factors in mind.

Firstly- it wasn't the first genocidal policy against the Armenians, was it? In fact it was the second in 20 years.

Secondly- it wasn't just Armenians. There were Anatolians and Assyrians too.

The first Armenian uprisings took place in late 19th century, with no little aid from tsarist Russia. The nationalist Armenian organisations was established after the war of 1878, and they explicitly stated in their charters that "agitation and terror were needed to elevate the spirit of the people" that "terror is to be used as a method of operation", the best time to rise is preferably when the Ottomans are in war etc etc. So, the central government moved in to crush the rebellion and yes, many people regrettably died at the time (1890s). How does this stand as proof of genocidal intent, let alone "genocidal policy"??

Furthermore, as the British Ambassador in Istanbul in 1890 observed when the Armenians rose at that time, the aim of the Armenian revolutionaries was to stir disturbances, get the Ottomans react with violence, and get foreign powers to intervene at that time. It was not as straightorward as you seem to assume.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Qilue

Seems hauntingly similiar to what is happening with the kurds.

Ironic because Kurds were the main "Ottoman" soldiers in the region and because much of what is now Turkish Kurdistan used to be Armenia.

[Ancyrean]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
BTW, Ancryon, the official Ottoman statistics of the Armenian population was 1.9 million, but that is considered exceedingly unreliable and the vast majority of scholoars think the number was probably twice that, both because the Ottomans wanted to keep the numbers down and the Armenians wanted to keep the numbers down.

Fa'iz El-Ghusein the Kaimakam of Kharpout wrote in his book, that according to the Ottoman official statistics there were about 1,9 million Armenian's in the Ottoman Empire

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_Armenian_Population

That article ends with:

Most Western scholars believe the totality of the Armenian population within the Empire prior to 1915 to be between 1.8 and 2.1 million.

So a figure of 1.5 million dead Armenians is likely incorrect.

The following numbers are for the whole of the Ottoman Empire:

- The Ottoman census of 1914 cites the number of Armenians as 1,295,000,
- Encyclopedia Brittanica's contemporary edition cites it as 1.5 million,
- Two contemporary historians quote 1.4 million (Contentson), and 1,345,000 (Lynch)
- Many other contemporary historians give similar figures: Cliar Price: 1.5 million, A. Powell: 1.5 million, Walker: 1.5-2 million, Lynch: 1,325,000, Cuinet: 1,475,00 (for Asian Turkey)
- Annual register of London for that time cites 1,056,000,
- The Armenian Delegation (headed by Bogos Noubar) to Paris Conference of 1918 gave a number of 1,300,000 for 1914. Noubar also noted that up to 700.000 Armenians emigrated out of Turkey during WWI.
- The Armenian Patriarchate in Turkey gave numbers that widely conflicted with itself at various different occasions (from as low as 1,780,000 to an improbable 3 million!)

So it is probably safe to say the overall number of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire before WWI was around 1.5 million. Alas, Armenians worldwide claim that number instead corresponds to the number of deaths during that time...

[Dinner]

NPR has an excellent radio piece on what really happened to the Armenians that is pretty fair and balanced. It seems pretty clear that Turkey has been in denial for 90 years and academics who want to explore this part of Turkey's history are discouraged while official Turkish government policy for the last 90 years was first to deny anything ever happened then to ignore or minimize what did happen when they could no longer claim no relocations occured.

It's interesting that several leading Turkish historians have come out and said the Turkish governments figures of 300,000 were completely wrong and that the true number was around 1 million. That's 500k short of the Armenian claims but still well above the Turkish claim of 300,000. The 1 million figure seems to be the number many scholars have settled on.

You can listen to the full NPR report here:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4620581

[Dinner]

edit: Wrong thread.

[Ancyrean]

Originally posted by paiktis22
Some people take my nationality as something negative when it comes to talking about that subject but that's ok.
In Balakian's book, which starts by simply describing his life in the US, there are documents included which substantiate that it was indeed a genocide in what regards that it was done by using methods of genocide. That it was not merely a war.

The suprising part is reading that the main "thinker" behind that method of mass extermination (but also the rhetoric behind the formulation of the idenity of the "new turk") used by the ottomans were german thinkers a little bit before WW2 happened. This is also notesworthy. There is ample correspondance between turks officials and german "philosophers"/officials about the armenian "problem" and "how" to handle it but most freakishly important: "why" to handle it like that.
I have to say that Germany is one of the countries which has recognized the armenian genocide.

There are no government orders found for any mass-extermination of Armenians. Similarly, no documents outlining an intent or a plan to kill off Armenians. The British had access to the complete Ottoman state archive in 1918 when they occupied Istanbul, and despite their best efforts, not only were they not able to find such evidence, they also failed to find any evidence of missing or destroyed documents.

I also understand the "mentality" of Ancyrean and his country. Now is he simply describing his country's mentality or is that also his own? The lines sometimes get blurred and it doesn't only happen to him. But I understand how "Turkey" thinks that way. It's too long to explain, things of the past affect the present still in these parts of the world.

Well for my own part, I should tell that I read all I could about what Armenians have to show for their case, and what Turks have to counter that, and I am reflecting my own considered opinion here.

Also, while dissecting mentalities, it would be interesting to similarly point out to how Turkey and Turks have been used as a central element of Greek national identity, often as a source of contrast, which I mention here only because it is my impression that the convictions you express about the tragedies of 1915 are heavily clouded by misperceptions about Turkey.

I'm necessarily not saying that you're a "nationalist" but for example; taking their clue from Armenians, Greek nationalists claim that Turks have conducted genocide against :

- Pontian Greeks,
- Anatolian Greeks,
- And also, Thracian Greeks.

Greece officially commemorates the "Pontian Genocide" on every 19 May ("coincidentally" the date Turks symbolically accept as the beginning of their war of liberation). A day in September (what was it, 14th?) was almost accepted in the parliament to commemorate the "genocide of Anatolian Greeks" but the thawing of Turkish-Greek relations suddenly made that proposal look "untimely".

The events of 1915 were truly catastrophic for all those involved, but what Armenians have developed afterwards is a much heavier version of this phenomenon of demonising the enemy.

Finally, AFAIK, the German parliament took no decision to the effect that you mention above. As if parliaments are the right place to pass judgement on history.

[Ancyrean]

Originally posted by paiktis22
It was ethnic cleansing. The number of Greeks having to flee was next to 1 million. How many were killed I don't know.

There was a population exchange agreement between Turkey and Greece after the war of 1919-1922. All Greeks living in Turkey (Greekness defined by being Orthodox, as mentioned by Che) had to leave for Greece, in return for all Turks living in Greece (Turkishness defined by being Muslim) had to move to Turkey.

[Dinner]

When I was studying up for my trip to Kosovo in 2000 I read several books about Turkish history, mainly Turkish history in the Balkans, and I recall that the Ottoman Empire loved to play numbers games. The Young Turks had pressed for western style reforms including a parlement and representation was determined by the official imperial census. It seems, at least in the Balkans, the Turks consistently under counted ethnic and religious minorities and so ethnic Turks and groups friendly to the Ottoman government were over represented.

I'm sure there were difficulties in correctly counting the people in so large yet undeveloped an empire as the Ottoman Empire but it does seem to me that the detractors have a point. The Ottoman officials did have a reason to undercount groups which they didn't want to have as much representation plus since taxes were partially determined by population figures the people themselves had a reason to not want to be counted.

A population between 1.3 million (the official number) and 2 million (wikipedia's number) sounds about right. Ancyrean's 1.5 figure is likely in the right area.

[Ancyrean]

Originally posted by Oerdin
NPR has an excellent radio piece on what really happened to the Armenians that is pretty fair and balanced. It seems pretty clear that Turkey has been in denial for 90 years and academics who want to explore this part of Turkey's history are discouraged while official Turkish government policy for the last 90 years was first to deny anything ever happened then to ignore or minimize what did happen when they could no longer claim no relocations occured.

It's interesting that several leading Turkish historians have come out and said the Turkish governments figures of 300,000 were completely wrong and that the true number was around 1 million. That's 500k short of the Armenian claims but still well above the Turkish claim of 300,000. The 1 million figure seems to be the number many scholars have settled on.

You can listen to the full NPR report here:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...toryId=4620581

Indeed, there's recently a lot of debate in Turkey about the Armenian issue. Like you say, different sources begin to be quoted contrasting the 300.000 figure, but such historians do not number in the several yet. Many prominent historians in Turkey are yet to be convinced, but I'm following the debate with keen interest The number 300.000 is not cast in stone for me and I'm ready to consider whatever evidence comes to light about the issue.

For me, there certainly should be some sort of acknowledgement of responsibility on our part, if so many lives were lost (be it 300.000 or 1 million). But this can't be in the form of a one sided act, as the issue in question did not involve only one side's suffering.

What probably wasn't quoted in the NPR piece (I couldn't listen to it yet) is that Turkey is trying to start a dialogue on the issue, offering Armenians to present whatever evidence they have for their claims, in exchange for our evidence for our perspective. But after an initial exchange of a limited number of documents, Armenia stopped to respond to this.

Edit: Previously in this same post I said Armenia refused a recent offer from Turkey to set up a joint commission to look into the matter of what happened in 1915.

That was based on news about initial indications from the Armenian President Kocaryan, however I now read that Kocaryan sent his official reply to the Turkish offer today, in essence accepting it. He proposes this commission to be "intergovernmental", as opposed to the Turkish offer of a joint commission of historians and experts. Remarkably, he also did not use the word "genocide" in his response.

The details are still sketchy as I see it from the Turkish news, and I hope no further complications emerge. It would be great to compare the findings of such a commission!

[OzzyKP]

Originally posted by Dissident
am I the only one that misread the title as american genocide?

[Dinner]

It's good to see some level of cooperation between Turkey and Armenia on this issue.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Ancyrean
Similarly, no documents outlining an intent or a plan to kill off Armenians.

That's becuase the documents were destroyed. They were known to have existed, and the perpetrators of the genocide were sentenced to death during the war crimes trials at the end of WWI. The criminals escaped justice, however.

As for planned intent, what do you call it when you foreably uproot people and force them to march across a desert without food or water? That sounds like intent. Furthermore, no provisions were made for the Armenians to be someplace else.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Oerdin
I recall that the Ottoman Empire loved to play numbers games. The Young Turks had pressed for western style reforms including a parlement and representation was determined by the official imperial census. It seems, at least in the Balkans, the Turks consistently under counted ethnic and religious minorities and so ethnic Turks and groups friendly to the Ottoman government were over represented.

This was a recent development in Ottoman history, starting in the 19th century as a response to nationalisms trying to assert themselves. Prior to that, the Ottomans had an incentive to over count Christians, since Christians were the only ones to pay a head tax, Muslims being except by religious law.