Armenia 60 Minutes

[yellowwood]

Yesterday, 60 Minutes did a review of the allegation of genocide of Armenians by Turks.
If it happened, it happened in 1915.
I regret any genocide that has occurred anywhere in the world at any time. There has been a lot of it. We certainly have been accused of it ourselves
But I can't help but wonder what the political reason is for the latest push to make the Turks apologize for what they say they didn't do.
We have few enough friends in that area of the world, and Turkey is waging a contest between the religious and the secular segments of their society. Why create more friction?
Again, the argument is over something from 1915. Isn't there something we need to address that has happened since then?

[tishaLA]

1. Yes, we need to address it

And who cares if it happened in 1915? It happened, and other than Turkey, nobody really doubts that it happened. It's like climate change denial: sure, you'll find deniers, but you have to overlook a mountain of evidence. And in the case of the Armenian genocide, as 60 Minutes showed last night, it's LITERALLY a mountain of evidence--in the form of dead bodies.

[hlthe2b]

2. Anyone see the movie Ararat of a few years back?

I had hoped that more would see it and start questioning our incredible hypocrisy vis-a-vis this issue

[Igel]

3. Because it's important to Turks.

You see, they have a very positive self image. They brought peace and stability; they were enlightened and wise and tolerant. It makes a nice, safe, secure foundation for their actions--they don't need to doubt themselves.

The problem is that they were none of these things for much of the time. The devshirme in the Balkans was horrendous. They fought with Europe repeatedly--sometimes because Europeans wanted to defeat the Turks, sometimes to "liberate" (not the right word, but it'll do) Xian/European peoples from the Turks. Often enough it was in response to local persecutions. Local movements were shut down violently. Local languages and cultures were essentially so marginalized that we still don't know how they developed for centuries. Aspirations for autonomy? Local ethnic pride? Not going to happen under the Turks. However, often enough the wars were also the Ottoman's desire to continue to expand their rule and retain their prorogatives. Imperialism, no less or more than France's--just not overseas.

Many of the tolerant, enlightened laws were badly enforced and had all but been imposed at essentially army-point on a weak, rotting empire by outsiders wanted to defend their coreligionists. Places like the Tomb of Rachel are still important now to many Jews, but Machpelah was utterly off limits under the Ottomans--a Jew caught in there could be killed. And still there were things like the Aleppo anti-Christian pogrom which apparently never actually happened--thousands of dead, but Muslims always lived in peace and harmony with Xians (say it often enough perhaps your brain will turn to mush and it won't bother you any more). Not only did such things not happen, but they insist that scholars that want to stay on good terms with them and enjoy good ties with archives and Turkey's scholars toe the official line: Turkey's good and clean and pure and righteous, an enlightened pious ruler over unruly tribes.

The Ottomans uprooted peoples and moved them about to keep them unorganized. Circassians in Palestine, for instance. They encouraged "their own," which is to say, Muslims, at the expense of Xians. This created constant ethnic tensions. If the constituent peoples are fighting, then they're easier to control. They seriously helped set the stage for the Bosnian and Kosovar disasters of the 1990s. Their officials' double-dealing with Jews and Arabs provided enough fraudulent deeds that they're still sorting them out. I don't know how they treated Turks: But non-Turks were crap of varying grades and smelliness to them.

The Armenian genocide was the worst of what they did, basically killing off Greeks and Armenians because they were a 5th column of non-Turk Xians: At least the Kurds (which used to have a much larger area and also suffered from genocide) were Muslims and were a bit better off. Then they had the gall to insist that the Turks in Bulgaria be treated well, and wrangled that the Turks in Greece would be allowed to be taught in Greek and all but protected. This, after essentially destroying the Greek community in Asia Minor, one that existed for 2500 years and predated the arrival of the Turks by 1200 years, and an Armenian community at least as old. They also kept their toe-hold in Europe, and therefore control over the Bosphorus.

And still they're insecure enough to worry that the Pope might--just might--say a prayer in what used to be the holiest shrine in Orthodoxy, one of the wonders of the medieval world, and which in their tolerance and desire for coexistence they used as a stables before converting it into a mosque. The Hagia Sophia. This leads to a kind of ethnic pride that can only be called jingoism, given half a chance: To insult das Volk is to be put in jail. Fortunately, they're not powerful enough. They'd just like to be. A people whose only self-perceived fault is a humility that has kept them from resisting those who would keep them from greatness is not an ally to be trusted.

[proteus_lives]

4. The Turks were monsters to the Armenians.

One of the reasons Hitler went ahead with the Final Solution was "After all, who remembers what happened to the Armenians?"

And the fact that Turkey has never acknowledged it is a stain on their nation.

Why create more friction? Are you serious?

[Kat45]

5. This issue is a huge deal to Armenian people

I grew up in a town with one of the largest Armenian populations in the country, and I've known about this for years. I remember them marching down the street for about this back when I was in high school, many, many years ago.