Armenian Genocide (?)

Do you believe?

  • Yes

    Votes: 208 61.7%
  • No

    Votes: 129 38.3%

  • Total voters
    337

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But if you have taken a course on genocide you must know it doesn't require a "whole society" to contribute.
It's also wrong when you say it wasn't systematic. It's one of the main characteristics of the genocide.
The part that i was refering is related how mass murders or genocides perpetrated. That's why i write "it was not systematic" together with whole society stuff. Of course if some part of society contributes it is still genocide. The issue with genocides, mass murders and mass tortures (the Holocaust, Rwanda Genocide, Bosnian Genocide, Abu Ghraib prison tortures etc.) it happens through systematic processes of constant dehumanization towards a certain group, in the case of genocide it's ethnicity, in others it may differ. After dehumanization, violence comes. Violence does not just harm the groups but further fuels the act, glorifies it. Until whole society completely segregated or the groups is eliminated by the other process circles around itself through this process.

The point is there is no such dehumanization in the case of Armenian Genocide. The whole event is occured out of revolts in the Eastern Part of country which is caused by both Armenian and Turkish gangs. Those gangs fueled the terror in the area together with possible Russian invasion of the area. The government at that time consisted of CUP members(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_of_Union_and_Progress) who gained power through coup d'etat (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1913_Ottoman_coup_d'état) which enforced deportation of citizens to other areas in country to prevent further terror and revolts in the area. Main argument of those who states that it is a genocide is that Enver Pasha who has xenophobic sentiments towards minorities and other pashas decided to kill those people using the failure in the Eastern Campaign as a justification and deportations were just a mask to hide the truth. The problem with that is, even we consider CUP members were nationalistic, there was no real evidence to prove that indeed it was the case because simply it was a coup government. Either the documents who has information about events were destroyed or they never existed in the first place. But in the sense that gangs in the area and revolt possibility together with indifference towards local population (since the people who deported in the area were not just Armenians but also Turks) might led them to just move the people without sufficient security and supplies since it was WWI and the situation was not the best for the coup government. Even if you think they were just bunch of fascists or they were indifferent towards population, they were the people that came into power through coup. When the deportations take place they were in government for 3 years at most. And during this process or even before that, there was no propaganda or dehumanization of Armenian people involved since country itself consisted of many different ethnical groups and there were even Armenian people that worked in the government positions. Tanzimat itself referred the rights of minorities years ago, there was no such dehumanization process before and during the events. Unless you assume Turks are just naturally capable of dehumanizing other ethnicities by their nature, which is the ethical leverage that people in the West used for years now.

Whether you think CUP was a fascist group that killed millions of people for the sake of i don't know whatever that is or they were indifferent towards the sufferings of local population, they were the people who came into power through coup and they have nothing to do with Turkey Republic itself nor the people who formed it. The remoteness of the events itself is main cause why we don't really know what happened during those years in the area. If you think being indifferent towards the deaths was enough for the people to be guilty about it, well it was not the best time both democracy and mass media. Today in Turkey only racist bunch have sympathy for Enver, CUP and the coup itself. There was the one thing i did not get for a long time in my life is that, many people in the West assumes that Turkish people have historical tendencies to hate other ethnicities once lived through the Ottoman Empire. Even during the Armenian Genocide only groups that involved violence were gangs, other than CUP if you consider them as fascists. Turkish people neither had power to prevent those events or were aware of what's happening in the area. In fact until 1919, there was not even a group of people that can lead people other than CUP.

Don't get me wrong, a case being not a genocide but a massacre of masses does not make it somewhat better but the ethical leverage towards Turkish people itself is enough reason for both West and Armenian Government to use the case. It does not have to cause a political consequence in the sense that Turkey may pay compensation but whenever some political issue happened to take Turkey as a subject, the case will be stated again and again and again even though Turkish people neither contributed the violence itself or had power to prevent it.

Also there is no solid evidence that states those deportations were indeed happaned to eradicate an ethnical group which is why i still don't consider the event as a genocide until satisfactory evidence is presented, which makes the issue open to debate in my sense.

The post become a long one, i hope i managed to state my arguments without misspellings. :smile:

Edit: There was a Sweden example in a post, i did not cover. Turkey is not a succesor to the Ottoman Empire in the sense that it is a continuation of a prior country. In fact it's quite the opposite in the early years of republic. Turkish National Movement in Independence War acted against Ottoman government itself. Only recent government and a minority group in Turkey act like "We should make Great Ottoman wet dream real again!". I don't think you can find many people today in Turkey that feel compassion towards Ottoman government after CUP's coup other than that group.
 
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I think you're dishonest. I'm from a region near Turkey and anti-Armenian sentiments are really ****ing blatant. But anecdotal evidence aside.

''According to a 2011 survey in Turkey, 73.9% of respondents admitted having unfavorable views toward Armenians.''

And you are really kidding yourself if you're gonna say that the Ottoman Empire is not romanticized.
 
It's a bit strange to say that Turkey is not a successor state to the Ottomans, you would not hesistate to say that Russia is the successor to the USSR, or that the French Republics succeed the previous regimes. Like, it's not a breakaway state, it absorbed the core of the Sultanate.
 
... it happens through systematic processes of constant dehumanization towards a certain group, in the case of genocide it's ethnicity, in others it may differ. After dehumanization, violence comes.
It's not the stages of grief. You can skip the dehumanization stage and go straight to killing.
But that said, Armenians were generally looked down upon as second rate citizens (also legally).
 
But that said, Armenians were generally looked down upon as second rate citizens (also legally).

That is not correct. Armenians were one of the highest class in Ottoman empire. They probably had the longest life expectancy in the world because, the Turks died young fighting wars in Ottoman Empire. The Armenians legally payed a non-muslim tax which is part of Sunni religion (but is against Quran). This tax allowed them to not serve in the army (actually Ottomans could not allow them to join the army because the army was a muslim institution). As a result the Armenians in Ottoman Empire rose to become high class citizens of Ottoman Empire.
 
Paying more taxes and being forbbiden to join the military leads to being high class in XIX century? That must be a first

^ this. They were projetected, but not allowed to hold any positions of authority other than over their own communities. If you ask me, that sounds like segregation.
 
That is not correct. Armenians were one of the highest class in Ottoman empire. They probably had the longest life expectancy in the world because, the Turks died young fighting wars in Ottoman Empire. The Armenians legally payed a non-muslim tax which is part of Sunni religion (but is against Quran). This tax allowed them to not serve in the army (actually Ottomans could not allow them to join the army because the army was a muslim institution). As a result the Armenians in Ottoman Empire rose to become high class citizens of Ottoman Empire.
You are thinking of the wealthy Armenians, and yes, they had it quite good.
Under the millet system, the Armenian community was allowed to rule itself under its own system of governance with fairly little interference from the Ottoman government. Most Armenians—approximately 70%—lived in poor and dangerous conditions in the rural countryside, with the exception of the wealthy, Constantinople-based Amira class
In the eastern provinces, the Armenians were subject to the whims of their Turkish and Kurdish neighbors, who would regularly overtax them, subject them to brigandage and kidnapping, force them to convert to Islam, and otherwise exploit them without interference from central or local authorities.[47] In the Ottoman Empire, in accordance with the dhimmi system implemented in Muslim countries, they, like all other Christians and also Jews, were accorded certain freedoms. The dhimmi system in the Ottoman Empire was largely based upon the Pact of Umar. The client status established the rights of the non-Muslims to property, livelihood and freedom of worship, but they were in essence treated as second-class citizens in the empire and referred to in Turkish as gavours, a pejorative word meaning "infidel" or "unbeliever"
In addition to other legal limitations, Christians were not considered equals to Muslims and several prohibitions were placed on them. Testimony against Muslims by Christians and Jews was inadmissible in courts of law wherein a Muslim could be punished; this meant that their testimony could only be considered in commercial cases. They were forbidden to carry weapons or ride atop horses and camels. Their houses could not overlook those of Muslims; and their religious practices were severely circumscribed, e.g., the ringing of church bells was strictly forbidden...
Led by intellectuals educated at European universities or American missionary schools in Turkey, Armenians began to question their second-class status and press for better treatment from their government. In one such instance, after amassing the signatures of peasants from Western Armenia, the Armenian Communal Council petitioned the Ottoman government to redress their principal grievances: "the looting and murder in Armenian towns by [Muslim] Kurds and Circassians, improprieties during tax collection, criminal behavior by government officials and the refusal to accept Christians as witnesses in trial". The Ottoman government considered these grievances and promised to punish those responsible, but no meaningful steps to do so were ever taken ...
 
That is not correct. Armenians were one of the highest class in Ottoman empire. They probably had the longest life expectancy in the world because, the Turks died young fighting wars in Ottoman Empire. The Armenians legally payed a non-muslim tax which is part of Sunni religion (but is against Quran). This tax allowed them to not serve in the army (actually Ottomans could not allow them to join the army because the army was a muslim institution). As a result the Armenians in Ottoman Empire rose to become high class citizens of Ottoman Empire.

Just like Jews were high-class citizens in 16th century Venice. They had their own special part of the city and everything!
 
So I was doing other stuff and I was a bit busy. I realise I'm a little bit late, but the things which I wanted to address still haven't been by others. By the way, a little reminder:

ethical leverage even right now you are using against me.
Did you learn something new? Did we learn something new? Of course we're all going to use that against you and every other denier out there. You are, after all, defending the morally inferior side. Wouldn't you call out Holocaust deniers? Wouldn't you tell them how wrong they are? You are not only making an unethical mistake, you are also taking a morally questionable stance on a proven historical matter. You do historical revisionism for the sake of nationalistic pride. The ends of what you are doing is for national gratification. Nothing more. You gain nothing else from this except distrust from people outside Turkey.

Be prepared. People will always use that against you. Always. Until the heat death of the universe.

I did not kill those people
Did we ever blame you? Mostly everyone is aware that the child is not responsible for his parents crimes. In the same manner, newer generations are not responsible for crimes committed by their predecessors. Also, that was a pretty emotional response, but you already know that. Jhessail made sure to point it out. I feel you. That woman is a warrior!

neither Turkish people did, systematically and aimed just for one ethnical profile.
You are absolutely right! They also targeted greeks and assyrians.

But even then i don't think it is a genocide. Not in the sense there was no violance, rather it was not systematical and in a level that whole society contributed into this.
So you have repeated this a couple of times. Let's debunk this, shall we?

Turkish denialists similarly claim that because "there was no intent" to exterminate Christian minorities, it wasn't a genocide.[31][32] This is similarly false. The Ottoman state created "butcher battalions" to slaughter Christians and engaged in the mass rape of women of Christian ethnicities, while kidnapping children and forcibly converting them to Islam.[33] From this, we know that either the massacres were intended or the Turks made organizations to do things they didn't want to do.

(...)

It is well documented that the deportation marches were specifically designed to slaughter minorities. Disease outbreaks among deportees went deliberately untreated.[30]

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Soldiers were ordered to slaughter Armenian civilians, and bounties were paid for their deaths. Property of the deceased was confiscated, and those who caused the deaths were generally allowed to keep a sizable portion.

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In Diyarbakir, nearly every house had at least one Armenian slave-maid, with an estimated 5,000 in the city at the time of the genocide.[34]

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Ottoman gendarmes purposely threw bodies of dead Armenians into wells after killing them, in order to make the water undrinkable for others.[39

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There is similarly no lack of proof or intent. It was official Ottoman policy that "Armenians girls be married to Muslims" in order to decimate their communities and use their bodies to breed more Mahommetans.[50][51]

(...)

The genocide was based on clear orders from above. Ottoman Interior Affairs Minister Talaat Pasha ordered Diyarbakir governor Reshid Bey to exterminate the Armenians within his jurisdiction in a telegram containing three words-"Burn-Destroy-Kill".[55][note 5] He gladly admitted that he was completely intolerant of any Armenians remaining in their ancestral homeland in eastern Anatolia, stating that they should be forced to die in the Syrian desert.[56][57] Since Talaat had planned to exterminate the Armenians since at least 1910, confiding his desire to the Danish ambassador, it can safely be said that the deportations were not a legitimate war measure.

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I don't care whether people want some land or some apology.
I can understand about land, but not even an apology? Your cold heart of stone saddens me. Fortunately for you. People do not expect an apology, just an acknowledgement.

A coup government neglected the wellfare of those people and they are the responsible for all those deaths
An non democratic government replacing another. Both are illegitimate powers that existed because of their military strength. Your point is...?


If you think i'm uneducated, it's pure assumption that you are holding against me because i think not the way you think. Well, what can i say? You can "educate" yourselves with any kind of source whether non-turkish or turkish as long as the author is credible and source is reliable.

Well, I, personally, am ready to take in any knowledge from any party offered about the subject

The Turkish government criminalized freedom of speech on the matter, so facts are completely out of the window else you get to prison:
In fact, a Turk, in Turkey, can even be arrested for acknowledging that one took place (a strange inversion of laws that criminalize Holocaust denial). This falls under Article 301 of the Turkish penal code, which makes it a crime to "insult Turkishness" (regardless of whether it's true).[7] Prosecutors brought such a case in 2005 against writer Orhan Pamuk, who later won the Nobel Prize in Literature.

The Turkish government actively alters and forge evidence.
The Turkish government and its supporters have gone to great lengths to deceive the public on the matter of the CUP genocides, especially that of the Armenians. They have forged evidence and attempted to discredit legitimate evidence as worthless, even going so far as to redefine genocide in the process. They have used numerous red herrings and distractions and inflated and conjured up imaginary bogeymen such as the "Armenian gangs", Turkish stories of whose alleged mass atrocities against Muslims amount to an Anatolian version of the blood libel, applied to their own personal hated, marginalized, and persecuted minority on whom blame must be shifted. In recent years, they have even turned to presenting the genocide as "Islamophobic", recruiting Islamic extremists to do a significant portion of their arguing for them.[77] They have made up an alternative history in which they have committed no genocide or colonialism, despite the fact that Turkish settlement in Anatolia is solely the product of a millennium-long colonialist policy by the Turks themselves.[78]There is no limit to the deceitfulness of Turkish revisionists.

Hobeto13 said:
I critisized the people who just writes their argument without any kind of support and expects us to accept their arguments as "facts". It does not work that way. If you don't want to contribute discussion, you don't have to post anything.

Hobeto13 also said:
II haven't done any big research specifically on the topic of Armenian Genocide or whatever people call it, thus i just stated my opinion. I don't claim them as "facts" like you do for your arguments.

Wow. You managed to contradict yourself in the same post!
 
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I don't think there's anything particularly cold-hearted about not wanting to apologize for something you haven't done. One can acknowledge the actions of their state, their nation or even their ancestors and still be innocent.
 
Turks don't have a spectacular track record of being nice with their neighbours and respecting human rights. Not hard to imagine why people get a bit suspicious of a few million civilian 'war casualties'.
 
Turks don't have a spectacular track record of being nice with their neighbours and respecting human rights. Not hard to imagine why people get a bit suspicious of a few million civilian 'war casualties'.

A few million Armenians did not exist in the first place... Also there were much more dead Turkish civilians.
Also, I do not agree that Turks were worse than their neighbors or Europeans regarding human rights.

Your rhetoric is the same as Trump during the Charlottesville rally. It doesn't work here or in this case.

Armenians in Armenia believe that Turks are worse than animals. They are not even aware that their country a few years ago committed genocide against Turks in Karabağ. How can I expect them to apologize for the things their ancestors did?
 
A few million Armenians did not exist in the first place...
The Turkish government itself, the denier-in-chief, puts the death toll at around 300,000.[63] This number, however, is based on the Ottoman census, which was known to be highly inaccurate, generally undercounting populations severely, especially those of ethnic and religious minorities. Populations of non-Muslims often were not re-counted for decades.[64] The Armenian church, which had the benefit of being able to collate all records of births and deaths within the Armenian community, gave a figure of 1,914,620 in 1914, although the church failed to assess populations in significant parts of western Turkey.[65]

It should also be noted that in 1844, the Ottoman Armenian population was given as 2.4 million, and a reliable historian at the time (Ubicini) said that number was almost certainly too low, by a significant amount.[66] In 1878, after the war, the same census gave the population as 3 million.[67]

(...)

we are left with a figure of at least 2.7-2.8 million Armenians in the Ottoman Empire in 1914 from the later data.

ancalimon said:
Also there were much more dead Turkish civilians.

Turkish historians have taken to exhuming the mass graves of dead Armenians slaughtered in the genocide and portraying these as corpses of Muslims in order to pretend the perpetrators of the genocide were in fact its victims.[27]

ancalimon said:
Armenians in Armenia believe that Turks are worse than animals. They are not even aware that their country a few years ago committed genocide against Turks in Karabağ. How can I expect them to apologize for the things their ancestors did?
Why should we expect them to apologize exactly? Where does that apology thing come from? The word is on the lips of every Turkish denialist, yet it doesn't make sense. Also, this here, what you are doing, is called a red herring by the way.
 
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