Armenian losses, Turkish losses

[Boghos]

One argument often used by Genocide denialists is that the Turks also suffered major losses an were actually the victims of seditious Armenians. The Turkish government, or to put it more precisely, its more hawkish faction, has gone as far as erecting a monument to commemorate the victims of a "Armenian genocide of Turks". There have been numerous other manifestations in that direction. It is a fairly recent strategy in its intensity, even though the argument itself has been around for quite a while. It is only for internal consumption and at the most for rehashed use by "academics" at the pay of the Turkish government (some shameful acts by these "academics" have been quite well documented).

 

However where I think the denialists fail to understand that the Armenians do not deny that there was Turkish suffering.

 

That is not the issue, but simply that the Armenians were victim of a state sponsored and organized campaign of ethnic destruction and forceful removal. That is called Genocide, there is no other word for it.

 

Turkish deaths at that time, on the other hand, however terrible, were not a result of that. They were a result of war and disease mostly. Of course there were very small groups of Armenians that fought back, but these were indeed very small, as properly documented, and casualties very limited.

 

Hence it is not an issue of denying a well understood and painful historical phenomenon with another. But rather of trying to come to terms with the disgraceful acts commited against a defenseless minority. Yes, it has happened to Turkic peoples in other instances. I promptly accept that. But it bears no relation to the Armenian Genocide.

[ThornyRose]

You couldn't have said it better, Boghosinho. (And this comes from a Turk - would others understand why or would I be labeled insensitive?)

Very simply put:

it bears no relation to the Armenian Genocide.

What has been done cannot be undone.

[MJ]

I have no doubt that some of the nations oppressed by the Ottomans have, perhaps, been more atrocious than the Ottomans themselves. Centuries of oppression and Ottoman rule should've made them to hate the regime. Additionally, much of the national liberation movements against the Ottoman have evolved in the period of unbundling of the revolutionary sentiment. Furthermore, the revolutionaries have always claimed (at least their leaders have done so) that the implementation of their "revolutionary ideals" is easier among the oppressed nations. When the nationalism and revolutionarism come together, it may result in the most disgusting form of atrocities.

 

 

But the observation that needs to be made is that among all national-territorial minorities of the Ottoman Empire, only Armenians, Arabs and Jews (in Palestine) have not unbundled such movements. Of all three groups, it has been much more difficult for the Armenians to organize national-liberation movement, perhaps because they have resided in the heart of Anatolia, and they had been torn apart and weakened by the Byzantine and Persian/Iranian empires even way before the arrival of the first Turks to the region.

 

One interesting testimony in this regard is the testimony of the Catholicos Mgrtich Khrimian at the time. Khrimian has been the representative of Armenians at the Berlin conference. Failing to achieve more than minor support from the European powers in pressing the Ottoman Empire in implementing reforms oriented at easing the discrimination of the Armenian minority of the Empire (which subsequently has not been implemented to any degree), the Catholicos has expressed his dissatisfaction to the leaders of the Conference. To which, they have replied to him almost like “learn from the Serbs.”

 

The subsequent event have come to show, that Armenians “have not learned from the Serbs,” however.

 

Sure, there have been some Armenian terrorists attempting to "force" the Sultans to implement the promised reforms, but as we know, terror has never solved any problems, but has only aggravated them. In our particular case, each action of terror has been followed by a massacre of tens of thousands of peaceful Armenians.

 

In the post-Genocide era, some bands of “avengers” have also come to the scene. I am sure these have been highly distressed individuals who have had perhaps their families slaughtered through various means by the Ottoman Government, the local Kurdish minorities, and some other Turkish paramilitaries and local villagers. That they would’ve committed not any less horrifying atrocities against the Turks and the Kurds – there is no question in my mind. Can I find any justification for their actions? Not at all. They were not any different from who we accuse in atrocities. But the perspective and the scale of their atrocities have not to be lost from one’s sight. While their crimes might’ve been of the same magnitude in their vicousness as the ones of the Turkish and Kurdish paramilitaries and mobs, their actions are in no way comparable in the scale to the actions of the Ottoman Government. Reportedly, these kinds of Armenian bands have resulted at most in few thousand innocent Turkish victims, the innocence of a fraction of which may even be occasionally questioned, since many of them might've been participants of the slaughter of Armenians during their death marches.

 

Have to run.

 

[ May 19, 2001: Message edited by: MJ ]

[Boghos]

Insensitive ? I don´t see why. As painful as many episodes have been in Armenian, Ottoman and Turkish history if we don´t look at them under an honest optic we will not go anywhere. That is what you do and have been trying to communicate to many people for as long as I have seen your posts.

[ThornyRose]

Insensitive... Well, Boghosinho, it has happened, though I have brushed it aside by saying to myself, “These are trash, anyway.” I have been accused (in Turkish, of course) by that Yunus (and his many personalities) – he once asked me if I had no compassion for my fellows who had been massacred – that’s the point – the difference cannot be understood or it can be chosen not to be fathomed. Sure, at the end of the day, dead is dead – but a government knee-deep into this crime (which is what makes it so extensive)? It is too bad people think on an all-or-none basis...

I usually remind my fellow Turks of Cyprus and the lives of some of those who were forced to live under horrible conditions prior to 1974, added to this the way people who stood in the way of the enosis lovers were murdered, Sampson, Grivas, Makarios, etc. – most recent of all - compassion for the sorrow of one yet not for the other... Are we picking sides? There are Turks out there, I admit, who can’t accept the deaths of Armenians – the very beginning of the story – and yet others who come to accept these in time and try to squirm past the facts – it is easy to follow (perhaps because I once went down this road, about a year ago, ehehe – silly me – who talks like this about themselves?)... Anyway – I think there can be much teaching to be done. Ready to accept one and not the other – I think one can work on this... Poke it until it breaks...

Of course I do not see myself as insensitive. Those twerps can beat it.