Germany risks Turkey wrath with Armenian 'genocide' vote

[philosslayer]

Berlin (AFP) - Germany's parliament votes Thursday on a resolution that qualifies the massacre of Armenians by Ottoman forces as "genocide", despite a strong warning from Turkey.

Drawn up by the ruling left-right coalition and the opposition Greens, the resolution entitled "Remembrance and commemoration of the genocide of Armenians and other Christian minorities in 1915 and 1916" also carries the contested word throughout the text.

The vote comes just over a year after President Joachim Gauck became Germany's highest ranking official to describe the massacre as a "genocide", drawing a fierce response from Turkey.

Cautioning against the vote, Turkey's deputy prime minister and government spokesman Numan Kurtulmus said: "Germany must be careful concerning its relations with Turkey."

https://www.yahoo.com/news/germany-risks-turkey-wrath-armenian-genocide-vote-032938905.html?nhp=1

[Bucky]

2. They're right to quit tiptoeing around Turkey's feelings on this

They're just the country to do it. Turks need to realize Germans are being their friends right now.

[Albertoo]

3. What Turks need most is to move toward democracy

And not to follow a religious autocrat like Erdogan.

But it's not the way things are going..

[Bucky]

4. The religious autocrat Erdogan won an election, fair and square

What they need is a return to liberalism. Back when Turkey's generals routinely dragged their country back from nationalism, religious zealotry, isolationism, and other forms of extremism, they had less democracy and less demagoguery.

[Albertoo]

6. True,, Erdogan won, but he's stifling democracy

• Shutting down or forcible takeover of opposition newspapers
• special laws targeting the opposition Kurdish MPs
• paramilitary theatrics

the shift away from democracy is palpable..

[Bucky]

7. This article from Foreign Policy last year is where I learned about Erdogan

It's bigger than just Putin & Erdogan - it's the trend of the future.

http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/02/13/new-model-dictator-putin-sisi-erdogan/

[Albertoo]

13. No, it's (hopefully) the resistance of the past = nationalism

Putin dreams of restoring Greater Russia (he said so)
Erdogan, the Ottoman Empire (he even created a new paramilitary with Janissary uniforms)

It's a harder sell to create soft powers like the EU or NAFTA
Nebulous, counter-intuitive. Nationalism is such an easier sell.

[smirkymonkey]

5. Turkey needs to finally own up to the Armenian genocide.

They have been in denial for too long and they owe the Armenian's a formal apology.

[eissa]

8. Good. We should have done the same long ago.

Furthermore, genocide deniers should be given the same treatment as those who deny the Holocaust.

[smirkymonkey]

11. +1000

I am sickened by the denial of this holocaust of Armenians. It must be acknowledged by the international community.

[KamaAina]

9. Why can't the Turks own it the way the Germans have with the Holocaust?

[Igel]

10. Several reasons.

It makes it one of the first genocides of the 20th century. Organized, fast, and a precursor to Hitler.

Islam protects People of the Book. In this case, though, it slaughtered Armenians and Greeks (that "other Christian minority" that had roots in Asia Minor before 600 BC). The Turks keep saying how enlightened the Ottomans were. They weren't, but many in the West picked up the refrain and developed it into its own opera.

It did so in the name of Turkish nationalism, fearing that the independence movements in the Balkans would lead to dismemberment of Asia Minor, as well. This would be dishonorable. There's a difference in culture between most Germans and most Turks.

They still yearn for their glory days. They should be in charge of lesser races. It's humiliating that they're not. So they do other surrounding nations wrong in ways small and great to compensate for their humiliation. At UCLA there was a proposal to accept money for an endowed Armenian chair. The Turkish professor there (Euro-American, not Turkish-American), argued against it: He made it clear that the funding that Turkey gave to some on-campus research group, funding for his research and that of his graduate students, the ability to easily get visas and do research in Turkish archives, would vanish if the chair were approved. The consulate cared about such a picayune detail.

It opens claims by the Kurds over a similar process that's been going on longer, against a primarily Muslim people.

They'd denied it and convinced their own people that this is calumny of the first water. To admit it would be to admit lying. For many, many decades.

[smirkymonkey]

12. Because they are cowards.

There will be no justice until they can own up to it and issue a formal apology.