One of the especially specious arguments against the Armenian Genocide Resolution was that Congressmen are not historians, and are unqualified to determine whether the systematic slaughter of Armenians by the Ottoman Turks constitutes “genocide.”
For the sake of discussion, let’s accept this sophistry and agree that Congress should take its cue from historians whose job it is to know these things. Earlier this month, scholars and academics of genocide studies gathered at McGill University (Montreal) for the Global Conference on Genocide Prevention signed a petition urging Congress to recognize the Armenian Genocide by approving floor votes on HR/SR 106. In his opening remarks, symposium chair Payam Akhavan, S.J.D. noted, “The 20th century has been described as the Century of Genocide. It opened in 1915 with the mass killing of almost 1.5 million Armenians in Eastern Anatolia by the Ottoman Empire.” Among those who signed the petition: Roméo Dallaire, former commander of UN peacekeeping forces in Rwanda; Yehuda Bauer, Holocaust historian and scholar, Yad Vashem and Hebrew University; and Dr. Gregory Stanton, President of Genocide Watch.
Not content to publish not one, not two, but three editorials against HR/SR 106 in the space of two weeks (perhaps more than one of the genocide deniers on its staff wanted his own crack at it), The Wall Street Journal also sacrificed G-d knows how many trees to allow Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan a platform to spew anti-Armenian propaganda and genocide denial:
Efforts to rewrite the history of the events of 1915 through legislative fiat and vilify Turks are not new to the U.S. Congress. But past attempts were always contained through support in Congress and from successive presidential administrations. This time, it seems that the House of Representatives may be forced to take sides and pass unilateral judgment on a historic controversy that is as contentious as it is complex.
The truth is that the Armenian allegations of genocide pertaining to the events of 1915 have not been historically or legally substantiated.
Erdogan asks, “why the Republic of Armenia is obstinately evading Turkey’s offer to establish a Joint History Commission to examine together the events of 1915 through bilateral dialogue – all the while openly supporting efforts to defame Turkey.”
The truth is, Erdogan can’t handle the truth. Like all Turks, he has been brainwashed from childhood to believe that “many Turks lost their lives during the mutual killings.” It goes without saying that the word “genocide” never appears in Turkish schoolbooks – but then, there are no references whatsoever to the mass murders. Instead, schoolchildren are taught that the “events of 1915” – a code term used only by Armenian genocide deniers – were attributable to “treacherous” Armenians who had joined the Russian Imperial army in attacks on the Empire.
Conservative pundits who know as little about Turkish culture as they do about Ottoman Turkish history marveled that Turks would be “insulted” by a symbolic resolution passed by the government of a country a world away – even as they scrambled to scotch the resolution so that the bratty tot would get what he wanted and shut up. The Stiletto can explain: Every morning in school, Turkish children recite an oath that inculcates them with the idea they are a superior breed of human:
I am a Turk, I am honest. I am a hard worker. My rule is to protect those younger and to respect my elders, and to love my country and my nation more than myself. My goal is to enhance and to get higher. May my life be a present to the Turkish people. Honorable, unreachable Ataturk! I give my oath to continue towards reaching the targets you showed, to walk on the road you have opened, in the country you created. How happy I am to say I am a Turk.
Hard as it may be for right-thinking people to believe, it is entirely within the realm of possibility that Erdogan sincerely believes that Ottoman Turks did not – and are too decent and honorable to – commit genocide. Unfortunately for Turkey, the governments of 22 nations worldwide and 40 states here in the U.S. know different because their schoolbooks and newspapers aren’t censored, and their writers and journalists aren’t prosecuted (or murdered) for telling the truth.
It is Turkey that needs to constitute historical commissions to undo decades of lying to and brainwashing its citizens. Armenians know all too well the truth of the matter. They need a stinkin’ “Joint Commission” like Jews need Mahmoud Ahmadinejad telling them whether there was a Holocaust.
Note: The Stiletto writes about politics and other stuff at The Stiletto Blog.
8 users commented in " Historians Weigh In On The Armenian Genocide "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackVery good article — “Fair and Balanced.” I congratulate you.
Several points of interest: Not only Armenians know what happened to unarmed old men, women and children (there were no males of fighting age left — they were taken into the Ottoman Army, put to work on the railroads as slave labor and then rounded then rounded up and slaughtered. Ask any Turk or Kurd in Eastern Turkey and they’ll tell you what happened to the Armenians. Look anywhere at older buildings in Eastern Turkey and you’ll see Armenian writings, churches converted to mosques, thee famed City of Ani destroyed over the years, cemeteries destroyed, all for the purpose of eliminating any traces of Armenian. However, not everything can be destroyed.
In addition to the above, had the Turks left the Armenian population in Eastern Turkey (formerly the Armenian Villayets) now there would have been an ethnic population balance and the Kurds would not be a majority in Eastern Turkey. Eventually, Turkey will be split, I hope, and the Kurds, 20 million of them in Turkey will join their brethren in Iraq and establish a free and democratic Kurdistan.
“Fair & Balanced” like Fox news, I would say…
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Erdogan asks, “why the Republic of Armenia is obstinately evading Turkey’s offer to establish a Joint History Commission to examine together the events of 1915 through bilateral dialogue – all the while openly supporting efforts to defame Turkey.”
You have no answer to his question, do you? Now tell us what’s the truth?
“The truth is, Erdogan can’t handle the truth.”
Oh yeah ? May be so can’t the Armenians. May be they are the ones who are brainwashed?
Does it really matter how many countries/states think different than Turkey.
Just because all people at some believed that world was flat did not make it so.
Fair and balanced? Oh puhleeease….
I think you are right that Turks are brainwashed. Otherwise, they would know how foolish and petulant their responses and behavior is. Whether it’s Erdogan or the previous respondent, they are completely unable to grasp what the rest of the world sees. Instead of coming to grips with it, they explode, accuse, threaten, deny… They waste their time, energy and money on propping up the myth they’ve been taught. It’s a shame, because life would go on for them, possibly much more smoothly, if they could come to terms with this reality. As it is, it seems like, “The sins of the father are visited on the son.” They entangle themselves in the ugliness of the genocide by denying it so vehemently.
The inherently deep contradicions of imposed secularism and long suppessed islamic
tendencies has finally moved to the forefront. A country cobbled together hastily after the murders and expulsions of the christian populations, ataturks mythic figure was imposed as the very definition of the new turkish identity. the
birth defects of the resulting system was swept under the rug and ignored until
recently. it is at a critical juncture. with an immature political system,
and a majority population poorly equipped to deal with modern day political challenges. I would not exclude the possibility of serious civil strife of even a civil war.
What civilized jurisprudence permits indicting a nation of crimes against humanity with more than half of the evidence concealed? Or, declaring a nation’s guilty without due process of law?
England, France, Russia and the U.S. still conceal archival material about events in southeastern Anatolia during WWI. It is alarming and suspicious that Armenia still refuses access to its archives, and without condemnation by other nations—shockingly, not even by those passing judgment in “genocide proclamations.” That the Armenian Diaspora uniformly supports concealing Armenia’s archives documenting their history should raise grave concerns.
Armenians demand free speech, but shout down any who dare to state a true fact: this issue is contested. They say no one has the right to speak this truth. The EU lectures Turkey to allow freedom of speech, while France and Switzerland pass laws criminalizing statements disputing genocide claims—does this hypocrisy not bother anyone?
The holocaust perpetrated by during WWII cannot be compared to what occurred during WWI. Armenian genocide claims are tied to Ottoman relocation orders.
However, Armenian revolutionary leader Garo Armen writes that over 160,000 Armenians joined the Russian army and fought against the Ottoman regime BEFORE any relocation order issued (see http://books.google.com/books?id=4XYMAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA1&dq=why%20armenia%20should%20be%20free&as_brr=0#PPP15,M1). He admits Armenian revolutionary groups refused to join the Ottoman regime when asked before WWI began, instead Armenians openly joined Russia against the Ottomans.
What source states that European Jews rose against Germany before WWII to form Israel in the heart of Germany? Please cite one if you can.
Armenians have spent millions of dollars in a 30 year global effort to obtain parliamentary proclamations of genocide because they cannot press their claims in a court of law while concealing half the evidence.
Is this a pursuit of the truth? Or, a pursuit of unadulterated vengeance and restitution of lands that Armenian revolutionary forces could not obtain by conventional war?
And, how have European parliaments allowed themselves to become such unquestioning puppets in this madness?
Armenian genocide is nothing more than a lament that their leaders sided with Allied powers who then betrayed them–ever hear of the Sykes-Picot agreement? most Armenians never have.
Where in the pledge of allegiance do you see that Turks are taught they are a “superior race”? All I see is a pledge to their country and to honor what Ataturk taught his people: be honest, work hard and improve yourselves (what you’ve got translated into “enhance and to get higher”).
What you’ve written just comes across as inflammatory and racist.
Lazlee: You’re angry and irrational. Get your facts straight.
First of all, it’s not Garo Armen, it’s Armen Garo (You have it backwards) and the book you referenced is written by Garekin Pasdermadjian.
As to your comment that 160,000 Armenians joined the Russian forces, you totally ignore that at the time, there was an Eastern Armenia and a Western Armenia, the former under the Russian Tsarist Rule and the latter included the Five Eastern Armenian Villayets in Turkey. The Armenians of Turkey joined the Ottoman Army — Turkish Army and then were rounded up to work on the railroads as slave laborers and slaughtered. This is why in Turkey there were few Armenian males of fighting age left to defend their homes when the Young Turk Government fully implemented its program to annihilate the Armenian Nation once and for all (Genocide).
Armenians who joined the Russian Army were primarily the subjects of the Tsar recruited from Eastern Armenia. Please calm down, be rational, educate yourself about history, and without giving serious thought to the matter, don’t repeat the revisionist history the Turkish Government line. Your comments are not convincing and your and the Turkish denial constitutes a continuation of the Armenian Genocide.
Aram you bring up good point.
The essence of their OJ defense is first to change the subject from their guilt to the character of the armenians, second, to suggest a sinister plot, and third, to appeal to the jury’s innate bias. and i can add another one namely to flood the reader with so many lies, and spin every piece of evidence with their twisted minds hoping that something will stick. lately this has become their favorite tactic. unfortunately they’re completely ignorant of their own dark history and fully absorbed this fiction because they are brought up on the propaganda.
Below is an excerpt from the website of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum regarding the coining of the word “Genocide” It may help your readers understand who, where, and why the word Genocide came into existence.
COINING A WORD AND CHAMPIONING A CAUSE: THE STORY OF RAPHAEL LEMKIN
RELATED LINKS
Raphael Lemkin, a Polish-Jewish jurist, was born in 1900 on a small farm near the Polish town of Wolkowysk. His memoirs detail early exposure to the history of Ottoman attacks against Armenians (which most scholars believe constitute genocide), antisemitic pogroms, and other histories of group-targeted violence as key to forming his beliefs about the need for legal protection of groups. As early as 1933, he was working to introduce legal safeguards for ethnic, religious, and social groups at international forums, but without success. When the German army invaded Poland , he escaped from Europe, eventually reaching safety in the U.S., where he took up a teaching position at Duke University. He moved to Washington D.C. in the summer of 1942, to join the War Department as an analyst and went on to document Nazi atrocities in his 1944 book, Axis Rule in Occupied Europe. In this text, he introduced the word “genocide.”
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